do me a favor...

imagine me here. if i could put a little "x" right in front of the lady with the lavender pants (where is my suzanka when i need her??) that is where
i'd be.

if i had the money.

if i had the time.

if i took things into my own hands and ignored god's will and calling.



i used to live somewhere near here. i used to take it for granted. there are things you should know. i want to tell you a story, one of times i don't talk about anymore.

one night, probably around 11 or 11:30, i was walking home by myself. i was basking in some much needed alone time, following a bad bout of culture shock. people staring, whispering in russian.

i had been at our flat near pushkinskaya cleaning and preparing to move in our next group of americans. knowing full well that it was dangerous for me to be out so late alone, i had lost all track of time, enjoying the moment of preparation and nesting, getting food put away neatly and clean sheets on all the beds. i can be so domesticated at times :)

i knew the bus routes and the metro stops instinctively, so i was taking my time, looking around and falling ever more in love with this beautiful city of my heart. a babushka stopped me asking for money. she was selling daisies, a favorite of mine, so i bought some to bring back to lenuchka for letting us stay at her flat while we prepared ours. and flowers cost practically nothing. i was thinking about finding some sort of surprise gift for jeremy and amy, who had stayed behind that day to get ready for camp. gifts are my love language toward others, and it was easy to give to my heart's content because of all the little stands and peddlers along the way to things.

walking past a little cafe, i stopped to watch inside. as i was standing there, holding my daisies, i suddenly felt small and very young. a man was coming out. he wore a striped shirt and a funny hat. he had smart plastic framed glasses and a greying beard. his huge bushy eyebrows shook like little caterpillars crossing over his eyes.

as if time were standing still, frozen for just a moment, i stood in my spot and gazed up at his weathered face. he smiled warmly, reached out, and put his rough hand on my cheek (which i would never normally tolerate). "my little one" he said, in a lazy belarussian accent, and patted me on the head. "so beautiful, my little one."

i rode the rest of the way home with a strange smile glued to my face. i couldn't read, or knit. i just existed, so completely safe and cared for. i didn't notice anyone else or anything else. and i've never forgotten a stitch of that moment as much time has passed since.

god cares for me in the funniest ways. i've seen him in that man, one warm island in a city full of nightly drunks and woman abusers. in a little old chinese woman sitting with me in the sidewalk when i was lost in chicago. in a tiny baby at an orphanage in quillacollo that reminded me of god's plan for me. in a huge black man with a god stocking hat, holding me and letting me cry when my car was broken into in kcmo.

so i pray that he sees fit to continue to visit me.

james dean

tonight i did something rare and very special.

i rode around in my friend's car with my feet hanging out the window.

it was dark, and we had the music on so loud. matthew was driving, and katie and i were putting our heads out the windows and catching the wind with our faces and our hair and our hands.

the humidity made it feel like we'd gone swimming. swimming all around the highways at night, passing people and laughing and singing. our faces warm from wind burn and happiness. and every cop we passed made us feel dangerous and free. like they couldn't catch us even if they wanted to.

and as we got farther and farther from all the lights and sounds, feet sprawled out on the dashboard, the stars exploded around us in time with radiohead...you are all i need. and we sighed deeply, in unison.

those small things are the things that i will miss most and treasure so closely when i'm away. i'll have new sorts of romance and drama. stories involving crazy trufi rides, birthday parties with pinatas, new babies being born into our family, and misspeaking spanish hilariously (i've got juice in my shorts!!!) ...

but there is no substitute for perfect comfort and contentment with the families we've made for ourselves.

hang your feet out the window. you'll understand, i know it.

and really bad eggs...

i've been thinking about contentment. what makes us "happy".

happy is such a fleeting feeling. it's so temporary, so transient. and it comes from such small things so much of the time.

but i am sitting here wondering why i am not always content. you know, the deep abiding happiness. the kind that feels warm and full even when you step in dog poo and have to push your own car up a hill as people drive by and honk. yeah.

i am so loved.
i am completely free.
i am always provided for.

a song that fits so perfectly into my soul that it molds into my bones and becomes me. a cup of coffee in front of me, and the blessed money to buy it. a bright and romantic future full of adventure and the freedom to chase it furiously. and those are just the big things...

i was genuinely smiled at by a stranger. there's a bird with purple wing feathers on the railing outside. i feel comfortable in my own skin, just for a moment.

i don't mind when people say that i see things with "child-like wonder". because when i lose my awe and wonder i wilt. i feel like i was made to reflect the grandiose, the glorious. the seemingly insignificant things that surround us.

i like to think it's charming :)

i wish you to really see the things around you. contentment is so very possible.

jumbly hot mess of ridiculous

you know how people use the symbol keys to cuss when they don't want to actually write the word? well if this makes any sense...i feel like a jumble of those symbols all together. not with the cussing, per say, just agitated and explicit. i'm feeling explicit.

!@^#!@%^! <-- me

the # feels particularly applicable i suppose. sharp and serious. cross, if you will.

my brain is about to overthrow me, i think. maybe have a recount or just a whole new election (iran, you feel me, right?) (which would make me mahmoud ahmedinejad). (inappropriate over-use of ( )'s) ((( y) ) ((e) ) (s??))

listening to keren ann can only make you so calm, before you begin to resent the beauty of it all. here you are, stewing in a giant vat of ugly, and keren ann has the nerve to croon lovely melodies and catchy chord progressions in your ear. there's something oddly juxtaposed about all of it. but maybe that's how my heart hasn't jumped out and flopped about all nimbly-bimbly on the floor yet. she's lowering my blood pressure.

i sometimes forget that the whole world doesn't know how important i believe every detail of my life is. so when i'm going through something traumatic and staring down a harsh and complicated future, and someone doesn't afford me the appropriate courtesy, i tend to want to snap their head off and play soccer with it.

unfair as it may seem, since this person clearly had no idea how upset i already was, i still had to restrain a POWERFUL urge to rain down the fire of heaven on the head of said person, and remove the bowels with my pinky nail and a hammer.

now do you see why my brain is about to institute a mutiny? when did i ever feel homicidal to the point of bowel removal???

lord preserve my sanity, as i make entirely too big of a deal out of small things, and worry fruitlessly about them until their arrival.

and to you in iran, stick it to the man!!!

badanas (2 year-old for bananas)

this morning i woke up extra early, all by myself. no alarms, didn't get to bed early last night, just ready to be up and around. besides, natasha and the kids were there and i don't get to see them nearly enough. it's funny to live with people and never see them.

it's funny to live with people and miss them when you're in the same house.

if you read this, family, i miss you.

i find myself doing this a lot. i would rather leave a message for someone than talk to them. they might be sitting 6 feet from me and if i can't get up the nerve to say something, i'll email them. from 6 feet away. i'm not saying this has happened before, maybe...
okay it might have happened before.
maybe.

it's just that i am scared of talking to the people i care the most for sometimes. and usually it's when i most need to talk to them that i decide i can't make myself do it. and computers are sooooo easy to hide behind.

so i've decided to start a list of things i would or should say but i'm too scared.
nothing too big. just a beginner list.

and when i grow a pair, i'll write it here :)

time for lunching. avacado and mango...mmmmmmm