fuzzy purple socks

something different.

2012-02-08T10:58:00.000-05:00

To a Tree, in the Absence of Negative Space

Kristina Simes

February 7, 2012

The way

the sun bows to the trees

in the morning light

slays me.

Stops my heart, full force.

As though I had never known a human love:

whisper, touch,

(elbow, hand, cheek)

the wild, erratic murmur of

my own

restless

heart.

Maybe I need no lover but the sea—

that solitary black thing,

big enough to swallow me whole.

Perhaps the glance of a falling sunbeam

is heavier than the warmth of your hand.

And the oak trees that sing me home

in the afternoon, in the cold,

grasp and seize me—

they dazzle my path with the remains of their

scattered fragile wintered leaves.

Branches extending,

beckoning to me,

as the sun floods into the negative space

of their bare arms.

I do not know a love song that is true.

Or that has lasted for eternity.

But I know many trees through and through.

Trees last much longer than one hand in mine,

and constancy equals more than passion,

though I have only just come to this.

I dream of shoulders,

and the space they carve.

One shoulder, that I might dive into,

Nose, chin, all.

But I am content to settle for the reality of tree trunks,

vagabond sunbeams,

passing fleets of sparrows—

graceful and certain.

My love will have to come to me

not in shoulders but in wide open space.

Too big to be named,

too wild to be tamed,

too everlasting to be afraid of.

a bit of beauty for your day.

2012-02-07T12:36:00.002-05:00

Am I Not Among The Early Risers - Mary Oliver

Am I not among the early risers
and the long-distance walkers?

Have I not stood, amazed, as I consider
the perfection of the morning star
above the peaks of the houses, and the crowns of the trees
blue in the first light?
Do I not see how the trees tremble, as though
sheets of water flowed over them
though it is only wind, that common thing,
free to everyone, and everything?

Have I not thought, for years, what it would be
worthy to do, and then gone off, barefoot and with a silver pail,
to gather blueberries,
thus coming, as I think, upon a right answer?

What will ambition do for me that the fox, appearing suddenly
at the top of the field,
her eyes sharp and confident as she stared into mine,
has not already done?

What countries, what visitations,
what pomp
would satisfy me as thoroughly as Blackwater Woods
on a sun-filled morning, or, equally, in the rain?

Here is an amazement–––once I was twenty years old and in
every motion of my body there was a delicious ease,
and in every motion of the green earth there was
a hint of  paradise,
and now I am sixty years old, and it is the same.

Above the modest house and the palace–––the same darkness.
Above the evil man and the just, the same stars.
Above the child who will recover and the child who will
not recover, the same energies roll forward,
from one tragedy to the next and from one foolishness to the next.

I bow down.

Have I not loved as though the beloved could vanish at any moment,
or become preoccupied, or whisper a name other that mine
in the stretched curvatures of lust, or over the dinner table?
Have I ever taken good fortune for granted?

Have I not, every spring, befriended the swarm that pours forth?
Have I not summoned the honey-man to come, to hurry,
to bring with him the white and comfortable hive?

And while I waited, have I not leaned close, to see everything?
Have I not been stung as I watched their milling and gleaming,
and stung hard?

Have I not been ready always at the iron door,
not knowing to what country it opens–––to death or to more life?

Have I ever said that the day was too hot or too cold
or the night too long and as black as oil anyway,
or the morning, washed blue and emptied entirely
of the second-rate, less than happiness

as I stepped down from the porch and set out along
the green paths of the world?

the year of yes.

2012-01-29T22:35:00.002-05:00

The sun has been kind, the sky has been nonviolent, and the air has been gentle. No storms, not very many clouds, a sprinkling of rain here and there to wash away the dirty snow. Clean, sweet air. Thank you, January.

I am spending these days biking downtown several times a week for my Contextual Education internship at Emmanuel College's Campus Ministry. Experimenting with the Vita Mix that was a gift from my parents (strawberry margaritas and salsa on a Saturday evening). Listening to my favorite women (Natalie Merchant, Duffy, Sarah McLaughlin, Ella, to name a few good ones). Curling up under blankets for long chats with dear friends. Obsessing over Downton Abbey. Basking in gratitude for the people I love, for this city I love. Discerning. Dreaming. Struggling to get out of my cozy bed on cold mornings. Drinking too much coffee.

All is well in life and in my heart. I made a hard, much-needed decision last week. I stood up for myself. Finally. After a year's worth of heartache and confusion. And it feels good to look at myself in the mirror again, and to know I am being honest with myself.

Because we all deserve to be loved in good and honest ways. We all deserve to be treated fairly and justly and with respect and tenderness. And I am finally demanding the same standard of care for myself that I would wish for any of my sisters or female friends. We are women who have been told that we ought to be "nice." But being nice is not the same as being silent. And I will no longer be silent when it comes to injustice.

So, this year is off to a good and honest start. Surely, there are plans to be made, art projects to be completed, books to be read, letters to be sent, meals to be made and shared, trips to be had, weddings to be attended. But all in good time. I am simply enjoying these quiet January moments. G'night.

mysteries, yes.

2012-01-29T22:21:00.000-05:00

Truly, we live with mysteries too marvelous
to be understood.

How grass can be nourishing in the
mouths of the lambs.
How rivers and stones are forever
in allegiance with gravity
while we ourselves dream of rising.
How two hands touch and the bonds
will never be broken.
How people come, from delight or the
scars of damage,
to the comfort of a poem.

Let me keep my distance, always, from those
who think they have the answers.

Let me keep company always with those who say
"Look!" and laugh in astonishment,
and bow their heads.

~ Mary Oliver

in fine.

2012-01-26T17:54:00.001-05:00

"Honey in the hale could fill the pales of loving less with vain/
Hon, it wasn’t yet the spring." -Bon Iver, "Michicant"

----
“Van Gogh, you remember, called the world a study… But Van Gogh: a study it is not. This is the truth of the pervading intricacy of the world’s detail: the creation is not a study, a roughed-in sketch; it is supremely, meticulously created, created abundantly, extravagantly, and in fine.”
-Annie Dilliard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

Pacific Standard Time

2012-01-07T13:13:00.001-05:00

I was driving home and listening to Cat Stevens sing "If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out." A majestic white plane swooped lower in the dusty twilight sky, flying parallel to my old van. And in a moment of brilliance, it flew right over the rising moon. I love when the sky is still blue, the sun is still in sight, and the moon makes its appearance early: a dashing surprise entrance. For a reason unknown to me, that plane right in line with the moon, with the voice of my old friend Cat so familiar and dear in my ear and the rosy light of the Southern California sunset, made my heart leap in my chest.

Returning home is good for a simple reason: it reminds me of the person I have always been. Sitting with Ellen and Bobby drinking milkshakes at Ruby's today, watching the waves rise and fall, feeling the warm sun on my cheek against the windowsill that peers right out on the Pacific Ocean, I could have been eighteen again in a heartbeat. Catching up with Teri and Kristen and Cara at an art show in Santa Ana last night was not so different from all those Mater Dei art shows eight or so years ago.

I feel known here. For the child I once was: quiet, bookish, strange, but altogether good. For the teenager I grew into: taken with an idea of peace (that came more from folk songs and hippies as seen on iconic television shows from Nick at Nite rather than any real-life experience), tucking flowers behind my ear, and making mixed tapes on my red portable stereo. Still quiet, bookish, strange, but good.

I love Boston. I love the cafes and the 86 bus, the squawking geese that hang around Chandler Pond in the early spring. I love the Irish pubs and the old cathedrals. The sprawling grounds of Boston College. The majesty of the Harvard Gates. The purple flowers that grow at the Public Gardens in May. Most of all, I love the people. Colorful, eager, restless, striving, good. My friends. I love the people and the place with a pang that is honest, real, and big.

But I also love here. The salt air of the ocean. The way it smells: tangy, soft, fishy. I went to the beach today, to lie down on the sand in the sun for awhile in the early afternoon. The ocean is so much more than the ocean. I love to look at that line, where the water meets the sky, to imagine all of the places that lay beyond it, and the people that live there. When I was young, I believed that if I sent a message in a bottle across the sea, I might make the acquaintance of an interoceanic penpal. The thought makes me smile now, but the wonder that the ocean held for me then will never fade.

I do so love this place. And coming back to meet the acquaintance of myself. Remembering why I chose the path I am on now. Laughing at the decorations that simulate frost-painted windowpanes despite seventy-five degree weather on Christmas day. Waking up to tip-toe downstairs into my family's kitchen, pouring myself a cup of tea, watching the sun wake up in a sky that is unencumbered by tall buildings and paraphenalia save for the occasional palm tree dotting the open landscape like a decisive period on vast page. California is so beautiful, so warm, so unlike any other destination, that sometimes I forget to breathe when I dip my toes into the ocean, and remember it is my homeland.

(Dear God, please help me as I discern the paths open to me in this new year. And help me to choose another ending and beginning all over again.)

to be with you.

2011-12-12T11:14:00.000-05:00

we gather round the table. we close our eyes and sing:

"praise God from whom all blessings flow."

to be with you, to be with you.

i love this time of year, it always brings me here,

to be with you.

-sara groves

Dear December,

2011-12-02T13:07:00.000-05:00

I am glad you turned down our thermostat, just a little. I know you shine brightest on a cooler day. Strange how the changes between you and your sister month November are visible, even in the shifting of a few hours. The air is colder, the sun harsher, the trees just slightly barer. November seemed hesitant to part from Indian Summer this year, and her leaves were up past their bedtime. I did not mind, it was rather lovely, but I am glad you are here.

Glad you have come to remind us about waiting, and patience, and the quiet beauty of winter. So often I shrug off the dark cold for the noise and color of Spring, but you seem to speak to me despite the whispery hush of your voice.

"Have patience, small one, have hope."

And so I await the warmth of home, of family, and the coming of a little king. I do so wish that he could be here among us, in the midst of this broken world, that I could hold him in my arms. Imagine: a baby who brings salvation. How soft and sweet and clear is his message, how humbling to us power-thirsty human beings.

Thank you for the gifts of clarity and hope. May your days bring peace to all those who are so desperately in need of it.

Love,
Kristina

neither salvaged nor saved

2011-12-01T11:05:00.001-05:00

Salvation
Lynn Ungar

By what are you saved? And how?
Saved like a bit of string,
tucked away in a drawer?
Saved like a child rushed from
a burning building, already
singed and coughing smoke?
Or are you salvaged
like a car part -- the one good door
when the rest is wrecked?

Do you believe me when I say
you are neither salvaged nor saved,
but salved, anointed by gentle hands
where you are most tender?
Haven't you seen
the way snow curls down
like a fresh sheet, how it
covers everything,
makes everything
beautiful, without exception?

2011-11-30T11:13:00.003-05:00

My dear friend Ellen sent me this poem this morning:

Dear Lord, I have swept and I have washed but
Still nothing is as shining as it should be
for you. Under the sink, for example, is an
uproar of mice—it is the season of their
many children. What shall I do? And under the eaves
and through the walls the squirrels
have gnawed their ragged entrances—but it is the season
when they need shelter, so what shall I do? And
the raccoon limps into the kitchen and opens the cupboard
while the dog snores, the cat hugs the pillow;
what shall I do? Beautiful is the new snow falling
in the yard and the fox who is staring boldly
up the path, to the door. And still I believe you will
come, Lord: you will, when I speak to the fox
the sparrow, the lost dog, the shivering sea-goose, know
that really I am speaking to you whenever I say,
as I do all morning and afternoon: Come in, Come in.
-Mary Oliver

It was fitting to receive this on such a day. I am disgruntled, as I told her in my response. I am exhausted with mice. I am tired of finding my uninvited house guests in my kitchen at 11:00pm after I have come home from a long day. I am, for the most part, a good and gracious host. But sweet Jesus, at least knock before entering! Mice know no such conventional behavior. I am sick, sick, sick of them. Of dreaming about them and imagining they have crept into my bed. Of seeing them scurry across my living room floor when I am sitting on the couch at the end of the day. Of finding that my paper towels are now just their chewed-up leftovers. Dear Mary Oliver is such a wiser woman than I. I am weery and frustrated and feeling awfully violent on the inside.

And it is finals time! And I have read countless commentaries on Romans 6:3-4, a verse I have never even wondered about. And my backpack is straining to stay alive after carrying so many heavy theology books. And my back is tired of biking with such a load. And my bike is rusting.

Oh, look at me complaining. For every ten things that are frustrating me today, though, there are twenty more blessings I could list. Perhaps I shall try:

1. I am grateful for spending the last week with J.T. and his lovely community at Ciszek Hall.

2. I am looking forward to celebrating the beginning of Advent with three of my dearest friends this evening.

3. The weather is glorious! In the 60s, sun shining, sandal weather.

4. The music of Sara Groves has lifted my heart.

5. As did an email from a fellow Sara Groves-loving friends last night.

6. Home, home, home, so soon!

7. Though I did complain about this, I am grateful that I get to page through theology books for homework. I really do secretly love this profession I have chosen.

8. I am grateful for coffee. Lots of coffee.

9. My lovely friends Debbie and Scott had a baby girl, Aveline, yesterday!

10. A voice message from an unexpected old friend last night.

11. For being able to wear a skirt today, however impractical that is for biking.

12. For the lovely walk and conversation I had with my friend Ellen (poem-giver) this weekend.

Ok. I know I have more than 12, but I am going to cap this list off because I should really get back to Paul (St.) But the truth is, I have much more to be glad about than to be disgruntled about. So, God, please remind me of these things all day long so that I might be in good spirits for the gifts you have given me and in good humor about the rest. Amen.

This is the letter I wish God would send to me in the mail:

2011-11-21T16:50:00.001-05:00

Dear Kristina,

You are enough. Even without the bells and the whistles, even on those days (today) when your hair is laughable, you are enough. And actually, you are more than enough.

Don't you see? There is nothing you can do or say that would make me stop loving you. What you may deem your worst mistake I have already forgiven.

I never like to see you suffer, and I never like to see you question your worth. So please, try to stop yourself from engaging in internal dialogues that I have nothing to do with. You are beautiful to me, and you make me happy when I think of you. And whether or not you know where you would like to be six months from now or ten years from you, I believe in you and believe that you will be doing good things.

So try to smile. Because this day is not the day that determines everything. And actually, there is never an "end." You have a million times to make mistakes, to start again, to grapple with your humanness. And I will never forsake you, or turn you away. I will never say that you have lost your chance.

Do you remember that part of the Psalms that you love so much? You have wondered if it is true. And to that, I assure you, it is! I did form you in your mother's womb, and I do know the exact number of hairs on your head. I know you, truly, and I am concerned about every moment of your life. (Though don't hold me responsible for all of that other stuff about female subordination and beating childrens' heads against rocks and whatnot. Some of my followers have made mistakes in their editing processes--but I still love them, too!)

On this day, a long day, remember one thing: I love you. I always will. You are precious to me. And the heartache and the confusion-- they will pass. But while those little demons flank you on either side, my love will lift you up and hold your hand and carry you through.

Love,
Yours Truly (Abba/ Yahweh/ Mother/ Father/ Creator/ God)

from the tent to the streets: a reflection on my night at occupy boston

2011-11-15T11:53:00.002-05:00

To spend a night, one night of my comfortable, upper middle-class life, on the concrete outside of South Station, inside of a wind-battered tent, is not enough. Maybe I let myself believe that yesterday, as my friends and I packed our bags and peanut-butter sandwiches and sailed down Comm. Ave on the B line toward the tent neighborhood that has taken residence in our city.

I thought to myself: ah, yes, if I sleep in this dirty tent for one night, I will have a clearer grasp on justice, I will be defending a cause I believe in, I will be in solidarity with those who sleep each night on the subway grates, the exhaust billowing up underneath them serving as a mattress pad—my former clients in D.C., sleeping in abandoned and condemned buildings, on cold benches in Logan Circle. I was wrong.

I could not fall asleep. And as I lay there on my borrowed sleeping bag, I winced at the sounds of a drunk man attempting to enter someone else's tent and being turned away. He was loud and aggressive and the interaction forced many others to shout, "Safety!" He was stumbling around outside of our tent with the open flaps and I looked over to see if Griffin or Danielle were awake, but they were sleeping, and so I too shut my eyes tight. I found my thoughts drifting to my warm bed, to my pillows piled high and my squeaky furnace singing me to sleep with its high-pitched rustlings.

But Jesus said that the first shall be last and the last shall be first. And I know better than to believe that one uncomfortable night on the hard ground is anything compared to others who pass lifetimes longing for warmth, comfort and security.

I was afraid in that tent, but I am more afraid now. What does this mean for me? For my one, privileged life? I support Occupy Boston, though I have some small criticisms of the movement in general and wonder at the concrete goals that it is working toward. Mostly, I support the idea of supporting those who suffer. The 99%--in the deepest sense. Not me, or you, or all of us college students with a little bit of debt to pay off, but with parents likely to shoulder some of our financial burdens and our warm homes in the suburbs to return to on holidays. No-the 99%-- those who could never dream of going to college or dream of leaving the heater on above 60 for most of January. Those for whom sleeping outside in a tent is not a chosen act but a necessary one. Those who need someone close to them to fill out a verification of homelessness form for them to even receive a dirty shelter bed for a solitary winter night. Those who have no one to fill out that form for them. I have known those people. They are not abstract or nameless to me.

In 2010, there were 46.2 million people living in poverty in the United States. This is the largest number that has been published in the 52 years that the U.S. Census Bureau has been recording poverty estimates. What does this definition of “poverty” encompass? In 2010, to meet the poverty threshold, a family of four must have had an income of less than $22, 314.

$22,314 divided by 4 amounts to around $5,580 per person. But once you figure in the cost of rent (for a two-bedroom apartment in Boston, even in a low-income neighborhood, you are looking at a minimum of $1,000 a month), the cost of groceries for four people (even spending as low as $70 a week, this amounts to $3,640 a year), taxes, utilities, the cost of medical procedures that many people under the poverty line do not have the insurance to cover, the cost of schooling, toiletries, birthday presents, transportation, the occasional cup of coffee, your entire yearly income has been drained.

There are one hundred things I could add to the list of a “typical” person’s annual expenses. Vacations. Dinners out. A new sweater. The occasional parking ticket. Gas. New tires. Paying for a plumber to come fix a leaky faucet. But people who are living below the poverty line cannot afford the middle-class’s indulgences or our occasional costly blunders and mistakes.

To be honest, I do not know entirely how I feel about Occupy Boston. I worry about its lack of structure and that it will dissolve before it can define some clear objectives and move forward. But the idea behind Occupy is incredible.

Yes, it is the right time to stand up to social injustice. Yes, it is the right time to say no to a government that has leaked out its energy and funding on war and left its own people to dig for scraps. This is our time to come together as a nation to defend our sisters and brothers, and especially those who do not have the luxury to camp out in public squares with banners and signs because they are working in our fields, in our homes, in our factories. Or they are behind bars. Or they are struggling to keep afloat of the demons living in their own minds.

I am no saint. I relish my sleep and my hygiene. I returned home today to a long nap and a warm cup of coffee and central heating.

But my night in that tent moved me. And if anything, it reminded me that to occupy, in the deepest sense, is to be moved. It is to move in, to march in, to take up a big space, to wave our hands wildly in the air, to dig deep roots, to say no to those who have claimed and colonized the space of those who are left with none, who have made it clear that to be an American is to stockpile our riches and drive out the poor.

The apostle Peter also had a moment with a tent. It was a bit different than mine.

Peter is taking a walk with Jesus, James and John, and Jesus directs them all to a high mountain. They hike to the top, and when they arrive there, Jesus is transfigured before them, and Elijah and Moses appear as well--a whole glowing party of prophets. And Peter, wise man that he is, he wants to stay. He wants to build a tent for each of the prophets, so they can camp there and have more time together. But God speaks from a cloud and asks them to listen to Jesus, and Jesus gently assures them that it is time for them to go. And a few days later, Jesus makes that fated walk to Jerusalem.

Peter’s tent moment was majestic and surreal. He didn’t actually sleep in one, but he imagined that to stay in one, on that mountain, might be for him a place to converse and daydream with some of the wisest men in human existence.

And I suppose that the idea behind the Occupy movement is not much different. A myriad of tents, of ideas, of people thirsting for more. To be moved enough to build a temporary city without a white-person, patriarchal, upper-class hierarchy is good. It is one step along the way. But.

I think it is our time to walk to Jerusalem. To meet the oppressed and the 99% in the streets and the fields and the factories. To climb low into the valleys and the desert-places of our nation. To climb out of our tents and to make space for those who have been driven away. To Occupy, deeply, our hearts and minds with foolish optimism and a thirst for justice.

It’s time to be Peter on a wild hike with an even wilder companion and to say “yes” to all the fear that comes with uncertainty and to meet Jerusalem and our own bruised and broken down neighbors face-to-face.

dear november.

2011-11-02T11:00:00.000-04:00

So we meet again. Amid a frost-bitten field. Sun streaming through the indecisive, shivering leaves: half here, half gone.

You creep up on me every year, and especially this one. The beginning of October was suspiciously warm. I thought you would arrive later than usual, an apologetic dinner guest come after the main course. But you skipped to meet me and were quite on time.

Early, cold, you saunter into my living room and turn on the Christmas music: Ella, Bing, Winston, and all the others.

I am glad you are here, you presumptuous, wild thing. Your color and your quiet bang, your chill, your glow.

Come and stay awhile. For twenty-eight more days. Teach me about silence. And the peace of quiet things. Hold my cold fingers. Celebrate another year of life with me. The best is only yet to come.

Yours, Kristina

dirty fingernails

2011-10-31T11:32:00.004-04:00

I have really been missing art. The smell of pencil shavings and rubber cement and Plaster of Paris. Gritty charcoal-infested fingernails. Hands smeared with oil pastel and dried acrylic paint on my elbows that I don't catch for days. I am unsure why this is happening now, as I am about to finish my Masters. Only six months left and I will probably go back to the place I started, equipped for some sort of ministerial position, something I want and believe I will love about 95% of the time.

But on Friday, I went alone to the MFA. I wore black: my standard art-museum color. I relished in knowing I was quite alone and quite far from Boston College and all of the people who know me there as simply a theology student. It was as though my roots grew up to meet me through that cold tile floor, beckoning me back to the world I once belonged to: a world of color, and whimsy, and un-realism. A world that once whispered to me that rules, authority, and boundary-lines are futile and meaningless as far as imagination and creativity are concerned.

I used to be a very different child than the woman I am growing into. I used to spell out my dreams and frustrations to only a wire-bound book, and keep my secrets silent. I used to have fictional characters for friends, and spend my recesses attempting to swing higher than the swing-set itself. I believed in the impossible, and in myself. I did not need a cell phone for company or someone else's approval to execute a fine-tuned and slightly crazy plan. I could bring down the bogeyman; I would write a novel before I turned twenty. I was enough.

And now, I feel as though I am living a half-life much of the time. I am only 50% here, and only 50% me.

Sometimes, I wonder about missing things: missing people, missing places, missing childhood bedrooms and the Pacific Ocean and Barcelona and my nana's hugs. Although these people and places and things and moments were (are) so special to me, I imagine that perhaps it is me I am missing, much of the time. At ten, praying for the bell to ring so that I could slip quietly from my classroom and bolt to the library to grab the best seat. At fifteen, in Mrs. Kutch's art class, marveling at the smooth wood beneath my elbows, at the desk that was all mine, to create and sketch and paint and dream on.

I have been reading about Steve Jobs. He once said: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today? And whenever the answer has been 'No' for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something." Reflecting upon this, I am realizing that though I am busy and tired and working toward something, it might just not be enough. Enough to sustain me, or fulfill my dreams, or speak to my soul.

I love Gutierrez, and Johnson, and Sobrino, and Rahner. I am grateful that I have become somewhat grounded in a world of theology and philosophy that I once knew diddly-squat about, and hopeful that my small knowledge will do some good in the world and guide me as I amble down any life path. But I do not want to lose the thoughtful and imaginative child I was. The paint-stained, introspective and sincere me wants back. I am tired of making to-do lists for tomorrow, and next week, and next year. It's time to make a motion...

1996

2011-10-26T11:14:00.001-04:00

Buttery, soft wheat toast and the smell of Nana's perfume coming from the bathroom catch me in the early morning. I creep downstairs and see the snowy Christmas scene dance in the morning light. Last night after softball, we helped Nana set it up: the tree with all of our ornaments, the little people ice-skating on their frozen pond, the plastic Nativity in the front yard. I tiptoe into the kitchen, trailed by Julie and Michelle, and Papa pours us tall glasses of Donald Duck orange juice and generous bowls of cheerios, with chocolate instead of regular milk (but Michelle always just eats them plain). We sit cross-legged on the cold leather couch, struggling to find warmth, snuggling under large blankets embroidered with scenes of children in New England.

The TV is turned to the Disney channel that my parents refuse to pay extra for, but that our grandparents happily indulge us in. Papa is in his heavy armchair with the big leather buttons that I like to run my fingers over, the times I sit there when he isn't looking. Nana sits in the middle of us sleepy, bedraggled children: Michelle's hair sticking up all over her head; Julie in her basketball shorts and over-sized t-shirt; me, in a nightgown Julie wouldn't have been caught dead in, clutching an Anne of Green Gables novel and devouring it surreptitiously during every commercial break.

The morning fog from the Green Valley park creeps in through the open picture windows. On the television, Doug and Judy Funnie get a baby sister, and we snicker because she is named Cleopatra Dirtbike. I secretly imagine that I will be as cool as Judy someday, wearing that beret and quoting Shakespeare like my life depends upon it. There is nothing to do today but work on the outline of my California mission report and find out why Anne refuses Gil a second time and play catch with my dad in the park. And maybe if we're lucky, we will drop Julie off and our parents will chat for long enough to build a blanket fort outside of the computer room... but only after the fog rolls away and Doug is over and I have awoken from a mid-morning nap on Papa and Nana's couch.

---

...Funny how the smell of near-burnt toast and a woman's perfume can bring me back.

a sonnet.

2011-10-24T13:52:00.001-04:00

Biking down Beacon St. on a Monday morning
orange and yellow
moving like a river running past me.

The fall is euphoric:
the same
as hair lifting off my head as I sail down Lake Arrowhead;
dancing to Sinatra;
placing a period at the end of a satisfying sentence.

Everything that weighed me down has fallen from my shoulders.
I am light, liberated,
and

moving down these city streets.
Two years after shipping seven full boxes of books
and a suitcase of anticipation
across these united states:
here I am.

Biking, walking, flying
down Washington and Beacon, Comm. Ave.
the streets that have become my own
and remain steady for my wandering feet
as I unearth these vast worlds (of theology, philosophy, people-ology)
and rest my curious soul upon bare, wintry branches.

Always at this time of year,
the past becomes congruent with the present.
Maybe this happens because the trees know something about beauty.
Beauty that is found in the cross-section of life and death,
joy and despair,
present, and past.

It is good that we are here.
It is good to bike down these brilliant, swirling streets
no certain destination for the future,
but one for today.

And today it is fall.
And the trees whisper, "All shall be well,"
(because) amidst,
because of,
their dying,
they glow.

On Whistling the Little Women Theme Song As I Walk to School

2011-09-28T10:09:00.005-04:00

There is a moment in the movie Little Women when Jo is looking back, sifting through her memories and piecing them together as she writes them down. The screen shifts through time and the musty depths of the March family's attack, to the treasure chests that hold the sisters' childhood dolls, to the manuscripts of the plays they conducted on slow winter days, when they dressed in bed linens and velvet curtains and played their own version of Hamlet and Ophelia. A song comes on as Jo sits by the fire of her candle: the soft rising and falling of violins and cellos—Thomas Newman, in all his glory.

I walk through the same park every morning on my way to school, past the soccer fields and the seminary and a small but enchanting, shadowy forest. This is the precise week of the year when the leaves begin their transformation: tender reds, sun-pricked yellows, and the bittersweet gold of phosphorescence. Thomas Newman’s perfect orchestra streams through my headphones. I imagine myself one-hundred-and-fifty dreamy years ago, in long skirts that would dip and drag through the mud. I wonder at my own chest of memories, buried inside my sleepy head, and I wonder if there will ever be a moment when I am fully able to transcend the confines of my memory for the glorious, liberating page.

In my own epic novel, I skate back in time to capture the moments…jumping, or being pushed into icy Lake Arrowhead on a cool June morning; Julie and Michelle, sitting with me on Nana’s spiraling stairs: we are playing school, and I am marking “F” repeatedly, earnestly, in an attempt to teach my 5-year old sister and cousin the intricacies of my second-grade math; Adelle and I: sitting on Emily’s bed, listening to REM’s “Nightswimming,” dreaming of what it might be like to kiss a boy; eighteen-years-old, and taking Bobby’s hand on the boardwalk, as he lists the stars to me, and my heart leaping in my rickety ribcage; twenty-years-old, in my Stevie Nicks phase and lying in a grassy field with my friend as I wonder, again, at love and its implications; twenty-three and watching snow fall outside the window of my first east-coast home in the dead of February; twenty-four and feeling the lilt of the rushing Atlantic Ocean as it cascades upon my legs for the first time on a beautiful day in a Massachusetts summer.

I wonder at the way memory keeps certain moments alive. I wonder at the positives and negatives of each poignant experience taking space, living and breathing in my brain in the present moment. I wonder what Jo March would say, about blogging, about third-wave feminism, about the dream of writing when it is not practical, sustainable, or for the benefit of anyone but oneself.

We writers are narcissistic folk: glorying, reveling in the muddy depths of our own brains; chewing, gnawing on the same bone twenty, thirty, one-hundred times; spitting up the same memories over and over and polishing them so that they sound right, so that you can join us on that bizarre journey back in time to our lake-jumping, first-kissing, tender, foolish selves…

But. Oh. How I love the way that Jo’s recollections spill from her pen to the time of that rushing wind ensemble. And the slight breeze of the autumn leaves as they tumble from high heavens to brush my toes. And the way that remembering can make sacred all moments: our indiscretions, our transgressions, our bittersweet encounters of love and justice, pain and shocks of joy. And if all I ever bring myself to write are self-fulfilling blog entries for the sincere pleasure of remembering, well, perhaps that is quite enough.

Remembering September 11, 2001

2011-09-07T10:32:00.000-04:00

On September 11, 2001, my best friend called me and told me to turn on the television. It was only 7:00am in California, and the rest of my family was asleep. I flipped on our TV and sat on the couch with my slippered feet tucked under me. The same video clip of smoke and planes and people crying was looping. The volume was loud from the night before and before I could turn it down, the sound woke up my mom, and she came to sit next to me. She immediately began to cry, and she woke up my dad. I skipped school that day, and it was only my second week of my freshman year of high school. I went to church with my family in my school uniform, and I never took my slippers off.

I am twenty-four years old now and living in Boston, and I fly on a fairly regular basis to visit my family in southern California. Ten years later, I still have a gripping fear of planes. I often ask the person next to me on my flight if I can take her hand. My fear is irrational, but the images on the news that morning burned into my brain.

And so I remember my freshman year of high school: the memory of new, itchy, wool uniform skirts; the excitement of attending my first football game; that electrifying moment when the boy I liked tousled my ponytail outside of my Algebra classroom; and photographing a thousand American flags with my disposable camera as they crept out of their closets and lined the streets of my suburban neighborhood the day after the Twin Towers burst into flames.

september!

2011-09-04T11:09:00.000-04:00

Another fall is upon us. Several signs point to this: the wet leaf pieces stuck to the bottom of my flats, the goose bumps that appeared on my arms several times this past week when walking home at night, and the opening game of the BC football season that I attended yesterday.

A part of me cannot believe that it is September already. I kind of thought this summer would last forever. I suppose that if I graduate and grab a job next spring (fingers crossed), this ending summer is my last ‘real’ summer. And if I have to say goodbye to lazy, sprawling summertimes, then this was surely the way to do it.

This summer I traveled to eight states and even had a brief mosey through Canada on a beautiful Saturday evening. I made some incredible new friends. I watched my cousin Julie marry the man she loves. I learned how to advocate for myself. I read a good handful of books. I developed a fascination with Southern culture. I learned how to cook a few things that I had never cooked before. I did not exactly run, but I did do a lot of walking. And this weekend, I moved into a quirky little apartment with my dear friend Rosemary.

I am happy to greet September once more, and to spend another year studying theology, and passing days with the community I have gathered here. May this new school year bring with it clarity of heart and mind, strengthened friendships and relationships with family members, the ability to say ‘no’ when ‘no’ is necessary and ‘yes’ when ‘yes’ is frightening, and love abundant.

change gonna come.

2011-08-02T11:42:00.003-04:00

Five months ago, I was a passenger on a bus bound for Auschwitz. Sixty-six years after the camp was liberated by the Russian army, I arrived on its frozen grounds not by force but out of longing. I went to Poland out of raw curiosity and theological seeking. I longed to see the flesh wounds of genocide on fifteen square miles of land and to touch them with my hands, to pay my respects to the souls that passed from life to death there. Auschwitz is a quiet place, and a cold one, and I was grateful that I was able to walk its grounds alone. Five days in Krakow on my own, and my heart paced. It ambled: long and confused rotations circling my chest cavity. I ingested pale and faded winter sunlight in the morning. I drank strong coffee. I was not lonely as I feared I might be. And I returned to Boston to a still-frozen ground, to a reluctant springtime, my heart changed by the memory of barbed wire and millions of stacked eyeglasses frozen in time.

Five months ago, I read Mary Daly for the first time. And then I read Elizabeth Johnson, Elisabeth Schüssler-Fiorenza, Yvonne Gebara, Diana L. Hayes. And at the same time, my male professor—a Catholic priest, stepped down from administering the sacraments, gave up his passion, his vocation, until women—as he puts it—“are seen in the image and likeness of Jesus.” He was asked to leave his religious order for daring to uphold a fundamental belief in sexuality equality within the Catholic church. I began to ask myself questions, the kind that are painful, the kind that force those who ask them to change themselves. I took five big steps back from a painful situation. I reworked my patriarchal-constructed vocabulary (when talking about God, when writing a paper, when saying “to each his (her!) own”). I turned on the radio, and the voices of Ani DiFranco, Dar Williams, India.Arie, Amy Ray and Emily Saliers spilled out. I named myself Feminist and I will not turn back.

One month ago, I returned to Bread for the City, my JVC placement in Washington, D.C. And I hugged the ones who knew me there. And I saw my painting on the wall. On one wall out of the many walls that held me last year, caught my tears, my frustration, sensed my body struggling as it grew within them. As I walked out the front door into the wet July heat, I realized something that I already knew but had forgotten: that my ever-expanding vocation and my sense of justice would be nothing without my time spent within those walls.

One year ago, I arrived in Boston, and I enrolled in a Foundations of Theology course in which my professor dared my classmates and I to question the masculine imagery of God that we had always known. I raised my hand and in so many words asked her “why,” with stubborn indignation. And she retorted that my “why” is the reason why, in and of itself. She taught me to question all that I thought I knew. She taught me that God is bigger and more inclusive than my English-major vocabulary, my 24 years of life, my human knowing.

Two weeks ago, I cut off all of my hair. It is so short that I have mistaken my own mirror image for the back of my little brother’s head. I was vain about my long hair in a way I probably would never have admitted to you. I curled it and straightened it. I twisted it into intricate up-dos and I let it hang loose and lovely over my shoulders. Now that it’s gone, I am freer, lighter (and sillier-looking in the morning time when it sticks up like Alfalfa’s in the back). I am at the mercy of its thick, unruly nature. I can no longer tame it or let it curl about my face like a Disney princess. But when I look into the mirror—surprise, surprise—I see me. I see the Kristina who cannot be hidden by hair. I see a bold face and big eyes and a brilliant future.

Two years ago, I left California. I can imagine her laughing at me upon every return, laughing in the way that the Wise do laugh. A big belly laugh, causing the turbulence that unsettles me in my airplane seat as I cross into her generous backyard. I am indignant. My hair sticks up in the back. I am a feminist and a Catholic (—oxymoron?). I am a student of Theology, but mostly I am a student of the world. A student of Alice Walker and Elizabeth Johnson and Ella Fitzgerald and Colleen Griffith and my mother. A student of the women and men who I love in this place, and who have become my dear friends. I am always coming back to California a little bit more cross-eyed, a little bit scragglier than I left, but my home continues to receive me, despite the ways I have changed and the scars on my skin and on my heart. And maybe in another year, I will be more torn on the inside. This is how it goes when we find ourselves confronted with bitter injustice, and those who suffer from it. We become bruised, broken-down, angry. We scar. I am a woman of privilege. Twenty-four years old, white, North American. My suffering will never debilitate me. And so I will keep coming and going, asking questions, and working to fight for the ones whose scars never heal.

“Well, us talk and talk bout God, but I’m still adrift. Trying to chase that old white man out of my head. I been so busy thinking bout him I never truly notice nothing God make. Not a blade of corn (how it do that?) not the color purple (where it come from?). Not the little wildflowers. Nothing. Now that my eyes opening, I feels like a fool.”
-Alice Walker, The Color Purple

2011-05-20T08:52:00.000-04:00

And the road a-winding goes
From golden gate to roaring cliff-side
And the light is softly low as our hearts
Become sweetly untied
Beneath the sun of California one

Take a long drown with me of California Wine
And the wine it tastes so sweet
As we lay our eyes to wander
And the sky, it stretches deep.

-The Decemberists

all are welcome in this place.

2011-04-15T16:12:00.000-04:00

Let us build a house where all are named,
Their songs and visions heard
And loved and treasured, taught and claimed
As words within the word.
Built of tears and cries and laughter,
Prayers of faith and songs of grace;
Let this house proclaim from floor to rafter:
All are welcome, all are welcome,
All are welcome in this place.
-Marty Haugen

We sang this song today, and we sang it at my first mass at the STM, after orientation, when I was overwhelmed by the beautiful voices rising up in song around me. I could not have foreseen on that day the amount of welcome I would receive (and learn to give!) in this place, or the way that my own heart and vision of God would expand in the following months...

This is a unique place. Today I sat with my friends, professors, and colleagues and participated in a liturgical prayer service offered by the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Allied Students of the Boston College School of Theology and Ministry. As the same voices that rose up around me that August day rang true once more, I shivered at the beauty and the pain that were present in our lovely little chapel, as the sun streamed through the stained-glass and a band of my friends played this melody. "All are welcome in this place."

Before coming to BC, I was frustrated, agitated, depressed and concerned with my church. My church. The one I have struggled and fought with since I was old enough to understand what it was teaching in regards to homosexuality, in regards to women, in regards to birth control, contraception, and a myriad other issues which jive with what my conscience regards as just and true. I don't like the terminology "salad-bar Catholic". I don't like the fear which ends conversation and which sets limits and boundaries which we ought to challenge if we are being honest with ourselves and with the world around us. But I am nonconfrontational by nature, and, as my dear friend Meg reminded me today with her beautiful and honest reflection about speaking up to injustice, too often I have been quiet when it comes to speaking my mind about the faith I love and the Church I am proud to belong to.

Can I be proud to belong to a church which condemns my brothers and sisters who are homosexual, bisexual, transgender? Can I be proud to belong to a church that forces celibacy on many for whom celibacy is not a part of their personal vocation, when religious life is? Can I be proud to belong to a church which uses language that tears down women? Which does not look at the root or the effects of abortion, but rather writes it off as "intrinsic evil" (by a group of men), without looking the women who are having abortions in the eyes, without offering them love and forgiveness? Can I proud to belong to a church which says that only men can consecrate our God? Which says that God is man and therefore man is god?

I am a graduate student, working toward my Masters in Pastoral Ministry at a Catholic school. I am paying and studying and giving my life to the Roman Catholic Church. I am here, and I am devoted. And I said that I am proud, and I stand by that.

I am not proud of the injustices which have been done and are continuing to be done in my church in God's name. But I am proud of my church which is this church, this community at BC's School of Theology and Ministry. I am proud that today I sat and prayed and sang and held hands with a community of people who believe that God does not look one way, talk one way, or inhabit one set of gender-specific criterion.

My friend Danielle and I talked yesterday about what it means to speak truth to power, in love. We both acknowledge that to do this is neither easy, nor safe. But the best of us human beings neither sought the easy nor the safe. They were Dorothy Day, and MLK, and Gandhi, and Joan of Arc. They were Susan B. Anthony and Bishop Oscar Romero and Mother Teresa. They are Jon Sobrino and Mary Daly and Elizabeth Johnson, an incredible theologian, writer and professor at Fordham University who was just a few weeks ago "hushed" by the USCCB for "differing" too much from "authentic Catholic teaching" in her thinking and writing, simply because she recognizes a liberator God who loves all equally and asks us to do the same for one another.

I am one woman. I believe in peace, and I believe in reaching out to one another with love. Some days these are the only things I know I can do well. I don't plan on changing the world. Heck, most days, I don't even get through two things on my to-do list, my bed goes unmade, I don't get through all my reading, and I fall asleep before doing my dishes. I am one woman: small, messy, meek am I. But I am a part of something here, and this being a part of something--this seed that has begun to sprout inside of me, that was given to me last year by the poor that I worked with and loved--well, it is rerouting me and changing me from the inside-out.

Being at the STM continues to affirm my vision of church, time and again. I believe most firmly that this vision would appeal to anyone's heart. I am a lucky woman, to be able to receive this experience. If only we could all be uprooted from our seats of hostility, fear, comfort, and thrown into the hoopla and chaos and abounding joy that come with community and a different way of thinking, I do believe that an expansion of vision and a breaking-wide-open of hearts would occur, and that that would revolutionize everything.

Because deep down, don't we all just want to know love?

gratitude & grace & purple purple grapes

2011-04-15T11:55:00.000-04:00

For these things I am grateful:

For purple purple grapes, which are the purplest I have ever seen.

For dear friends who are visiting (Liz and Stephen!)

For this song, which makes me smile: Indigo Girls, "Southland in the Springtime"

For writing, writing, writing it all down, when the world is dark, when it is confusing, when it is joyous, when it is calm. For the gift of putting pen to paper, fingers to keyboard, heart to sleeve. For writing, which reminds me that it is ok to be human, to be just as I am, to be woman, to be fighter, to be vulnerable, to be broken-down. For the gift of an honest tongue and a beating heart, and for being able to connect to the world in such a tangible way...

For my family, whom I will get to see in less than a week!

For the Springtime!

For simply being here, and for this day.

For the incredible moving, challenging, and affirming talk on women's ordination I went to last night at Harvard Divinity School, and for the beautiful women who put it on. For the challenge of giving our Catholic faith tradition a much-needed face-lift, for the challenge of staying within the tradition and pushing the boundaries. For the challenge of bringing together oppositional sides. For the challenge of working toward the equality of women, and for peace. I am simply grateful that my voice has a place here, in this peculiar and creative and affirming school, on this metaphorical mountain-top place.

For old friends. For J.T. and for Beth. For all the rest of them.

For all the beauty within the fray.

Thank you, God. Amen.

The geese have come back home.

2011-04-12T07:59:00.000-04:00

I came outside to read and lay on the grass. But as I opened my book on sexual ethics, I became extremely distracted by the persistent calling of the wild geese of Chandler Pond. "It's Spring!" They shouted at me, stubbornly, "Wake up!"

The whole world is waking up. Spring is a pesky mother, nudging at her sleepy children in their warm beds to rise and greet the still cold, dark morning. She draws the curtains and pulls our covers off with a flourish.

Just a month ago, this pond was ice. The ground was a dirty white, and cold to the touch. The geese were visiting their relatives in Florida. I was visiting my sister in London. The world was quieter.

I see Spring coming, see her riding her shiny red bicycle down the lane, still a ways away, but close enough that the afternoon sunlight bounces off of her reflectors.

My body is tired, my mind does not feel like my own, but we are a people of hope. In a few weeks time, the stone will be rolled away, and we will remember Resurrection. We must be broken down time and again, must be in the quiet, so that when the geese come home, the sound of their wild calling is not lost to us. So that all the small blessings and benedictions can warm our worn-out hearts. Small blessings like watching the dusk roll in on the Reservoir while walking with a good friend, and feeling the warmer air on my bare legs.

I am sleepy, and messy. And grateful.

in all honesty.

2011-04-07T10:06:00.001-04:00

April is to Boston what February was to D.C. Winter is still here, creeping in at nighttime, on unexpected Fridays where four inches of snow greets the same ground which 50 degree-sunshine shone on only the day before. The weather, the sky, the clouds cannot make up their mind. And they are driving me insane.

Somewhere inside of me is a rational woman. But the seasonal flux sets my stability on wheels... on any given day, I can't be entirely sure where I will end up. My mind and rationale, my self-love, they are dependent on the forces of the weather, and entirely out of my realm of control.

Depression is a strange thing. When it comes, the world slips out of my grasp. Simple tasks become mountains to climb over. Getting out of bed becomes a hassle. Making dinner, going for a run, calling someone back, being present to a friend... the things that I love to do become oddly hard and nearly incomprehensible. But the strangest thing of all is the way that depression comes and go, without warning. I will wake up and the world will be bright again. And then on some innocent afternoon, it will become dark. The ebb and flow of it all makes me feel even crazier. The sadness, paranoia, jealousy, irrationality, numbness, and lethargy depression brings make me feel like someone worlds away from the Kristina I know myself to be.

I am writing this down here, because I keep coming back to this one point: life is short; we are finite; our experiences are not unrelated; my story might bear some similarity to your own. There is nothing to be ashamed of. We are humans. We feel and we battle ourselves and we think and we cry. Our dynamic range of emotions, our ability to feel--we must utlize these things in order to learn compassion and empathy. I have a long way to go in learning those virtues. But while I am feeling broken-down, I pray that God will grace me with the humility to love Her and Her people with a wide-open heart.

humid gloom

2011-04-05T09:07:00.000-04:00

These grumpy, gloomy, humid (but I will actually say "hooray" to that!) days always seem to be Tuesdays. In January and February, for five weeks in a row or so, snow seemed to pour from the sky each and every single Tuesday. I don't know what it is about this day, or how that boy from my freshman year art class could have so accurately diagnosed "a case of the Tuesdays", but there is something god-awful about these mid-week days sometimes, and he was right. He was a nag who often poked his nose over my shoulder when I was attempting to shade, but he was right.

Hrmmph. And that is all I am gonna say at that moment. More cheer to come at another time. This being-human-business brings with it a lot of schizophrenic moments, doesn't it now?

In Memoriam: Hena Akhter

2011-03-31T09:50:00.012-04:00

"If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor."

Desmond Tutu

On January 31, 2011, Hena Akhter, a 14-year-old Bangladeshi girl, was charged with adultery and beaten to death after her cousin Mahbub Khan (who is old enough to be her father, and has a son her own age) raped her one night when she walked outside to use the toilet. Khan's wife found Hena, screaming, with her husband, took Hena back to her house and beat her. The next day the village elders announced Hena's punishment for being a rape victim: 101 lashes. She fell to the ground after receiving 70, and died a week later in the hospital.

The 21st century. Roughly 7700 miles away from Boston, Massachusetts. A little girl the same age as my eighth-grade sister. Beaten to death publicly, and in front of her family, because she was a victim of rape. There are some moments in life when my heart is fit to burst with anger, with sadness, with aching. This moment is one of them. Is there any justice in our world?

Hena Akhter

"My humanity is bound up in yours." Desmond Tutu

Aesop said, "It is easy to be brave from a safe distance." Isn't this just so true? What are we doing, from the comfort of our middle-class and upper-middle-class thrones, here in America? Are we brave enough to talk about these things which make us uncomfortable? Am I brave enough to look into the eyes of a little girl the same size and age as my little sister Mary Kate and to ask if I am living my life in a way so as to speak up against injustice, against cruelty toward women and children?

It is Lent. We remember another innocent, gentle human being who died an unjust death at the hands of a merciless crowd while his loved ones watched. How is this death any different than his? How will we live our lives in a way that speaks to the message of Jesus, of Hena Akhter? Let us pray for an end to injustice, sexism, and violence.

A thoughtful ramble.

2011-03-30T16:44:00.004-04:00

"Write in recollection and amazement for yourself." -Jack Kerouac
----
“I like too many things and get all confused and hung-up running from one falling star to another till i drop. This is the night, what it does to you. I had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion.” -Jack Kerouac
-----

I forgot about this feeling. For a long, long, long time. Maybe since last August, when I was placing one boot in front of the other on the Appalachian Trail, leading a group of my favorite women as we descended the gentle hills of southern Pennsylvania. My friend Emma caught up to me, and said, "It's funny, but I think I finally feel most like the woman I have always wanted to be." I smiled at her and found truth in her words for myself, as well. We were coming down the mountain, not only literally, but metaphorically. We had each spent a year giving of ourselves in a way we had never anticipated our hearts could give. I had tried to write down in my journal all of the names of the people I had met in the past 12 months, and when the number surpassed 200, I put my pen down and gave up. My heart had wandered far from home and it would not be coming back; it was invested in too many other living, breathing, laughing beings.

The way that I felt that warm day, walking with Emma under the shade of small oaks and cedar trees, is the same spark of life that is coming back to me now. It is coming from all sorts of places: The Book of Mev, the sudden change in weather, the nap I took on the lawn of the STM this afternoon, a visit from my dearest friend in the world, prayer, the beauty and serenity of Lent, the glory of strawberries and dark chocolate, a trip to the North End on a Sunday night & canoli!, the promise of spring, Neil Young's "Heart of Gold", and Paul Stookey's "The Wedding Song (There Is Love)".

Since I finished JVC in August, my light was hidden under a bushel. Not on purpose, but simply because I forgot how to let it shine. I calculated my movements more than I am proud of; I spent time on frivolous things (my hair, the up-and-down plucking of my heartstrings, worry).

April, or the promise of April (in two days' time!), tends to do this to me--tends to make me remember the me I was all along. My self-love, it comes in waves, and it ebbs and flows like the most fickle of tides. But for this springtime, I have decided to overcome my anxiety, my small fears, my dreams of romance, my desire to be loved, my desire to look presentable, and to simply bring my light out from under that bushel.

I miss the people I knew in D.C., and I miss the faces of the poor. I miss living and breathing an existence that was challenging and true. I yearn to hear the stories of those who have walked a different walk than me, and I yearn to work for justice. But while I am here, I will pray for them, and I will pray for the strength to do God's work wherever I am, wherever my feet take me. Maybe one day that will be India, or El Salvador, or any other place of grace. But for right now, this day, I am here. And so. I will lie down more in the grass, read more Rumi and Jack Kerouac and Mark Chmiel and put away the face powder and the pretension and breathe and love and pray and live.

It is good that we are here.

2011-03-29T09:21:00.002-04:00

This morning, I am restless. I am reading The Book of Mev by Mark Chmiel, and it is one of the most beautiful love stories possible. I will tell you more about it later, because right now as I write this I am putting off two short papers that are due in just a little bit.

But it is a beautiful, sunny (still somewhat cold) Tuesday in Boston on one of the last days in March. I am grateful to be alive. Grateful for the long, rambling, beautiful conversation I had with my friend Adam last night over video-chat. Who knew the Internet could offer such a wonderful possibility? Seeing someone's face, listening to your friend play "Blackbird" on the guitar from miles away, taking note of facial expressions... I don't know why I don't make more time for such encounters more often! It was wonderful.

I am also grateful for a fully-stocked refrigerator. And to be here, in Brighton, studying theology, spending time with so many dynamic, passionate folks on a daily basis. I am grateful for books and music and pictures. Especially those written and sung and taken by Anne Lamott, Mark Chmiel, Mev Puleo, John Lennon, Paul Simon, Joni Mitchell, Joan Didion... I am grateful for fresh, clean water. For the idea of going to El Salvador this summer. For love. I am grateful for a happy Tuesday. And that my bestest friend in the westest, Miss Ellen is boarding a plane tonight to come to see me! I am grateful for Saturday nights singing Indigo Girls and Neil Young and Simon & Garfunkel with my best friends in Christa and Danielle's living room. For the guitar and the harmonica and the violin.

I am grateful for the hope of peace. For though there is not much peace right now, not anywhere, there is always the hope. There is this one sunny, delightful morning in Massachusetts, and listening to Moby on my computadora, and feeling at peace in my own skin. I am grateful for these things and for this one dear, sacred moment. Thank you, God.

sleepy and taking cold medicine, so...

2011-03-22T21:15:00.006-04:00

i shall not even try to form something coherent here. some thoughts:

this too shall pass.

anne lamott is my hero.

long post to come soon on my adventures in poland & england, complete with pictures.

i caved in and rejoined facebook, but truthfully, it has lost its allure.

i have so much homework.

i chopped off a good amount of hair, and the world feels lighter and breezier.

i miss california.

i have become an unapologetic feminist and all of a sudden i am a lot angrier on the inside. i am still trying to find a way to do something good with this, as anger that isn't constructive probably shouldn't take up a ton of space in my heart...

the simon & garfunkel pandora station is amazing. (and just as i wrote that, "father and son" by cat stevens started playing!!!)

maybe i will feel like a better human being once easter rolls around and christ is resurrected and all that good stuff... i hope so...

(oh, dear. bring on the nyquil...)

On being "home"

2011-03-17T10:38:00.004-04:00

The way in which the sense of home seems to follow certain individuals is fascinating. My Latin American poetry teacher leans against the cold marble podium and rests one arm on the sharp decline. He shifts his weight so that the slick surface seems to support him entirely, and he is home. Never mind the industrial hums of air conditioning and moaning pipes. Forget the drone of construction coming from the new arts building and the harsh glow of public-school-affordable fluorescent lighting that shines a dull light on his forehead. In one thick hand he holds a soft leather volume of Vallejo and his fingers stroke worn pages tenderly. He pronounces each "qu" (kiiiii-tar) with conviction and an impressive amount of spit. And his stance and his chuckle and his nod of encouragement when a girl finds a hidden meaning in the word "guano"--they are spelling home to me. Home... the stack of books with finger-smudged covers and folded coffee-stained corners that lay teetering on one corner of his little desk; thirty students who stare quietly ahead and listen to his lull of Mexican-Spanish sing each "i con accento" with a brilliant grace. We do not know each other's last names and we long for coffee and our toes sting a little from rain-socked socks, but for right now we are home-- safe in the soft glow this practiced professor casts as his fingers conduct us in a symphony of Spanish poetry.

Written 2/17/09

Gott spricht zu jedem nur, eh er ihn macht

2011-03-17T09:20:00.001-04:00

God speaks to each of us as God makes us,
then walks with us silently out of the night.

These are the words we dimly hear:

You, sent out beyond your recall,
go to the limits of your longing.
Embody Me.

Flare up like flame
and make big shadows I can move in.

Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Don't let yourself lose me.

Nearby is a country they call life.
You will know it by its seriousness.

Give me your hand.

-Rainer Maria Rilke

dear old friend.

2011-03-01T13:16:00.003-05:00

Dear March,

Every year, on this day, I will write you a letter.

Because every year, after February lowers its weary head to sleep for another eleven months, you knock ever so lightly on my door, sometimes when I am not even expecting you, and you smile when I come out to greet you.

"Come in," I say, but you just shake your head no and say: "Come out."

So I walk outside and you have brought me flowers. Today they were a little frosty. Actually, rather invisible. But I could imagine their orange and yellow colors; their fragrance was on the air as I walked home from Katie-Sue and Brian's house.

I slept on their air-mattress last night, which Brian made up beautifully for me. This after a long chat over tea & Lil' Smidgens in their warm kitchen, and studying on their living room sofa, watching Brian chase around one fly with a Nerf gun. It was a perfect night, a perfect way to await your arrival.

I am most happy you are here. My human heart could use a little bit of a pick-me-up, and a little bit more warmth. Thank you, as always, for coming, as you have for twenty-five years. I might ask to borrow a bit of your kindness and your calm, as long as you are here, I hope you don't mind.

March, be with us little human things. With us in our restlessnesses, and in our longings. In our pain and in our moments of deep confusion and anxiety. Hold us up, raise us up, warm our hearts and hands. Share your peace.

Thank you. I am most gratefully yours,
Kristina

the times... they haven't a-chang'd that much

2011-02-27T10:47:00.006-05:00

This is the sort of kind of weekend I imagined when I was a sixteen-year-old cross-country runner, crossing over MacArthur Boulevard on a hot Tuesday afternoon, struggling to breathe and keep up, letting my mind wander to all the places I would live someday, to the person I might become when I was a bit older, without the baby cheeks and sweaty jersey shorts.

On Friday night, Danielle and I braved the windy snow and hopped on the B line, heading downtown to Mr. Dooley's, an excellent Irish pub near Faneuil Hall. Some Fridays the STM hosts socials, and quite often, they are well-attended. Given the weather, this one had an STM headcount of exactly seven people. But no matter. The moment we stepped through the door, we were greeted by an entire wedding party and a couple in their thirties, who were seated at the bar and became our fast-friends. They asked Danielle and I what we were studying, and we said, "theology." It is typical that when given that response, people tend to misunderstand. Especially when they are asking two girls in their twenties at a bar on a Friday night. So I guess they thought we were saying "geology," and they bought us a round of shots (something about a red-headed-not-so-nice-girl, of which I had never heard...), which were quite nice and tasted like candy. And then a round of beers. It was very generous. We found out later that they had taken a liking to us because the woman--Amy's--sister, had a PhD in geomorphology. Whoops.

The best part about Mr. Dooley's was the band: Tommy & Alan. They played all of my favorites: "Fairytale of New York," "Galway Girl," "When You Were Sweet Sixteen" (reminiscent of my parents' Finest of the Fureys album that Michelle and I used to make up melodramatic dances to as children), "Whiskey in the Jar." Nate had a generous amount of beer and proceeded to befriend Tommy and Alan, asking them if they'd like to cantor our Thursday masses at the STM. I convinced my cohorts to dance with me on the tiny dance floor, in the middle of the wedding party. By the end of the night, it was hard to remember that we weren't actually a part of the wedding party, as Lucia, Christa and I stole a few sandwiches (and then ran to the bathroom to eat them stealthily after being confronted by a waitress), Danielle befriended some Irish lads who told me that they were related to the bride (though they told Danielle that they were in the states for business...), and I even talked to the bride for a bit, complimenting her, perhaps a bit too heartily, on her dress. Nate spun me 'round, and we knocked into quite a few people, but it was alright, because one of the Irish men had told me earlier that I "wasn't the best dancer." He was a bit cheeky, I must say, but he had an Irish accent, so it's hard to hold a grudge. And I really am a horrible dancer. It's actually kind of frightful. Lord knows how many dress shoes I squished that night. No toes were spared.

So we danced the night away, and eventually made it back, cabbing-it because the T was closed at 1:30 when we left. Nate and Lucia told us about Chi-Chi's, a Friday and Saturday midnight sausage stand outside of St. Iggy's. I had decided earlier in the week, at dinner with Dan, to place a hiatus on my vegetarianism (so we ordered gyro, mmm) and so Christa and I split a sausage with peppers and Chi-Chi's "special sauce." Then we walked the frigid walk home and I fell right asleep, my stomach full and happy with the memories of red meat and Irish jigs.

On Saturday, Dan's family was visiting, so I met up with them and Nick and another friend of Dan's, and we went to lunch in Harvard Square at Grendel's, so named after that infamous monster from my frightful freshman-year English teacher Sr. Marie's favorite heroic epic. I had a roast beef sandwich. Obviously, my two-week hiatus is going to be no-holds-barred. Then we poked around in all of Harvard Square's best used bookstores.

This is how you know when you are at an authentic used bookstore. First, it is in a basement. Second, it smells faintly of mildew. Third, there are treacherous stacks of books in high places that would probably fall over and kill you instantly if hit by a trespassing wind. Fourth, sometimes stray pets wander through the aisles. Fifth, there are stacks of old National Geographics and at least three copies of Howard Zinn's A People's History. And I love Boston because there are at least six of these places that I know of. My own weak Ikea bookshelves are now teetering similarly to those at Diskovery on Washington St. because of this. It is a wonderful sight.

Anywho. After perusing and stopping for a brief Dunkin Donut's break with Dan and his family, I met up with Cheryl and we hopped on the bus to head to her house. We ate a lovely meal of breaded salmon and cheap wine, and then her other housemates came home from dinner, we played Bananagrams, listened to a Katy Perry Pandora station and talked about feminism (what's new?). I walked home before midnight, listening to my iPod--still stuck on Shane MacGowan after Friday night, daydreaming of traveling through Krakow and London in only a few days' time.

Sunday night I had a dream that Lea Michele was in my extended family. She and my cousin Julie both sang solos at this hearing that was being held for some of our other family members who were apparently on trial for doing something morally questionably and perhaps even violent. This little boy in my family had reported them to the police. I cheered for the little boy at the trial. Julie was wearing the same outfit she wore when she sang "The Good Ship Lollipop" at the Orange County Fair when she was three, and she looked really good in it, too. She was also wearing a bright blonde wig on her head and I was questioning if it was real or not, when in the middle of the performance, she looked at me and Michelle, and pulled it up in the front, signaling its wig-ness, and give us a two-thumbs-up. Lea Michele's performance was mediocre. She actually sang a song with Matchbox 20 and she wore a big droopy black trench coat. I think probably because the only time I have seen her in person was when my family went to see Les Mis at the Hollywood Bowl (the time I choked on a tortilla chip and they had to call the EMTs over) and she was wearing a big black trench coat then, too. Anyway, it was weird. And then I woke up to the sound of plowing out of my window and I thought: ha ha that must be my imagination... there is no way it is snowing again right now. But alas, I was wrong, as I have been about a hundred times this winter. And oh, it was snowing alright!

I will be honest. Last February, if you had told me I would never see snow again, I wouldn't have blinked an eye. I would have glued my Birkenstocks to my feet and planned a whole life around picnics, hikes, beach days, garden parties and other outdoor events. But for some reason, as seasons often do, last spring, summer and fall offered me enough renewal that even this little smattering of snow at the end of a very snowy February was lovely to me. Waking up to a white world in a warm bed is not a bad thing at all, ever. I made some tea and watched the season pilot of Felicity on my bed. I stayed in my bed for an indulgent number of hours until going to the gym with Anna, and eventually to church, and then to a young adult meeting after, and then to pizza with Brian, and then to Lis' to watch the Oscars.

It was a lovely weekend. Beth told me a few days ago that I shouldn't worry so much about being an adult. Perhaps I shouldn't worry so much, period. Yesterday's gospel was Matthew 6: 24-34:

Jesus said, "No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.

"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you-- you of little faith? Therefore do not worry, saying, `What will we eat?' or `What will we drink?' or `What will we wear?' For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But strive first for the Kingdom of Heaven and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

"So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today's trouble is enough for today."

Did you know that this was the first time in 20 years that this gospel reading has been read? Something about the way the cycles fall... I find that lovely and special.

And so, there is nothing to worry about. And there is no need to rush adulthood. This morning, I slung my old tarnished peace-teardrop necklace about my neck and played Neil Young as I dressed. Some moments find me dancing a fine line between being sixteen and twenty-four. Maybe this is an ok thing. When our hearts are young, we make mistakes and find ourselves a bit vulnerable, just as the lilies of the field. But I believe, and Jesus tells his disciples that God will take care of us, of our fragile little human bodies.

And if I live to be eighty-eight years old, I will still love the sound of Bob Dylan's crackly voice singing a love song, still crave the touch of someone else's hand, still remember Emily Domenici whenever I smell Chanel Chance on a passing breeze, and still wink at myself in the mirror, remembering being sixteen (or twenty-four), naive, and rather invincible.

I feel 12.

2011-02-25T14:24:00.000-05:00

A fire alarm went off at work today. It made sense somehow, to stand outside dripping wet on the day I had chosen to wear bright red tights that had already begun to turn my feet red, while a small fire probably blazed somewhere in a lab on the third floor of Devlin Hall.

This week, I have had a case of the blunders. I locked myself out of my apartment on Wednesday night. Yesterday I slammed my left thumb between two metal door handles and spent the morning at Health Services where two kindly nurses told me I should go to the ER to have my fingernail drained. I didn't go, and instead took some painkillers and put my feet up and watched Glee on my couch.

I don't know why I continue to wear tights under summer dresses in the dead of Boston winter,or catch body parts in doors, or run into still objects. Or why I can't stop eating an exorbitant amount of carbs and drinking excessive amounts of coffee. I think a part of my brain has gone missing somewhere, and I am just waiting for it to come home to me.

I am ready to start feeling like a grown-up. I mean, I'll be 25 this year. Although I was recently turned away from a bar downtown for looking younger than my ID picture that was taken when I was 17, I know I am a grown-up. Right? Just because I accidentally fell asleep on Danielle's (twin) air mattress last night after drinking like two glasses of wine, even though I live like two hundred feet away, I know that somewhere deep down inside of me there is an adult waiting to emerge. That's all. TGIF.

She's back.

2011-02-02T22:24:00.006-05:00

Ok, ok. So, here's the thing. I tried it... a new domain and all that. I thought it would seem more "grown-up," more clever, more appropriate. Who wants to be known for their "fuzzy purple socks" blog?

But I realized, just tonight, that:

a) I am not all the way grown-up. And,

b) I would like some more time before I determine that. And,

c) There is an awful lot to be taken seriously in life. By golly, if I decide to have a space that is a tad ridiculous-- embarrassing, even-- I will have one.

I can stand to be embarrassed. But no longer will I try to be anyone who I am not. I am mostly grown-up, but I am still all over the place. I am mostly well-intentioned, but I am certainly moronic at times. I am seemingly going in the "right" direction, but I take a lot of falls.

I apologize more than I ought to, for me. I don't want to be sorry about the fact that I am nutty, embarrassingly honest at times, and a touch too excitable.

So I will definitely not apologize for the fact that my feet just really prefer fuzzy purple socks. What can I say? They are liberal leaning feet. They will not be confined to the ordinary, mundane, white crew sock. And I think you're kidding yourself if you think your own feet would not just like to be free.

Amen.

New year, new blog!

2011-01-01T16:45:00.002-05:00

Hello family, friends, and blogging world:

I have moved to a new site.

It is new and in the works, but I hope you enjoy!

Happy 2011.

Peace & blessings to one and all,

Kristina

Dancing to the "Jitterbug" in a Greek Café

2010-12-05T22:39:00.004-05:00

In the midst of final exams (lengthy fifteen-pagers that ebb and flow ceaselessly), cold December afternoons without any promise of snow, and the onset of shin splints, I take stock of the small moments of transcendence in my ordinary, daily life.

This afternoon, Anna and I sat at a small table in the back of Athans. An elderly woman in a coral and black polka-dotted blouse moseyed to the front counter, noted gleefully that the “Jitterbug” was playing (“You must have known I was going to come in!”) and made the request for her usual table.

A holiday party was to come in at 4:00, a young blonde waiter informed her. Her usual table was unavailable. So he sat her down at the table beside us.

I had been thinking I would finish at least two of my one-pagers on Christian Ethics that had been due weeks ago. My computer beamed at me, my coffee was warm, and I was on a roll. Sometimes God has other plans for us. Anna would later say that my stories about going to stay at the homes of persons I had only met at one other time rather surprised her. Of course they did. My friend-making mechanisms are entirely unconventional, I am afraid. But Anna and I ended up talking to our polka-dotted wearing, Jitterbug-dancing friend for over an hour.

Maria is her name. Maria is eighty years old. She has never been married, nor has she ever wanted to. She made that quite clear. Maria has a strong Boston accent— not dissimilar to my Nisco great-aunts’. She is a small woman, with a wide-set face and large round-framed glasses.

The blonde waiter who took Maria’s order had a unconventionally-placed headband in his shiny hair and an unusually warm heart. I say unusually because it is not often that people take the time to look in other people’s eyes, to really hear them. I find this is the case with elderly people quite often. But this young man really looked at Maria, right at her, really listened to her.

He brought her a glass of wine. She became quite tipsy and invited Anna and I to take a tour of her plot at Mount Auburn Cemetery. She told us about her Greek Orthodoxy upbringing and that her mother died when she was only a toddler. Her aunt raised her to be a “lady.”

Maria drank her wine, and after that, a steaming café breve that the kind waiter brought her on the house. She talked about science. About taking a cruise on the Mediterranean. About ice-skating at Chandler Pond.

She asked us what we studied. She got a hoot out of “psychology” and “theology.” “Theology and mythology, same thing!” She hoo-hawed.

At some point in our rambling conversation, Maria invited us to her home (she recently moved. Anna asked her if this was hard. “No, because home is wherever I am!”), where I am to receive free piano lessons, because “at my age, money means nothing anymore,” and Anna will listen. “You’re a listener,” Maria nodded at Anna knowingly.

Sometimes I become awfully frustrated at what I refer to as the “elevator-culture” of America. This “elevator-culture” has made it so that two strangers can hardly have a spontaneous conversation in a public place without it being forced or unauthentic. But today I was reminded that each effort to restore community is valuable, and a part of something greater. I was very focused on my own homework when I sat down at that table. I was writing a paper on loving one’s neighbor. How ironic is that? I was very close to ignoring this sweet, 80-year-old chatterbox of a woman because I felt like my Ethics paper was more important. It took me a solid five minutes before I recognized God in that moment. It took me five minutes much too long to get up off of my soapbox and to actually try loving my neighbor in a real way.

God is in every moment. There are no arbitrary ones. No arbitrary, meaningless encounters. No souls whose paths touch our own that were not to be there. We are called, more than anything, to know each other.

In the past weeks, I have been blessed to come to know Eric and Anna, who have become more like family to me with every meal that they invite me to share in their small, warm living room. And I have been blessed to be a part of J.T.’s Jesuit community for a weekend: a community of passionate, compassionate men my own age who welcomed me with a torrent of warmth and kindness such that is rare to receive. I was blessed to meet a new neighbor,Wendy, in the laundry room. I was blessed to meet Sophia Rae—whose small, beautiful life is so new to this world. I was blessed to spend moments with my dear friends Ryan and Beth, Kathleen and Katie. There have been countless others: my family, whom I spent a glorious east coast Thanksgiving with, my friends at the STM, my FJV friends. And today, I was blessed to recognize the face of God in a little old woman wearing polka-dots.

Such an inexhaustible reservoir of love, this life offers us. I am humbled and blessed to be alive in the midst of it.

another trip around the sun.

2010-11-20T09:01:00.010-05:00

"Every day's a revolution

Pull it together and it comes undone
Just one more candle and a trip around the sun."

-Jimmy Buffett

Twenty-four years later, I am no longer a ginger, but I take just as many naps.

Twenty-four years later, I am far away from my parents, sitting in a Brighton coffee shop on a Saturday morning, listening to Jimmy Buffett on my computer, wondering at the passage of time.

It is easy to remember the child that I was: quiet, immersed in fiction, prone to riotous outbursts of laughter when my cousin Philip teased me at Papa & Nana's dinner table. I ate my pasta with no sauce, I believed that kisses could be felt on the other end of the telephone, and I thought that Massachusetts was a place in the clouds, because that is how Nana May traveled to California, after all.

It is hard to remember the day when I stopped believing in the Bogeyman, stopped drinking my tea with half a cup of milk and three lumps of sugar, stopped saying my bedtime prayers kneeling on the floor, stopped pulling the telephone cord all the way from the kitchen into my bedroom to talk in secret.

Every year it seems I reach another age that once seemed entirely ancient to me. I suppose that happens when we start becoming the ages our parents were when they met, when they married, when we came into their lives.

But I am comfortable in this age, and utterly grateful for myself, for my body, for my four limbs, for my brain, for my eyes, for my hands. For being able to live in a country where women are at least 98% free (and where our efforts to achieve complete liberation are at least recognized). I am grateful that I have known love in all its profound, life-altering senses. I am grateful that I have a web of support that spirals around me, under me, beyond me, affirming me, lifting me up, never letting me fall unnoticed.

I have spent my life playing, learning, loving, praying. Twenty-four years of thriving on this planet, never left alone in a sea of love. I have been abundantly blessed, from the moment I came into this world into the arms of Theresa and Kevin Simes, to this very morning, when my greatest concern is finishing my homework in time to go home for the holidays, to a place where I will be met with warmth and affection.

In her poem "The Summer Day," Mary Oliver asks: "Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" Dearest Ms. Oliver, thank you for asking. Thank you for reminding me that these trips around the sun are not to be taken for granted. And that our lives are precious, sacred, and gifted to us only once.

And to that question, I answer this: more than ever, since leaving JVC, I feel that my life's mission will be to stand in solidarity with those who have nothing: no love, no home, no sense of liberation.

Until these past few months, I saw myself returning to California, working as a religion teacher or as a campus minister. But although those professions are still beautiful to me, and dear to my heart, as I have learned so much from those men and women who are and have been my teachers and my campus ministers, I feel an unsettling (and beautiful) call to return to my work with the poorest of the poor. I am still discerning this calling, and the fact that it might ask me to go far and wide, and so we will see what it is asking from me. What God is asking from me. And I am intrigued, and frightened, and excited to realize in this moment, in this new year, that I am ready to finally answer Mary Oliver's question in a real way. To look deeper inside of myself, to look deeper at the ways in which my life affects that of the world around me, and to follow the Spirit of Love which God has generously poured out into each and every one of our hearts.

I hope that this day for you is a peaceful rest-stop on your trip around the sun. Happy day to you. Take a moment to recognize yourself for the glorious, liberated, unique human being that you are. And continue to ask yourself this question: "What is it you plan to do with your one wild & glorious life?" I hope that you may find the answer in some deep corner of your heart and spend the rest of your days answering the question in ways that unsettle you, and satisfy all of your deepest longings.

Why not become the one who lives with a full moon in each eye?

2010-11-20T08:57:00.002-05:00

With That Moon Language

Admit something:
Everyone you see, you say to them, "Love me."
Of course you do not do this out loud, otherwise someone would call the cops.
Still, though, think about this, this great pull in us to connect.
Why not become the one who lives with a full moon in each eye
that is always saying,
with that sweet moon language,
what every other eye in this world is dying to hear?

-Hafiz

It is November, and I am thankful.

2010-11-10T20:21:00.005-05:00

For little sisters and brothers (especially the dear one who is sleeping my bed right now).

For the change of seasons.

For new friendships.

For unexpected letters from old friends.

For being able to study something I am passionate about in a beautiful place.

For the new adventure that is spiritual direction.

For old friendships, and for knowing that my heart is in pieces all over this grand world, in the hearts of all those I have loved and do love, no matter how far away they may be.

For music.

For the stark beauty of bare trees.

Innocentes.

2010-11-08T15:04:00.004-05:00

When I don't look at the pictures, when I don't see their faces, I tend to forget... that the men and women who are dying each day in Mexico look a lot like my own neighbors, my own classmates, my own friends. They wore jeans, too. And baseball hats. And no jackets, because November in Ciudad Juarez still signifies t-shirt weather. Just like my hometown, where my mom called me this weekend to tell me that the heat hit a record-breaking high in L.A. county.

My parents' home rests only two hours away from the Mexican border. Though it is a country that touches my own--is as close as any state--I am entirely disconnected from a whole community of people that is living a war-torn existence. And it is not a war that they chose to participate in (though when is this ever the case?). They are merely innocentes. Men and women, babies, brutally murdered, left exposed in the middle of the streets for schoolchildren to encounter on a weekday afternoon. Schoolchildren who play in abandoned homes, where the walls are sticky with blood. I saw a photograph of three such boys a few months ago, and their eyes were not frightened by the massacre that they had happened upon. Those little boys see death as often as they see life.

I forget that the world is bigger than me. I sit in the library, surrounded by my theology books, I attend Mass and pray to my God for the virtues that I desire, I laugh with my friends, I dream about the Greek word "agape" and imagine a world in which loving one's neighbor would be the thing to do. And yet. I am so far away from the reality of suffering. From the men and women in blue jeans who speak a language I understand and whose tear-stained faces make the morning paper in my country, which I read over a cup of coffee. Like it is normal; like it is far away from me. Like I do not care.

May the first step to peace begin with the end of my own ignorance. May the first step to peace lie in the recognition of our neighbors' deepest sufferings. May the first step to peace be our hands folded in prayer, our hearts lifted up each day for those men and women whose tear-stained faces are only small color photographs in our daily papers.

Green bananas can be deceiving & libraries are just walk-in treasure chests.

2010-11-04T11:22:00.003-04:00

It's one of those rainy mornings where the clock tells you it's nearly noon but you think it must surely be mistaken. "Why am I out of my bed?" you wonder to yourself perpetually throughout the day. "Why did I decide mascara was a good idea in this weather?" "Why have I not completed the three writing assignments I still have to complete?" "Why is this green banana edible?"

Because it is not only edible, but delicious. Just the perfect banana-way to be. Which, I must tell you, is very hard to come by. I am a banana snob. I will not fain to eat a banana that is even the slightest bit bruised, squishy, or brown. The mere thought alone makes me feel weak in the knees. But apparently, all this time, while I passed by the green bananas in the store, I was missing an important memo. Surely, something must be wrong that their outside skins stay a putrid shade of green but their insides taste perfectly banana-acceptable. We could probably attribute it to the fact that most of us Americans, though knowledgable on the status of Jenn Aniston's love life, have not a clue as to where our produce tip-toes in here from. But this short morning ramble's purpose is not for me to wax poetic on the status of our declining ecology and environmental awareness. Although, after a very enlightening lecture last week on the Theology of Creation, I must say that I am not immune to those things...

But no. Today's post is simply to exalt the library. Whoever decided to build fortresses made of books was a genius, indeed. Ever since I first saw The Beauty and the Beast I have wondered in the concept of walls made not of mortar, brick, wood, or steel, but of books! Books, glorious books!

My mother I know, is not the greatest fan of my packing skills. I tend to fill twice as many boxes with books as with winter clothing. But it is for this very reason: I enjoy, more than anything, being surrounded by paper. Bound, old, stiff, yellowing papers. That have peculiar smells about them, depending on their ages, makes, countries of origins. Books of poetry, of adventure, of classic gothic romance, of saints and sinners, of pictures of far-off places. I might not get everywhere in this lifetime, but I have traveled further in my imagination than any plane might ever take me. Sometimes when I fall asleep at night, it is to the sound of a bitter wind rushing in on the castle walls of Hogwarts. And sometimes I dream that I am in a buggy trailing the countryside of Prince Edward Island during the spring, when the dogwood trees are all in bloom.

Thank you, God, for libraries. For places that are old and safe and grounded in intellect, adventure, imagination, and creativity. And for rainy mornings that allow us to take delight in old, dim, dusty places such as these. (And thank you for green bananas, even though they be unnatural and ugly.) Amen.

A Case of the Tuesdays

2010-11-02T17:47:00.004-04:00

They happen every so often. When the sky is moody, and I am sick, and cannot figure out how to neither be too hot nor too cold. When I wake up from bad dreams and sometimes they come true. When my kitchen table is covered with articles that are supposed to be helping me write an 8-page paper, but all I can muster up the energy to do is watch yesterday's episode of Gossip Girl and make another cup of tea. When I dream of running away, somewhere where I can see my hands doing good work, and my love being received and returned a thousand-fold.

No one likes a complainer. It is frowned upon to project one's every feeling to her social network. I know this. But sometimes, when I am having A Case of the Tuesdays, I just need to throw my troubles to the wind, or to the wide world of bloggers, to know that they are silly, trite, small peas compared to the troubles of others. I need to speak them out loud, once, to feel their empty weight slip off of my tongue, to know that they are small, soft as feathers. Nothing in the grand scheme of things. All will be well. This too shall pass. And as my mother would tell me, a little bit of chocolate can cure anything. So I'm off to raid the cupboard once more.

Dear November,

2010-11-01T22:33:00.002-04:00

With your arrival, we wave adieu to the autumn, get our ovens' going for some more turkey dinners, and crank out the Ella Fitzgerald Holiday albums once more. And with your arrival, I welcome in my twenty-fourth year of life.

Thank you for reminding me that we are a people of resurrection. That the seasons come and go and that we are always better for the progression from summer to fall to winter to spring. Thank you for the last of your brilliant colors before you lead us into a colder, darker season.

I did not think that I would ring in your arrival in on this coast. Or that I would be away from home once more on another birthday. But life & God have a funny way of taking us by the hand and leading us to unexpected horizons. So here I am. And here you are.

Funny, but I spent your very first morning waking up in my old home on Bryant St. NW, in Washington. Walking down the steps to that creaky, charming old house with Lucas, just like it was last year at this time. Except now we're just a bit older, a bit more experienced, and immersed in our various academias.

We crunch-crunched through the dusty brown leaves on Bryant St. and we sat in Starbucks, ruminating on friendship, and how it happens so organically, so much without ever knowing it. I remembered the way he used to talk about Gonzaga, and how I could not understand such a pull, as my college days were not so blissful. But now, we sat together and I realized that the ways in which I am holding on to JVC, to the friends I fell in love with so effortlessly, must be the same as his attachment to his college days.

Friendship is a funny thing, oh birth month of mine. We all want, so badly, to be known. To be loved. To be called by name. I want this, and yet, I often mistakenly tell myself that if I only I loved without ceasing, every person that crossed my path, my love, unreturned, unrequited, would be quite enough.

This is an untruth. Our lives are devoid of all meaning if we do not love; if we are not beloved.

And so, with your shorter days and your lovely colors, dear November, please help me as I continue to grow roots in this place. As I continue to forgive myself my shortcomings, to try to love my neighbor to the best my heart is able, to love God even more.

Thank you for, twenty-four years ago, giving me a place and a moment in time to belong to and to call my own.

Love, Kristina

The Face of Love

2010-10-29T07:56:00.003-04:00

It's kind of like falling in love. Once you meet the person you love, your life changes. And if you moved far away from him, your heart would still call out to him. And when you love her, her hurt becomes your own. You would never want to hear that he was suffering, that she was cold, or hungry, or in pain. Falling in love, it changes the way that you see the world. No matter where you go, you see the face of the person whose heart you have known, and you miss him.

I had always considered myself to care about the poor, in the way a good Christian woman ought to. But my concern was not personal, and the fact that I did not see poverty on a daily basis in my Californian home town never bothered me. But DC changed me. Because I miss those faces dearly. And I miss being a part of a community that is colorful in its income levels, in its ethnicities, in its religious beliefs.

I don't know what God has in store for my life. But I am realizing that I can not live forever in such an isolated place. There is something so strange about being so separated from the low-income community I came to know in DC. I have so much privilege that was just given me to at birth, and I appreciate it for the blessings and opportunities it has provided me with, but I hate the way that it separates me from the rest of the world.

I miss the face of love.

places been & seen

2010-10-28T23:13:00.003-04:00

"I don't take for granted places been and seen,

The sun is up, the autumn trees.

It takes my energy to go up and down,

Around.

I think you know."

-Denison Witmer, "Reaching"

light & darkness, but not black & white.

2010-10-26T23:19:00.001-04:00

We are a people of light and darkness. To deny that truth, we are denying our very nature. We have all been blessed and we have all been broken. We walk around every day as persons with bits of different people and different places instilled in our every being. To say that at any one moment, we are whole, we are collected, we are perfectly pieced together, we are isolated from the world, would be a grand fiction, no matter how comforting the thought might be. From the moment we are born, we offer our lives to those around us. We love and we are loved. We have our hearts broken again and again. And with each soul that we meet, our own souls are shaken, moved, and transformed. We are a people of light and darkness.

Montjuïc

2010-10-23T10:34:00.002-04:00

"Ten days of perfect tunes
The colors, red and blue."

-José González, "Heartbeats"

I dream so often of returning here.

Have you?

2010-10-23T10:21:00.003-04:00

And did you feel it, in your heart, how it pertained to everything?
And have you too finally figured out what beauty is for?
And have you changed your life?

-Mary Oliver, excerpt from "The Swan"

This whole post is just walking irony.

2010-10-21T16:54:00.005-04:00

I am quite good at being distracted. Like right now, I have two mini papers I need to work on, that are due tonight. And I have at least three other bigger papers not due today that I really should be working on. And I have literally stacks of books that I need to read. But instead (and I should know better- this always happens when I am in the STM grad student lounge with Cara) I am listening to Paul Simon, drinking chai tea, watching the sun as it does some crazy dance with the clouds through the autumn leaves outside of all of these windows. I am blogging. And thinking about the weekend. And Michelle's visit. And seeing my parents next weekend. I am remembering that I have bills to pay. And that I need to get a new laundry card. And put the rest of my chili in the freezer. The New Yorker had this article on procrastination last week. I heard some ladies chatting about it last night before Roger Haight's talk on Ignatian Spirituality. I read it this morning, although, as I was reading it, I literally pulled up five other pages on Safari, in an effort to see what classes I should choose next semester, email Sarah back about being a Eucharistic Minister tomorrow, turn something in on Blackboard, and check my bank account. Um, excuse me? What has technology done to my generation? Why is procrastination so thrilling to me? Why am I still writing this?!

What Else Were We Made For?

2010-10-19T17:14:00.002-04:00

Some people may call me crazy. And maybe I am.

But I am just going to say this, because I believe it to be true.

When we get right down to it—whether you are Muslim, Christian, Jewish, whether you are Buddhist, Hindu, Sikh, atheist, agnostic; whether you are a man or a woman; whether you were born in the middle of a white privileged American suburb, or a small Pakistani war-torn town— we were made to love.

So many times in my life, I struggle with when to open my heart. And most of the time, I let the doors fall loose before I consider all the options closely. The hinges unhinge and the birds that live inside of my heart just flutter on out, no holds barred. And yes, it terrifies me. And yes, it leads to damage. When birds of elation fly like that, who knows where they will end up. Probably somewhere so far over the metaphorical rainbow that they will never be seen again. And it hurts.

It hurts to lose pieces of our hearts. And I am certainly not commending the loose way in which I perceive what it is to love. In which I usually do love. It is reckless, foolish, and completely irrational.

But what else was Jesus talking about, when he asked us to love our neighbor as ourselves? And what about MLK- all that “loving your enemy” stuff? Agape? What about Mother Teresa, who once said that she found the “paradox that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love?”

It’s food for thought and it’s the question that gets me through the day. There are too many people in this world, and there is not enough time. People are lonely, cold, suffering. And maybe we cannot shelter each and every weary soul, but we can actually offer them something more sustainable, more beautiful. And that something is the thing that God has already planted in each of our hearts: the capacity to love.

So on this late fall day, when the sun is plum high in the sky, and my belly is full, and my family is healthy and safe, when I am reaping in blessings left and right and can want for nothing… I ask you to take stock of the things in your life that mean something to you. You have been blessed. We all have. So let’s keep the cycle moving. And let’s allow our hearts to fly open more often. Even if it’s irrational and even if it’s risky. We have nothing stronger, nothing purer, and nothing more beautiful to offer one another than the gift of love.

When yellow leaves, or none, or few do hang.

2010-10-18T13:44:00.006-04:00

There are days such as this one, when joy comes so easily. Maybe it is the fact that I woke up and went to the gym for the first time in weeks. Or maybe it is the sun, which seems to take on a personality of its own in the fall, when it dapples every single yellow, red, orange leaf and makes them to shine in its brilliance. Maybe it is the turkey-cranberry sandwich and minestrone soup I had for lunch. Or that I went to mass smack-dab in the middle of the day, and our cantor/ guitar-player was joined by a fiddle player. And they sang my favorite song, "The Summons:"

Will you come and follow me if I but call your name?
Will you go where you don't know and never be the same?
Will you let my love be shown? Will you let my name be known,
will you let my life be grown in you and you in me?

What beautiful words. And what a lovely day. Fall is finally here in a real way. We have been having 60 degree days and frosty evenings, and I have tucked my sandals away for another season. But for the first time in a long time, I am not dreading the winter. I am rejoicing in the fall. I always think of Billy Shakes around this time of the year, and his Sonnet 73:

That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.

I loved those words the very first time I read them, junior year of high school, when Brother Aquinas asked us to memorize them. I incorporated them into a piece of artwork I was working on, with a reflection of myself as a child in a crystal ball looking at my older self. I don't think that I understood the full meaning behind this sonnet until last year, though. And the way in which my soul usually does somewhat recoil in the colder times of the year. The lustrous brilliance and joy of the autumn eventually passes- this I know. I am a person who delights in the warmth of the sun.

But this time around, I am attempting to practice mindfulness. To be entirely in the moment. To feel God's love in each second of every day. To not get ahead of myself in desiring a future time, and to not lose myself in remembering the past. Joy is in the present. This day is a perfect reminder of that.

And today, I am happy.

Hearts and Bones

2010-10-12T14:10:00.004-04:00

Moultinborough, NH

"One and one-half wandering Jews
Return to their natural coasts
To resume old acquaintances
Step out occasionally
And speculate who had been damaged the most
Easy time will determine if these consolations
Will be their reward
The arc of a love affair
Waiting to be restored
You take two bodies and you twirl them into one
Their hearts and their bones
And they won't come undone."

-Paul Simon, "Hearts and Bones"

The Smile of the Great Spirit

2010-10-11T10:03:00.003-04:00

My love affair with water began reluctantly. “Run,” they yelled. And so I ran. “Under the wave!” And so I dove. Into the ocean, which only moments before had been uninviting, unfamiliar, cold.

I was twelve, and I didn’t understand the first thing about romance. Or the way in which those experiences that seem the scariest can bring with them, instantaneously sometimes, the most incredible, fulfilling, wondrous sense of joy. My mom had forced me to swim as a child and I hated it with a passion, like the way I hated ballet, and softball, and all other sports that required coordination and contact intertwined with the need to please adults. I flailed in the deep end of the swimming pool, my wispy hairs escaping my cap, my fingers pruning, my graceful little cohorts speeding past me mercilessly. I longed to sit quietly on the sofa in the early morning summer light, reading Louisa May Alcott as I sipped a cup of tea the way that Nana made it: sugar, sugar, sugar, milk. I would never be as fast as my siblings, and I would never win a blue ribbon.

But then my mom signed me up for Jr. Lifeguards and on that first day, in my baggy red shorts that pleated most awkwardly, I plummeted into the Pacific Ocean like a fish who’s been out of the sea for just about too long. Gracelessly, yes: my little limbs fighting to stay afloat amidst currents and other graceless adolescent swimmers. But the water was not unkind to me. Diving under that first generous wave, I was surprised at the fluidity of the motion: of being lifted by the hand of the water itself, ascending above the top in a swirl of foam and warmth.

When you grow up near water, you figure new destinations on your life map as more than distances far away from home. You look for the blue, whether it be a dot, a puddle, or a heaven on an unfolded road map. Home is a little bit more than the summation of your loved ones. It is a place that smells like sea salt, where pigeons squawk over your lunch tables, and your car almost always has the smallest trace of sand in the crease of your driver’s seat.

Yesterday, in Moultonborough, New Hampshire, I was suddenly transported home. I remembered distinctly a day that Uncle Matty took me out on IV Philip. I was maybe fifteen, and attempting to make memories on purpose. You know, take a memory like a photograph, preserve it in my mind. And click. The water was warm that day. My whole family together somewhere, miles away on the dock. Nothing but the wind at my fingertips and on my face, and the water rippling out behind us as far as my eye could see. I told myself that life was going to be ok, that one day when I was forty, I would look back on that moment and smile. That my awkward crush on my best friend’s older brother would never be so important. That I would grow up.

And I did. At least, in some ways. Sitting in the passenger seat of Uncle Jim’s unnamed speed boat, holding fast to my seat beneath me with both hands, and watching the New England fall speed past me, and I in the middle of it all, in all that water… it was like déjà vu of that nostalgic day in Lake Arrowhead when I was a teenager.

I still don’t know a ton about life. I still know only that God blesses us with more love than we know what to do with, than we realize. That my attempts to look outside of myself, outside of the water that dipped and curved beneath me yesterday and took my breath away in its chill, are nonsensical.

Like the day I first put my head under, in the ocean, when I was a child, yesterday morning I again recognized the vastness of the world that only waits for us to explore it. I saw the limitations that I have been imposing on myself, the anxieties and fears that I have created, and I saw them float away, somewhere out to the infinite ends of Lake Winnipesaukee, to the “Smile of the Great Spirit.”

We have been given more love than we will ever understand or know how to hold in both our hands. Best to look it straight in the eye, dive in, find ourselves at home in the midst of it. Worlds and pools and oceans exist just for our exploration, our joy. May we find some kind of hope in that, some kind of knowing and meaning and utter transcendence in the beauty of this world… in the love that God has poured out for us.

Let That Be Enough

2010-10-11T00:23:00.005-04:00

Sometimes, it helps to call on old friend at 11:45 at night to ask his perspective when you've had such a week as this one. Someone to tell you that 1) you're not creepy, 2) you make nice envelopes and 3) you need more sleep. And to reassure you that most of your "crazy" is inside of your own head.

Sometimes I feel so far away from home. But then I hear Tricia on the other end of the phone, telling me to drink a glass of wine and watch Gilmore Girls, or Adam, laughing with me and reminding me that I am at least halfway sane.

Or I am in New Hampshire on a Sunday morning with my Uncle Jim, on Lake Winnipesaukee, and the 40 degree wind is blowing my hair from my ponytail and all the leaves are red and yellow and the world is whizzing by me. And it's just like being home again. In Lake Arrowhead. In Uncle Matty's boat, surrounded by the people who love me and know me best.

These are the realities of my life: friends like Ellen, Tricia, Adam, and all the others who know me and laugh at me in my worst moments, offering me hope and insight and the reassurance of their unconditional love. Family: the Connors, who are here and who have welcomed me into their home like they have known me all their lives. And my parents and siblings, the Niscos... my family at home who never feel entirely far away.

I have spent the weekend simultaneously thrilled at life (at the inexhaustible beauty of nature, and the warmth of the Connors family) and angry with myself (for my foolishnesses, overzealousness, for those fancies which tend to bring out the worst in me). I have wondered about my ever-insistent need to love with such fervor that it frightens (and almost always defines) me.

Ed Vacek, and God maybe, would say that such love is never in vain. And maybe this one agrees sometimes-- this one 23-year-old woman who has behaved more like a girl this past week.

But then I remember something else. And that is... I have enough. I have enough love in all the faces I already know and hold in my pocket-- near and dear to my heart. I love and am loved so much back by my family, by my good friends, by God. And this sort of love is real, and true. And not foolish, or insistent, rushed or impractical.

It is perfect. And it is enough. Thanks, Adam, God, and Lake Winnipesaukee for reminding me.

Some Days

2010-10-06T13:18:00.000-04:00

Some days... some cold, wet days when the sun never comes out and my ceiling light goes out, I wish I could hear God's voice in a real, loud, booming kind of way. Not just inside of my head, not just as a tug on my heart, but really there. In the room. Talking to me. "Hey."

Maybe if I knew what God's voice sounded like, I wouldn't play these silly games. And I would always know what to do, which path to take. I would stop reading old emails that only make me sad. I would stop thinking that history repeats itself. I would have hope in a future that is new, clean, untarnished.

Some days are not all days. Most days are just wonderful. The sun comes up, there is hope, and I believe that love might possibly be something real. Something tangible.

For some reason, I feel a bit low on the hope meter right now. And dear Sarah McLaughlin, you are sure not helping.

But the weather forecast has promised us sun tomorrow. And I suppose there is always hope in that.

2010-10-05T13:51:00.004-04:00

"Sitting on Rosa's moth-littered bed, he felt a resurgence of all the aches and inspirations of those days when his life had revolved around nothing but Art, when snow fell like the opening piano notes of the Emperor Concerto, and feeling horny reminded him of a passage from Nietzsche, and a thick red-streaked dollop of crimson paint in an otherwise uninteresting Velásquez made him hungry for a piece of rare meat."

-Michael Chabon

Birds flyin' high...

2010-09-30T09:17:00.005-04:00

Well, I have been in Boston now for just about a month, which is kind of crazy to me. Never before has 4 weeks flown by so quickly. Gosh, sometimes my mind and heart find themselves back in the month of June, and now it's going to be October! I will never stop marveling at the passage of time.

Life has settled down here... in the ways it can settle. I mean, the apartment is set up, I have somewhat of a weekly routine, I am now in the 4th week of classes. But at the same time, it still feels like there is so much to do! That's the blessing of having so many good friends in the city... Lis, Christian, Rosemary, Matt, Amanda, and all my other FJV friends... my roommate Bianca, my cousin Evan and his boyfriend Jon, not to mention Evan's family (who lives outside of the city) whom I have had the pleasure of spending plenty of time with, and all my new friends from the STM! I feel very lucky to have such a great network of people who are already in my life. At the same time, I am well aware that my life is not about to slow down anytime soon. There is simply too much to do!

In the past few weeks, I ran the Susan G. Komen 5K with my cousin Amanda, I gave my first grad school presentation, I have written at least 4 papers already, I have had countless dinners with Lis and Mo (Lis' lovely roommate), I went to Upton to visit family, I went to the movies once with Rosemary and once with Bianca, I went to Providence, R.I. with a classmate for lunch at her family's home, and I have shared so many other lovely meals at the homes of my new friends. Tomorrow I am going to New York City to visit Kierstin, Emily, Nick, Jon, maybe Tricia, and Beth & Ry! I can't wait.

My decision to stay on the east coast has only been a wonderful one so far. As much as I will always miss my family, I don't feel that desperate kind of homesickness that stayed with me for so much of my time in D.C. last year. Life is kind of great here... a little too great, really! I mean, I am taking all of these absolutely incredible classes and learning about theology and spirituality and social justice and ministry to others... everything that I am passionate about. I am living in this absolutely beautiful apartment, in an incredible city. I am surrounded by wonderful friends and family. I am young and single and every single day feels like an adventure at this point. So I am feelin' good. I am at home here.

Now one last important thing... GO EAGLES!

On Honeybees, Love, and Adulthood (Revisited)

2010-09-29T08:20:00.004-04:00

The smell of the honeybees brought me home. I lifted that lid off the Langstroth hive and it was the warm musty scent of smoke, sugar, and worn-in wood that blew in my face like the answer to a prayer I had never prayed. Sweet Jesus, send me grace. And the grace was manifest, yellow, alive. And the smell was like a Sunday copy of The Los Angeles Times being tossed into our brick fireplace and burning there all slow and careless. And I was sitting on the steps in front of my childhood home, holding my head in my hands, August sun high in the sky, heart in my stomach, waiting. The smell of the bees reached right down deep to my stomach: a rush of adrenaline, a family of butterflies. Waiting for Bobby again, eighteen years old and hopelessly enamored, hair in waves around my face, small beads of sweat rolling lazily down the bridge of my nose. Summertime in California with the boy I loved. Burning newspapers. Something slow and easy, lazy and graceful all at once.

Laura handed me the frame, and I held it to my face, and I felt no fear. For weeks and so many bedtimes, I had juggled a ball of anxiety in both hands. And now I dropped it to hold the baby bees in my open, gloved palms. They swarmed about my face like a force-field of yellow light. Laura smoked them and they calmed, settling on flowers and grass and wood, settling on me and my white silly outfit. On my head and on my legs, but I couldn’t feel them. Just see them and smell them. And oh, that smell.

No one ever tells you the moment when you become an adult. Apparently, it is something that happens over the course of many many moons. Not all at once, and never in just a moment. I was still unsure of my status. But when I smelled the smell of the honeybees and their warmth touched my face, I knew what it meant to be a child again, and in that same way, I knew that I had become an adult. A grown-up woman who knew how to prevent her eyelids from closing against her own will at nighttime in front of the television. Who could fight heavy eyelids and internal cues, for whom the power of Disney Channel original movies had lost their magic. Kyle and Ella waved to me from the screen door of their kitchen, jumping and shouting and asking about the bees. And I remembered my fifth birthday and sitting in the computer room way before it was my bedroom, hiding from my mom and holding my hand up in front of the mirrored wall. Five fingers, one whole hand. Kyle’s age. And I thought I was the queen of the world. And now, twenty-two years and not enough hands to count it. So far away from my bedroom, no more mirrored walls, and living too far away for my mother to kiss me goodnight. And all that time never knowing that love could be as simple as the smell of honeybees in the Washington summer.

Written September 17, 2009

2010-09-27T14:19:00.002-04:00

(A sleepy morning in Prague- July 2009)

But the clouds are clearing up
And I've come reveling
Burning incandescently.

-Passion Pit, "Moth's Wings"

blue skies, italian pastries, and kenny chesney.

2010-09-26T07:51:00.006-04:00

"She never really knew how good it would feel
To finally find herself in a place so warm and real...(Ricotta pie and a latte on a Sunday morning in the North End)

Her toes dig deep and deeper in the sand
She's seduced by the sunsets and her new life at hand...
(The Reservoir at sunset)

She's from Boston..."

(The waterfront near the WTC)

An Inspired Definition of "Catholicism"

2010-09-22T14:31:00.004-04:00

The principle on which Catholicism stands or falls is rather the conviction that the world, the human person, and the human experience in the world are pluses and not minuses, that ordinary experience and finite reality of any kind have a capacity to be diaphanous of infinite meaning and bearers of God's revelation.

-Stephen Bevans, Theology in Global Perspective p. 190

I try to steer clear of mentioning Catholicism on this blog. It is my faith tradition, and I am now a scholar of theology at a Catholic institution, but ever since college, I have found it difficult to ascertain the specifics of my belief system in a public sphere. Mostly because, as a daughter of the 21st century, an alumna of a public university, and someone who strives to be as PC as possible (probably because Ellen is her best friend...), I never want to find that my words are turning people away.

I understand that we all hold certain truths that are personal to us, and that my Catholic faith is not something to be shy about, but at the same time, I find that in conversation with most people, I would much rather focus on our common ground: "spirituality" rather than religion; "open-mindedness" rather than liberal or conservative.

So why post this quotation? Well, I happened upon this today in an assigned text that I was rushing through at the very last minute, and it made so much sense to me! Catholicism doesn't have to be something that divides me from others. It can be a common ground, after all.

In this definition of "Catholicism," Bevans very simply, yet eloquently, grasps just exactly why it is that I keep returning through my church's doors each Sunday, this idea that "ordinary experience" can be a means to the divine. He also talks a lot about doctrine versus principle. About how we are more than an antiquated mumble-jumble of rules, tradition, scripture... we are a people who hope in this principle that we have meaning, the world has meaning, and that the world is good... because of God.

And so we act upon our various theologies, our personal belief systems, in such a way to reflect that goodness. By reaching out in compassion to the poor and to one another. By coming together rather than falling away from one another.

I am Catholic, yes, but more than that, I am a believer in the hope of a future church that will recognize, just as Bevans does, that all are equal in God's eyes, "pluses rather than minuses," and that our sole purpose on earth is to restore that equanimity through acts of love. This agapic love for all is perhaps the first "religion," or "set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe," (according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary), that I identify with.

Transcendence on a Monday

2010-09-20T14:29:00.007-04:00

My sister Michelle has a beautiful, almost magical way of capturing the essence of a person, a place, or an object with one photograph. Somehow, the way she blends light, color, shadow, depth- the subject of her focus transcends into its true potential.

I was just sitting here, marveling in the peace of this Monday afternoon, watching as the sun casted shadows that fell and disappeared onto my kitchen table, wondering about how it is possible to do such a thing as Michelle does- that is, to capture the essence of something in a picture. It is certainly possible but it is not something I have been blessed with doing in an artistic sense. That is why I start so many paintings without finishing them- because I find myself struggling to truly bring to life an object- and because without that vitality, the image seems to fall flat from under my brush.

But writing, writing is where I find a release in every sense. In the magic of words, the blend of rhythm, phonetics, syntax- one sentence can become something real. Something else. An escape, a refuge, a means of enlightenment. I wonder in writing- not so much because of what flows out of me, but because while it flows, I can feel like my most authentic self. And in these past few weeks, reading the texts that are amazingly, simply my course books, I am aware again and again, of the power & enlightenment that exists in literature. That is simply there for the taking, because one wise person let his her pen flow, let her heart open up widely.

I am utterly grateful that God gifted each of us with a means of self-expression. That my sister holds the power of transcendence through the click of her finger and the gift of her sight. That my mother is constantly gifting us with home-baked delicacies that truly radiate her love (and passion for chocolate!) That my father has discovered within himself a green thumb, and that I am the recipient of his beautiful, plump tomatoes and other vegetables upon every visit back to California. We are so much more than people. We are truly living art- alive for the purpose of glorifying God and radiating God's love to those around us with our various means of expression- so that they too might love, and love, and love, and love. And the glorious thing is this: that this circle of transcendence, love, and giving will never end.

A Brief Update from BC

2010-09-07T14:56:00.004-04:00

Welp. I haven't really had internet access in the past week or so until this moment. I just finished my first day of courses at BC's School of Theology & Ministry- STM, if you will. Both of my courses this morning were fascinating and wonderful in all the ways I had hoped they would be. Tomorrow and Thursday will finish off my week and I am sure there are even more exciting things to come!

Boston is just as magical as I always idealized it as being. (We're still in the month of September, mind you.) I feel like I barely have a grasp on the geography of the city, but everything I have seen so far has been great. Yesterday, I met up with my cousins Evan & Amanda, and Evan's boyfriend Jon, who are all just wonderful people. We went to lunch at Cityside, near Evan & Jon's apartment (which is only 1.5 miles away from where I live!), had beers on their awesome new roof deck, and went on a lovely walk around the Res (I am slowly grasping the lingo). It was the perfect day for a walk. I am still marveling at how wonderful it is to have the Connors (Evan, Amanda, their brother Graham, and their parents Jim and June) nearby. They are such an incredible family and I feel so lucky to have this opportunity to spend more time with them. They have been more than welcoming and just so kind to me. Their presence truly makes me feel at home here.

The STM is mind-blowing. Literally. Every person I have met so far has been fascinating, kind, and has a interesting background. We had orientation last week and it was capped off with a beautiful Mass. I kind of cannot believe that this place is going to be my study-grounds. Also- private schools are so fancy! I have been to countless receptions (with even more to come!) that have had wine and cheese and all sorts of hors d'oeuvre-y things. Even the bathrooms are nice! It's kind of crazy to me, but I guess I understand where all my money is going now!

My new apartment is lovely, and my roommate Bianca is as well. She and I share a similar sense of humor, taste in foodstuffs, music, and values. She is a breath of fresh air, really. And we have had a grand time making our space our own. We have become quite taken with the color red in our decorating process and soon I will post some pictures to show you! Our place is so ridiculously extravagant to a very-recent FJV. I cannot get over how big my new bed is (a gift from my late Uncle Jim- Evan's grandfather), or how shiny and hotel-like our bathroom is. It is so nice that I probably won't ever be able to match its niceness, certainly not next year or the year after on a graduate student's budget. It seems that B and I just really lucked out this time around!

My dad was here to help me move in last week and his presence was much appreciated. I truly could not have made this transition without him. Besides his supreme skills at moving furniture (and Evan's as well), his laid-back and patient nature made the chaos of moving so much nicer. We had some great meals, a nice walk along the Freedom Trail, and wonderful chats. I certainly have both of my parents to thank for my faith-life, and it was great to be able to share with my father where his inspiration and all that he has taught me is now taking me.

In the past week, I have been thinking a lot about JVC and missing the lifestyle very much. I expect this is a normal thing for any FJV, and something my dear FJV friends are also experiencing. I miss my housemates deeply, and my clients and co-workers as well. I miss all the places I used to walk to, and my little bed in the room I shared with Em. I know that as I become more adjusted to my life in Boston, the pangs of nostalgia will fade more gradually away, but for now, they are very real.

But in the meanwhile, as I acquire a schedule and slip back into the school routine, I continue to remind myself that I am here for a reason. And I truly feel God's grace in this place. So that is all for now.

Carpe Diem, lads!

the long road

2010-08-21T18:49:00.004-04:00

"Will I walk the long road?/ I cannot stay.
There's no need to say goodbye.
Oh, the friends and family
All the memories going round
Round, round, round..."
-Eddie Vedder

I did it.

2010-08-20T12:28:00.005-04:00

So it's not the most attractive picture. But it's the picture of a girl (woman) who conquered insomnia, angry mosquitoes, two blizzards, one record-breaking heat wave, living in an intentional community, and working with D.C.'s most vulnerable citizens for 365 days.

And let me tell you, I was not at my most attractive this year. I was bug-bitten. (Forty-eight swollen, purple times on one count last August.) And sweaty. And tired. And a bit pudgy, thanks to a very carb-friendly diet and "hibernation" in the winter months, as my mother called it. But around May, when I was able to successfully button my jeans again (spring was a bit kinder to me), I realized, with shock, that I wasn't that excited. It didn't matter anymore. That's what JVC does to you. It ruins you. I realize that the phrase "Ruined for Life" may not be so appropriate for ordinary things such as not caring when you can't fit into your pants, but let me tell you, it definitely works.

When I arrived back in Orange County two weeks ago after hiking 30 miles on the Appalachian Trail, I was a bit surprised to remember that most people actually don't arrive to work dripping in sweat. And most people don't walk anywhere. And most people shower on a somewhat-daily basis (I was still in camping-mode). And most people find the idea of sharing a $90/ week food budget with 5 other people who are not family a bit weird. And most people don't know the name of the homeless man standing at the freeway off-ramp. And that is just fine. Life goes on for them.

But for me, my life has been defined by these things for the past 12 months. My neighbors in D.C. were people that my neighbors in Orange County would probably be scared of. My friends' incomes all dipped far below the poverty line. Sure, it was an experiment. Take a bunch of kids from upper-middle class families, situate them in low-income neighborhoods, watch how they grow. But it worked. And now, re-integrating myself back into society, there is too much that I cannot close my eyes to. There is too much that I cannot take for granted anymore. I almost want to wince at how predictable these feelings I am having must be. But at the same time, I am still shocked that I have become the woman I have become. I don't have to pretend anymore to care about social issues that I "should" care about, because those social issues affected people I intimately cared about this year. And they matter to me. In a lot of ways, it feels like God opened up my heart and stretched it out... and I will never be able to close it. Not to injustice, not to ignorance, not to love.

And so, sitting in my Orange County kitchen on a beautiful morning in August, I am filled with wonder and affection and gratitude for the blessings I was given this year. For my messy, sweaty, glorious self. And the people who loved me despite my misgivings, bad moments, and slow learning curve. I did it- no, we did it. Here's to the best F earned in all our lives-- the "F" in Former Jesuit Volunteer.

"These are days you'll remember
Never before and never since, I promise
Will the whole world be warm as this
And as you feel it,
You'll know it's true
That you are blessed and lucky
It's true that you
Are touched by something
That will grow and bloom in you."
-10000 Maniacs

A Year of Mornings

2010-07-23T08:21:00.003-04:00

Every morning that has passed this year has been almost exactly the same. And though I have always been a morning person, something about the morning-time this year will always be set apart.

Every morning, I wake up and put on a song while I change my clothes and brush my hair. Eat cereal in the dining room with the lights still off if there was enough light in the sky outside. Drink hot or iced coffee with milk from a tumbler or a Mason jar as I walk down Bryant St.

Some mornings, the sky was gray and rain tumbled down like it was being poured from a heavy canteen of water. (I had never known a rain that could soak through my clothes in only an instant.) Some mornings, it was cold. So cold that I didn’t dare to fumble with my iPod for even a second and expose my fingertips to the elements. Some mornings, it was so hot that I arrived at work with backpack-strap sweat marks and tan lines on my feet. And some mornings, in April, it was just perfect. And a breeze that was flying in from somewhere northeast of us settled upon the trees and blew soft pink petals to the pavement, and the sun was high in the sky: not too brilliant, but just warm enough to say “It’s Spring.”

Each morning, I walk down Bryant St., past the Bryant Street Pumping Station that looks like an out-of-place castle on our sleepy street.

Past the Howard Playground, where Emily and Tricia used to do calisthenics after work, where I have a picture of Emily trudging through waist-deep snow, where daisies precariously bobbed their shiny yellow heads from the sidewalk-cracks in May. Past the Howard campus itself, and the dormitories that were so quiet when all of the students went home.

Then I turn and cut down the path in front of the science library. Once upon a fall’s day, Lucas and Tricia and I would walk down this path together on our way to work, crunching through leaves and arguing over everything under the moon.Passionate conversations before our second cups of coffee were kind of our thing. Now, I walk quietly and note the changes in the summer flowers that stand where once only old snow and clumpy bare bushes stood.
I walk around the corner of W St. and onto Georgia Avenue, and peer into the window at the Medical Arts Center at my passing reflection. I remember walking down Georgia, Kierstin leading the way, the day after we moved in, when it seemed so scary to me. Living in a city after growing up in the suburbs of Southern California was a hard adjustment. But now, the broken windows and the bars over them are not unfamiliar to me. They are simply acknowledgments that I am a resident of a tightly-packed neighborhood in the heart of DC.

Georgia Avenue is constantly bustling. People walking to work, people peddling bicycles, cars lined up and waiting for the lights to turn green. There are the men who hang on the corners and sell newspapers, water, flowers, and bags of chips. And there are the men who hang on the corners just to pass the time. They yell greetings when I walk by, and their greetings turn even more boisterous when Emily and I run by. On the corner of Florida and Georgia there is a cell-phone store that is forever booming rap and R&B mixes out of its door. There are a few regulars who like to stand on that corner and just sway to that music like their lives depend on it. When I am talking to my mom on the phone, I have to ask her to wait 45 seconds for the walk sign to blink before I can hear her talking over that music. I will miss that obnoxious cell-phone store with all my heart.
I walk down Georgia, as it turns into 7th St. Past the Shaw-Howard metro station and the daycare center where babies with afros wave at me through the window, past the funky intersection of Rhode Island and 7th St. that took weeks to be plowed and that I used to slosh through in my heavy winter boots. Past the brand-spanking new library that will open just weeks after I move (and replace the small, humble trailer where I used to check out my Rumi and Langston Hughes). Past the 7-Eleven where Hannah, Jo and I treat ourselves to way too much iced-coffee on a regular basis. Past the Ethiopian restaurant and the dollar store and Tiki’s. Right on through the gates of Bread for the City, where I turn my key in the door and am greeted by the people I have come to love and an air-conditioned space (who could ask for more?).

I didn’t choose to volunteer in a foreign country. I have always felt called to stay in my own country, to start with the basic needs of the people who live around me. To learn Spanish so that I could communicate (in a stumbling kind of way) with my neighbors. I know that partially, this need to stay in America was born out of fear of the unknown. But this strikes me as funny now, twelve months after moving to DC, because this year has been anything but familiar to me. From the historic blizzard that swept through DC in mid-February, to the record-breaking heat wave this summer, to the earthquake we had just last week (these things just gravitate toward me, I swear), I have seen more than my fair share of weather anomalies.

But it is not merely the weather that has rocked this California girl’s universe. It is the brick row-houses that shine proudly in every color imaginable, and the narrow, almost delicate, alley-ways that sprout small jungles and hide secret gardens. It is the very fact that I live in the heart of a major city, which knows more than its fair share of violence and crime, and can sit on my back deck and be umbrella-ed by flowering trees and quietness. And, of course, it is the people. The fact that I speak Spanish for half of my work-day, and that I spend many of my hours in intimate walk-in rooms with people from far-off lands: Ethiopia, Nigeria, El Salvador, Russia, Romania, Kenya, China, India. The way it has felt, adjusting to walking down the street and hearing men call me names that make my intestines want to shrivel up. The way it has felt to be a minority in my neighborhood, on the bus, at the park, with the people that I serve. The strangeness of making a family from scratch in a 100-year old row home with five complete strangers.

So in a sense, I have been living just as far away from California as possible. Nothing about this year, this place, has been like any life I have ever known. Not the creaky old home, not the people, not the job, not the climate, not the cockroaches that are splattered all over the sidewalks every July morning. Or the centipedes, mosquitoes, beetles, spiders, flies, ants, or palmetto bugs (a pretty name for flying cockroach) that have taken residence in my bedroom on more than one occasion.

Definitely not the people: the men and women I have sat with, in moments of frustration, sadness, and sometimes, sometimes joy. The faces of the clients that have become familiar to me and all of the resilience and hope that has shown on those faces. The people I have worked with. Who give up high wages in exchange for the chance to fight for justice. Who spend 100% of their time on the front-lines, and who are my heroes.

(Me and Jenette)

What a year. I will remember this year through afternoons,through nighttimes, through weekends spent here and spent traveling. But the mornings will always be special to me.

Those familiar steps I have taken each day when the world was still fresh and no tears had been shed yet and there was always room for something new to learn. Walking down Bryant St. in the red leaves, in the snow, in the wake of pink petals, in the wet heat of July. What a beautiful year of mornings.

my people

2010-07-14T16:11:00.000-04:00

A shout-out

2010-07-14T15:19:00.002-04:00

Jenette is my co-worker. She works in the food pantry. She has maroon hair which she styles differently every day. Some days she curls it, some days she braids it, some days she wears it pinned back. She always gives the best hugs. Today she gave me four strawberry cookies that she keeps in a secret cookie tin. She has a way with words and always remember the important things about a person: where you are from, what your dreams are, and what kinds of nuts you are allergic to. She has a big heart and she always makes me smile. I am grateful for the light she shines on Bread for the City and on me.

almost heaven

2010-07-12T22:21:00.000-04:00

So if you just drive west from Washington, across the southern Appalachians, right on over the Shenandoah Valley, you'll hit a little-talked-about gem of a land, a place called Franklin, West Virginia.

Being from California and all, my world-view has always been somewhat off-kilter. Such a large state sometimes makes one think that the whole world is contained in one long desert, bordered by the ocean.

But some people, like the Taylor-Ide family, know better than I. They know about a land that is more green than any other color. With blue sky that stretches until eternity, and wildflowers of every size and imaginable color, and homes that are built right into the sides of mountains. And this past weekend, I was lucky enough to be the passenger in an old Subaru that traveled right on out of the city and into the heart of this other, wilder existence.

Once upon a time, Mr. Denver wrote a song about this place. My mom doesn't like him very much, ever since he left Annie Denver for an actress, but it is hard to deny that the man had a way with somewhat-corny-and-altogether-charming tunes.

And I say, there was nothing better than blasting "Take Me Home, Country Roads" while driving with Lucas down Buffalo Hills Road, when we had no idea how to find the Taylor-Ides home because the numbers on the mailboxes were in no particular order, and the spiky rain was shooting at our windshield and casting large and trechorous puddles on the dirt road.

But we found it (above). And I learned that a weekend in West Virginia looks like this: waking up to the sun beaming through the closed blinds, and soaring over the hills that are all you can see on the 90 acres of farmland that surround you. A trip to the drive-in movies, where most of the whole town (population 800) gathers on a Saturday night. A trip to the local soft-serve ice cream place that blasts Elvis and is really no different than something you would have found 50 years ago in anywhere, America. A trip to the swimming hole at Seneca Rocks. A hike to The Boulders (below).

It rattles my mind how much unexplored earth lies right in the heart of my own country. How I might live my entire life and never see every remarkable hill, flower, sleepy valley in our own heartland.

And that is why I will travel anywhere you take me. Plant a water bottle in my hand, a map in my pocket, and a can of bug-spray in my backpack, and I will go.

I am so grateful that I was able to cross one more state off of my list. And what a state it was!

A state that still believes in Sunday quiet-time. Where Mennonite families still travel to church by buggy and little boys wear bowler hats. And the cow population is greater than the human one. And everybody knows your name.

A state that might still have just a few Confederate flags waving on front porches, but only because it holds on true to its history in a way that so many of us have forgotten to. Where stories are just flying through every valley, stream, and old farmhouse. Where I spent a Sunday morning singing along with a three-man band in an old Unitarian church, and everyone greeted me in welcome.

We are always better for the places we have traveled. Especially those places that are far different from the ones we have come from. Everyone can learn a little bit of good if they travel over the borderlines of their homeland and watch the way that life exists someplace else. Especially someplace so glorious as Pendleton County, West Virginia.

A note from the Universe

2010-07-06T08:40:00.001-04:00

This arrived in my mailbox this morning:

Did you know, Kristina, that God prefers to go barefoot, laughs a lot, and is always happy?

Loves orange, wears blue jeans, and has read every book ever written?

Skips stones, plays in the rain, and rocks out?

Remembers birthdays, forgets arguments, and every day visualizes you smiling even more?

And at this very moment, is accepting applications from those who wish to make a whopping difference.

Approved! Approved! Approved!
The Universe

yum

2010-07-01T10:52:00.001-04:00

Dear Kristina,

Next time you are having a headache and feeling kinda blah, go to 7-eleven, buy a small Columbian coffee with french vanilla half-and-half and a chocolate cake donut just like this morning.

Best. Idea. Ever.

Love, Me

Dear July

2010-07-01T08:29:00.000-04:00

You are so new, but you have already brought me the most beautiful spring-like day imaginable: sunshine, blue-not-smoggy skies, and a lovely Nor'easter wind.

I cannot believe you have arrived. Last thing I knew, it was last July. I was traipsing through Paris and stuffing my belly full of chocolate croissants and flower-petal shaped gelato, and blackberry tarts. Ellen and I were biking through Versailles and laying on the grass in King Louis' backyard, munching on gofres and fine-tuning my plan to find a rich Parisian man to propose to me on a paddle-boat in the middle of the Grand Canal... such a lovely memory.

So, although I am most certainly not sun-bathing at an old castle right now, I am grateful for the little bit of beauty that you have bestowed upon me today. (I am beginning to learn appreciation for fine weather-- never something I understood before.) Thank you.

And now, please see me through one of the toughest transition months I have thus far experienced. Please give me grace and more 70-degree mornings. In return, I will offer you my smile, a fewish long-distance runs, one long hike up the AT, and the rest of my fading sanity.

Love, Kristina

She'll Make Her Way

2010-06-28T08:39:00.002-04:00

"O, I believe
Fate smiled and Destiny
Laughed as she came to my cradle
Know this child will be able
Laughed as she came to my mother
Know this child will not suffer
Laughed as my body she lifted
Know this child will be gifted
With love, with patience and with faith
She'll make her way..."
-"Wonder," by Natalie Merchant

I was listening to this song as I walked to work this morning, the last Monday of June, in my last month as a Jesuit Volunteer, and I smiled at the implications of these words.

I have struggled more than I have rested these past twelve months. I have hated myself at times: at the limitlessness of my hands, the shortcomings of my body, the imperfection that is my humanity. At moments, I have kept these thoughts silents and at other moments, I have voiced them aloud, in the hopes of receiving comfort, and likewise, in order to assure my friends that we all have these thoughts; we all struggle to be human. And moreover, hating to sound close-minded, but knowing full well that this is what I intend to say by voicing the word "human," we all struggle to be women.

I struggle to be a woman, in this heat, in this city, during this long year of eating beans and carbohydrates and watching my body as it adjusts to living through its first winter, as it adjusts to more sleepless nights and less emotional stability. I see myself in the mirror sometimes, and I see the absence of all that our world has asked women to be. I often do not feel sensitive, or beautiful, or demure. I am rough around the edges. My hair sticks up all over the place in this humdity. I get easily angered when I am running down the street and I receive comments that are meant to stir me: I hate when my womanhood makes me a target.

And while we're talking about it, it rattles my bones when I think about the way that society has asked women to be, and the lesser-talked-about reality that is the way that many women in our society live. The women that I work with every day do not have the time, privilege, or choice to be seen as beautiful, meek, or sensitive. They are fighting injustice with their babies on their backs, standing in line at the Department of Human Services, crossing borders at the risk of their own lives to save their children. They are sweating in this heat, and dirty, and exhausted.

I saw a woman on the bus last weekend. She was holding a newborn in her lap, and had four other young children running around the front of the bus. She was covered from head to toe in a burqa, with only her eyes revealed. It was 90 degrees outside, which felt like 100 with the humidity. The man sitting next to me turned to me and said: "I don't get why they wear those things. How can she stand it? What country is she from, do you know? Isn't that Afghanistan, where they wear those things?" I shouldn't have felt angered by these words. I told him I was not sure which country the woman was from, as there are several countries in which women wear clothing like hers. I don't think he meant anything by it. And I know in my heart that I should not feel anger about this man's lack of sensitivity, or about a dresscode that is not familiar to me, that I should not automatically point my finger at people (men) in countries that I have never been to, that I know nothing about that woman's desires or the way she feels about her own sense of self-expression.

But it just seems...still, in this day and age, that the wars that we fight as women have not yet ceased to exist. I cannot imagine living in a country where I would be required to cover my face. Where my identity would only exist as one pair of eyes to the whole world. To my own children. I cannot imagine what it would feel like to walk around the world with my whole body covered up, and then sit in a public area and be judged for my appearance by a man who knows nothing about me, or where I come from.

What I am trying to say is, the things that make us beautiful as women are not the obvious things, or the things that the world asks of us. Just like the words of Merchant's song: "With love, with patience, and with faith," we have enough beauty to supercede all of the false expectations that our society asks us to rise up to. Which is truly more beautiful? The ability to smile shiny white teeth on a billboard, or the ability to be a mother to five small children and also an immigrant whose only form of income is a small amount of public assistance each month? Which is more beautiful: the woman I left behind, the Kristina who cared about designer jeans and perfect hair, or the woman I have become, someone far braver, far louder, far dirtier and sweatier and stronger?

I am imperfect, undoubtedly so. And I am not anything like the woman that the world is asking me to be. But I am better for it. I now know how to hold the hand of a crying woman and how to comfort someone without any words. I now understand how to talk to an angry, screaming 6-foot-tall teenage boy in a small walk-in room. I now know how to relate to an elderly man who cannot remember if it is Tuesday, or Wednesday, or Thursday, and I have earned his trust. And my hair has suffered, and my feet are dirty, and I am sweating, and tired, and a little bit nuts. But after years of asking for it, and without receiving it in quite the way I asked for, I have become someone beautiful.

And I am making my way.

i'm feeling hot hot hot

2010-06-23T08:37:00.001-04:00

It is hot. Like hotter than hot. So hot that lying in my bed at 10:30pm with the window open and four fans blowing in my room feels like I am on a 100 mile run in the Sahara desert. About two weeks ago, I was still thankful for the heat. For not having to wear a jacket, or a scarf, or long underwear, or a hat. For the sun waking me up at 6:00am through my window. I am starting to feel less thankful. Maybe it's the bugs (flashback to last summer), or maybe it's the fact that I start to sweat the minute I walk out of my (cold) shower. Maybe it's the fact that the air-conditioner is broken at Bread for the City. Maybe it's the fact that our destroyed sidewalks (cough, cough worst winter in DC history) just had to be restored last night at 2 in the morning! Or it could be all of those things combined.

But. For some things, I am still thankful. Like Emily's dad bringing us a case of Coronas last night and making us steak fajitas for dinner- olé! I am thankful for the invention of baby powder (no more sweat running down my legs- yes!) I am thankful for salt, because apparently, according to my client, Ms. M, if you rub salt on a mosquito bite, it makes it stop the itch! I am thankful for the smell of honeysuckle in the air. And for the fireflies that my mom and Mary Kate and I saw at the National Mall last week. Beautiful things.

And despite my constant sweating, I am thankful that it is summertime, that the days are long and bright. I am thankful, and excited, that I will be beginning a brand-new adventure come August. And that in the meanwhile, I still get a month or so to cherish the people I love right here in DC, and some time with my family in California, and to see some of my dear friends get married. Life is good. Hot, sticky, buggy- but good.

on elbows and centipedes and grace.

2010-06-20T23:38:00.001-04:00

Here I am, googling centipedes at 11:38pm after seeing one on the floor of my room when I went to take a Bendadryl to help me fall asleep. Not the best way to conquer insomnia, or sadness.

The last week was so wonderful. My mom and Mary Kate were here, and we did every possible thing in DC that we could do. Then we went to Boston, where I found an apartment and a wonderful roommate for next year. We were able to see my mom's Uncle Jim, who is just the nicest, funniest old man you've ever met. He was recently diagnosed with leukemia and only has a few months left with us. It was amazing to see him, especially since he was in the best of spirits that you could imagine for someone so sick. He is just a gem of a man.

Now, it is (tomorrow) this morning. The Benadryl didn't help much. I ended up talking to my entire family via webcam and waiting for Emily to come home last night, which was around midnight. Then we recounted tales from our last two weeks and eventually, somewhere around 2am, I managed to shut my eyes.

This morning, I am sleepy and weepy and feeling just as overwhelmed as I did yesterday upon returning home from Boston. Is it ok to feel these things when you have just had all your wildest dreams come true? I am not sure of that answer. Or why I am feeling so scared of this upcoming year. I am having one of those mornings where I am asking myself if it is wise to be staying so far away from all that I have ever know... if I am strong enough to do this.

In my heart, I know that the answer is that strength comes from living through all sorts of trials. Not that moving to Boston, attending an incredible school, studying something I am passionate about will be trying. Simply that it is unknown. And the unknown in and of itself is trying.

I remember a day in February (god-forsaken month) when I was having a particularly rough time of it. My supervisor, Wendy, told me that there was a way to acknowledge one's pain and to hold it in a part of the body where it can stay and be accessible at a later time. This June morning, I am holding my fears, my sadness, and my sleepiness in my right elbow. That seems as good a place as any. All those nasty things are just gonna have to stay there, tucked away in my funny bone, while I survive this day and all of the emotions it will entail. I have to do walk-ins, legal intake, go for a run. I need to be strong for this day, and to stop moping. Meanwhile, I am praying for grace.

Adieu, bad things. I am off to conquer Monday morning with my very large cup of joe and a prayer.

thursday shursmday

2010-06-17T09:27:00.001-04:00

On this June morning, home from work with a bad stomach-flu type bug, I am listening to Rufus Wainwright and reflecting on my year. It is only 9:30, but I have already cried today. Tricia is leaving tomorrow! Ahh! And I am leaving tonight for Boston for the weekend so I won't be there to say goodbye... and then I missed walking to work with her and Lucas on the last day we could possibly do so, because of my crappy digestive system.

There are so many good things, and sad things about this day.

Sad things:
-This is the end of something. The end of a noisy, messy home full of 6 lovely people.
-I am not quite over the fact that I am not going home again... as much as I am excited about next year, I have a hard time thinking that I will be not be in California.
-I have yet to really say goodbye to my clients at Bread for the City. I am having a hard time thinking of the right words. And a hard time restraining my emotion.
-When thinking of next year, I just want to take Emily with me, because I don't think I could ever love another roommate so much.

But, there are so many happy things:
-My cousin Amanda and I are starting a book club! And I am just so excited that I will be living close to my Connors cousins for the first time in my life!
-I am going to Boston College to study Pastoral Ministry- something I am so passionate and excited about!
-I am going to BOSTON! The city I have dreamed about living in my entire life!
-My mom and Mary Kate are visiting right now. It has been so amazing having them here and showing them DC. And we visited Gina and baby Tommy! And saw Sandra and Eric and the Wagner babies yesterday, which was lovely.
-And tonight the three of us are flying to Boston to look for housing for me! Crazy stuff.

So I am feeling a bit overwhelmed. In mostly good ways. And also dealing with a digestive system failure, which I suppose, is nothing new. Anyway- Happy Thursday!

peace on a june night

2010-06-07T22:40:00.001-04:00

Perhaps I should take a moment to catalogue this small window of time.

It is almost 11 pm on a Monday night. Emily left for Texas this morning for two weeks, and for the first time in a long time, I am alone in our large bedroom. Finally, the heat has kept to itself, somewhere far up in the sky. There is no cloud of humidity over my bed tonight as there has been for the past three weeks. There are no fans buzzing. Even the bugs lie low, as I am allowed one night's worth of reprieve. Of peace.

Funny, when this week has promised to be anything but peaceful. On Thursday, (I hope!) I should know the results of my BC application. There are many butterflies (or, as Tricia might say, ribbon dancers) drawing loops in my stomach as I contemplate where I might be two months from now.

Two months! Less than two months, as of last Saturday. Some small part of me still feels like it is trapped in February, wondering when the summer would ever come, and then, another part of me glances at the future through the open door with hazy confusion. When did this year come to a close? How am I 23 already, and mostly unsure of what I am doing with my life?

Last week we had our last dinner together as a community. As we have spent so many warm nights this year, we ate on the raised platform. Tricia grilled steak and Jordan made home-fries, and we popped a bottle of white wine and drank in a beautiful, sunny evening sharing our favorite memories of the year and marveling at the fact that all six of us still have all our limbs and good humor.

We did it. We made it through the long haul. Through the blizzards (yes, plural) and through the awkward adjustment months and through the $85 stipend and through the humidity and through the arguments over dishes and grocery shopping. In the end, this end, our best selves prevailed over our sillinesses, fears, weaknesses, and bad habits. I am proud of us. And I am feeling more than a little heartbroken that such a year of growth, of love and learning, is ending.

More than five roommates, I made five best friends. I was loved for the best and worst parts of myself. I was given a place in this home, and I was encouraged to share every part of me: my creativity, my quietness, my rambling stories, my struggles with homesickness.

Family does this for one another: loves one another despite, and because of one another. So even though we all won't sleep under one roof at the same time again, I am not losing anything. I have gained a family. And I have been handed strengths I never knew I had. These things just travel with us as we move on through life.

So there you go. At this moment in time, I am still a resident of this old white house. Still in limbo world. Still waiting for so many answers. But I am grateful for this window of time, for this cool June night, and for this moment.

At This Table

2010-05-31T11:38:00.000-04:00

On the last day of May in Washington, the sun keeps sentinel high in the sky as the morning rises.

It is a special day to be here, a resident in our nation’s capitol, on a day to remember the men and women who have crossed oceans and served to keep the heart of our country beating.

It is a special day to be here, sitting in the kitchen in the house we six Jesuit Volunteers have made a home this year, eating pancakes and Pat’s scrambled eggs, remembering that peace has a multitude of definitions.

Peace is the manner in which we accept our nation’s servicemen and women and the battle they are fighting that they did not imagine or create.

Peace is the discussion of being pro-life that we have in Emily’s and my bedroom, when we remember that the individual politics that condemn either abortion or war are not mutually exclusive. It is sitting in a room full of individuals who respect our country’s military and yet wish fervently for a creative means to justice. It is being surrounded by friends who have all reached out and held a woman who has just had an abortion, and yet pray for the education and for a world that would allow every child to be born without complication, into a home in which he will be loved, into the arms of a woman who has never known abuse, and who is ready to love him or to offer his little life to someone else who will be able to love him.

On the last day of May in Washington, the humidity covers my body like a blanket. My hair shines in the morning light that sweeps over our wooden table, that has made the Gerbera daisies wrinkle in its intensity, that spills onto our blooming broccoli and baby raspberries. I sit surrounded by my family. They are the people I have lived with this year, and they are Patrick and Maggie and Steve. And Natalie. And Alicia. And Liz. And Catherine and Bo. DJ and Carl and Chris and Kate and Liz and Spud and Jim. And those are simply the people who have sat at this table in the past week. But my family has become an ever-widening net of all of the individuals who have sat around this table and broken bread. They are all the people who have helped me to understand the many definitions of peace, of justice, of love. My family is comprised of the neighbors who know us not by name by but descriptors (“Notre Dame girl,” “the tall one,” “California…”), by my clients who come in on Tuesday mornings just to say “hi,” to show me their new sneakers, to tell me that they have just taken the GED. My family is the people who played Wiffle Ball with us on Friday for Emily’s birthday, and the men who work at the Water Treatment Facility down the street. It is made up of G2 bus drivers and the man with the top-hat that Em always sees on 1st St.

No one ever told me that in my twenty-third year of life I would be blessed enough to learn one new definition for every term in my life that I thought I already understood and had memorized. That the word “family” was not solely reserved for those that raised you, that the word “justice” might be so closely related to the word “mercy,” and that “meal” could be any time you sat at table with friends, even if the food must be divided and divided into crumbs.

How blessed am I, this sweaty, bumbling, rambling child who has yet to find a path to travel down, to have come to this table on 130 Bryant St.

On this, the last day of May, on a day that our nation remembers, I am creating my own distinct memory of one morning breakfast filled with heat and laughter, in which I sat at a table with my friends, in which God handed me a dictionary filled with worlds of definitions for “peace” that I had never read before.

dreams and things

2010-05-25T11:26:00.000-04:00

A few updates:

Last weekend I went to Boston, to visit BC and my cousins. BC was... well, exactly what I have always dreamed of when I pictured the direction my life would take. Which is why it is scary to not know whether or not my path will find me there. I was taking a look at their Masters of Arts in Pastoral Ministry program, which my dear friend Maurissa once graduated from as well. I met with the Assistant Admissions Director, who gave me a tour of the campus and the School of Theology and Ministry, and treated me to lunch. It was spectacular. So now all I have to do is wait for BC to process my completed application, and to decide if they want me, and also if they have the funding that will make going there possible for me. I have never been a patient person. So, as you imagine, I am sitting on the very end of my seat, restless and giddy and terrified that I have no idea where the next few months will find me. But other than that...

The weekend was absolutely wonderful. I stayed with my very gracious cousin, Evan, and his boyfriend Jon. They showed me the sights, introduced me to their friends (they are both teachers), and treated me to dinner at Wagamama. We were able to spend time on the Charles River esplanade, one of my new favorite places, to visit Earth Fest, where we ate a lot of free food, and to watch lots of youtube videos together. On Saturday, Evan drove us to Upton, where I was able to visit his family, whom I love, and we "cooked-out" (apparently, only a Massachusetts term for bbq-ing)and looked at my cousin Amanda's wedding pictures, and were all generously treated to brand-new pairs of New Balances from Jimmy, Evan's dad, who works for NB. Jimmy and my cousin Amanda and I also had a wonderful conversation about our love of running. And I ate a bacon-cheddar burger (OMG!)! Needless to say, my heart was a bit stolen from me by my mother's home state. So now for the waiting game...

As always, I have a bazillion photos to post. But I have been so busy lately, hosting lovely friends (Miss Quiros, currently!), traveling to places far and wide, starting marathon training again (ahh!), and watching the ending of this beautiful year come to a screeching halt all much too quickly. So, my dear friends (all three of you who read this, including my mother): pictures to come shortly. Till then, just livin' the dream...

if orange walls could speak.

2010-05-18T17:00:00.000-04:00

He exists in a quiet world. Not just sometimes. Not just when he is in need of some alone time and so he ventures out of his busy office and down P St. for some soup and solace. But all the time.

All the time, the only music he hears is quiet music. Music that I would not recognize the name of. He does not hear the sirens or the elderly men that saunter out the door of Emmaus and walk slowly side by side down 9th St., chatting softly under their breaths. He does not hear “(Love Is Like a) Heat Wave” as it fills the warm orange room with love, like only Motown can.

And his fingers dance. I watch them, making their spiral motions through the air. Watch his cheeks flush, as he signs to his friend on his computer screen in a language only they can hear. The clear pleasure he is deriving from this communication, the artistic, sweeping rise-and-fall of his fingers in the still air, moves me to pieces over my cup of soup.

My mushroom soup sends smoke signals into the air, and I am caught in a daydream. Of secret, quiet languages, of music that doesn’t have a place in our history books, that exists only in the minds of those who do not speak a word. How beautiful, this quiet. How strange that someone once named this other language, this other world of dancing hands and soft still lips, a disability.

And me. I am content to let my soup grow half-cold, to crumble my napkin over and over again, to sip my water slow as a kitten, as I watch this moment of time pass.

I see his face reflected back at me on his computer screen, see it the way his friend sees it, a small round head bobbing in a sea of Azi-orange (blood-orange, basketball orange, Georgia-peach-in-the-deep-summertime-orange).

“somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence”
-e.e. cummings

may musings

2010-05-17T08:58:00.000-04:00

I haven’t written in a long while, because I have a huge folder full of pictures that I have been wanting to edit and post, but alas, my lazy May self has yet to do so, and so I have been procrastinating and procrastinating… but no longer! Here goes.

So two weekends ago, I ventured into silence with 40 of my fellow JVs at a beautiful Jesuit retreat center in Morristown, NJ. It was relaxing, and thought-provoking, and peaceful. And my stomach was quite happy, as we ate like kings for four days. I only broke the silence once, at the very end of 48 hours, when Maggie and I went on a long, rambling walk into historic Morristown and caught each other up on the past 23 years of our lives (we were always meant to be friends, we just lived in two different places). I didn’t feel so bad though, because I remember my mom always telling me about how her and Karen would go on sneaky walks at their silent retreats and chat, because they only see each other once a year. Although I see Maggie a lot more than that, and we are steadfast g-chat friends, it was so worth it, and necessary to enjoy a few hours of non-silence with a very good friend. Emily and I—roommates, friends, constant partners in crime— tried a bit harder to keep the silence. (A big deal when you share a room with someone and also actually enjoy her company.) We even went on long walk through the woods, in which we took pictures and did yoga poses on a bridge, in complete silence. Em thinks that this might have defeated the purpose of the weekend, but I beg to differ. I think we took our friendship to new heights…

More importantly, though, last weekend was a good time for me to reflect on this past year and to attempt to discern where it is God is asking me to go in this upcoming year. And so far, no answers, but a small, strong tug on my heart that seems to be asking me to stay. So we shall see. On Friday, I fly to Boston, where I will be meeting the staff and some professors from Boston College’s School of Theology and Ministry. And this week, I should also hear back about a possible youth ministry job right here in D.C. I know the idea of staying on the east coast sounds funny coming from me, as I spent the past year pining for California, but I went to an FJV wedding a few weeks ago, and it really made me think about some things… about how I have created a community in this place, and about how I am not yet ready to go home and settle. I have grown some wings this past year. And I feel a lot less inclined to go home or stay in one place simply because it is easier, or because I am scared of the unknown. So there you have it. I am a nomad as of right now. And I suppose these next few months will show me where I am supposed to be.

Other than the indecision, discernment process, and silence, my life is steadily moving. My housemates and I are busy as we wrap up the end of our JV year. Tricia is leaving in the middle of June for medical school in New Jersey, which is still hard to believe. And all of us have a scattering of trips planned and visitors coming (including my own dear mother and sister Mary Kate!) in the upcoming months, which will surely make the time pass quickly. As it always goes, I have fallen in deep mad love with D.C., and am scared and not yet ready to leave. The grass is always greener. So that is it for now!

...Except for a shout-out to my dear friend Gina and her husband Troy who are brand new parents of a beautiful boy named Tommy!! You should read her blog.

Why Coffee and Biking Do Not Mix

2010-04-28T10:41:00.000-04:00

Some mornings, I wonder if I have a physiological need for coffee. Like, it is not simply a compulsion for adrenaline pulsing through my bloodstream, it is not merely the rich dark smell of it in my traveling thermos, but it is something essential to my being: like air, water, Nate Archibald.

This particular morning, I could be seen cruising down 13th St. NW on my shiny borrowed red Schwinn (whom I refuse to name out of deference to her true owner and out of fear for my own emotional attachment) with Lucas’ red helmet on my head and my entire left side attempting to weigh down my body as my right hand balanced a grande Starbucks coffee in midair.

Except that I was not “cruising.” I was flailing, madly, and almost running into unobservant taxi cab drivers who did not anticipate a woman on a bike with a coffee in her hand who might not be able to stop quickly when they made illegal left-hand turns into auto parts’ parking lots.

When I arrived at Bread with sticky fingers, I was struck by the sudden epiphany that people do not ride bikes with hot beverages in paper cups for a reason. And if they are stupid enough to do so, then they do not typically put their lives on the line for their coffee. Hypothetically, if a taxi was headed straight at a person, he would probably drop that cup rather than face a young and untimely death.

But no. Not this person.

I should have avoided such a sticky situation. Like every morning when I pass that Starbucks on U and 13th, I should have had the will-power to keep on going. Or at least walked my bike the 10-odd blocks to work. And not swerved from side-to-side with a flaming hot coffee in my right hand, maneuvering between moving buses, constantly stopping myself with my right foot and nearly falling over myself in order to save the Starbucks. The fact that I did this (and lived to tell about it) makes me wonder if my need for coffee, such that I put my life on the line for it, is something inherent to my nature. Like my brown hair and Italian nose: an innate part of myself that I cannot deny.

Lord only knows. Maybe it was just the unnaturally cold weather or the fact that I woke up before 6 this morning. Maybe Starbucks’ mermaid logo woman was singing some kind of sea-siren song at me that I had no hopes of escaping from. Or maybe the company is secretly injecting brain-washing toxins into its coffee, specifically designed to seep into the nostrils of morning biker-commuters. Whatever the consensus, I am a caffeine-addicted fool, and I should probably go to a 12-step program now.

You will be pleased to hear that I did not spill, though. Not once. My fingers were only sticky from the little bubble that came up through the lid. But this is not a reason to believe that one should ever, ever bike with a cup of hot liquid in one’s hand. Ever. The end.

remnants of this weekend

2010-04-25T23:06:00.001-04:00

A French breakfast with Emily and Kiki at Le Pain Quotidien.
Getting dressed up for a Salsa lesson.
A romantic candlelit dinner on the raised platform.
Watching a beautiful couple dance their first dance as Mr. and Mrs. Adams.
Adventuring on my bike, and finding a sweet reminder of where I came from.
Watching yet more tulips make their grand entrance into the world.
An early morning coffee at a cute little cafe after biking through Rock Creek Park.
The voyager herself.

The answer is community.

2010-04-22T08:48:00.000-04:00

Unlike any other group of friends who have assembled and will assemble together in my lifetime, my JVC community did not choose each other. We did not choose the faulty circuity in our one-hundred year old row home, and we did not choose the wind, the humidity, the rain, or the snow that is Washington, D.C. We did not decide to spend one year living with five perfect strangers because we were each personally thrilled at the idea of eating beans at least three nights a week, or because the concept of a shared grocery stipend spoke to our souls. We did not each arrive on a mountain off of the Appalachian Trail last August because we had been anticipating the greatest Washington snowstorm in history, or because we loved spending weeks stuck indoors with only our low-functioning TV and Patricia Moreno for company.

And me, a person who has always valued her quiet moments, I would never have volunteered to have a roommate at this time last year. And I never would have been able to speak my mind when it came to discussing the fiber content in whole-wheat sandwich bread, lest it be a source of contention. Nor would I ever have cried openly at the dinner table with a group of friends, or imagined myself practicing kung-fu kicks outside of an East coast laundry room at 10:00pm because the key-hole broke on our metal door and Lord knows what sort of impostors might be hiding there.

But now, at this point in the middle of April, here I am. A part of a community. A group that did not choose each other. A group that is composed of one gentle, humble 25-year old future MSW student who is in the midst of her second year of JVC and who has taught me how to listen, and one bold, adventurous Texan girl with a big smile who has radically changed my perception of what it means to be a roommate and has recommitted herself to JVC for a second year, of one earnest, attentive young man with Nepalese origins and some killer critical thinking skills on his way to earn a PhD from Loyola Chicago, and one compassionate red-headed athlete and talented pianist who is on his way to be a doctor, and one ambitious Jersey girl and future doctor, who has seen me through on my journey to become someone stronger, someone braver, and someone warmer than I ever imagined I could be.

We have undergone a transformation. From six strangers with little more in common than a shared love of Whoopi Goldberg, we have become friends. And not just that, but we have become family. And that is no common transformation. But nothing about this year is common. Not the beans, not the faulty circuit, not the kung-fu in the laundry room or the mess of cloth napkins that we use over and over again until they smell dangerous, not the homemade compost bin, or the way that watching Sister Act together on a Sunday night is the highlight of everyone's week. Not that way in which I now value my quiet moments with Emily in our room so much more than those spent only by myself.

What a magical thing community is. It is almost as though, through a divine act of someone much greater than ourselves, an invisible thread has bound us together and enabled us to become, together, a group that radiates so much more strength, so much more passion, so much more compassion that we could have ever come to know by ourselves. I am honored and humbled to be a part of such a living, breathing, thriving organ.

In this community, I have learned and am ever learning that the challenges we face in this life can become our greatest joys, if only we face them boldly, honestly, and hand in hand with the people who love us. As Dorothy Day once said: "We have all known the long loneliness, and we have found that the answer is community." Amen, sister.

green and magenta are the colors I see.

2010-04-16T23:32:00.000-04:00

"She lifts her skirt up to her knees,

walks through the garden rows with her bare feet, laughing.

I never learned to count my blessings,

I choose instead to dwell in my disasters."

-Ray LaMontagne, "Empty"

I absolutely love this song, for its quiet, melancholy loveliness and the painting it creates in my mind: a rainy day, a lush field, the colors of late summer in the country: the jungle green of dewy grass, the deep gray of storm clouds, the yellow of daffodils underneath the woman's feet.

Today I listened to this song on my iPod as I walked down 4th St. I will filled with the magic that is D.C. in the springtime.

The trees are forming arches and canopies over our roofs and heads once more, and the green of things is incandescent. The air is heavy with storm clouds when it is not crisp and dewy and warm. The magenta azaleas that billow over the wrap-around porches in Bethesda are enough to make me shiver.

The world is alight with color. The air is filled with the sound of a cricket wonderland once again. And I think the mosquitoes are back, as long as these 80 degree days stick around. But it is no matter.

I fell asleep last night to the sound of Frankie's harmonica. Frankie Dye ("Dye as to impregnate with color," he told us one Saturday a few weeks back) is our neighbor two doors over, who befriended us when Tricia first started doing her thang in the garden. He is an artist, and a musician as well, so it seems. Which is more than fine by me. I could fall asleep to harmonica and clapping thunder any old night.

D.C. hasn't felt so much like the south the whole year, as it does now. I don't even have the words to explain my wonder at the miracle of spring. At the little pink petals that floated down the streets after our first April rainfall. At the grass, wet and warm beneath my bare feet as I run circles around the track. And at the world that has opened up to remind me of the girl I was before the winter came. Thank you, Mother Nature: you have made me feel all the way alive again.

I'm back.

2010-04-10T23:39:00.000-04:00

And everything feels strange. And good. And uncertain.

But I think there is still some sand beneath my toes...

And my heart, as always, aches for the ocean that it left behind.

Goodnight.

I clicked my heels three times and wound up here again.

2010-04-07T22:10:00.002-04:00

Home is...

1) Sunbathing in the backyard with my brother Patrick, listening to Norwegian Recycling, my newest favorite thing, off of his cellphone.

2) Sunbathing at Huntington with Ellen, our beach books lying unread on our towels, discussing the boys we didn't date in high school and our bridesmaids list.

3) Listening to Missy Higgings at the kitchen table while my mom plays "Words with Friends" obsessively on her cell phone and my dad grills lemon chicken outside.

4) Running at UCI at nighttime with a new friend. Running around my neighborhood at 8 in the morning barefoot and bumping into the Lees. Running on the hills of Newport Coast on a perfect Saturday. Running with Kathleen at the beach on a 70 degree morning.

5) Watching Mary Kate ride the ferris wheel at Balboa Peninsula after Michelle and I realized we didn't have enough money for all three of us to ride and then get back across to the island on the ferry. We cheered for her every single time she went around, and I think the operator was just about to kill us.

6) Walking across Mile Square at 8am with my dad and Mary Kate, to go to Starbucks, Mary Kate lagging by at least 40 yards, singing Geico jingles to herself.

7) My mom's chocolate chip oatmeal cookies and strange "Sangria" concoctions.

8) Spending Easter in the backyard with all of the people I love, and then heading over to Auntie Linda's "beer garden" with a family of non-drinkers. Ha.

9) The sunlight streaming in through the skylights at SSJ on Easter morning.

10) Fro-yo!

11) Three earthquakes?!

And oh. So. Much. More.

And you put the load right on me.

2010-03-31T14:44:00.000-04:00

I have been listening to "The Weight" (the version where The Staple Singers join The Band) almost every day these past two weeks. For some reason, watching D.C. transition into springtime is making me nostalgic for a time that was before me. The brownstones are no longer brown. They are turquoise and lime green and canary yellow. And sometimes it feels like I should be wearing a tie-dyed dress and singing about answers that are blowin' in the wind and things such as that. I am feeling all hippy dippy and I don't know how (or why) springtime in the inner city is contributing to such a sentiment. Maybe it is just this time of the year.

Before our schedules became so different, really before Michelle started college, my family would travel to Yosemite for Easter every year. I kind of fell in love with it. My favorite thing was lying in the middle of the meadows, with the mountains all around, listening to birdsong and writing in my journal or painting. My dad would always make Michelle and I go on these all-day-long hikes up The Mist Trail. We would complain about waking up at dawn and about his breakneck pace (my father, the athlete), but we were secretly thrilled to be a part of such an adventure. To be there, in the middle of someplace so wild, so ancient, so calm, was such a remarkable thing. I miss that place.

So maybe that is why I am craving a return to nature, why I am listening to Joni Mitchell on repeat. Or maybe it is all of this: my current reality. Being here, in this city that has seen its fair-share of revolution, of heartache, of war, of change, in the springtime, it is as though I have finally recognized the extent of our nation's recent history and the impact it is having on my own heart.

Before this year, Washington, D.C. was a city I only associated with presidents, power, and protests. And I suppose I saw it as someplace that symbolized hope. And not to be a Debbie Downer, but this year, it is hard for me to find hope here. I live and work in a part of the city that is far removed from power. I see the results of homelessness every day. And not only that, but our country is still very much at war.

On Sunday evening, Tricia's boyfriend, and our dear friend, Patrick, gave us all these beautiful cards because he is about to begin the Infantry Officer Course. I know he's safe and well, and he is only in Virginia, but the reality of the work he is doing still scares me. I hate that my friends have to be involved in this battle in such a physical way. I am proud of them, but I wish this wasn't the reality.

So, really, this is a meandering post, and my summary is that the springtime makes me joyful, but also nostalgic, and that this feeling probably stems from those Aprils in high school when all of us hill-sitters would sprawl out all over the Grotto and sing songs about revolution and make daisy chains. Sunshine equals guitar-playing long-haired boys singing Lennon in the grass.

And now I am here, in Washington, watching the spring come again. And this time, I am no longer humming songs about revolution, but am living the most counter-cultural year of my life, all the while speaking with people who are at the bottom of the totem pole each and every day. And I am realizing that the war has become something personal to me, and not just something to lament about over coffee anymore.

And in so many ways, these realizations scare and startle me. I am a part of something, a part of a system that is working for the justice that I only dreamed about five years ago. I am an adult, and I am capable of fighting for change in our society and in our world. And now it is up to me and my friends to do something. We can't be sixteen forever, singing songs, clapping hands, pinning flowers in our hair.

And so spring has come. And my heart has changed. And I am finding color again in all the unexpected places. And I am bridging my memories of the past, of Yosemite Valley and faded blue jeans and high school protests, with the present, with these brownstones and these people and this violent and real world that I am living in.

Let's gather 'round people, for the times, they are a changin'.

I am a runner.

2010-03-26T16:26:00.000-04:00

I am a runner. I am a girl who has been known to wake up at 5:50 in the morning, throw on my Asics, and glide through these city streets before the buses and people that distinguish the Le Droit Park neighborhood are awake, before the sunlight has taken to the streets and neatly defined what’s-what. With no light, with no people, D.C. lacks border lines. Everything is a jumble, every street flows into the next, every neighborhood is quiet, seemingly safe.

I run because running makes things possible that wouldn’t normally be possibly, like blurring the lines of this segregated city.

I run because when I move through the streets before the sun rises, I am, for a moment, a part of the world that I can only imagine.

I don’t color-coordinate my attire. I wear my brother’s old lacrosse shorts and oversized high school t-shirts.

I have never been fast.

But I suppose for me, that was never the point. The point was everything else: the smell of the Back Bay at 8:30 in the morning in the middle of August (salt and rosemary and marshlands; sweat, dirt, sea), Henley singing “The Boys of Summer” in my ear, suntanned shoulders and silly sock-lines, the tightness in my hips uphill, and the unlocking of my knees going down, the wind blowing sweaty tendrils of hair off the nape of my neck, and catching sight of myself in the windows on Georgia Ave.: sweaty, straining, invincible.

Today, running in the National Sun Trust Half Marathon, staring up at the Capitol building as the sun rose behind it, I was reminded a thousand-fold why I run. I placed one hand over my heart at the starting line, listening to an officer from the Marines sing “The National Anthem,” and as he sang “Oh say can you see, by the dawn’s early light?” I noticed that at that moment, the sun began to rise through the knobby still-bare trees. My heart swelled.

And I ran. Down East Capitol Street. Past the Capitol building, the Smithsonians, right on down Constitution Ave., rounding a corner near where Abe sits in his mighty stone throne, and looping back down Constitution, uphill on 18th, through Adams Morgan, past a throbbing multitude with trumpets and drums, down to Columbia Heights, and turning a corner to end up on my own beloved Bryant Street.

I ran past my house, my jumping, pots-and-pans-banging housemates on the steps, ran down North Capitol with no cars threatening my path, ran through tunnels with my feet thud-thumping on the pavement like I was on auto-pilot.

It hurt. My hips locked and my knees cried and my right ankle that always seems to get itself into trouble throbbed mightily. But I have never been under the illusion that running should not hurt. If it’s not my ankle, it’s my knees, if not my knees, then it’s my right shoulder, or a sneaky little blister on my left heel.

I get sunburned, I get muddy, I get bloody, I get wet.

In the last three months, I have run in the rain, in the snow, in the sand. With shoes, or with none.

It all comes down to this: I run because I can.

I run because there is nothing else like the feel of the wind on my back as my feet carry me to places I never even knew existed.

I run because it makes me feel strong, sexy, brave. Even when my forehead is sunburned and my shirt is soaked right through and my hair is all in a knot, running makes me feel more beautiful than anything else. It is something I can do.

I can let me feet carry me, carry me with all my dreams, fears, wants, aggression. And today, as I struggled through the last two miles of a 13.1 mile race that I barely trained for, I was reminded of this “can-do” sentiment in a big way.

I am stronger than I think, stronger than I remembered. I am sore, and aching, and dirty, and tired. But I am also capable of overcoming my weakness, my doubt, my fears. And that is because through and through, no matter how fast or how slow, no matter how old or young, I am a runner.

(written Saturday, March 20, 2010)

a very important moral dilemna

2010-03-24T08:30:00.000-04:00

Is it bad to take the elevator to get up to the gym in the morning? I constantly have this conversation with myself. I have decided that since it helps me get there faster, and thus work out for longer, it is no crime to take the elevator. But it still racks my conscience on the mornings when I give in...

She is springing!

2010-03-23T08:33:00.000-04:00

I have been watching the trees outside in a frenzied manner. And for the first time in weeks, I am seeing colors. Lime green, fuschia, the palest of pinks, daffodil yellow. Sometimes I forget about Mother Nature entirely and imagine myself the artist. After all, I have watched this progress with the concentration of an architect, engineer, and builder combined. And I know that the trees are not mine, persay, but I am still proud of them. Kind of in the same way that Tricia loves those broccoli plants that she planted on Saturday, but far less justified, since she actually planted those.

And speaking of broccoli, we now have a baby garden on Bryant St. It boasts broccoli, asparagus, and perennials. And soon, a raspberry bush. Saturday was a fruitful day (ha, literally!) for all of us. I ran, and finished (without walking once!) my first half marathon, Tricia and Emily planted a garden and created a home-made compost bin, Lucas and Kierstin went on a 25-mile bike ride, and Jordan played in an intense soccer game. Which means spring has sprung! Well, is springing. Albeit, slowly, since it is a bit chiller this morning than I expected. (I may or may not have left my house to go running, ran to the end of the block and then headed straight home because I was a bit too cold in my t-shirt.)

Anyway, March has been delightful. And now, strangely, even though it is so much longer in days than February, it is coming to an end! Which means several things: Easter is coming upon us, I am about to head home for 10 days, and my favoritest month of all is on its way. (Listen to Simon & Garfunkel's "April, Come She Will," it is a beauty.)

Yay Spring!

Fridays

2010-03-12T17:07:00.000-05:00

Fridays are my favorite days of the week. I lucked out with my work schedule at BFC: 36 hours a week, 9 hours a day Monday- Thursday. Which means my Fridays are blessedly free.

Today I woke up at 8, which is 2 hours after I usually wake up, so it is sleeping in for me. Then I ate some oatmeal, worked out, puttered about Target a bit for no good reason (I tend to do a lot of window-shopping on Fridays), then walked over to Dos Gringos Cafe in Mount Pleasant, where I ate an incredible "bean mash wrap," (not a burrito, but yes, basically a burrito) drank hot tea and watched the rain fall down on 16th St. The perfect way to spend a rainy day.

Then I hopped a bus to downtown and perused the National Portrait Gallery, which also houses a good amount of contemporary American art. I am a sucker for contemporary art. I think it's the colors. They're incredibly rich and fluorescent bright. I am sad to say that art history is not my forte. I do like putting a brush to canvas, but I can never remember names or movements or symbolism. And usually, I don't much care. I have Ellen, the art history major, as my best friend. But on days like this one, the information was not as important as the way the colors made me feel. I have a bad habit of stepping into an art museum, looking at one colorful thing, and wanting to run right out the door to my box of paints. And usually that's the only time I can find true inspiration: when I am not sitting down in front of any useful tools.

So anyway, I left the museum, walked about Chinatown (the most commercial Chinatown I've ever seen, if I have never mentioned it), caught the 70 bus back down 7th. I happened to sit right next to Jeanette on the bus without even realizing it! She works in the food pantry at Bread, and also has amazing notary powers which I make use of quite often during social services walk-ins. She's a lovely one- always wearing these crazy shirts that say things like "Be nice to your boyfriend, I dumped him two days ago," and hot pink furry boots and sparkly hair pieces and other amazing accessories such as these. We had a nice chat about how our schedule will change this July, and we will lose our free Fridays. Neither one of us is very willing to see them go.

When I think about this year, and my calendar that is always full at least two weeks in advance, I don't really know if I would be the same Kristina without these lazy days. And I don't think I would have been able to see, feel, or experience D.C. in quite the same way as I do on these Fridays. They allow me one day, one sacred quiet day in the week, to be alone with myself. To walk a little slower, and breathe a bit deeper, and sit quietly in our old, creaking house at 8:30 in the morning when no one else is home. I am better for these days, for this break from the rest of the week. And by the time that July comes around, I won't be around here much longer, and I suppose I will want as many days at BFC as possible. But for now, for today, I am thanking God for Fridays.

The Eyes of My Heart

2010-03-11T21:31:00.000-05:00

Let me just say, some things don't change. I still love buying new shoes, and last week I bought a brand new hot pink nail polish. I didn't need it for practical reasons. Not at all. Although I did realize that it matched the lovely pink color on my toes (that was a treat from Mom when I went home in February) to a tee. So maybe it was meant to be.

But back to what I was saying before. I am not drastically different than I was in August. I mean, if you want to count the little bit of extra water weight (hmph) that I am carrying, or perhaps my newfound love of all things meat-related (because everyone loves what they cannot have), then yeah, I suppose I have changed. But not really. I am still a 23 year old woman who enjoys shopping, going to the movies, splurging on the occasional Starbucks. I still drool over dresses on the Anthropologie website. I'm still not a saint. I try to get to Mass weekly, and sometimes it doesn't happen. I try to forgive my neighbor and never mention it again, but I can sure "vent" an awful lot and I'm afraid it's never very productive. I am still up on my celebrity gossip and I am still behind on my knowledge of current affairs. And when I reflect on these things, these silly, ridiculous things that I do, don't do, wish I could change, I realize time and again that as I grow, I will only continue to be, in some way, shape, or form, some older version of myself.

But some things have changed. Like the way I see people. Because sometimes I realize that maybe I wasn't seeing them before. You know, the people who struggle a little bit more than the rest of us. The people who fall below the poverty line, who are immigrants, who are elderly, who are not the sort of kind of people I am "used" to knowing. Oh, sure, I could throw out sympathetic statements. And I cared, truly, I did. But caring & sympathy... not the same things as empathy.

I realized that today, sitting in the bank with my client Eb. The teller was so unnecessarily patronizing, so rude to him. He was attempting to set up a new account for Eb. And he just did not seem to get it. That Eb was not incompetent, he just needed a little bit more help than the next guy. That Eb is older and forgetful, and that many of us are absent-minded on our very best of days. I sat there, listening to him talk to Eb about pin numbers and debit cards, and I watched Eb's face as he drew inward, and he began to sweat. I asked the teller to stop, I told him we did not want or need a debit card, I found my heart racing as he continued talking, and Eb continued to become increasingly overwhelmed. And I realized that the way I was feeling had nothing to do with sympathy for Eb. I am decidedly not sympathetic toward him. Because I get him. And I know that is because I spend a good amount of my week with him and all, but still. Couldn't any man have looked at Eb's eyes in that moment and seen his confusion? Couldn't that teller? Why didn't he just slow down, explain it all in a way that Eb could understand? Where was his freaking empathy? Even in writing this down, I fear that I am sounding superior, or like I have it all figured out. I certainly don't, but I think that my frustration with the teller stems from something else inside of me: my own fear that once upon a time, I would have acted just the same way without realizing it at all. Without seeing Eb just as he was: not as someone lesser, but as simply a someone, someone whom I needed to be patient with.

It is hard to know when to be an advocate for someone, and when to let that someone speak for himself. People have voices, and we walk a fine & creative line when we become advocates for them. I don't think that advocacy means speaking for someone without a voice, but simply working with that person to help him express himself in a more effective way. Today, after my chest had constricted to its limit and I finally worked up the courage to speak my mind to that teller, explaining that we would not be opening an account and that we were sorry to have wasted his time but would be leaving now, thank you, I realized that advocacy is a powerful thing, but it is so powerful because as advocates, we are asserting that we are invested and that we believe in that other human being, in his voice and his abilities. Advocacy is not about saying, "Oh hey, that guy can't speak, so let me do the talking for him," but rather it is saying, "You weren't hearing him before. I am not speaking for him, I am speaking with him. Two voices are better than one. Listen to us now."

So what I am trying to say, in such a long way, is that some things don't change, but maybe those thing are not so important. My guilty pleasures, my vices, they don't define me so much as the ways in which I am willing to allow my heart to change. Making room for the sort of growth in one's heart that would allow him or her to be able to see, truly see a human being who they might have previously disregarded, that is the sort of space-shifting I am seeking. And so I suppose I not becoming perfect. But I am feeling my heart grow instead. And that is an uncomfortable thing. But so much more fulfilling than conquering an addiction to fitness magazines or growing a halo, in my opinion, is opening the eyes of our hearts.

Waiting.

2010-03-09T22:02:00.000-05:00

And you say,"Be still, my love
Open up your heart
Let the light shine in"
Don't you understand?
I already have a plan
I'm waiting for my real life to begin.

-Colin Hay, "Waiting for My Real Life to Begin"

Because isn't that what the promise of spring is all about: waiting?

And to be fair, the city is blooming. Today it was in the mid-60s, and that was just fine with me. I wore a skirt and my Rainbows at work and my feet were divinely happy. And the sun shone like it didn't shine in the other months. Ellen said to me once that the light is harsher in the winter, and I still don't know exactly why, but that sentiment made complete sense to me. And for that reason, the sun hasn't been shining through the skylight at Bread for the City. Not like it did today. Today the sun came in through the ceiling with every intention of hitting every single corner and warming us forever. It was literally dazzling.

But I am still waiting for the trees. Patience has never been my strong point. Tonight I had into a silly conversation with Emily and Lucas about the leaves. They explained to me that leaves bud like any old flower. Why I hadn't understood that until today is beyond me. (But I never did pay much attention in Bio). I have been watching the trees with the intensity of a new mother. They are all my children, and oh how I wish for them to grow. "Be green," I whisper to them. Their resistance is teaching me something, I suppose. To everything there is a season, Kristina. A time to be born and a time to die. A time to grow.

And I know those trees know a little something about me as well. Because all I am doing in this strange, fantastic, exhilarating, confusing year of my life is growing. And I am growing just so slow that sometimes I think that for every one step forward I take, I fall at least five steps behind. My body is shifting in this space, and I lack grace all the time. Clumsy and timid am I, as small and uncertain as those tiny barely-alive buds on those trees that I am coddling. How beautiful that our hearts echo nature's essence. How strange.

And so we wait. With hope, with restlessness, and with the belief that one day our hearts will be all the more beautiful for this long, awkward, young time in our lives when we didn't know very much at all and could only dream of flowering.

The morning came again.

2010-03-02T08:39:00.001-05:00

I forgot that DC was beautiful. I say forgot, because I do believe that at some point in the early fall, I was enamored. But for the past four months or so, I have not been caught up in its charms. In fact, I was unaware it had any charms at all.

This morning, I rode my bike down 13th Street, from Irving St. to P St. You can see the whole city from there, and the sleepy way it looks at 7:45 in the morning. I felt a warm sense of pride in my gut. Pride, and something else: wonder. A lot like the way I felt when I visited Milwaukee last March. It was not simply the beautiful people I loved there, but the city itself seemed to shine to me. (But I have always been prone to fall in love with places as well as people in a real, gut-wrenching kind of way.)

That’s the way it was, seeing Columbia Heights wake up this morning, seeing the brownstones glow various shades of red, yellow, funky green as I rode down 13th with the wind behind me. I had been stuck in a winter rut, but I felt it soar away yesterday, when the calendar lost another page and my very soul woke up in the promise of March. Something new. And when I saw my city this morning, I remembered the wanderer in me. The girl with fancy feet who has been so scared of flying away in recent months has returned. What a blessing.

Thank you, early morning Washington. You and your warmer weather are setting my soul at ease.

ode

2010-03-01T13:00:00.000-05:00

Today, I was reminded of this.
I am feeling oh so much the same way this year.

pick me-up-ers

2010-02-24T08:39:00.001-05:00

Some things that are just as wonderful as "dark" hot chocolate:

This blog.

A book about coffee & a year of service.

And this song. (Play it.)

2010-02-23T10:41:00.000-05:00

Deciding that hot chocolate would not fall into my category of "sweets" this Lent was one of the best decisions I have made in a long time. What a lovely pick-me-up.

Good morning to you.