i love mid-afternoon thunderstorms that remind me of summer in wyoming.
i love waking up in the middle of the night and wanting to pray for people that i care about.
i love cats that ignore me completely.
i love travelers, and i love going to the airport and looking at travelers.
i love remembering.
i love how the air seems to be alive these days, electric with the posibilities between us.
our spring break road trip 2006 (or rt'06 for short) is going fabulous, save for some minor setbacks.
first, the good news:
i have spent over 20 hours in the car with two of the greatest girls ever. we sing, we laugh, we sit in pleasant silence. . . it has just been golden.
i met up with my first college roomate and had a splendid time. i was a bit nervous to see her, seeing as it's been a year and she is now married, but it was as if time never passed at all. i loved her husband. he made us chocolate chip pancakes in animal shapes (mine was a great white shark).
i went back to my old bible college and was overwhelmed with a feeling of goodwill (not what i was expecting at all) and i saw old friends and everywhere i looked i remembered people and they remembered me. i am always positive that i am the most forgettable person in the world, but it didn't play out like that today.
i saw an old friend that i had been needing to see and reconcile with. it went great. christ was there.
i bought a pair of over-sized glasses at target and both mari and michelle have taken turns commadeering them. we have decided that they are magic. everyone who wears them feels ridiculously good about themselves and can't help taking pictures that they secretly want to post on myspace. we have decided to call ourselves the sisterhood of the magical glasses.
now for the not-so-good.
mari got a speeding ticket. well, she was driving 21 miles over.
it is monsooning here in long beach. seriously. there are absolutely inches of water everywhere. i do believe it is colder here than in portland. so, i gues i won't be coming back sun-kissed.
i met up with another old friend today and he is decidedly unwell. i listened to his monologues for an hour and i got sick to my stomache. he wants to come live with me and my family in portland. i felt awful because i felt like my ration of compassion had run out today.
ah well. i hope everyone else's spring break is going well, and i hope we all learn to love each other. i don't know why i just typed that.
i promise my next blog will be happy. it will be a spring break one, so it will have to be wild and crazy. it just has to be.
this one, however, won't be. just so you know.
well, there was homework club today, and lots to write about as a result. i show up at 3:30 to find melissa, a little white girl, crying because abduli had kicked her in the back. melissa's mom was really upset, so i promised to go find abduli and make him apologize. jorge, who works with catholic charities, decided to come along and mediate the conflict between the two kids. big. mistake.
i take jorge to abduli's house, but melissa and her mom and her aunt follow us. we knock on the apartment door and it opens to show us no less than 20 somalians crammed into one apartment. most of them are kids. i see abduli and tell him to come forward so we can talk to him. he bolts. jorge steps inside the apartment only to be pushed back by a very large and unfamiliar somali women. he explains that he just wants to talk to abduli, and goes on to explain the whole situation. she doesn't understand a word. melissa's mom and aunt are standing right behind me, and they keep interjecting comments (sample: "next time the cops come to my door and tell me to stop beating my child, i'm gonna tell them that the bruises are from you!"). finally, the somali women shakes her head, says she is sorry, and starts to push jorge out of her house, putting her hand to his chin. i am standing awkwardly in the hallway, watching this all take place. melissa's mom starts screaming: "next time, i'm gonna tell my daughter to kick your fucking kid's ass!".
i didn't know what to do. the somali's were defensive, jorge was humiliated, and the two white ladies behind me were clearly incapable of reasoning. but i tried anyway.
"they can't understand what you are saying," i said. "it doesn't help at all."
melissa's mom looked at me, and shook her hand at my face. her nails were painted lime green. "well, fuck you. i know they can't understand. that's the problem with those people." with that she glared at all of us and took off down the hallway, screaming for melissa to join her.
i was a bit shaken up, but there was still homework club to be had.
everything was going fine for awhile . . . there were plenty of volunteers and it seemed like kids were actually accomplishing homework. i was pleased as punch.
and then . . .
i turned around to see hassan and shemsa fighting. like punching each other as hard as they could in an i-legitemetly-want-to-kill-you kind of fighting. i missed out on the whole public school thing, so i had never really seen this before. i tried to pull hassan off, but he is a wiry 13 year old, and i couldn't do it. finally, his older brother ali stepped in to help. we forced hassan out of the room and he stood in front of the glass door. his face was so full of rage, and he was shaking. he refused to leave. he was crying, and he was furious at himself for crying. his older brother had to pick him and and throw him over his shoulder and take him home. i stood outside and cried as i watched hassan being carried away.
he had always been my favorite, and i didn't understand what had happened.
i went and looked at shemsa, and hassan had cut her cheek with his fist. i knew i had to go talk to him. i gave it 20 minutes, and then went up to his apartment. his mother had to drag him out of his room. he didn't talk to me, would barely look at me. i explained that we couldn't handle any fighting at the homework club. i asked him to tell me why he did it, but he just looked away. i didn't know what to say. so i stood there for a minute with my hand on his shoulder. i had known him now for over a year, and i always felt like god told me that this boy would grow up to be a leader.
hassan looked up at me, and there were tears streaming down his face.
"i'm never coming to homework club again", he said.
i went back downstairs, devestated, and there were fights breaking out all over the place. homework club was done early. it was too much for all of us.
my friend melissa knew i was hurting and so she suggested we go to burgerville and debrief. i sat with her and sara and nicki and we talked about the evils of this world and about old testament prophecies and how vengeance has to be the lord's. i can't stop people from fighting. i can't diffuse their hate. i can't cure a kid of years of pent up rage, frustration, and anger in one homework club. in fact, i really can't do anything of lasting worth at all. but i have to believe that christ can. i just have to, and i do.
well, as i was sitting at burgerville, giving my ministry back to god, i got a call from halima (one of my somali girls).
"hello?" i said (you always have to talk loud on the phone with them. everyone in burgerville turned and stared).
"danielle? you know tall boy?"
"um . . . ." there were several tall boys there today, "do you mean weston?"
"yeah! weston." halima breathed heavily into the reciever.
"what about weston?"
"he, he walking around saying 'where danielle? where danielle?'"
oh my gosh.
i had forgotten weston.
i ran back to the complex and tried to find him, but halima told me that he had taken the bus home.
i guess, looking back, i just wanted to say this to everyone today:
i am so, so sorry. for everything.
most of you who read this probably don't know trippe but i do and i love his car. this afternoon i was riding in it, and it was a messed-up portland march day. black rainclouds, sunshine, rainbows--the works. we drove past the industrial part of town and swerved through traffic. trippe likes his dylan and cash loud, and he was smoking a sweet-smelling something or other. i was quiet, and it felt so good. i don't even really know why, but i felt like myself. to be quiet. to enjoy without neccessarily making the half-hearted remarks.
so there it is. my ode to trippe's car.
as soon as i got out of the car i was immedietly bothered. why should it feel so delicous and freeing to be myself? i guess it's because i rarely am. i asked god what he wanted me to focus on for this year, my 22nd, and he told me this: dependency. he wants me to depend on people, in the best sense possible.
well, i don't want to depend on any of you. you are always letting me down. i don't know how to depend with expecting too much, to love without putting myself first.
thank goodness it's the weekend and i can get some semblence of rest. i'm off to go try on bridesmaid dresses and eat pasta. while watching a romantic comedy, natch.
when did i get to this point? i decided at 12:00 today to skip my last class, mainly because it was snowing gigantic flakes onto my cheeks and it just felt like the most logical decision to make. i went into the prayer chapel at my school where i got melted water everywhere and it was so, so cold as i huddled on the strangely comfortable wooden pew and prayed to christ jesus. i didn't really cry, but man i sure felt like it. those are the worst.
i absolutely love and hate portland. yes, i realize that those two words contradict themselves. if you knew me, you would understand perfectly.
mmmm. . . i like this picture more than i can say right now.
life is good. i turn 22 in a week. i don't feel ready.
i love my classes, so why can't i write the papers?
there are so many people that i appreciate right now that it is hard to keep track.
i'm happy, but just not comfortable.
and i don't really think that's a bad thing.
i just realized that christ probably already knows what i struggle with. i feel like no matter where i go or what i do, there is a small cat that follows me around. it is a black cat, much like anne lamott's christ figure, but mine is the personification of loneliness. i am tired of pretending to not be lonely. i have given up the game. also, i realized that it is entirely possible to be happy, fulfilled, busy, peaceful, and hopeful and still be lonely at the same time. i don't understand any of this. but days like today, the cat just sits on my bed and won't stop staring.
i think maybe it has something to do with the fact that i don't feel good.
well, i am sick. i never used to get sick when i was a little kid. i only remember getting the flu once, and that was when my mom and older sister were away for a week at a worship conference and it was just me, my little sister, and my dad. we lived in wyoming, and it was very windy. my dad fed us a straight-up diet of tv. dinners and matinee movies. we loved it, until we got the flu. the poor man didn't know what to do, and brought in a succession of older, matronly "baby-sitters". i only remember the sprite that they made us drink. they never rubbed my back when i was throwing up. i think i got better just as my mom got back.
well, i have a fever for the first time since i can remember. my eyes feel yellow, and liquidy, and the exact same temperature as my face. which is pretty hot.
so, i can't sleep. my nose is dripping, my mouth has to stay open in order to breath, and i feel like my cheeks are on fire (although my toes feel very chilled). but, who wants to read a blog about sick danielle?
i think it is time for me to count my blessings.
things i am thankful for. here we go:
1. lost salinger short-stories that are found by new friends who feel older.
2. co-workers who are delightfully pagan.
3. married friends who fight and make-up in front of me in wonderful ways.
4. married friends who cook me lentil soup and discuss how to reverse the degenerative effect that christian missionaries brought to millions of people worldwide.
5. the book of hosea.
5. cake. a good piece of yellow cake. i haven't had any yet (nor do i feel like eating at the exact moment), but god is teaching me to thank him in advance for things that i don't even really believe are going to happen. so i thank him for the cake.
that's all. thanks for listening.
i just looked in a mirror and noticed that my face turns red very easily. like when i am stressed, or excited, or passionate, or when i laugh at funny people. which seems to happen all the time these days. and you know what? i hate being in charge of things--anything, really--and this seems to bring no end of amusement to god the father. i have gotten back into the habit of watching movies by myself again, and i always laugh out loud and then look around for someone to nudge with my elbow, but no one is ever there. i am usually only mildly dissapointed. i really like the concept and practice of missions in general. however, i don't really like the missions conference at my school, because the speakers are disjointed and don't know who they are speaking to or what they are supposed to be saying. they rely a little too much on emotional manipulation. thank you, i've had my fill. somali refugee children are mysteries to me, and i don't understand what makes them sit quietly and do homework and what makes them act like children of satan himself. this week, they erred on the angelic side. i count my blessings one day at a time, just like my momma taught me. i never knew that any of this would happen. i realized today that i am not a patient person at all. i want to rush everything, including this life.
i know it's bad form to post this many blogs so close together but hang the etiquette, i feel a rant forming within me.
i had my 3rd somali bantu homework club today and it was awful. there were like 50 kids running around like banshees . . . and supposedly i am in charge. i hate being put in positions like this. if i had my way, i would sit on a porch and fan myself lazily while i laughed with the fellow women folk as we weaved straw baskets together. or talked theology. or something like that.
instead, i have to become bad cop danielle . . . and i hate it. all the kids who actually want to do their homework and who are good and quiet and who get all the one on one attention are the kids who come from relatively good families. the kids i love are the brats, the scallywags, the incorrigibles, the hellions. they are the kids who are beaten with sticks at home, who are screamed at constantly, and who are generally expected to fail in every aspect of life. these are the kids i want to smother in love, to hold and protect and cherish. but i can't. they are the disruptive ones and i have to send them out into the cold. they stand at the glass doors and shiver and look at me with disbelieving eyes. how do you love someone who has had so little of it in their lives?
these are refugees. these are children of refugees. they are scared, angry, spiteful, disrespectful, and abusive. they are lonely, loving, warm, amusing, and hopeful in spite of it all. most of all, they are all homesick as hell.
i love these kids so much that i physically feel ill right now. i hold it all in my shoulders.
but it shouldn't be on my shoulders, and i know that. how to i give it to christ? this is where i need help.
i never wanted to do this. i just wanted to be like christ, and this is the path it has taken. i think it will get better. honestly, it has to.
please disregard everything you just read.
actually, could you do me a favor and pray for me? don't say you will unless you will actually do it. i don't like liars.
i am tired of being the poor man's valentine.
meaning, that i tired of being the reliably single friend who is a girl that boys turn to when they feel emotionally needy. bleah. i can't stomache it anymore. i had two calls today from such boys. it makes me feel sadder than ever.
but then i remembered this:
there is much more to love than all these pink and gray thoughts floating around.
i just finished the book "the great divorce" by c.s. lewis, and one of the passages said everything that i had been trying to say for a long time. it has to do with a girl who is in heaven trying to explain the way love works to her lover. she is in heaven, and he has the choice to join her or not. here it is:
"You mean, said the Tragedian, "you mean--you did not love me truly in the old days?"
"Only in a poor sort of way," she answered. "I have asked you to forgive me. There was a little real love in it. But what we called love down there was mostly the craving to be loved. In the main I loved you for my own sake: because I needed you."
"And now!" said the Tragedian with a hackneyed gesture of dispair. "Now, you need me no more?"
"But of course not!" said the Lady; and her smile made me wonder how both the phantoms could refrain from crying out with joy.
"What needs could I have," she said, "now that I have all? I am full now, not empty. I am in Love Himself, not lonely. Strong, not weak. You shall be the same. Come and see. We shall have no need for one another now: we can begin to love truly."
i just find that all so shockingly beautiful.
well, my skittish cat vladimir has decided to sleep on my bed with me tonight, and i just finished painting my nails a fiery red.
i think i am just about ready to face the day tomorrow.
tonight i went to imago by myself and i didn't want to. everything i have done lately has been by myself, and not voluntarily so. i don't understand this, and i feel terrified that god wants to teach me some sort of lesson. i feel like telling him that i don't think i will ever get it.
tonight i went to imago by myself and christ ministered to me. the pastor read and spoke from romans 7-8, and i was like a person dying of thirst, drinking in the words and the message. usually, my heart is too callused to respond in this way. i felt the love of god, and it wasn't emotional at all.
tonight i went to a movie by myself, and i made it an adventure. it was at this little house off of division and 43 called the artistry and i walked inside and there was nobody there and i wandered through all these corridors and finally stumbled apon the room where they were showing the (free) movie. there was a man in a squeaky yellow recliner and he had really big, curly hair. i could barely read the subtitles of the film. the film was called "turtles can fly" and it was from iran/iraq (yes, both places). it wrecked me. in the best sense possible.
tonight i was grateful to experience the love of christ for myself and for people halfway around the world.
i can't get this phrase out of my head: o, for grace to trust him more.
this is very applicable to my life right now.
i don't really have anything to blog about today. except for maybe my co-workers. i am always in for a nice dose of reality after working with non-bible college-y people for 8 hours straight.
jonathan is my gay co-worker. i have always had an affinity for gay co-workers. jonathan is no exception. he is 23, and from medford (also commonly known as "methford") oregon. up until yesterday morning he lived in an apartment with his boyfriend.
i guess his boyfriend spent the night with another guy. i was sitting in the back room calmly eating my chonga bagel when johnny started to spill it all out.
i also seem to have an affinity with people who need to vent. or maybe just people who need professional help. this comes with being a librarian. but that is a whole other blog in of itself. back to business:
jonathan (or "johnny boy", as i like to call him) told me of his heartbreak, and that he was over jeff (the said boyfriend). he was genuinly sad, as only a person can be after they have decided to break up with their signifigant other. jonathan looked at me, sighed morosely, and then said:
"man, i have to find somebody to sleep with today."
this is what they don't prepare you for in bible college. but honestly, i gave him advice like i would give anyone advice. i cautioned him to look at the long-term consequences of his actions (i feel like i have said this exact same thing to 11 people in this last week alone).
i know i write about loneliness alot, but bear with me.
there is a sickness going around. it is rooted in isolation from god, but it shows up in our minds and hearts as the seemingly mundane ache of loneliness. don't buy into it.
jesus, jesus, precious jesus. o for grace to trust you more.
if i had a soapbox, i would climb onto it and scream at the top of my lungs:
can we all just hold out?
can we turn back to the one for whom we are all so lonesome for?
well, to wrap up this here story, me and melissa went to college group with jonathan tonight. he was scared out of his mind.
christ was, and is, and will continue to be talking to him. i feel it in my bones.
i am priveleged to see god in action in this boy's life.
i should be doing so many other things right now but i think i need to type for awhile. the room will organize itself, and that c.s. lewis biography was terribly written anyway.
this weekend something very strange happened. i was lonely, which is the new norm. i discovered that there was a conference called the "northwest missions fest" going on right by my house. i went by myself. there were maybe three thousand people there.
i wandered around the shoddily made booths and talked to people who had already talked to hundreds of people like myself. i met up with my mom. i saw the usual missions crowd:
1.awkward teenagers who are beautiful and frightening in their furor,
2.old missionary couples who never look too pleased at the state of american christendom,
3.people from the dregs of society who don't fit in anywhere but who are so isolated and lonely that they will corner anyone who happens to be nearby to explain their latest idea to advance the great commission.
i tell you what, kids. i belong with these people. there is something about it all that thrills my heart. if i had to put my finger on the reasoning, i think it might have to do with how very unglamorous it all is. missions is simply people being obedient to god, in ways that involve long distances. i very badly want to be obedient to god, because god is the one who gave me (well, actually everyone) christ. christ is by far the best thing i've got going for me.
a quick story:
i went to a seminar at the conference about working with refugees. they had real live refugees stand up in front of us and tell their life stories. they were very fragmented when they spoke. i had a hard time following, but i loved their faces. one of them was a preacher named achmed, and he said he was from somalia. i just about died. i went to talk to him after the seminar was over, and i couldn't stop shaking his hand. very culturally inappropriate of me, but i don't think he cared. i asked him how i could best share christ with the somali bantu refugees. i told him all about it. i told him that i wanted to see them come to christ. what should i do, i asked. he smiled at me, and his teeth stuck out very prominently. one tooth was very yellow. he told me to stop worrying about it. just be there, he said, smiling his prominent smile. i was frustrated at his african answer, and somewhat hysterically started explaining that majuma's husband was in the hospital and that i thought he was going to die without ever hearing about christ and i couldn't speak somali and i couldn't find a bible and--
and then he stopped me. oh, hassan? he asked. i just about died again. yeah, i said. do you know him? oh, i visited him yesterday in the hospital, said achmed. and you know majuma, i aksed? of course, he said. i visit with them all the time. i work for irco, and we work on english together.
my look of shock was so great that achmed laughed at me.
you see, he said
god cares for the somali's more than you do.
christ is by far the best thing i have going for me.
i have been feeling very depressed, and this is not me being dramatic. when i say depressed, i don't mean that i feel a little blue. i mean that i feel like everything i do is a mistake and that it would be for the best if i never got out of bed. i never want to do anything.
but, i went to the oregon coast this weekend and nobody can be depressed long when there are waves and sunshine (!) and rainbows about. on the way to the beach, me and tiffany and linda had some random adventures at the spirit mountain casino. we got stopped by a security card who checked our i.d.'s, but i'm pretty sure he was just checking us out becuase we were the only people under the age of 50.
the next morning, we went exploring on the beach. i love scrambing up rocks and out running waves and letting the wind spray on my face as i pretend that i am kate from lost. it was pretty surreal. at one point we found this section of beach that was entirely covered in foam. weird, yellow, quivering mounds of foam. it looked like a japanese art project. i took a stick and poked at the foam for a very long time.
i have to go back to school tomorrow and i think i will make it. hopefully.
i just read through some really old e-mails, and i am reminded again of how i can't keep friends for the life of me.
if i didn't have family, i don't know what i would do.
i work for the man. the starbucks man.
there are a lot of things that bug me about working for the man.
usually, though, the thing that bugs me the most are the people that i serve coffee to.
i live in clackamas, and serve coffee to 40 year old men.
i am not very cute, and so i don't get hit on very much. that's the good news.
the bad news is that these men treat me in two very different ways.
way number one: they ignore me. (i rather like this one).
way number two: they talk about themselves. (this one makes my heart curdle and immediately strengthens my resolve to live and work in africa. because, and i'm just spitballing here, but i think that people in africa probably don't spend 4 dollars on a drink and wear expensive suits and then still feel the need to impress the uneducated barista who served them the said drink)
a disturbing trend that i have noticed this christmas break is the need for these men to talk to me about their wives. sometimes, they get their wives a drink. if it's a complicated drink, they always mess it up when they are ordering and get embarrassed when i say it back to them in the "correct" starbucks order. or they ask for a straw for the venti extra hot nonfat whatever that i just made. or they take the wrong drink that i just place on the bar with a clear explanation of what was inside.
these men never apologize.
they just shrug their shoulders, roll their eyes slightly and smile at me. some shake their head in soft besument, and every single one says this:
"i don't know, it's for the wife."
and then i swear that each and every one winks at me.
what did it for me was this businessman who came in two days ago. he ordered a venti nonfat peppermint mocha ("i don't know, it's for the wife!") and then i dutifully asked if he wanted whip cream on it. he looked extremely puzzled for 2 seconds, and then said: "oh, what the hell. put a little whip cream on it. she's already got a lot of junk in her trunk!"
and then he winked.
my only defense against these kind of interactions is that i have taken up the habit of never looking people in the eye.
first part of blog: how i feel (physically)
i never get sick but here i am now and there is nothing to do about it. i woke up this morning and there was snot in the back of my hair. i was pretty grossed out. also, it feels like there are a couple of cars parked behind my eyes. it hurts very much.
second part of blog: how i feel (emotionally)
something i don't understand is this:
just because i tell people that i am i the intercultural studies program and want to be a missionary, they assume that i can't like anybody who doesn't have those same career/life goals in mind. who else thinks like this? if i wanted to be a dentist, people wouldn't limit me in my relationships to only those people who wanted to work in the oral care business. right? i mean, am i right?
sometimes i feel like telling everybody that i really don't know what i want to do with my life. isn't that the point of being 21? today, i want to live in ukraine for a good fifteen years and become a widly popular university professor. yesterday, i was all set to work with african refugees in portland the rest of my life and wear old fuzzy brown sweaters and socks with sandals. tomorrow, (i can already tell), i am going to want to be living in serbia, working with house churches and writing the next great coming of age novel.
third part of blog: the meat of the story
i fall in love everyday.
sometimes i worry that it is never going to happen for reals.
1. quality time with quality people (chris, catherine, laura, kevin, and candyce).
2. a mug of wassail (a spiced apple drink that hails from the czech republic).
3. three text messages (generic).
4. two phone calls from far away friends.
5. three phone calls from friends "pretending" to be drunk.
bonus! one apology call from one of the aforementioned friends
for calling me a "motherfucker".
6. a burnt thumb (after one of the sparklers that i was playing with spewed a chunk of fire onto my pants and i tried to put it out with my bare hand).
7. a sense of relief that a new year was starting.
