last night's bike ride

he decidido tratar de escribir una vez más en este blog.

por el momento estoy leyendo un libro en español por Isabel Allende entitulado "Retrato en Sepia." ¿lo conoces? me da ganas de practicar el español mas, aunque casi no tengo nadie con quien puedo practicar. necisto mucha ayuda. tal vez practicando un poco en escribirlo aqui será bien.

I haven't been sleeping well at night. Last night I rode my bike to a meeting in Rogers Park. It was a good night for a bike ride. This week has been warm, with a nice, cool breeze. On the way back, everyone I was riding with took off as fast as they could. I was, of course, left behind. My feelings were so hurt I realized there was something more to my reaction.

I couldn't help but feel the past hurt of elementary school days - being teased for coming in last when we had to fun around the field, being the last person chosen for any team. I'm 31 yrs. old, surely this kind of stuff should be put way past me. I'm 31 yrs. old, I can recognize that this past hurt shouldn't affect the way I respond to my friends who rode off and left me behind. They did not do it to hurt me. I figure if I can be honest with myself about why I feel the way I do, eventually I'll be able to respond in a good and healthy way.

Until then, well wishes to all of us who were always the last to be chosen, the first to be out...

winter

this morning on my way to work i saw a boy walking to school. he was wrapped in a blue coat with an orange and black stripped scarf around his face and a grey cap covering his head. only his eyes could be seen. he was wearing mittens. in his hand he carried a dead branch and was waving it in the air as though it was a sword. he was by himself and he seemed to be having so much fun.

it is freezing here in chicago. i finally feel that i am not being robbed of the chicago winter experience.

be the squirrel, girl

the thing about being in the wilderness is that it has caused me to forget about my real surroundings.

check it out

http://www.geezmagazine.org/demotorize/

quickly

i am in a dessert, a wilderness. i am being patient (passive?). i am waiting for this reality to act upon me. i feel like i'm in limbo. i'm out of sorts, in need of joy.

and the day is still not over

this morning i cooked breakfast. i woke up at 7. i peeled and shredded potatoes to make hashbrowns. made some scrambled eggs with cheese, onions, tomatoes, mushrooms. toast, coffee, orange juice, milk. we eat well.

after breakfast my housemates and i split up to clean the house. i was in charge of cleaning windows, dusting, and making lunch. it was 10 degrees outside and the cleaner froze to the glass. i took this as a good sign to stop cleaning the windows.

i have become the official community compost collector. so, after chores i walked to houses and collected their compost. friends at the patch household have large wooden boxes in their backyard where we collect all the compost to be used this spring when we plant our gardens in the city's community garden!

for lunch there were plenty of leftovers and free food. pizza that paul made last night. some veggie burgers from somewhere. peggy's potato soup from fri. lunch that i added milk and potato flakes to. made some tomato soup because there wasn't enough potato soup for everyone.

i'm still reading kathy kelly and her stories are affecting me. in the back of my mind are the words of amos the prophet that i read with my friends on thurs. evening. she writes, "Each Sunday in the Christian season of Advent, churchgoers anticipate the arrival of the innocent one, born into utmost poverty, who will bring forth justice for the poor, liberty for captives, sight for the blind. 'O come, O come, Emmanuel,' is sung in churches worldwide. I hear the tune now and feel haunted. Is it possible, is there some dim chance, that good-hearted care could extend to the Iraqis in Basra?"

i think about the rich in the days of amos - how they lived comfortably at the expense of the marginalized, how they enjoyed luxuries that forced some to live without. i think about driving my car. i only use it to go to work, but work is not so far that i could not leave earlier and walk. is the comfort of a warm and quick ride to work worth the price? i'm thinking that this is not ok for me to do. i am convicted and i wonder if i am strong enough to make a proper change. it is not right for me to live as though there are none who suffer for the price of my comfort. on thurs. night i want to bring it up to those in my community. my hope is that together we can find a way to live more rightly, more justly, and in obedience to God.

and what do you want to say?

two odd conversations today in which people chose to tell me the type of person i am:

when a teacher asked if i would ever move back to texas he says, "you have to stay. you're a scarf girl." a scarf girl? i was wearing a scarf today, yes. i don't know if this is a sort of sub-culture that i am unaware of. so, i don't know if i really am a "scarf girl" or not, but it's true that i like the cold weather. i think that's what he meant.

when a co-worker invited me to come over and play games on sat. night i must've looked hesitant. "oh. you're not competitive," he said. "have i told you that already?" i asked. "no. you just have that kind of demeanor. you seem like a non-competitive person."

it seemed worth recording because i'm at this point in my thought processes where i seem to only want to record the superficial and not the weighty things that are happening in my life.

like this kind of stuff: tomorrow i'm on for cooking breakfast and lunch and on sun. i'm on for lunch. these are chores that are rotated and somehow it happened that i'm getting them all at one time. i should make sure to get my rest tonight. it'll be nice, really. no jokes, but i feel comforted when i cook (and that's better than saying that i feel at home in the kitchen).