back home

I'm back to normal life and high altitude. I went for a run tonight and realized it's not nearly as fun running at high altitude as it was at sea level when I was travelling. To make it worse, as I was gasping for breath I ran into a friend who's an Olympic triathlete.

D.C. was very fun. The people there are beautiful. After my first evening I decided shopping for clothes that were more coasty was in order, so I huffed it down to the Ann Taylor Loft in search of something that included a bow, a collar, or a stripe around the neckline. I felt proud to be asked questions that I assumed I was a local after the wardrobe change.

This time I skipped most landmarks and museums with the word National in them and headed for the Newseum and the Spy Museum. Great choices. I spent my days navigating the metro, finding cool museums and shopping. Then at night I would meet up with my brother to have great, late-night dinners- French cafe, Latin place by a fountain, Ethiopian. It's a glamorous life. His apartment is next door to the Sudanese Embassy and down the street from Luxenborg. Too bad about the grueling hours you have to put in to the rat race to live there.

from PA

This week I'm visiting my old college roommate in Harrisburg, PA. It's been a good, full weekend. We've hiked, played with the big borbul (sp?) puppy, flown kites, seen minor league baseball, and picked vegetables from a farm. Good variety and good friends. I've been instructed on the wardrobe differences between Mennonites and Amish, then told River Brethren could throw that all off. Funny to be in heart of a city where the farmer's market is all staffed by women with head coverings and men with long beards and hats.

I'm now a little more familiar with inner city life (the Bloods were holding a meeting at the park last night) and Mennonite life. This is a different life and a different America. Today I take the train to D.C. to see my brother and his life as an attorney living on Embassy Row.

back from vacation

I'm back sunburned and mosquito bitten after a week on Lake Michigan. I think it's of huge benefit for me to be in a small town where there's very little to do except watch the waves, walk on the beach and head to town for ice cream. Everyone in the family was relaxed and on good behavior outside of the context of their normal lives. I ended up enjoying the 4 days with my parents as an only child.

My dad told me the first night he would help me with buying a house so the search begins tomorrow. It's a little overwhelming to me since I am definitely looking in the category of ghetto properties. I like projects though.

dinner for one

I got tired today of staying in the hot, sticky house. No one was available to play. I ended up getting inspired by an odd little book I picked up at the libary this week. It has chapters by different well-known writers about the odd things they eat when they're in the kitchen alone. It's funny how the basics of pasta and eggs provide staples of first resort for random dining for one. I ended up saying diet be damned and went to Il Vicino where I could sit on the patio, order the perfect sized pizza for one, and watch the lives of others.

Tomorrow I'll head to Chicago to depart for family vacation in Michigan. After the first 2 days I'll be longing for time alone and quiet. I need to remember that this week that's exactly what I overdosed on.

It's been a week of things falling through- unreturned phone calls and paltry attention from Greg. Maybe this is priming me to appreciate my family and solid faithfulness of my parents and sister.

how much to ask

I was wondering if it makes me too much like the prodigal son to ask my dad if I could have some of the money that he would have saved for a wedding for me to use on a house instead. I have no idea how he'd respond.

It's discouraging to think of the years of trying to live conservatively and still not be able to afford it on my own. I've had a masters level job for the last 5 years, I've never had credit card debt, I don't have cable, I buy clothes at Ross, and mostly live a simple, Target-style life. The lender says I still need a roommate. I'm avoiding my realtor now.

Out of 1 market and into another

Tonight I go on my last date from the online market. This man is a professor from Togo. Then I’m definitely ready to stop trying to wrangle love for the time being. This dating is exhausting—like going to interview after interview and never getting kept on.

The market I’m entering is real estate. Roommate and her boyfriend seem more serious, and I should be investing in my future instead of theirs. I’m emailed a realtor today who showed me a few very sad houses a couple of years back. I hope he’ll take me on again. The theme of book club lately is house shopping, so I face this daunting task with good friends for advice.

Plan B

Just this morning I got bailed on for the 4th of July. Plan B has me going to an action-adventure movie. Not really my thing, but my friend Keen declared that, "nothing says Independence Day like guns."

reconciliation

I've been working on reconciling with God and felt I was doing so much better. Then an issue of reconciling with a human snuck up and attacked me. I came home from L'Abri feeling exultant. The first two minutes walking back into my house were wonderful until I picked up my mail pile and found the letter with no address. It was from an ex-boyfriend who dumped me in February- suddenly, unexpectedly. I apologized for my part in that. He said we should stay friends, so I tried. I invited him to a dinner party where he monopolized the whole conversation. He dropped by to pick up some food. Then he stopped answering. I told him I could give him more space. He said we should get together. Then he stopped returning messages.

I'm having trouble with the apology note that was left silently, anonymously, with no chance for me to participate. Can things be made right when I've tried and been rejected so many times at trying to show care and reconcile with him as a friend? This is hard for me.

L'Abri 2

I've always struggled with doubting God's goodness. That's my spiritual weakness. I understand sovereignty, power, the need to be disciplined, some theology, etc. I thought I would be assigned a stack of books to read on the subject that would satisfy my intellectual curiousity. Nothing helped.

2 days before leaving, my tutor sat me down to talk. I had determined I had done all I could to get myself unstuck in life and that I had to wait on God. He felt God was waiting for me. For what? I tried everything, was tired and wanted to give up. Giving up actually felt wonderful. My tutor said it also feels good to give up running a marathon at the 24th mile. It only feels better because you're not running. Good point. He asked me to consider forgiving God.

We forgive other people because we recognize the same weaknesses in ourselves that they have. But God has no weakness. Still I've needed to reconcile with Him. Anne Lamott said something about forgiveness as the end of hoping to have had a different past. So I'm trying to make peace with God on the past and be okay with what He for me.

I'm still struggling with the goodness aspect, but the reconciling is bringing a lot of peace.

L'Abri thoughts 1

I'm back from 2 week break from life and still adjusting again to a normal, busy, solitary, screen-filled life. I knew it was a true departure when I got back and tried to plug my cell phone recharger into the the earpiece hole. The weeks recapped:

The cast of characters was nothing like I had expected. Not a stiff intellectual to be found. There was a rowdy 17-year old guy from Texas. He was a bodybuiler, a roofer, and loved to share his worldview by roughly dividing things into 2 categories- right and retarded. He was always good for entertainment value with his yee-haws and the fake, lisping gay-man voice that I came to almost regard as his natural voice. On the opposite end of the spectrum was an actress from NY who grew up in CA. She was a vegetarian and opposite of Cowboy Man in almost every way. The other girls were all moderates trying to figure out what to do with their lives, how to understand God, and searching for the man of their dreams- feeding desire with Jane Austen movies and novels. It was good company.

I don't think you can really know someone until you live with them, see them first thing in the morning, and work side by side. So I quickly learned my friends. We ate together, did dishes together, pulled weeds together and shared our questions.

I had set out to learn about the goodness of God, but through a few twists can to understand my theme was being reconciled to God. More on this next entry...