Just one of my glowing sisters

My oldest sister Maggie is getting ready to have her second baby, this one expected to be a girl. When Maggie had Levi I was in high school and, though I appreciated it and was SO SO SO excited for it, this new baby has already touched me in unimaginable ways.

Although it's been mostly from afar, watching and experiencing Levi grrow has been so eye-opening. The way maggie and schuyler have raised him and the way they love and nurture him has made me nervous to have kids, i dont think i could do anywhere near the job theyve done. The kid is just so smart and bright and FUN!

I just feel like this time around being an auntie is going to be different because the idea of birth and new life is one that is so mind-blowing to me. This baby girl is the product of the love my sister and her husband and fostered, one which i hope to find in my own life. they are just both the most amazing people. they believe in themselves and in their own minds and i feel that creates the best kind of family for their children to grow up in.

since i can remember maggie has been an object of adventure and ingenuity and creativity and independence and strength and original thought. i guess its only natural that she would be such an outstanding woman and mother.

i feel like this whole post has been rambling and not really making the point i want to make. maybe i should boil it down.
-maggie and schuyler=the parents i want to be to my children some day
-levi=the funnest effing kid ever
-new baby girl=rocks my world

Those kids who pretend they aren't cold

I'm in the library sitting my the window. It's pretty cold outside, foggy, I could see my breathe when I was walking to campus this morning. Point is, it's too cold to just hang out outside for long periods of time. I'm looking at this group of kids who have been standing outside in the quad for the last hour or so and they are obviously freezing. One has a guitar, duh, and another has his pants that are too tight rolled up with only old lack crocs on as shoes. I don't think the kid with the guitar is actually playing. I just don't dig these groups. I see them every once in a while and am just bewildered. Why are they outside? Why arent they wearing socks? Yes, they have my attention, but if I was that desperate I wouldn't draw attention to myself.

This blog is one written out of bewilderment. I try not to judge, I don't know them. But from an outsiders view...c'mon. It's pretty rediculous.

much love

In my eternal conquest for the right school

So being that USF royally screwed me over in the financial department and I was more or less forced to transfer, I now find myself in Bellingham, WA. My brother Peter and I made the big move about a month ago into a small drafty apartment with shady neighbors and no towel rack in the bathroom. However, none of that really matters because its ours. It's the first time that I am paying my own rent, having to worry about bills and turning off lights and scrounging change for laundry. It's all very exciting and lonely but a brother makes much more bearable.

I'm starting classes at Western Washington U on Tuesday and I COULD NOT be more excited. Since my decision to transfer it's benn one hell of a bumpy road. Last semester I stayed home and worked and saved money for the move but I couldn't help but feel like my brain was melting out of my ears. I'm not a fan of not being in school. So the brain sweating begins on Tuesday with only 3 classes: Biology 101 with lab, European civilization 101, and Society and Lit Nanotexts.

I've rekindled an old middle school friendship and she also plays rugby which will make for a smooth transition to the life I loved and left in SF: RUGBY!! I'm also working at a small bakery and deli here in B'ham which I like. It's good pay and good people and I have no complaints.

Other than all that I'm still just tugging along, trying to keep afloat and having a good time. Until next time,

much love

"This is how the entire course of a life can be changed - by doing nothing. On Chesil Beach he could have called out to Florence, he could have gone after her. He did not know, or would not have cared to know, that as she ran from him, certain in her distress that she was about to lose him, she had never loved him more, or more hopelessly, and that the sound of his voice would have been a deliverance, and she would have turned back. Instead, he stood in cold and righteous silence in the summer's dusk, watching her hurry along the shore, and the sound of her difficult progress lost to the breaking of small waves, until she was a blurred, receding point against the immense strait road of shingle gleaming in the pallid light."

-On Chesil Beach
Ian McEwan

Support our troops....?

A mission, well wish, or an actuality? I feel like our country is so backwards and it's so frustrating sometimes. I know two people personally who have served in Iraq since the war has started and they have both had to kill people. Neither will really talk about it but the jist has been made pretty obvious. One of the soldiers had to kill an innocent woman. It was most likely due to the fact that the woman had no clue what she was supposed to do or what the American soldiers were asking of her. But the soldier was ordered to kill her and the passenger in her car and he did.

Personally, I don't know if I would be able to take a life. I ran over a squirl once and felt awful, even cried. Now if it was in defense, I could see it being a little easier, like if someone broke into my house or threatened my family or something like that. But I don't think I have it in me to take an innocent life. If I ever did, i would need an outrageous amount of really good therapy. Now add the stress, pressure and sorrow of being in a different country, away from home, AT WAR, and having to take an innocent life. Then the next day seeing your friends killed and/or mamed. Then having to shoot random people in the streets, not knowing who or what they are.

Our soldiers are put in extraordinary situations daily and are commanded to perform. An entire country is oressuring them to do the things we cannot. They are used to do the dirty work of the rich politicians who make all the decisions. And yet when they are finally able to come home we, as a nation, do not support them, no matter what we like to display on our t-shirts and car windows. WAY too many soldiers are not given care and attention they NEED. This is not a .uxury we are denying them, it is a necessity. How can we send our sisters and our brothers and our cousins and nour parents to war without making sure they are taken care of? These are the people who risk their lives and the weel being of their own families so that we can sit in our nicely heated houses and enjoy home cooked meals and the conversation of our loved ones. There should never be a question of whether or not to support our troops. It should be a priority.

For the better part of my life the word "patriotic" and the phrase "proud to be an American" were the last things I wanted displayed on my bumper. I knew that I should love my country and that I should be willing to fight for it and most likely if you would have asked me either of those questions I would have answered with a resounding and seemingly confident yes. But he truth is, I never honestly and deeply felt proud or excited to be what so many other nations have associated with obesity, money, debt, rash decisions, hurtful pride, false security, hypocrisy, and corruption. I was never proud to be an American until the evening of November 4th. On the evening I heard a man stand uip and rally the people around him. I heard and watched a man overcome adversity and push others to do so too. I heard and saw a man admit to the large task at hand and admit that it would be a rocky road and ask for help from those who put him there. I heard and saw a man take power into his hands and hold it gently, knowing what it could mean for the nation he never stopped believing in.

Barack Obama is a better person than I am. He knew all along what his nation was capable of, whereas I was ready to move to the south pacific and break all ties with my native land. What Barack Obama means for this country is humility and grace, confidence and depth of character, reason and passion, hope and real justice. Leadership will not be based of fear anymore but compassion. We will not drop bombs we will rebuild schools and take care of our soldiers and educate teachers and support local economies and live sustainably.

Barack Obama, you have given me hope. You have turned a pesimistic 19 year old into an excited and proud American. I can't tell you how excited I am to be taken seriously by the rest of the world.

much love

God, The Creator and the Human Being

It's late and I should be asleep but like most late nights when I think too much and I can't sleep, I blog. Tonight's subject is one of a heftier thought load than most previous posts, but it's what I have on my mind...so here goes.

The subject is God. Or the Creator, or the individual, or the great mother, or however you choose to view the great force that drives, creates, frees, and illuminates us. Or at least me. I was raised Catholic and I feel that I have deep deep roots in the religion but I also feel that it has given me my own and individual faith.

What I think is so special about that force is that it propels so many, and I think all, of our actions and our thoughts and our cares and our dreams. I see that force, God, in everything. I see it in human interaction and nature most of all. The two go hand in hand in more ways than I can even think of and I think even further testifies to the way that force works. Human beings have a deep desire to be with one another. Some people consume their lives with finding a companion for the rest of their lives. People write songs and make movies and write books and drain themselves to find "the one". People live for other people. We complete each other. And isn't it interesting that human beings can do all those things (write music and books and movies) and we dedicate those enormous gifts to human interaction and the wooing of companions of all kinds- friends, lovers, family. Nothing can make one happier than the acknowledgment of someone close to ones heart.

Family is the best example of human beings fulfilling one another. My brothers and sisters, for example, are all SOOO different and they all complete me in different ways. Both my parents being me to life in different but equally special ways.

My friends and teammates complete me in a totally different way and they challenge me and because of them I know more about myself. Without that interaction I would be a completely different person.

Birth is the beginning of life and it starts with dependency and interaction between two people. The mother to the father and the mother to the baby and the father to the baby. My sister Maggie is pregnant again and I am older this time and can really understand what that means and its mind blowing. The way she is bringing a new life into the world and the way she is raising her son now is one of the most special things I've ever witnessed. It's a matter of interaction and dependency and more than anything LOVE. She, a mother, is love and grace and everything that shows the power and divinity of that force.

Nature, be it a mother and child, a forest, the sea, or the changing of the seasons, is that force, or God, at work. The force brings us into the world and reveals to us all the ways that we can feel truly alive.

Anyway, that's what I think. It's not about religion or organization, I think that life is about feeling alive and being aware of the force that has brought us to where we are and will carry us to the place we are supposed to be. Once I heard a priest say "Do not be afraid, just have faith." I find that so comforting not because I expect some huge white guy to come down and place me in a particular place but rather because I have faith that if I do what makes me happy and if I work for what I want, what is supposed to happen will.

Do not be afraid, just have faith.

much love