The Romance and the Journey continue.

I forget about this thing. The romance with my bike has progressed beautifully. Finally found some good trail and try to get about 20 miles in a few times a week.

Plans for the summer trip are also progressing. The turmoil on the Ecuadorian border has me concerned though about my arrival country. People keep telling me how dangerous it is for women to travel. I mostly ignore them and try to remember all that I have learned about trusting my instincts and not be afraid of trusting people (while still being wise)… but, honestly, there are times when I get terrified about what could happen. It’s not me– damn media or American-ness or something. Other than that, funds for the journey are also slowly accumulating. Even on the cheap, when you’re poor, a couple months of international travel can be hard to fund.

Working on a story for my Fiction Writing Senior Sem. I’m definitely taking a senior seminar without having had any of the prerequisites for the class. My professor’s worried.  I’m posting the story under the Writing section. Critiques?

bike troubles

I crashed my bike…

I always said I’d never be in an abusive relationship… but I just love him so much.

A date

I took my bike on a “little date” today. I finished my 8am exam, running on three hours sleep. Then I completed a paper for a class, sent it in, and fled the apartment.

Houston is not very bike friendly; the paths that do exist, I have discovered, are largely under construction or obstructed by vines and branches that would eat your face and shoot your mother. My crotch is going to hurt tomorrow.

However, it was a spectacularly beautiful day, and a few hours of riding is exactly what I needed. Came across a Jewish cemetery/park that had a beautiful open door chapel with an eternal flame burning. Who would have known… a little haven in the ghetto. I sat in the chapel for a while and took off my shoes, certain that this was holy ground. I so love finding these quiet spaces in the middle of such noise, a place not quite disconnected, but a haven still.

I am supposed to have two couchsurfers coming in tonight. Both seem like killer guys with stories to tell. I’m looking forward to more strangers, as ever.

Perhaps someday soon I’ll stop cheapening this blog with these grammatically incorrect  rants that look more like journal entries than anything of substance. There are thoughts, I promise.

today

I bought a bike

and studied for  a Research Methods exam.

Going to Atlanta Friday,

and camping when I get back next week.

I need to get the hell out of Houston–

with my bike.

<<Please disregard this and read my last post, where my life looks a hell of a lot more interesting.>>

Recent Developments…

I’ve developed a strong friendship with a guy named Mitch that likes to climb the walls of campus buildings.

I, myself, snuck up (past security guards and custodians) to the roof of one of our academic buildings a few nights ago and looked at the stars.

We hosted a Jewish couchsurfer and completed our monotheistic trifecta… had great conversations about religion and faith with Christianity, Islam and Judaism all represented (also of note, I was working on a paper about religious fundamentalism at the time).

Got hit on by a guy with “Sheila” tattooed on his neck… hey, that’s not your name!

I got one of those nasty gangrene looking bruises on my left leg that won’t seem to go away.

I’m seriously considering chalking a random term paper all over the school’s sidewalks.

Finals are next week. Crap.

Discovered (after five months of living with her) that while I put dishes in the dishwasher when they are dirty, my roommate puts dishes in the dishwasher when they are clean. What an unfortunate discovery.

Today I wrote a paper discussing Americans’ love for a little bit of religion in their politics… somehow brought in Flava Flave. (?)

Went to a Couch Surfing gathering for the Houston group. Met about 20 cool cats. After catching coffee we went on a tour of a sex shop (where we played a game of who’s the biggest pervert… “have you ever been aroused by a trip to the dentist?”) and to a gay club, then out to eat… our little meeting turned into a 9 hour extravaganza.

While heading to the sex shop I met a guy named Wolf. He yelled at me about the government’s conspiracy against us when I said I thought that violence breeds violence, and did not support unquestioned gun ownership by the masses.

I also saw a red-headed, middle-aged man wearing a harness and assless chaps.

All in all- it’s been pretty quiet on my end.

I forget…

I forget about things all of the time. My enthusiasm is rarely enhanced by the addition of fidelity to whatever project… specifically this blog. But here I go… remembering for a day.

Much of the past few weeks has been spent researching the effects of religious fundamentalism on church and state, hosting couch-surfers, reading travel books, and having interracial/inter-cultural/inter-religious conversation about reconciliation, most of the focus being concentrated on racial reconciliation.

I am learning much, and getting antsy for my summer excursion. The family and friends are freaked about me traveling solo- there is so much fear, too much. I am talking and thinking with about as much resolve as a bad techno song.

Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday and I’ll be 21 in three weeks. I think for Lent I’ll give up fear and selfishness and procrastination… too lofty a goal? Maybe I’ll just abstain from Taco Bell… and men. Mission accomplished.

Philly

I just got in from a long weekend in Philadelphia. It was a much-needed and very refreshing break from Houston. We couchsurfed as usual, and had a fantastic time.

We stayed with two different hosts and met a TON of different people. Our host Chris had two life-long friends down, also for their first time in Philly. We spent two days together running around seeing the city, sharing old stories, laughing, smoking hookah, and eating cereal from the same bowl. Do you ever meet a stranger and feel like you’ve just met family?

That is the beauty of traveling, and couchsurfing. Many thoughts- but my bed beckons and my 8 am class bodes. Night.

Afraid.

I’ve been realizing some ugly things about myself lately. Today I had a conversation with my roommate about my summer trip; it brought to light many things about myself and a few things about my life that I have been having a rough time with.

She is terrified about me going on this trip. Really, truly, terrified. She’s looking up news about the countries I am visiting and trying to somehow be in control so that I’ll be safe. She’s nervous that I am too impulsive and too naive to safely travel alone (though I feel I have much more life experience than her that has taught me to be wise and trust my instincts). Her and our closest friend highlighted lines in my travel book about safety issues for women traveling in Latin America.

This really frustrates me. I truly wish I had more people in my life that were supportive of the journey I am on. Everybody in my life says the same thing about the trip (and similar desires and actions in my life), that I’m crazy.

Really?

Crazy?

Because I need my feet elsewhere?

But the ugly thing that I saw in myself was that very frustration with their concern. We had a very good, civilized conversation about travel and the trip, and the meaning (and necessity) of my being alone for two months. Still, I was frustrated that it always comes back to safety and to fear… the more I try to move my life away from fear, the more strange looks I get.

It was a real struggle for me to listen to her, and not to just leave it alone or get angry. Surely that struggle comes from somewhere… maybe because somewhere in me, amongst all of the excitement, is that tinge of fear.

Fear.

It seems to constantly have some role in the conversation. It seems that much of our society is worked out in fear. We are taught to be afraid in many ways; parents, media, religion– they’ve all taught me to fear different things. Sad thing, when there is so much opportunity for wisdom, freedom and peace to flow from these sources.

I have come to realize that as much as I work to move my life out of this realm of fear, even so it is often fear, in many ways, that is my motivation.

That is…

[Journal Entry] “I think that I fear when I close my eyes and am truly alone that there will just be nothing there. I fear the shallowness and slothfulness of my inner self. I fear discipline because I constantly fail at cultivating it in my life. I constantly strive to find something new, some novel pursuit to distract me from the many abandoned ones behind. I think perhaps I’ve always been running from my own mediocrity.”

Secretly, I like when people think I am doing something scary, impulsive, or crazy (when in my mind it is more fun, educational, and vital) because I perceive it as taking me a step further from the mediocrity, the plainness, that haunts my life.

Yet fear constructs nothing.

Shit.

I am working on love as a motivation, for surely it is the opposite of fear. Love constructs. I am realizing that it is this that ties me to my faith– it is central to my understanding of Christ’s teachings. Love must replace fear as the motivator. Reconciliation is not worked out in fear; simplicity is not sought nor practiced out of fear; hospitality to strangers is not extended from fear, and prayers and peace do not have their roots in it.

I was once taught in church that backsliding was drinking and smoking and cursing, having sex, watching porn… I’ve been gargling mouthwash for months trying to get that bad taste out of my mouth. I think for me it looks more like a transition in motivators. Somehow this realization makes me so much hungrier for a true, refreshed look at what I believe.

The church I currently attend (in principle) has stickers that just say: “Love wins.”

I hope so.

Weeping Bank Account, Happy Feet

I, like everyone, have a problem with which I constantly struggle… it is called the wanderlust (said with German accent), and its symptoms include not only a passion for travel and a general restlessness when in the same place for too long… even more devastating, I suffer from a severe case of impulsive air travel purchasing.

Today I bought a ticket to Quito. I leave June 10, just after my brother’s high school graduation, and return August 14. Not sure what I’ll be doing exactly… some solo South American backpacking, and learning some Spanish. I am now in the process of looking for places to volunteer for a few weeks while I’m wandering through Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia (Columbia? :0 maybe others).

The day before yesterday I bought a ticket to Philly for the next week’s long weekend. I and two friends are flying in and staying with a guy from couchsurfing who we’ll be joining in doing some volunteer work before we hit the city. I’m excited.

Sometime next week I’m putting myself down for a trip to Atlanta in February and March to work on a team that will be working alongside an inner-city community development project that is a part of Mission Year.

Like I said, I have a problem. Travel is it. Travel seems to also be the cure for many others.

It was not until this past year that I really discovered traveling, and all that it has to offer. Since joining Couchsurfing I have become even more passionate about the journey– about going. I’m sure it is no coincidence that this week’s ticket purchases occurred while I was hosting a fellow CSer.

I hope my life is always about journey, about going and learning and meeting new people. I hope my feet always find new places to tread, even in familiar cities, even in my home town. Perhaps I love travel because I so love becoming.

“The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page.” -St. Augustine

I am at a restaurant right now working on a project for Research Methods. I have to find a group of four people sharing a meal and record their every movement… why do I enjoy this so? My waitress, Patty, was reading the stickers on my computer and loved this one:

I told her I’d bring her one next time I came in. Remind me.

Reflections on 07 and Hopes for 08.

So we are six days into the New Year and I am just now acknowledging it. I am behind, as usual. So here it goes…

2007 was a great year for me. Perhaps because it came behind some of the most difficult experiences of my life, or maybe because 2007’s theme seems to have been great people. This past year was truly about opening new doors of thought and new ways of living for me. As I said, though, 07 was all about the people… particularly strangers. I have developed an intense love for strangers and travel in this year. I have learned much from both. I cannot reflect on what 07 was for me without sharing who it was for me… and how they impacted my life.

Strangers in my home. The first important development of this past year was my discovery of Couchsurfing. I joined the network in May, and have since had many amazing experiences with the network.

Eric Smiley. This list is not in chronological order. Eric is a person I met off of the CS network. We met up for Thai food when I was traveling through Seattle. The encounter was short and simple, and I came away with one thing he said that has secured itself in my mind. We spoke about faith and hospitality, and he said that in Hebrews the Scriptures say “do not fail to show hospitality to strangers, for in so doing some have entertained angels.” He said that the translation of angel in this verse does not necessarily mean someone with halo and wing, as much as somebody who comes into your life and instantly changes it for the better. I subscribe to this idea of angels.

This year has in a large way been about learning to love and choosing to trust people.

Bless-ed Love. I went to Kenya this summer and worked for a bit at an orphanage doing construction work alongside Food for the Hungry. Though we were working at an orphanage that was associated with a church- the clearest example I saw of loving like Jesus was in these three Rastas we met. It’s hard to explain how much I loved these men, or how exactly they looked like Jesus to me. They came to the orphanage and saw work being done, so they joined in (“harambee” – working together). They spent a lot of time in the mountains, and a lot of time in jail because their dress was similar to a rebel group that was especially causing problems. They made jewelery and said great things like “slow down Princess” and “kidogo kidogo hujaza kibaba” (kiswahili for “little by little fills the bucket”). This last phrase has especially stayed with me. They still occasionally send me emails updating me on the state of Mama Afrika and welcoming me back to her lands.

“Princess”. While the Rastas called me Princess… there was a little girl at the orphanage that I called by the same name. She was the first child I saw, and at three she was this gorgeous little thing with a skirt that stuck out around her like a tutu and these tiny braids that looked like a crown around her head. Her real name was Winnie. I spent our whole trip falling in love with this little girl (and many of the other children there) and found out the day before we left that she had AIDS, and that many of the children with the disease, at that particular location, did not typically live to become teenagers. That night I journaled wildly, crying about how it was not fair that I loved this child so, but would not be around to stand beside her as her body was ravaged by this disease. I would not have to watch her die. At the same time a young boy Norman, also at the orphanage, was in the last stages of fighting the disease. These brought to mind how I had watched my best friend die of disease (kidney failure) a year before. I struggled with God about the state of the world and of these examples of fleeting beauty…

Journal Entry: “I kept thinking about how terrifying it is to love somebody in those stages of life and realized that it is what we are called to do. That is intentional and humble love, loving with the knowledge that pain will follow– sacrificial, rather than self-preserving love. I think of Winny and how beautiful she is- how long she may have. To reconcile that God would create her only to die young was truly difficult for me– but this morning I read a quote by Alic Walker that said “the beauty of the world is much more present than the evil of this world. The evil of the world is so big, but at the same time the beauty of the world overwhelms it.” Anybody who has seen this little princess smile knows exactly the relevance and validity of this quote.”

Matt D. Matthew crashed my couch through the Around America Project. I highly suggest you check it out- I am in the Houston and Baton Rouge episodes if you are interested (I HATE being on camera). Matt circumnavigate the country relying solely on strangers that he met through online social networks to drive, house and feed him on his journey. Matt stayed with us for one night only, and I drove him to Louisiana the next day, where we impulsively got pierced. Hard to explain his impact exactly– but Matt was an angel in Eric’s definition. When he left I took steps to end my lease at my apartment so that I can travel when the school year is up, and stopped watching television- among other things. I love that people can so influence one another.

Prison Blackberry Picking. There is a long back story for this one, and one I would rather not type and you’d rather not read. Suffice it to say I made a friend on a bus, consequently got lost on the Portland bus system, hopped on the right bus- going the wrong way and got to the end of the line where… I was dropped off in front of a prison, in the middle of nowhere, with four very rough looking men while the driver went to take his dinner break. As soon as we step off the bus two of the men start talking about the time they did at this particular prison, and the others chime in about their prison experiences. Being a 20 year old female in a strange part of an unfamiliar town (did I mention that my phone was dead) I had to quickly make the decision that these men had given me no reason to fear them. We struck up a conversation. They told me about their experiences “behind bars” and how the system treated them. One of the men picked blackberries and we all ate them, another taught me a card game he learned while doing time (he made jokes about teaching me prison games). We spend the next two hours or so together. I learned so much about many things. It was especially nice to share in their perspectives and hear stories about their lives. One of them moved to Alaska recently. This was just one of many instances in which I learned the value of choosing trust (while also respecting your instincts of course).

Nagma and Lizzy Brown! At the beginning of 2007 I began a friendship with these two lovely ladies. We have since really started to do life together. Nagma is now my roommate, travel companion, and partner in crime. We are constantly having exhausting conversations about the state of the world, social realities, and cultures and religions. She is a Southeast-Asian Muslim– I’m a Christian Euro-Mutt; it makes for some spectacular discourses on religion, faith, life, and man. Liz is much more sane, and down to earth than either me or my roomie. She is my sanity in many ways. She also hates for people to get into her bed in their “street clothes”.

Capoeria and Rolandito.

A few weeks ago I went to the park to study and spent the whole day just talking to strangers. I sat down with a homeless man and we spoke about Houston’s public transportation. Then I met a Honduran man, who was raising his three kids as a single-father. We all went to Cici’s and ate bar-b-que pizza. Later that night I went to the house of a member of capoeira group that I saw in the park, she made pezoles (delicious) and we and the rest of her team laughed through much of the night. These encounters, while great, were especially spectacular for me because they were the first times I had shared meals with complete strangers in Houston, outside of the CS network. It turns out people in Houston do talk to each other on occasion!
The Road. The best company I’ve had this year. Traveling, and hosting travelers, has brought so many incredible people into my life- even if for the briefest of moments. I have developed a love and appreciation for allowing people to move you, and of being on the move myself.

I also went skydiving this year- despite my fear of heights. Good year.

So what is 08 about? I’m not entirely sure. I keep thinking of this idea of reconciliation. I and a few other students are currently tackling the idea of racial reconciliation on our campus, we’re trying to work out an avenue for discourse on this issue for students… so racial reconciliation is on the forefront of my mind. But I think the idea of reconciliation could also be applied to much broader- reconciling faith and reason, intent and action, individuality and community… these are all hugely relevant to me right now. I’ll also turn 21 in the next few months… I am so young and silly. How will 2008 mold me? How will I mold 2008? Let’s see shall we?