Identity and Belonging, however many years later

 “I can only answer the question ‘What am I to do?’ if I can answer the prior question ‘Of what story or stories do I find myself a part?’” -Alasdair Macintyre

There is a paradox which goes, "nothing matters, so everything matters." Henri Nouwen writes on this, concluding with what keeps these together is the statement, "God Exists." He says, "All is now clothed in divine light and therefore nothing can be unimportant."

I am writing in the backyard of the home I bought, watching my beautiful dog sniff around our new sprightly tortoise. I didn't want to write on a blog more closely dated to this year. I was texting J, the only G brother of all the Ds. I told him I used to write to find answers. I told him "that's kinda what college does to/for you, force you to ask hard quesetions and sit with incomplete answers". I wonder if I should write the fourth brother a letter, an honest one. Ask his forgiveness for something I'm not sorry for doing, but sorry for the impacts. 

I haven't written about myself without devolving into regrets and pondering actions to take to respond in forever. I would like to take this time to respond to the prompt I have found for myself. To see if I can still do it. Be honest and go deep and explore myself without jumping to to-do lists to be left uncrossed. 

Of what stories do I find myself a part? 

I find myself apart of at least three stories that guide what I am to do with my self. 1) I find myself, I claim myself, to be a part of my mother's parents stories. Two people from Fresno County, Great Depression and WWII survivors who chose liberalism, civil rights, globalism and Fresno. 2) I find myself a part of FIRM. An intern who was so loved, she kept coming back for more. Someone who got to be smart and caring and contribute that fully to this beautiful community. Someone who got to use her gifts of seeing how things connect in ways that helped people connect to one another. 3) I find myself in a love story, with a conscientious and quiet man whose father meant something to the world, to me, and to these worlds of migration studies that I dream of joining. and lastly, although I go back and forth on its significance, 4) I find myself in this story of Christianity in the twentyfirst century of the United States. A story of the church collapsing, of great clarity around white supremacy, of empire, and of interfaith dialogue. 

What am I to do?

I just got back from visiting my brother, and after three and a half years of pandemic, it was so nice to just travel and be elsewhere. Prior to that I visited a friend and we explored NYC. Its been so long since I stared at the coast with the amiga. Been so long since I had a car of my own. I need space to exist outside of being useful. I am not sure what to think or how to label my impulse to work with refugees and immigrants in my hometown. There is a strange almost conservative logic that I'm uncomfortable with in the idea that seems to imply that home is best and migration is wrong or bad or antihuman in some way. Maybe its the forced part that I react so strongly to. Even the framing of forced migration bothers me, knowing that there were key choices and agency along the way. 

Part of me dreams of going to school again, of having time to think, to write, to read and to debate. I look at the Oxford programme and sigh. I look up law school and wonder about immigration law. I think deeply to myself and wonder about PhDing, once I am done with FIRM. 

Part of me dreams of living abroad again, too. As a part of a PhD program, or separately. I wonder what I would be like, just working somewhere, doing policy analysis, or managing a team, or writing writing writing. 

Part of today's what to do came from realizing I need to write more. I need to write more. I need to write. Even this blog feels good, even the hour long distraction of Amazon shopping, MFA glimpsing and tortoise researching, feels like me. Feels good. 

My love story is with someone who doesn't write or think about abstract ideas, except the stars and the planets and theoretical physics. He is ready for kids when I am, but I made him promise before we got married that if I was never ready, that would be okay too. 

Talking with the amiga, I can put research together in my head. I would love to be a shadow writer for her, for CBDIO, for the research that provides nuance and complexity to how we understand identity and belonging in California, in the world, in the networks of migration that pulse every day. 

I wonder. I wonder. 

My Vision for Our Fresno

This is the kind of city I want to raise my children in,

This is the hope I have for Our General Plan and Our City Government

Our city would actively preserve, defend and celebrate the strength of its diversity.

Our city would have jobs for all ranges of educational attainment and levels of English, and opportunities for its residents to improve either at any stage of their life.

Local businesses would be supported, especially minority-owned businesses, through as many means as possible, including training and support.

Our public transportation system would be convenient, efficient, and connects residents with jobs, health, and entertainment options.

There would be a green, connected, safe network of communities across our city.

It would be safe and popular to be active in green spaces and other public areas at all times.

Grocery stores would be located within walking distance from all of our neighborhoods

Every child would have a safe route to walk to school.

On Being Sure

Its silly how at the bottom of every conversation in every relationship, we still want to know, do you like me? do you really like me?
Its even more ridiculous to realize when you stay up late talking, after being in a relationship for almost six months, that we still have that same question, only possibly more desperate.
* * *
He Knows me now, inconsistencies and ideals and all. And he still wants me.
I Know him, too. I still can't imagine someone I'd rather be with.

The evening of New Years day, as we were sitting on the couch, I asked what he was smiling about. He said he was just thinking about how amazing it was that some completely separate person was sitting next to him, choosing to be with him.
Its gonna be a good year. Its gonna be a growing year, and an adult year. We're gonna be bigger and better than ever at this time next year. We totally got this.
* * *
Talking to Thomas via Skype, he tells me... "You.. your life.. you... sound more, uh, Fresno now", and I took it as the highest compliment.
* * *
We had a happy New Year in Santa Barbara, complete with posole in the morning, courtesy of a beautiful welcoming second-family. A sister-in-law is pregnant with a girl, and she was talking about how she and her husband wanted a few boys before they had a girl, so they could look out for her. Their first son is GORGEOUS as a kid, so there's no doubt this baby girl will be too. Their solution will be to keep her hair short and in baggy clothes. Scott agrees with their methods. He says he would be okay with having a daughter if he knew she would be ugly, or knew she would be a lesbian. He doesn't want any daughter of his being looked at by men.

Living More Fresno

My supervisor turned to me today as I was driving her back to the office from a meeting offsite. "I'm aware that your contract is set to end in two weeks, and I want you to know we're working on it. I've emailed our ED and she hasn't responded, but we'll set a time to meet with the grant administrator sometime soon, so hopefully your funding can be continued."

I graciously responded, fully aware that everyone's grants are expiring right now, and we've only received a few new ones.... 

...

I knew all that. I really did. but somehow, the two week mark hadn't clicked yet.

...

At Thanksgiving, one of the only real things I heard was my uncle say his business wasn't great, but it was okay, he hadn't had to lay any one off recently.

... 

Sometimes I think the biggest reason I came back to Fresno was to meet this boy. He's the most stable thing going on in my life right now. Not sure if that's the healthiest place to be in, but I'm happy. He's got a good job, works full time doing computer programming stuff. We're going to his company Christmas party in a week... at Ruth's Chris Steak House. We drive around in his black truck, run errands and visit his parents on the weekend (I bought myself a car finally, too!). He holds me and the world falls into place. 

...

We have a conversation about slowing things down and then walk into a jewelry store that's going out of business. Don't worry y'all, I freaked out and ranted about terrible working practices and blood diamonds and corruption in South Africa. 

On Beginning to see what I'm here to learn

"You know Christine, graduating high school is going to be the biggest thing I will have done in my whole life" she told me suddenly. I was suddenly ashamed of all my well-meant earlier admonitions to think bigger than city college. She's right, in a small way, but her brains are capable of doing anything in the world.
This girl who used to talk about leaving Fresno for college has realized that she is responsible for her family. What's more, she has realized that her family is her priority; despite outside influences pulling one way or the other. They would let her leave, and they would be proud of her successes. She knows it. She is choosing to stay. I am humbled by her strength, even as a confused shy high school senior. And I am going to scream so loudly at her graduation ceremony this May.

* * * * *

A girl had just come in to ask for an internship, and eventually mentioned that we knew her sister. As she was leaving my coworker says, "that's my sister-in-law. She married my wife's brother"

* * * * *

In one of my 1-1 listening sessions, a girl told me she thought Fresno was getting better, because she remembered the violence growing up, and having to go to funerals. There's not a funeral for a young person every weekend any more. When I asked what she wanted Fresno to be like (another city, specific area of town, or something from tv/movies), she thought about it and said a local private university, because its quiet and peaceful and the grass is actually green there.

* * * * *

Surrounded by people coming from much more communal-minded families (cultures), I am filled with thankfulness that they accept and love me, even as I am selfish and individualistic. I am learning to live well with my mother, and appreciating my incredible greater family.
There's this boy in my life, (we're "dating exclusively", which I think means boyfriend/girlfriend in high school lingo). His parents have a total of 16 siblings, giving him over a hundred cousins. I'm impressed.(i have a hard time focusing when I start thinking about him... guess this is the end of my post)

On Being in Fresno again

I've started half a dozen blogs since returning Home (in all senses of  that word). The words haven't come out right, yet. I've decided to not be so ambitious as to fully explain my current feelings or thoughts, but instead share some ideas I've been pondering.

A friend recently read Thomas Merton's Seven Storey Mountain, which I read last summer. What I took out of it, was from a simple conversation that Merton has with a friend before even entering a religious order. How does one become a saint? by wanting to become one.

"ecumenicism at  its best, means you walk away more deeply connected to your own tradition of faith" -Mary Jo  (who also said the faith of Muslims she lived with showed her what faith really could be)

"Each day holds a surprise. But only if we expect it can we see, hear, or feel it when it comes to us. Let's not be afraid to receive each day's surprise, whether it comes to us as a sorrow or as a joy. It will open a new place in our hearts, a place where we can welcome new friends and celebrate more fully our shared humanity" Henry Nouwen, Bread for the Journey

Everything so far has added up to being Ready for This, Here Right Now, and somehow what is to come is going to take the grand sum of everything I will have learned up to then.

that I could learn Spanish, and be fluent. (related- that I know more than I give myself credit for. apparently my accent is impeccable, according to an older man with questionable intentions)

that I want to find a family to live with in the southern half of town. preferably Spanish speaking, but maybe Lao.

I already have more education that 3/4ths of the those older than 25 in this county.

There are plenty of other educated intelligent boomerangers who have returned and are actively making a difference in this town (especially with youth).

I am attracted to people who go All Out towards some desire/ideal. preferably altruistic. (related- apparently my huge list of qualifications for ABoyInLife aren't that impossible, they are just intensely localized)

I am happy here. I feel lucky (/blessed) to be here. I feel really really lucky to be working here.