ya esta?

there's a last time for everything

So it was about that time when we stopped and looked around at the newly-greened grass and jagged rocks and golden-hour tinted orange-brown buildings and wondered why we traveled so much during the semester.  Why did we ever want to be anywhere but right here?

"I don't know," my friend said, trying to justify our restless behavior. "I talked to people who didn't travel as much as we did, and they said that Toledo got kind of boring.  I guess you just run out of things to do here."

We half-smiled at the concept and realized right then, during our last week of calling this place home, that it really, truly, dearly had been home.  In every sense of the word. 

Lately, I've been obsessed with the aspect of the Eucharist being exactly what it is because it's ordinary. Boring. Bread and wine.  And I've been trying to find that--that same supernatural essence--in everything else I call ordinary.  This semester it's been difficult.  Nothing that has happened this semester deserves the title "ordinary."  It was that concept, that idea of Toledo being boring and routine with nothing really to do that made me realize I had picked the perfect place to spend the past three and a half months without even knowing what I was choosing.  I guess it just kind of found me.

Ordinarily, there was a crazy man who rolled his own cigarettes and sang to himself outside the Church beside my school.
Ordinarily, there was an alarm hidden somewhere inside my closet that rang every night at 11:30pm.
Ordinarily, there was an old man who sat with me as I waited for my English student right as the sun set on Monday evenings and never smiled back.
Ordinarily, there was a faceless, rough-voiced man who frequented the bar outside my bedroom window.

Those little, neutral, ordinary things that made Toledo less of a vacation and more of a home.  There weren't bad, nor were they necessarily good, but they feel the same way a really old scar feels, slightly raised and comfortable and part of you.  And I'm sad to let them go. 

I'm thankful to have studied in a place where there's less to do.  It left me with more room to just be.  And that's all anyone really wants, anyway. 

Fro-yo after Fi-lo

Here in Spain, it is always sunny. 

So sunny that my friend from Madrid doesn't own an umbrella and doesn't really know how to work one.

So sunny that my philosophy professor comes into the classroom wearing sunglasses and complaining that he wouldn't mind a more subtle, a more gentle cloudy day every once in a while.

So sunny that I feel an accute dissonance when listening to Christmas songs that summon down the snow.

So sunny that here in Spain, on days where I choose to sleep with my heavy shutters open, I am woken abruptly by the sunrise. 

After nights where I have a good long chat with a friend and laugh a little with my host family over dinner and finish reading the poetry of Fray Luis and say my Night Prayer and fall asleep early

The sun rises

After nights where I try my hardest to do my homework, but simply can't get anything done becuase I only wish I were somewhere else, with someone else

The sun rises

After nights where I can't really tell you what happened because I don't really remember, and all I know is that I feel guilty and wish the night had gone differently

The sun rises

Here in Spain, it is always, always sunny, and no one deserves it.

And that is the Sacred.

vignettes

I've never had an appreciation for modern Catholic architecture. 

This year I entered the incomplete Sagrada Familia in Barcelona and felt mature and fresh at the same time.  I let rainbow lights dance on my cheeks.  I was inside of something being born. Age-old poliphonies forced their way out of high definition speakers.  An usher told me I couldn't take pictures, not in this part of the Church. I should also be quiet, she indicated with a finger pressed to her stern lips. This section was reserved for prayer.

Of all the Cathedrals I've visited in Spain.  With their Gothic flamengero architecture and vaulted ceilings and smells of incense.  With their relics of saints and holy statues and representations of wealthy bishops.  With their choir lofts that maintained traditional social structure by cutting the church in half and preventing the poor from seeing the sagrada forma.  Not one has told me to put away my camera.  Or to stop talking.  Or to pray.

I smiled at the usher, absolutely delighted.  And kneeled down to say an Our Father in perfect, sacred silence. 

And that is how you spell hope.

-----

I've never seen Notre Dame football slip into the number one position.  I've never seen Touchdown Jesus sneak his way onto the cover of Sports Illustrated.  And I feel guilty, or fake sometimes, knowing that as much as that means to me right now, it does not mean as much as that girl beside me whose blue and gold blood had been passed down from her grandfathers on both sides.  But her smile and her tears and the feeling of knowing I made somehow made the right decision three years ago is enough, isn't it?

-----

I've never received advice from Little Sister before.  I've never been more satisfied with a piece of advice.  I've never been laughed at for thinking too much.  I've never been so humbled by simplicity, not from her.   I've never been more thankful for the age of 16. 

----

I've never had a turkey-less Thanksgiving.  I should would be flying home right now, with crazy Asians and half-Italians waiting with open arms.  With nine different kinds of pie to bake.  With guitar duets to learn and four-part harmonies to write.  With family pictures to secretely dread, but actually kind of look forward to.  With anticipation for that magical thing that happens when cinnamon is mixed with pumpkin.  With a million kisses and hugs from twenty different people. 


Until now. 

(but I think I'll be ok)

Green Saddened by Grey

I saw Van Gogh paintings for the first time the other day.  I mean really, really saw them.  I peered as as closely as I could, looking like a fool while the tip of my nose nearly touched the crests of the textured brushstokes.  I saw the excitement and pride in the boldness of The Yellow House and the celebration of life in Sunflowers.  Van Gogh's favorite color is yellow too, and used it as an expression of utter happiness.

Relatively speaking, there isn't much yellow in Van Gogh's paintings.

Unlike his contemporaries, Van Gogh had difficulty painting images from his imagination and instead preferred being outside with an easel and a newly-invented paint tube and painting exactly what was there in front of him. I used to think his paintings looked cartoonish and unreal, almost like child's play.  I never understood why he stood out as great next to painters like Grandjean, for instance, who painted scenes of 19th century Paris in such detail it were as if digital photography existed during that time period.  That, to me,  was skill.  That was reproducing exactly what came before his eyes. Paintings as meticulous as this, however, were not exactly what Van Gogh saw, felt, smelt, and tasted. Van Gogh painted the floppiness of the grass, the fragility of the flower, the invisible wind.  He painted the passage of time, not an artificially frozen scene.  What is more true of a human experience than that?

Toward the end of his life, Van Gogh painted scenes of the French countryside--almost one every single day.  He could taste it in those last few years more than ever before: that transience of living that one comes to realize most, I think, right before death. There is little yellow used in these paintings.  The countryside was where, Van Gogh believed, man was most in touch with the loneliness, solidarity, and tragedy of a human person.  It was also here that he believed man could find his strength.

I struggle fiercely with the concept of finding strength in loneliness, probably because I hate the feeling so much.  In thoughts and in conversations, I've tried to convince myself and others that there is not an essential tragedy to living because we will always be given the tools we need to achieve a small kind of happiness that may not satisfy, but gives us a hope great enough to overcome loneliness of being in a world our souls were not made for.  The restlessness of humanity is one that brings joy and nothing else. 

But I think I may have been taking optimism too far.  I think I may have been wrong.

Thomas Merton says, “The man who fears to be alone will never be anything but lonely, no matter how much he may surround himself with people. But the man who learns, in solitude and recollection, to be at peace with his own loneliness, and to prefer its reality to the illusion of merely natural companionship, comes to know the invisible companionship of God. Such a one is alone with God in all places, and he alone truly enjoys the companionship of other men, because he loves them in God in Whom their presence is not tiresome, and because of Whom his own love for them can never know satiety.” 

Peace in loneliness.

We cannot cling.  I cannot cling.  I have to have faith in something other than the physical comfort of an embrace because it is not here, truly, that I will find comfort.  I cannot freeze that moment, and neither will its memory be enough to sustain me through the rest of my cold and lonely days which will inevitably come.  Now is a better time than any to remember this: here, in Spain, where I am so completely aware of the loneliness that comes with the passage of time although there are no changing leaves to remind me.  There is a reality to loneliness incomparable to the touch of warm hand, and I'm blindly fumbling to feel it.  This is the tragedy of living.

"Not in countries far away do we discover what the Lord is asking of us; he directs us within ourselves, within our hearts, for he has put what he asks of us inside us." --Saint Caesarius of Arles

I want to be cohesive

Cities are usually referred to using a feminine pronoun, and I think that's appropriate.  Toledo is no exception.

"It's interesting that the most beautiful view of the city, in my opinion, is from the outside looking in."
"There's gotta be a metaphor in there somewhere."

I run through her almost everyday.  The side streets are charming and the way the road follows the land and doesn't battle it and the buildings...oh those buildings.  But I was raised in an ex-orchard and there was neither pared nor muro holding me in so it's only after I graze that city wall with the tips of my fingernails and trade the cobblestone for the sand and smell that enigmatic sweet-smelling tree and climb upward and upward and soar over that river Tajo and hit those prehistoric rocks and look back upon the way the rising sun hits her cheeks that my breath truly gets drawn out from inside of me. 

It's a pity she doesn't know. Sometimes--usually--people don't even know. Women don't even know. And that's a problem.

This past weekend, I watched the film Beasts of the Southern Wild as a sort of happy accident I stumbled upon with my travel companion.  It was one of the only films in English being shown at a theatre in Den Haag, the capital of the Netherlands, and our souls were craving the first movie in months we could watch having the advantage of our native tongue. 

But I got much, much more out of this movie than a simple English fix. 

The main character is Hushpuppy--a little girl living in a forgotten community cut off from the rest of Southern United States by a protective levee.  Hushpuppy is all that a woman should be, packaged in a calloused bundle of resistance to a negligent father with questionable motives and the threat of the destruction of her home with a single forceful storm.  Her strength is not in the bullets her father aims at the storm clouds.  It is not in her stiff jaw.  It is not in those tiny biceps her father makes her flex to prove herself.  It is not in her loud battle cries of frustrated dominion. 

It is in every breath she holds so she can listen attentively to the heartbeat of each creature sitting next to her.  It is in the way she looks into the eyes what she is most afraid of and stands her ground but softens her gaze.  And listens to his heart beat. And includes him as part of herself.  And watches as he bows down and walks away. 

It is in gentleness and love and courage that feminity finds her strength.  This is the art, the poetry, the beauty of being a woman.  And this beauty should not just be from the outside looking in. 

la alma de las gitanas

I think I'm a gypsy. 

No, really. 

Never in my life has a description of a cultural group stirred my insides strangely with it's familiarity so that I just wanted to scream, "Yes--they get it. That's exactly it. That's exactly me." 



Florencia: a gypsy woman on the steps of the Cathedral of Salamanca

Robbers, mystics, pests, sinners--words commonly associated with gypsies thanks to the Hunchback of Notre Dame or really any typical street scene in Europe.  Here's what you may not realize about gypsies:

1.  A gypsy is by definition someone who is not home.  There is no Gypsyland.  They're Romanian by origin, but when they live in Romania, they're called Romanians.  And when a Romanian moves to a different country and dresses in a specific way and lives in community with other Romanians who also live and dress and speak and sing in that manner, he or she is called a gypsy.  An anak na layas, if you will.

2.  Loyalty is incredibly important in a gypsy community.  Foreigners in a strange land must band together against oppression, and infidelity, in any shape or form, is unacceptable and not tolerated. Cervantes in his novella La Gitanilla writes of gypsy loyalty, "Nosotros guardamos inviolablemente la ley de la amistad..." Roughly, "We keep the inviolable law of friendship."  If that's not demonstrating an appreciation for the treasure that is relationship, I don't know what is.

3.  The greatest value of a gypsy moral system is virginity.  For women and men alike.

4.  They dance flamenco better than any native Spaniard.  Why?  Because the flamenco is a dance inspired by pain.  I would say that being separated from your homeland for security reasons and having no place to really call your home is reason enough to know pain.  And the weight of poverty and oppression wouldn't help, either.

5.  Also, the way they sing is remarkable.  Filled with expression, vocal skill, and passion.  Always accompanied by a furrowed brow, pleading eyes, and an outstretched hand--desperately reaching for something to hold on to. 

6.  The gypsy will not compromise tradition for anything.  They have the ability to resist and preserve through changing times, none of which have been easy.  (More poorly-translated Cervantes: "For us, harsh weather is a breeze, snow, our refreshment, the rain, our baths, thunder, our music...") Their culture has barely changed since the middle ages.  Gypsies had no regard for honra during the Spanish Middle Ages: that reputation seeking non-value that dictated the lives of hidalgos and lower nobles.  They knew where they stood in society, and it did not matter.  It is for this reason, perhaps, that they will always be known as beggars, because if one cannot assimilate into the social aspect of a community (which they consistently refuse to do) one simply cannot assimilate into it's economy.  Their ability to support themselves is then reduced to clandestine affairs and contraband business.  The gypsy would rather starve, depending on either the good nature or carelessness of others.  He would rather be at the bottom of a Spanish social ladder in a posture of apparent humility than let go of some part of himself, a culture of which he is almost foolishly proud.

The thing is, I think I have a lot of gypsy in me. I like taking a train to Grindelwald, Switzerland and wandering uphill for an entire day, panting and seeing spots and not quite sure where I'm going,  and waking up to things like this:

which I may have done last weekend; bonjour, Switzerland

 

I have the hardest time staying in one place for a long period of time.  I've been compared to a shark, moving out of necessity to breathe and live, and that metaphor has repeatedly resounded as true throughout these past few months.  But here's something else I may share with the gypsies: pride.  Do I wander more to learn about the strange, or do I want the strange to learn more about me?  I've been told, by different people at different times, that I am the same Denise in every situation.  That I come off as confident and sure of myself.  That it takes me a long time to let others affect me.  And, although they may or may not have been meant as compliments, I've taken these comments to be times in which others have helped me to realize a fundamental flaw in myself.  How principled can I be before I'm just close-minded?  How confident can I be before I'm just stubborn?  It is because pride that the gypsy meets the economic downfall.  It is because of pride that I constantly fall down.

 

 I have got to allow things like this:

 

"These mountains are..."
"Hand-carved"
"Exactly."

 and this...


"contemplaría más atadeceres"

 

and especially this...

 

I'm not talking about the mountains or even the lake
 

...not just stun me, impress me, or make me smile, but change me.  Because I too am hand-carved, and I'm being whittled away at every day.

 

 

Consider this my furrowed brow, pleading eyes, and outstretched hand. 

A Greater Poverty

I've always loved family dinners. It's hard to not, except maybe when you're an angsty high school kid for whom family dinners may only mean an impediment to getting ready for self-concious social gatherings.  That may have been me, once upon a time.  But these days--today--a family dinner with my borrowed family discussing governent spending and my little brother's tears and hair color and even Southern Boy, once or twice--was exactly what I needed to help me digest the past the two weeks. 

So maybe the reason last weekend was so hard was because it was coming off of one that was so easy.  A trip to Avila and Salamanca, complete with four-star accomodations, statues venerated by holy people, the perfect (albeit, out of place) Irish pub with the perfect, embracing atmosphere to lend to that kind of conversation where you look into the person's eyes sitting across from you and you just know that they really hear you.  Tapas bar hopping and learning about the lives of the bartenders.  Surprise Lauds, complete with chanting Spaniard priests and incense, before a Mass during which you look around and discover that the majority of the congregation is made up of the reverent faces of your classmates, smiling with realization once the profound and oh-so-applicable message of the priest begins to resound in their amature-Spanish processing centers. 

It really was difficult for anything to live up to that weekend.  Oktoberfest could have been fun.  Would have been fun. Was fun, in a lot of different ways.  But it would be dishonest of me to say that I didn't leave the weekend with a bad taste in my mouth.  A lot happened--too much for me to make known to the general public--but suffice it to say that at certain points, I couldn't handle the lack of respect for human dignity.  The way people ride on their blessings as if they deserve them.  How people cry over and over again to value life at it beginning and end but forget a lot about the middle.  How people love incompletely and don't realize it until it's too late. 

"Not everyone in this world is going to be Renee," my mom said to me, as I desperately sobbed to her for 50 cents a minute in the middle of the Brussels airport (crying is a universal language, I've come to learn; people from all over the world know to leave you a ten foot diameter).  She was, of course, referring to my best friend, who loves and loves and simply doesn't know how to stop.  And she's right--my mom, I mean, and that shouldn't be a sad thing but rather the most joyful--that I am so blessed to know someone who loves to an almost saccharine point, so that, in comparison, everything else comes across as more tragic than it should.  In fact, I know more than one person like that.  I know a group of people who will literally sprint with you to the latest Sunday Mass Toledo offers you're too flustered at the fact that you might miss the Eucharistic prayer and there's no way a weekend like the one you just had would end in missing Sunday Mass.  I know a cab driver who'll let five college kids smelling as if they've camped and gone to a beer festival and slept in tents for three days get away with not paying the full fare.   I know a Mom and a Dad and an Hermanito who don't really speak the same language as you but bring exactly the right amount of comfort that you need by simply having a hot dinner ready when you get home. 

I have so many blessings.  I need to stop acting as if I deserve them.

Lisboa. There's just a lot that goes on there

Traveling as a study abroad student is a little different from going on family vacations.  You can't stay in five star hotels, or go on every tour, or enter every museum, or sample every local delicacy.  Sometimes, you have to sleep on cold linoleum airport floors. Or buses. Or questionably sanitary hostels.

But you can say Night Prayer with two new friends on a cold linoleum floor, tasting the beginnings of bonds you didn't expect.
And sleeping on buses can actually be restful, if you can curl up in fetal position and pregame sleep with a conversaton about books.
And questionably sanitary hostels leave lots of room for playing mom and cooking dinner for 13 hungry souls. They are also a great place to meet classy Portuguese women who read Paul Auster and give you advice on discotecas. 

And at the end of the day, you're still in Lisbon. Or Lisboa, as the locals call it. The capital of Portugal: a land of tiled buildings, handbags made of cork, Pateles de Nata, and abandoned, Disney World- esque castles.

Hey there Jesus Cristo, thought you were in the other Portuguese speaking country

Pastel de Nata: rich creamy caramelized custard in buttery pastry. Also the only local food we could afford. NOM.

 

Ignore these goons and check out that sunset over that hilly city.

"What's your princess like?"

Ok so I don't know this kid, but he loves Sintra just as much as I do.

Madre mio

The Portuguese are much warmer than the Spanish people--and that first impression is coming from the first hour off the plane during which we wandered rather aimlessly with terrible headaches and sleepless bodies trying to find our hostel in the multi-leveled city.  We were constantly complimented on our Spanish in a country where the writing looks like Spanish but sounds like German.  And even after all of that, the end of the weekend brought with it a surprising longing to get home--Toledo home--to speak a language that I kind of know, sleep in a bed that's starting to form itself to my body, and play MarioKart with the closest I've ever had to a little brother. 

Autumn is finally here.  It's my favorite season back home, and I'm sure that much will stay the same regardless of location.

And on the Third Day...

(or third Mass she attended in Spain)

...she finally understood the reading even though it was in Spanish. And it happened to be 1 Cor 12: 12-14. 27-31. And that happened to be the same reading she heard at Mass every Friday this past summer before she lead the congregation in psalm.  And then every feeling of unbelonging dissolved and she was left with that kind of joy that makes you want to smile until you cry. And she thought of this:

and remembered that they were just freaks like her.

 

And so were the people standing to the left and right of her. And so were the paintings of the people on the walls of the tiny church, concentrated with elegance.  And decided she was exactly where she needed to be at that moment. 

 

 

 

And then she had some Tinto de Verano and danced her little heart out as she learned to flamenco.

 

 

Brothers and sisters:
As a body is one though it has many parts,
and all the parts of the body, though many, are one body,
so also Christ.
For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one Body,
whether Jews or Greeks, slaves or free persons,
and we were all given to drink of one Spirit.

Now the body is not a single part, but many.

Now you are Christ's Body, and individually parts of it.
Some people God has designated in the Church
to be, first, Apostles; second, prophets; third, teachers;
then, mighty deeds;
then gifts of healing, assistance, administration,
and varieties of tongues.
Are all Apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers?
Do all work mighty deeds? Do all have gifts of healing?
Do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret?
Strive eagerly for the greatest spiritual gifts.

not all of these could be happy posts, right?

I almost hit the wall.  I really almost did.  We were on an evening train back to Toledo from Madrid after a weekend that involved mountains and valley of emotion and I almost hit the wall.  And that frustrates me—that it’s even possible to have negative thoughts after being blessed with the ability to experience things such as the Museo del Prado.  (Note:  The Museo del Prado.  Spanish artists, like regular Spaniards, are not afraid to express themselves.  There is something violent about the romance of Spain that comes through in every aspect of their existence.  My literature professor talks about how Spaniards, historically have the gana to fight, stemming from eight centuries of fighting and defending their land, religion, spirit, and culture from Muslim invaders. Their language always sounds angry, their gaze intense, bereft of any sort of sugar coat, even when meeting someone for the first time.  There is nothing gentle about a Spaniard.   There is nothing gentle about the intentionality of a Spanish artist.  The first painting to strike me was a 16^th century work which depicted Judas leaning over Christ carrying his cross.  A crazed, terrifying, thyroid-eyed Judas.  He was not pleasant to look at.  El Bosco’s image of hell sending chills up my spine.  All culminating at Velásquez’s Christ Crucified.  A black background.  An almost three dimensional luminous body.  A bowed head.  A throb of guilt.  Wow.  It came to me, during that visit to the Prado, that the Spanish are my kind of people.  They are not afraid to be and show exactly who they are, even if it means failing to conform to social norms.  El Bosco’s 16^th century works look more like they belong with Dali’s imaginative surrealism and El Greco’s distinct style and soft interpretation far predate his time.  At the same time, they maintain an objective beauty.  They’re all weird, but beautifully weird.  Not weird for the sake of being weird, but weird because it’s strange.  Strange and familiar at the same time.    There is a sense of feeling like I’m exactly where I need to be. But I guess that’s kind of rare.  Continue to main part of blog post). 

But it did happen—that same panicky feeling of absolute non-belonging I will always associate with my first semester of college.  Bonafide culture shock.  Even the presence of my own mother and Older Sister couldn’t help me shake it.  Who is this Denise whose confidence is shaken? Who doesn’t know her way around a city? Who can’t convey anything she wants to—her gratitude towards her host family, her excitement that her real family’s coming, her love of the beauty of Toledo—because her words are simply insufficient? Who can hardly participate in the Mass or reflect upon the homily? Not the Denise I know—and that’s terrifying.

 It took a few things to help my frustrated stomach settle.  Laughter and talk of love and life and the future over a couple pitchers of sangria may have helped.  The best octopus I have ever tasted—Pulpo de la Gallena—induced a couple tranquil breathes.    Having a couple bottles of water and realizing it wasn’t, in fact, impending depression but rather week-long  dehydration (water fountains aren’t a thing in Spain)  causing me to crave sleep as if I hated my waking hours—yeah that helped.  And then, finally, just what I needed—stumbling upon a perpetual adoration chapel.  Walking in, kneeling, bowing my head.  Looking up ten minutes later to see embroidered on the mantel on which the Blessed Sacrament reted: “Yo estoy con vosotros todos los dias” I am with you always.

It’s good to know that Spanish God is just about exactly the same as English speaking God. 

 

I mean, just imagine it in real life. Actually, don't. It wouldn't do it justice.

silence, or close to it

"¿Esta muy ruido aqui, si?" It's so noisy here, right?

My host mom scrunched up her face and closed the doors to the balcony.

I smiled and nodded back in half agreement before realizing that I didn't agree at all.  It wasn't noise at all that I was hearing.  Maybe it's because my Spanish-processing mind hasn't yet developed enough agility to navigate its way through muffled crowd talk, but the sounds of dinnerware clatter and families enjoying each others company sounded almost musical to me (the fact that they mingled with a lively version of "My Way" on the accordian could have also contributed).  It's like how studying while listening to music in a different language has roughly the same effect as listening to instrumentals.  Your mind resists the immeasurable number of temptations to imbibe in processig or exercising or trying to get something out of everything that's being thrown at it.  Instead, it resigns.  Relaxes.  Breathes. Stops trying to learn something.  And in that resignation finds something worth more than all the stimuli could offer--beauty. 

Comprehension is usually a gift, but sometimes a curse.

There was a moment of silence this morning in my Writers of the Spanish Empire and Decline class.  It was brought to a close with my professor's reflective thoughts, which I hope I understood completely.  He gestured out the window and asked us to listen to what we had just heard.  No ambulences or sirens or cellphones or horns or cars.  What we hear on the streets of Toledo today is what one could hear in the 13th century. 

Me fascina.

this is the sound of settling

The thing about Toledo, Spain is that it's real. And I'm living here for a semester. No really...

...I'm living in a magic princess kingdom this semesester.

 

In Spain, they speak Spanish.  You know what's hard? Small talk.  You know what's even harder? Small talk with a family with whom you're living for a semester--in Spanish.  When you've only been taking it for two years.  And have just signed a agreement saying that you're only going to speak to fellow students and locals until December.  So there's that. 

 

 

But it really is helping me appreciate the value of mastering a language.  I love learning words, even in English, but when I learn a new word or phrase in Spanish and finally use it correctly it's not pride or fascination I feel--it's relief. This word will help me tell someone else what I need or what I did today or how I'm feeling or, eventually at least, how they make me feel.  Language barrier is a real thing; you can almost physically feel it's constricting, encapsulating power.  Wearing it down allows you to breathe a little more deeply.  One word at a time. 

 

Cerveza means beer.  Sometimes, it helps you speak Spanish better.  The bartenders at O'Brians or Enebro or Legendario most likely have a little more faith in my Spanish speaking skills than, say, my teachers or host parents or fellow students. 

 

Teachers--ah that's right. I'm studying here this semester. Granted, it will be a little different from school in the past.  I'm not taking one science class.  In fact, I'm not taking one class towards either of my major requirements.  I have one class on Monday and it starts at 4:55 pm.  Also, there is no peanut butter to take spoonfulls of when I'm awake studying in the wee hours of the morning.  None. In the entire country.  But even getting into the groove of things is helping make me feel a little more at home.  Well, maybe "at home" is even too strong of a phrase at this point--I guess it's more like finding tiny things parallel to my American life that at least put a smile on my face.  I'm running again  (the picture above was taken yesterday during my run whatttt).  I go to Mass in an overwhelmingly beautiful establishment.  I relax with my family on Sundays.  The Fresh Prince of Bel Air is still funny in Spanish.  Things are pretty much the same, no?

 

I mean, no.

 

But as my incredibly adorable 4-year old host brother said yesterday in reference to completing a Toy Story puzzle, "¡Es difícil, pero será posible!" It's hard, but it's possible. 

 

Just the inspiration I needed.  

the red lights mean you're leaving

Greenville-Spartanburg airport for the second time in less than a month.  Not much has changed since I began frequenting this quaint establishment since the early 1990s, except for the addition of free Wi-Fi (who knew) and a discount airline (which is kind of a big deal).  The decor looks like it was modeled after a jacket that Will Smith sported on the Fresh Prince of Bel Air and can only be decribed as #bacon (actually that doesn't clarify much. I may explain at some point, but probably won't because sometimes that description makes people angry.)

Not much has changed at all.  Not even the lump-in-throaty feeling I always got as a kid when leaving this place for a month, Manila-bound.  This is the fifth time I've left here, knowing I won't be home for an entire semester, and I still can't shake it.  Maybe that's a good thing.  In fact, I hope I always do get a little choked up. 

Irish music is playing for some bizarre reason, reminding me that I'm not in Dublin pre-gaming for the Emerald Isle Classic with some people I kind of like, which is exactly where I want to be.  But I'm headed somewhere, and there's half-smile on my face because of it. 

sour-patch post

Today was difficult.  Exhaustingly, frustratingly difficult.  The kind of difficult when you close your eyes and try to breathe so that the blood stops rushing to your face but all you can focus on is how the back of your eyelids sting against your corneas.  Difficult for embarassingly stupid, annoying, non-reasons.  Tiny neutral details that shouldn't stir anyone emotionally really, but just. eat. you. up.

So if you're curious, here's what makes me tick:

There was the fact I could not bring myself to get out of bed today to go to daily Mass, even though everything inside of me burned with a desire for nothing else than just that.  So much for willpower.

And realizing I had missed St. Augustine's feast day without saying Morning Prayer or Evening Prayer or Night Prayer or even thinking of him the entire day (this one, in particular, makes little sense to anyone, but please understand that St. Augustine and I are buds. We get each other.  One of my sons will be named August.  This blog is titled after a passage from his Confessions. I listen to what he says.  This is that terrible, disappointed, guilt that makes you flush in shame when you forget to greet your best friend on her birthday. I do not like it, not one bit.)

And being told that my personality was acidic.  Acidic. Corrosive. Harsh. Astringent.  My insides churned as I digested that, almost as if the hydrochloric acid in my stomach was gaining activity after being called upon by name.  I punished its hyperactive persistence by not finishing the Greek yogurt I was snacking on. 

And losing track of time at coffee with one of your friends and rushing home to discover you've missed family dinner.  Perhaps it's because I love everything about mealtime.  There is not a better combination than fellowship and food.  It is sacramental--nourishing your spirit and body and mind, engaging each one of the five senses.  It is the way in which Christ gets to humanity whenever Mass is celebrated.  It has every potential to be beautiful and perfect and more often than not, it is.  So when it isn't, loneliness ensues.  I'd throw tantrums when being left behind at the dinner table as a child.  I was terrifyingly close to throwing one today.

And the way Daddy just passive aggressively stepped over my computer charger a little more loudly than necessary to let me know I'm in his way.  Being annoyed at this, and then realizing I'm being just as passive aggresive by blogging about everything that's gotten on my nerves today.  This is not why I started a blog.  This is why I had not started a blog.  I'm failing y'all, dear readers, and yet I have every intention of hitting that Publish button. 

And other miscellaneous failings and misgivings that are not worth mentioning to the general public.

And thus, the day ends, and it is my task to figure out why I reacted to today. 

Possible Diagnoses:

1. Hormones. Self-explanatory. 
2.  Stagnophobia.  Yes, I just invented a phobia.  Yes, that's ok because every other name for a phobia is invented too.  But here it is--the fear of staying in one place.  Last time there was a lull in adventure, I couldn't take it, and so I started a blog--a cyberadventure, if you will. I thought it would suffice (it did, for two days, before I jetsetted off to Tennessee). I'm now in the middle of a two week adventure lull, waiting for Spanish Semester adventures to begin.  Ridiculously restless.  My wanderlust rapidly approaches status as a vice. Mother would say "Ang kati iyong paa mo." ("Your feet are itchy") and Daddy would again call me "Anak na layas." (Literally, "My child that runs away from home.") I have a problem, I think, and apparentally symptoms of my stagnophobia include irritability, anger, and moodswings. Avoid stagnant Denise as you would avoid stagnant ponds when searching for drinking water. 

But for real.  Deep breath. Put in things in perspective.  Be selfless for like two seconds.

I think it's this:

Pope Benedict XVI describes Christ's agony as "this inability of our hearts to carry within itself simultaneously the love of the most holy Trinity and the love of a world alienated from the Trinity."

There it is. 

I have seen beauty and experienced joy and love.  I am blessed with more than my feeble frame can handle.  I've developed an almost annoyingly facile tendency to see God in maverick places.  And when I fail to see Him--when things are not quite as they should be, when I'm uncertain about a decision I've made, when people say the wrong thing at the wrong time to me, and especially when I'm unreconcilably disappointed in the person I've become--I get angry. Things are not perfectly joyful.  They have not reached my standard, though they once have.  But I love them.  I enjoyed that extra three hours of sleep this morning.  Yesterday, despite St. Augustine being ignored, was still wonderful.  Acidic Denise is still the Denise I've been working hard on fixing.  And the grilled fish with peach salsa followed by a slice of cherry pie was delicious, though grudgingly consumed in solitude. Why. How is it possible that I have multiple standards of happiness that do not even come close to matching up? Am I a real person?

Close eyes. Ignore stinging corneas.  Exhale. Inhale.

Phone buzzes. Text message from friend.

"How are you, m'dear?"





Oh. Found Him.

I will now hang my head in shame.

there's a storm coming!

"It had been raining that day from morning to night—the kind of soft, monotonous, misty rain that often falls at that time of year, washing away bit by bit the memories of summer burned into the earth. Coursing down the gutters, all those memories flowed into the sewers and rivers, to be carried to the deep, dark ocean."

— Haruki Murakami

Southern Boy reprimands me for loving this quote, and actually anything from Murakami, or Dostoevsky, or Tolstoy, or anything that I appreciate that was translated from another language for that matter and I see his point, I really do.  Something is lost in translation.  It's why when I was 16 years old I set the lofty life goal of learning enough Russian to read Crime and Punishment in its original language (a goal towards which I have made exactly zero advances).  It would be like seeing this:

and not just an incredible photograph of it.  Breathtaking. Ethereal.  Divine.

 

 

But the world isn't perfect, and for now, I'll settle for Murakimi's description of a late summer rain because right now it is perfect--a perfect description of today.  While Charleston is knee-deep in the water somewhere (King Street, actually) and New Orleans is preparing for the worst, Greenville is warm, grey, and ever so slightly touched by the outskirts of Tropical Storm Isaac.  Washing away those summer memories.  The whir of the electric fan pushing around humid air in my tiny single, small enough to embrace me with its four walls.  The musty smell that took me back to childhood trips to the Philippines.  Subjecting myself to additional heat only among the Grotto candles on Tuesday nights.  The miraculous way I had enough of a voice to cantor every Friday after a long week.  Loving the present in a way I never had before.  Hot, searing, burning into the earth.  To be carried away to the deep, dark ocean.  

Mountain Mama

Today, we went on a family hike.

Ok, well correction: this morning's hike was supposed to be a family event, but conversation with Princess Little Sister went a little something like this:

Me: Hey, guess what we're doing as a family tomorrow morning?
Princess: If you say hiking, I'm not going.
Me: No, but it's not actually an option.
Princess: I'm not going. Anyway, look, the cheerleading squad got new ponpoms, do you like them? I wanted them to be sparkly silver, but that's not technically a school color, which is annoying.

None of this could be made up.

But convincing Daddy that he indeed had enough time to go on a hike with me and Mother that it was cool enough to keep her hot flashes at bay was enough of a challenge.  Suffice it to say I was quite pleased when our little Prius hit Geer Highway this morning.  But let's give you an idea of who exactly Mother is.

Mother: Denise, is the trail paved?
Me: No.  We're going on a hike...
Mother: Oh.

Coaxing this woman whom I love ever so dearly three miles up a moderately steep hike was not easy, friends, and took much of that affirming spirit I've become so adept at because of my summer job.

"You are gorgeous," Daddy says to a frustrated, sweating, fuming Mother. As usual (for both her and me), she scoffs at the compliment.
"I don't feel gorgeous. Not at all."

I get it. Getting older sucks, especially as a woman, what with that whole menopause thang and one day I won't be able to climb up mountains the way I can with my 20-something friends.  But I had to smile at my mom's comment.  Call it strange, call it a rationalization of my laziness, call it a manifestation of closet feminazi sentiments, but I there is something really physically beautiful to me about pushing a human being to the point of exhaustion. I love the way sweat feels after it is well deserved.  I love the rosy blush that tints a face after a long run.  I love the way skin glows with a sebaceous sheen, blood pumping furiously just under the surface.  The rise and fall of an exhausted chest.

Some people feel most alive at the height of physical activity--perhaps, paradoxically, when they are most at risk for not being alive: snowboarding in Utah, sky diving, etc.  I don't, mainly because I think spiritual and mental capabilities define the true greatness of a human being, but there is something to be said about the height of physical capabilities.  I think, then, it is when we are most physically beautiful.  Gorgeous, even.

And the view after three miles uphill isn't much to complain about, amiright?

Love me some Table Rock.  Also, look closely to spy Mother.

Without Tiring

Yesterday, I went on a run with my oldest friend, adopted sister, and long time running/ spiritual/ musical guru. As is typical during such runs, diaphragmatic inhales interrupted long bouts of vocal ponderings about our pasts, presents, and futures--all of which, God willing, are intimately intertwined.  Most recently, our conversation centered around the future part.  We find ourselves in the exact center of our college lives.  The next step is, indeed, a career and potentially motherhood--what is known to many as real life.  Oh boy.

As providence would have it (or perhaps, a combination of luck and living in a small city) we passed two girls with whom we attended high school.  Women, rather. Yes, definitely women, and that was what was so striking. Both were pushing children in strollers, and while one clarified that she worked as a nanny for the bubbling light source in her stroller, the other was undoubtedly the mother of the slightly disgruntled one year old boy.  We stopped to chat; small talk was all that was possible between women whose acquaintanceship had eroded nearly to the point of unfamiliarity by three years time and experience.  We flashed them farewell smiles, and jogged on.

On our return loop to the car (which we would soon realize we had unfortunately locked ourselves out of, but that's besides the point), Guru and I again crossed paths with the women.  The mother laughed as we passed. "They're still running!"

Still running.

It is kind of impressive, isn't it? Three years came and went.  There were so many moments in which we--Guru, or Mother, or Mother's Best Friend, or children--could have failed.  We're still alive: breathing and pumping blood and blinking and converting ADP to ATP to power our run. And for some of us--well, one of us--finding it within herself to reach the zenith of selflessness; that is, breathing and pumping blood and blinking and converting ADP to ATP not just for herself but for another.  Perhaps even greater than that, withstanding the judging eye of the Conservative South and the even more Conservative Catholic School community within it to be able to move on. To smile. To laugh while taking a walk with her best friend from high school.  To positively glow while doing it.

Their friendship lasted.  Mine has lasted with Guru, despite my bossy beginnings as a best friend, her frustrated middle school bullying, our difference of interests in high school, and our colleges upwards of 600 miles  away from each other.  Our futures, as we discovered, were spiraling in wildly different directions.  I swell with pride a little bit every time I talk about my friendship with her, because with all of my failings it is truly a miracle that such a fragile connection, so easily severed, could withstand them.  We're still running.  That's kind of cool.

That puts me in mind of...

This image was introduced to me at the beginning of the end of summerconferenceforhighschoolstudents as a remedy to melancholy nostalgia that descended upon most of the mentors our final week.  "Don't hold on to it," we were told. "Our hands must to be cupped open, or we will never receive the water."  

I needed to hear it then.  Joy does come--sometimes more frequently and more powerfully than others, and in those times it can be difficult to move on to a place different from the ecstatic state in which one finds himself.  Many times this summer, I thought to myself, "How can anything be better than right now?" The image helps me to remember to expect joy--it is promised to us at some point, if not today or tomorrow or a year from now, then at the end of everything.  There is more to come. 

I needed to hear it today.  The past few weeks have been new--different--geographically, emotionally, spiritually speaking.  Front porch coffee during a morning thunderstorm with kids I grew up with. Dock talk spent marveling at how the moon's reflection off the water allowed the night to look like the day.  Meteor showers, soundtrack brought to you by the entire coyote population (pups and all) of Middle-of-Nowhere, Tennessee.  Four-wheeler rides in the rain.  Fishing in the dark. Carolina mountain views and waterfalls.  Is this real life?

Yeah. Of course it is.  But that necessarily means that they each of these vignettes had to come to an end.  I couldn't ignore the fact that the air was getting colder, even while they were being played out. Indeed,  fireflies are becoming more scarce.  The peaches now lack the purely luxurious sweetness of nectar rolling over the tongue and surprise you with a tarty kick at the end.  Little Sister is once again hemming my old high school kilt.  This, the longest, richest, most exhausting summer of my life is tapering off.  

This realization, undoubtedly accompanied by a hint of loneliness, was answered when the above image popped into my head this morning to remind me that the end of things is beautiful.  It means only that we exist in time and life is only possible with change and joyful things happen so we can remember them when joy is lacking and look forward for that next euphoric burst.  My task today was to say goodbye--to the boy with whom I spent the last eleven joy-filled days (henceforth referred to as my Southern Boy--yes,  he is responsible for the four-wheelers and the fishing), to Little Sister on the first day of her most important year of high school, and to the indescribable adventure that was this summer.

I eagerly look forward to all the hellos to come.  

How God is Different from a Postmodern Artist

Behold.  Courtesy of this morning's Wall Street Journal, I present to you "Phosphorus (2004)." The Industry of the Ordinary drink a crate of beer and document the change in color of their urine.  Friends, this is what happens when a postmodern thinker has a little too much fun on Thirsty Thursday and is inspired by both the increasing popularity of ombre fingernail paint on Pinterest and a random recollection of titrations from freshman year Gen Chem lab.  Yes.  Drunken pee has now become art.

Much to my relief, Mr. Eric Felten, author of The Extraordinary Banality of the Ordinary as Art feels roughly the same way I do about such a display.  "Feel free to roll your eyes," he implores, as he documents other examples of how using the ordinary as not just the subject of a piece of art, but as the art itself, was novel perhaps a century ago but is now simply--well, just ordinary.  Pathetically ordinary.  The idea of such a practice is to "blur the boundaries between the artist and the viewer," but, as Mr. Felten argues, isn't admiring a piece of art comparable to, for instance, watching athletes on the Olympics? The art is aesthetically sublime, but admiration is also recognition that this artist, this gymnast, this swimmer has done something that I will never be able to do. "That's the art that makes us thrill to be human."

So, postmodern artists allow the viewer to participate in the art and celebrate the wonder that they claim is contained in the ordinary.

Ohgoodnessgracious.  Is God a postmodern artist? One of the many things I've marveled at over the past few months is the ordinary-ness of the Sacrament of the Eucharist.  It is bread and wine.  That is it. It is boring, mundane, and everyday. And yet it is God.  The mystery of Christ is astounding not because the Divine came to Earth to perform miracles, but because He came here to depend on another for sustenance and feel anger and loss and at the end of the day, when He could do nothing else, cry.  He was ordinary, and He is the most beautiful.  By coming to Earth, He has asked us to become his co-creators.

Somehow, though, is not the same.  I don't really feel free to roll my eyes every time I receive the Eucharist (although, admittedly, I have at points in my life).  A postmodern artist takes credit for creating an environment in which he tries to force the viewer to see beauty because something just is. But the viewer is oftentimes left unsatisfied. It is boring because I myself could drink a crate of beer (maybe?) and document the change in color of my urine.  It doesn't impress me that you thought of the idea first.  It's a bad idea.

And yet, it impresses me that I can love like the Creator can and make life like He can and sometimes, create something beautiful like He does.  Maybe "Phosphorus" will be popular for longer than I expect it to be, lasting beyond the life of the artist, but one day, those cups will degrade and the memory of the art will fade with the extinction of the last of its admirers.  It will no longer be art.  But God will remain The Artist after the last person to believe in Him stops believing; He is not forcing anything to be extraordinary or worthy of praise, but because He has touched it, kissed it, it simply is. It is not for credit or honor or money or a display case in the Chicago Cultural Center, but because love flows forth from Him. He cannot help that.  And that is what makes me thrill to be human.

Cred to WSJ for being awesome

Pilot

Sometimes, I set weird policies for myself and stick with them. Other times, I regret the policy and stop.

I told myself I wouldn't ever start a blog, for instance. "Why would I want to put my thoughts on the internet?  No one cares about what's going on in this grey matter, so..."

I only said that because I didn't care much about what was going on in anyone else's grey matter, except perhaps unless it pertained to the excretion of neurological chemicals.  Everything else--at least, those parts that my peers chose to publish on the interwebs--I labeled as angsty, pretentiously deep, and otherwise worthless.  I guess I was afraid that my words would be the same.

This summer, I worked as a mentor at a summerconferenceforhighschoolerstohelpthemdiscerntheirvocation.  Somewhere within that muchedumbre of grace-filled, love-vomiting mentors, eccentric keynote speakers, lax bros from Connecticut, valley girls from California, and Canadians who shamelessly declared "Eh," a girl named Emily cried.  With a single glance during a Friday affirmation session, she cut through the veil of cynicism I was donning that morning (attributable to my exhaustion from the week and my frustration with my small group and my general dislike of the notion of sitting in a circle and telling everyone nice things about each other), told me I had changed her life with my words, and cried.

I don't know if it was the initial shock of feeling at least partially responsible for gently stirring the stubborn soul of a seemingly unfeeling high schooler or the way I could not help but smile the rest of the day, but somewhere in the aftermath, I entertained the possibility that by some grace of God, thoughts do have value.  Maybe it's not angst, but real pain.  Maybe the depth isn't pretense.  Maybe they are worth something.  What if my thoughts are worth something?  What if something magical happens when I translate those thoughts into words? What if I am capable of stirring yet another? What if I am supposed to?

This blog is a reaction to that "What if?"

I'm confusing. I'm scatterbrained. I'm still deciding.  I'm almost right, but not quite. I'm in suspense and incomplete.  But maybe someone out there will need that at some point.

Someone: here's a risk I'm taking for you.