If a tree falls

I am hesitant

to write in this space because

people hike to the river in order to take a picture of themselves at the river

and when I was an English major in college I couldn’t read

because I knew my laptop was tucked away in my desk drawer.

I could sense its vibrations.

I don’t want to see the trees budding in Logan Square and think about

what filter would make it pretty enough for everyone to realize how pretty my life is.

Because my life is pretty, can’t you tell by my aesthetic sensitivities?

And I am, fatally, all in or all out.

Like the time I broke up with a friend because

I couldn’t bear the in-between place of changing years, changing social circles, and the never-changing fact that my love for him would always be unrequited.

If so much of life has become public,

do I still have a private life?

Can I still be anonymous while playing truth or dare, or will everything these days be documented?

I do wonder if I am missing something by under-utilizing this outlet.

But

I would still rather a world

where things mean something

even when nobody knows they happened.

Have you ever read Meg Fee's blog? I stumbled across her page when I was in high school--and have been reading her ever since. Insights and softness and red lipstick, oh my. I saw this quote on her Instagram page this weekend, and it was exactly what I needed to hear. And now, for the risking.

"Wild Geese" by Mary Oliver

It's been nearly two years since I first heard this poem, while on retreat. 
One of those life-altering pieces of art that comes along once in a long while.

Screwing up is part of the program: on building community

Slowly but surely, building community, little by little

"Just to be clear

I don’t want to get out 

without a broken heart.

I intend to leave this life 

so shattered 

there better be a thousand separate heavens 

for all of my separate parts" 

--Andrea Gibson, Royal Heart 

I once heard someone describe St. Louis as a “sticky place.” People never intend to live here long, he said, but somehow or other they get stuck.

In many ways, Spokane reminds me of St. Louis, and as I’ve been making decisions about where I want to live at this moment in time, I’ve taken into consideration the idea that Spokane, too, may be a sticky place.

This frightens me. I never want to be stuck. I’ve thought about leaving just to opt out of staying. Choosing to leave seems easier to me, right now. My spirit is restless and I don’t want to get stuck. But then I’ve moved enough to know the loneliness I would feel upon leaving is greater than the loneliness I feel now in staying.

For the past two years, I have lived in what we called intentional community. When I volunteered at the Catholic Worker house in St. Louis, one of the community members talked about the St. Louis heat and the house’s lack of air conditioning. Community living was hard, she said, but we’ve all decided to stay in love anyway. This is my image of what community living should be. Human beings. Drinking from mason jars. Sweating in the summer heat. Sharing stories. Screwing up. Choosing to stay in love anyway. This is not how my years in intentional community played out, to say the least.

At the end of July, I finished my two years with the Jesuit Volunteer Corps Northwest, which signified a transition in both my work and living situations. Every day I feel as though I am flailing. Friends are graciously taking me into their homes. I am working part-time as a hostess at a restaurant. I am no longer in school or AmeriCorps, where community is built into my days.

When I was a freshman in high school, I asked a boy to the Turnabout dance and he turned me down. The night of the dance, I stayed home. I cried and cried, and my dad made me a chocolate milkshake, like he sometimes did when I was sad. This weekend, in moments of loneliness, I’ve longed to be sitting on the orange couch with my dad and mom, chocolate milkshake in hand. I imagine that sitting there, I would no longer feel this loneliness. But I would.

Just to be clear, I don’t want to get out without a broken heart.

I don’t want to stay home the night of the dance, just because a boy turned me down.

And so, here I am, fighting to keep my heart open, even if that means it’s more likely to be broken. Dancing, even when I feel like I was turned down.

When I left Portland, a co-worker gave me a pair of socks that read: SCREWING UP IS PART OF THE PROGRAM.

I’ve always been terrified of screwing up. What I need is a community in which screwing up is part of the program.

This morning, my friend Kim and I sat across from each other, drinking coffee and brunching. Earlier I’d shared my thoughts of going home to Chicago, said that right now, as my life has changed so much in the past two months, I don’t know where I belong.

That’s part of why it’s hard for me to stay in Spokane, said Kim. But I think there is also something to slowly but surely building your own community, little by little.

Community is remembering that my voice is loud and carries and knowing that I am loved as myself when I still choose to keep my throat chakra open. Community is having the grace to screw up. Community is when a friend orders me leggings that she thinks I would like, just because. Community is little kids running to me, each hugging one of my knees. Community is sending job leads. Community is sitting on the couch, drinking tea, biking on the Centennial Trail and knowing where I am going. It’s knowing the owner. It’s writing letters to friends in faraway places.

I will still feel like I’m flailing most days. But I deserve a community where screwing up is part of the program, and the only way I will build that is in staying. I don’t want to leave because I am afraid of getting stuck. I am here, and I am all here, if only for this moment in time. And just to be clear, I don’t want to get out without a broken heart.

Fishing in Newport, WA 9/26/15

To find the joy in transitions, take breaks for:

  

·         Earl Grey tea with lots of honey and half-and-half

·         Saturday morning chats with friends in Missouri

·         Spending the morning smelling three-leaf clovers with this sweet little lady

Woo girls: the new hip

I am beginning to believe that the key to happiness is the decision not to be the smartest person in the room.

This summer at the end of my friend Clare’s wedding, her uncle Craig said to me, “I’ve figured out who you are. You’re a woo girl.”

With my mama in Seattle, likely pre- or post- woo.

“Well, I mean, I live in the Pacific Northwest and bike everywhere, so I’m kind of hip, too,” I responded, thereby negating any of the hipness left over after a night of dancing, befriending Josh-the-bartender, and, yes, lots of wooing. I know woo girls are not highly regarded by all. I’ve watched How I Met Your Mother. Though I’d had one of the best days, celebrating my dear, dear friends, I felt the need to explain my personality type on the Enneagram, Meyers-Briggs, and StrengthsFinder, and to point out that when I took the StrengthsFinder test three years ago, I was not, in fact, a WOO.

My hypersensitivity to other people’s impression of me reached its height when I studied abroad in Ireland and became acutely aware of the “obnoxious American” stereotype. I did not want to be that girl. So I kept myself in check—and when I didn’t, I fretted that my new friends and Irish family would write me off as just another one of those American girls.

This thought pattern inhibited my connection to the two great loves of my life: risk-taking and rowdiness. And it inhibited it for much too long. I frequently found cause to explain the complexities of my personality and to point out that smart, hip, and observant as I was, I knew what boxes people were placing me in. How exhausting! How unnecessary! How much happier I am when I choose not to be the smartest person in the room, not to speculate as to what others are thinking of me!

At the wedding, my mom joined in the conversation I was having with Craig, who asked her if she was a woo girl, too. To answer the question, she’d gotten in trouble in high school for “being boisterous in the lunch room.” At one point, my ma and I wooed in unison.

We may be woo girls, and I do know what that means in popular culture. But we also have the most fun of any girls at the party.

On being gentle

Coming back from the drugstore, my hands hold Old Spice, blue razor blades. This is being gentle.

Crunchy and brittle are listed as synonyms in the thesaurus. They aren’t. Because right now, as the muggy summer turns to crispness, I don’t want the particles my homemade deodorant forgot to seep into my new, elbow-padded sweaters. And I wish that homemade deodorant worked better than this. My armpits belie my DIY books.

Cleaning out an old deodorant applicator, melting olive oil and pellets of beeswax, adding essential oils. Finding a spray bottle to fill with baking soda and water. A double deodorizing scheme. Yet, here I am, my hands clutching Old Spice and razor blades. 

One summer in college my friend Terrence lived with my roommate Roma and me for two weeks. After his shower, the bathroom would smell like boy-smell, as we called it. We would smell his Old Spice body wash as we sat on the toilet. After he left, we missed that smell. We asked our friend Mark to shower in our shower. He did. The next day I smelled my loofah and it smelled of boy-smell. I didn’t use that loofah again.

Walking out the store, my hands filled with Old Spice and pink-tax-free razor blades, I thought about femininity, and what it means to mine that I am purchasing products marketed to men. What it means to my crunchiness that I am purchasing products at all. But, again, crunchiness isn’t brittleness. Old Spice isn’t brittly [it’s a word in Old English] unfeminine. I can still bend without breaking. 

The Big Pit

When I was seven, my family went on a vacation to Arizona, which included a trip to the Grand Canyon. As we looked out over this geological phenomenon, this holy site of the Pueblo people, I said, “It’s just a big pit.”

The more my parents simultaneously scoffed and laughed at my commentary, the more I repeated it, as seven-year-olds tend to do. I repeated my quip about “The Big Pit” so many times that it became the title of our Grand Canyon scrapbook page.

I’ll read Wuthering Heights or The Boston Girl or any of a number of other books in which beautiful, complicated child characters will have had a deep connection to the moors they lived near or to the sea, which they saw for the first time when they were 16. I’ll read these books and wonder why, if I am the complex creature I’ve found myself to be, it took me years to feel connection to the earth and to adventure.

Growing up, I didn’t like to be outside; I thought roses were plain and funny smelling; I didn’t care to look out the window on road trips through the Appalachians; and I thought the Grand Canyon was nothing but a big pit. I would have chosen a book over an adventure any day—and I am grateful for my connection to the written word, but I sometimes fret that I missed too many experiences for the sake of getting transition over and done with and getting back to my books.

This may be the reason that I am in love with the Pacific Northwest. I’m soaking in all the natural beauty that I ignored as a child twenty-zillion-fold. In Portland, I could literally stop and smell the roses the entire way to work.

If I ever write an autobiography, it would be dishonest of me to begin by reminiscing about my connection to the maple tree in my backyard or to Lake Michigan. The romantic, English major, four on the Enneagram side of me aches to be able to say these things are true. But the genuine, human, gentle side of me knows that it’s alright that I spent more of my childhood hours reading about adventures than having them and eating McDonalds instead of basking in the sun pockets beneath the trees.

My story doesn’t have to fit the mold of the young girl who intuitively understood her connectedness to the people and spaces around her. My story can be—and is—about the woman who can spend hours walking on the beach on Whidbey Island and jumped off the cliffs at Tubbs Hill with a college best friend. And I can find solace when I remember that there was a little bit of this spunk in me when I was a girl, since I was the one who discovered the hidden raspberry bush in our backyard, I auditioned for countless plays from middle school through high school, I interrupted my teacher in the middle of her rendition of "The Highway Man" because I knew I could read it with more feeling. It just looks a little different than it does in the novels.

Support, and what that means

Since August, in additional to serving full-time at a day shelter for women and children in Portland, OR, I've also been living in an "intentional community." What I mean by that is that I've been living with six other full-time volunteers, and we've all decided to live with each other for the year, sharing community expenses and committing ourselves to being more than just roommates. We are investing in each other's lives and experiences, are present to support each other and encourage each other, and most importantly to celebrate with each other and share each other's joys. In a society that is so focused on individualism, we've decided to focus on the strength that comes from community.

On Mother's Day, the agency where I serve, Rose Haven, held the First Annual Reigning Roses walk to raise money to continue serving vulnerable women and children in Portland. It was a very fun, very long day. I had been asked to see if I could gather some of my community members to volunteer at the walk, but I was nervous to ask. They all serve full-time at their agencies as well, and we all like to have weekends for self-care and adventures. However, I asked for their help and they pulled through. Four of my housemates came to volunteer for nearly six hours on their Sunday in order to support my and my agency. They got to meet so many of the people I work with and talk about every day, and thus were able to get a better understanding of what my day-to-day is like away from our home, which is a more intimate kind of knowledge than I'd realized before that day.

We were all tired after a long and early day, but I came back from the walk with a heart full of gratitude--a gratitude that came from feeling more strongly supported than I'd felt in a long time. It means a lot when family supports me, but there's something about having friends support me that really strikes my heart. They don't have to support me, but they do, and that feeling is incredible.

From left to right: Jared, Caroline, me, Katrina, Sean. Aren't we cute?

A Reflection on Simple Living

Since August, I've been living as a member of the Jesuit Volunteer Corps Northwest. A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to have dinner with some members of Jesuit Volunteer EnCorps, a volunteer program for those over 50. Here is a reflection I wrote about that dinner--I'd love to hear back about other people's experiences with living simply.

I moved to Portland, Oregon a little over a month ago. Here's a little of the beauty I've found here:

Dedicated to my great-grandmother, who missed the Titanic

Dearest Robert,

I’m sure you’re thinking of my third-class cabin

leaking loudly, creaking, squeaking slowly sinking.

But it’s a fine day at Mayneen and Bridie and Colleen are baking inside.

Tickets to Chicago are always dear, but with the fear of Titanic

we’ll not have to postpone our wedding a year or make it less lovely

with no Guinness for beer to make ends meet.

In the cabin next door one could hear little children crying, crying endlessly crying, “Momma, what’s happening—are we dying?” And I lay in bed, ruing the day that the gleaming seams of that “Ship o’ Dreams” left me without the means to return from Queens—the port from which she sailed.

The next morn’ Papa brought in the paper and then my anger tapered, more quickly than a candle with the flame blown out.

I never heard her name, but her face came in an instant:

The woman who slept in my cabin.

When I entered the game, I never thought I’d win and now the grin on my face

is replaced with the knowledge that we will get married and send

grandchildren to college and that woman is buried

in the Atlantic.

Robert—they denied my passage because they hadn’t received the message

that my ticket was part of that sweepstakes. And I guess that’s all it takes sometimes:

a mistake and a person who can pay for the ticket.

I’ll be home in a few weeks to wipe those tears from your cheeks.

Your beloved’s alive and our marriage will thrive because now we know

that fate wants us together.

Love,

Nora

music monday

Someday (two months from today) I'll graduate and my blogpost will no longer be sporadic. Until then, sporadically yours, Hilary. 

on when to reclaim words and when to let them go

About two years ago, because of a few of my friends, the word "bitch" kept popping out at me. At its core, the word is supposed to be offensive. And I don't want people to be calling me a bitch, whether it's to my face of behind my back. It makes me feel tiny and like my soul needs to curl up inside of my body and take up as little space as possible. So I stopped using it. Until that point, it had been a pretty frequently-used word in my vocabulary--both as a word meant to hurt and as a word intended to show friendship/ownership/belonging. You know, "yeahhhh, she's my bitch."

Today, my defense walls go up when I hear the word "bitch," even when it's being reclaimed, such as with Bitch magazine or the Poehler/Fey poster on the right. So as someone who very much supports reclaiming words and rising from the disrespect, how can I reconcile the fact that this word is still being used as a form of disrespect, as an echo and an emphasis of oppression? Because, while I never want to be called a bitch, I can't help but think, "hell yes, bitches do get stuff done" when I hear Tina Fey speak, when I read Bitch, when I write a criticism of some patriarchal influence that is keeping the people down. But I cannot stand the thought of people trying to degrade me with that word, the thought of someone--even a friend--asserting ownership over me by saying "you're my bitch." How can we find a balance? Is this word salvageable? Is Tina Fey's catchphrase more powerful because 'bitch' is still used to oppress? I don't know that I'll ever have the answer, but it's a good conversation to have.

"Girl" by Jamaica Kincaid

Wash the white clothes on Monday and put them on the stone heap; wash the color clothes on Tuesday and put them on the clothesline to dry; don't walk barehead in the hot sun; cook pumpkin fritters in very hot sweet oil; soak your little cloths right after you take them off; when buying cotton to make yourself a nice blouse, be sure that it doesn't have gum on it, because that way it won't hold up well after a wash; soak salt fish overnight before you cook it; is it true that you sing benna in Sunday school?; always eat your food in such a way that it won't turn someone else's stomach; on Sundays try to walk like a lady and not like the slut you are so bent on becoming; don't sing benna in Sunday school; you mustn't speak to wharf-rat boys will follow you; but I don't sing benna on Sundays at all and never in Sunday school; this is how to sew on a button; this is how to make a button-hole for the button you have just sewed on; this is how to hem a dress when you see the hem coming down and so to prevent yourself from looking like the slut I know you are so bent on becoming; this is how you iron your father's khaki shirt so that it doesn't have a crease; this is how you iron your father's khaki pants so that they don't have a crease; this is how you grow okra—far from the house, because okra tree harbors red ants; when you are growing dasheen, make sure it gets plenty of water or else it makes your throat itch when you are eating it; this is how you sweep a corner; this is how you sweep a whole house; this is how you sweep a yard; this is how you smile to someone you don't like too much; this is how you smile to someone you don't like at all; this is how you smile to someone you like completely; this is how you set a table for tea; this is how you set a table for dinner; this is how you set a table for dinner with an important guest; this is how you set a table for lunch; this is how you set a table for breakfast; this is how to behave in the presence of men who don't know you very well, and this way they won't recognize immediately the slut I have warned you against becoming; be sure to wash every day, even if it is with your own spit; don't squat down to play marbles—you are not a boy, you know; don't pick people's flowers—you might catch something; don't throw stones at blackbirds, because it might not be a blackbird at all; this is how to make a bread pudding; this is how to make doukona; this is how to make pepper pot; this is how to make a good medicine for a cold; this is how to make a good medicine to throw away a child before it even becomes a child; this is how to catch a fish; this is how to throw back a fish you don't like, and that way something bad won't fall on you; this is how to bully a man; this is how a man bullies you; this is how to love a man; and if this doesn't work there are other ways, and if they don't work don't feel too bad about giving up; this is how to spit up in the air if you feel like it, and this is how to move quick so that it doesn't fall on you; this is how to make ends meet; always squeeze bread to make sure it's fresh; but what if the baker won't let me feel the bread?; you mean to say that after all you are really going to be the kind of woman who the baker won't let near the bread?

Thanks for the Christmas present, Ma.

Martha says "Good morning!" I need a haircut.

my roommate is adorable.

I came home and found a little kitten all curled up in her bed.

Bloodbath by Christian Drake, Performed by Andrea Gibson and Sonya Renee

With love.