Door of Hope

door of hope is the exact church I've always wanted to be a part of.

also: it is ridiculously close to simon ... so i can hang out with him resulting in more convincing strategies of dragging him through the doors.

honestly: i want this to be my new home church and i want to listen to josh white every week.

he pushes me more than any other teacher.

his simplicity, rawness, and intelligence are an exact fit.

he really pushes to be close to the lord and to seek him in ALL things.

its things like this that make me annoyed that i'm in a season of learning and i have to return to apu and with that california... :/

i want to stay in my favorite city and serve the people who live here.

Gnomes

i rediscovered this book... 

i would like to have it purchased and on my shelf.

i LOOOOOOOVVVVVVEEEEEEEE these illustrations.  

author:  wil huygen

illustrator:  rien poortvliet,

i wish the soderburg sisters lived in my pocket.

or that i could hide them under a pile of leaves in my backyard... 

and have them play and sing for me.  

their songs are my reason to thank God for ears today.

making.

i have the inclination to make

headbands...

fabric bows

fringe and beads

more feathers

little ribbons

embroidered

felt beards.

trees.

place-mats.

skirt.

leather pouches for two.

wellll...

people are flawed.

thats for certain.

and sometimes people you think are great and love very much stop caring about you.

and thats where it becomes confusing.... is it the right thing to go on loving them unconditionally...  or is that abusive to oneself?

or is it right to call them out and ask them to do for you what you do for them?

or is that selfish?

developments.

live spherically:  shooting out new roots in all directions at the same time.

then... things will come to you.

its pretty true.

today i: looked up and saw shapes on my wall 

the shadow outline of the hydrangea outside of my window...

so i stuck some paper up and traced it.

then i took another sheet and drew a bunch of triangles.

then i painted those triangles.

and beautifully balanced: the piece is on my wall.

then...

i watched Our Mutual Friend.

and folded dozens of white paper triangles... making shapes to fold and create 3d organic/amorphous / sharp edged/ mountain like shapes.

then i used paper that i painted to look like wood and covered some of the triangles.

then i threw those aside cause i couldn't do them right.

then i went outside and took a tree branch that i found and cut out of different green felts: leaves.

then i sowed them to the tree branch and nailed it into my wall.

:)

that was a successful project.

then i made my first felt beard.

i plan on forcing my mother to take a picture of me with it on tomorrow. 

also: my metabolism is screwed up... THAT needs to get fixed.

but i don't really mind all that much.

i'm sending out green shoots in all different directions....

i'm extremely inspired. 

and i don't want it to pass me by.

The Mysterious Benedict Society

after reading 1. the time travelers wife 2. extremely loud and incredibly close

i am now half way through The Mysterious Benedict Society.

this book... ROCKS.  its like all the joys of harry potter type stories:  orphan children who are unimportant to the world suddenly discovering they are extremely talented and KEY to something big.

all the joys of roald dahl's writing style: especially Constance... who is freaking hilarious.

all the joys of lemony snicket: group of children who face a lot of evil people and aren't ever believed because they are simply children.

idk its just GREAT.

its not a like... SIMPLE read... though it is for children... its intriguing and enjoyable... and even though it does probe my mind intellectually idk... its just soooo good. :)

i'm going to finish it quickly and hand it off to meaghan and go pick up the next one.

also question:  is michelle still my friend?

my attitude.

i'm fine lizzy,  at least now we can meet as indifferent acquaintances.

jane.

no you cannot be so simple as to think me in danger now.

"i'm quite caught up"... / "i've failed you"...

extremely loud and incredibly close is such a tender... beautifully written novel.

jonathan safran foer is really quite wonderful.

i'd like to pick apart his mind... like purse or a toolbox... take all the items out... wipe the bottom and sides with a clean cloth and then carefully place the items back in... one at a time.. turning them over in my hand and observing each one.

the part i just read...
the letter of the grandfather to his son in which he describes asking his equally neglected wife to write her story down on the type writer...
only to discover when the woman brings him in to read it...
all 2000 pages of her story...
that he tore the ribbon out years ago... out of his fury of not being able to marry Anna... not being able to forget her...

the grandmothers inability to see well kept her from realizing that all of her efforts were for nothing...
2000 empty pages...


i know i described absolutely nothing to whoever is reading this...
but on page 120 of this novel is one of the most gentle but terrible moments i've ever read.
its written so well that i don't know quite what to do with it.

and i keep going over it in my head.

my dayyyyy

simon called today.

3 hour long phone conversation...

i discovered he called me at 3 oclock AM in japan.

he's nuts.

i really miss that kid.

even as weird as some of the things he says are.

and he's honestly more encouraging than a lot of my other friends have been as of late.

i'm working on this drawing.

its looking really good.

i want to do a HUGE one with like 80 billion characters all doing things.

i went and turned in my app at world cup coffee... man that guy likes me... we just chat and chat and joke around...

also the art they have in there SUCKS.

that lady is terrible...

the guy behind the counter draws some amazing stuff though...

i'd like to get my stuff up in there someday.

then i went over and applied at platos... which is probably the only place that will call back cause they are the only people hiring right now... which sorta sucks cause i have zero desire to work for them.

but i mean... i'd rather have money than anything else.

well my dignity.

thats why i'm not a prostitute.

ummmmm oh ahahaha.. simon confided that he had actually contemplated prostitution as a way of coming home.

he has no way of getting home so people in the states are having fundraisers to raise money so he can get home by july and not be deported.

HA.

stupid kid.

welllll.. oh and then i turned in my APPs at Urban and World Market.

urban seems actually sorta interested every time i talk to someone... and they always ask how immediate you can work which makes me wonder if they are for real hiring...

but the problem is i have no retail experience which makes me nervous.

ugh.

i guess if i worked at platos' this summer i could work at urban over winter break and follow that up wiht the much more likely possibility of anthropologies internship for next summer...

working at urban in the afternoon/evenings and decorating in anthro in the early morning.

recluse kid continued.

i mentioned the recluse thing at dinner tonight.

which was the only the second significant parting i had made with my bed all day... the first being to take a shower and the significant part marking that there were several small moments where i excused myself... but those were solely to make the  bed experience more enjoyable.

... like the time at about 4 that i got up and made toast

the whole brain in the wagon thing didn't go so hot.

my mom howled for a couple seconds and my dad snickered and said

yeah, well if you don't get out of that bed your brain won't be the only thing that needs to be carried around in a wagon.

it was right around then that i decided my dad is just about the funniest guy around and that he definitely is not an annoying dad who tells dumb jokes.

either my dads jokes are too clever for me.

or they are at my expense and i just wish i hadnt gotten them.

birdseed shirt.

adagietto

by Gustav Mahler.

so beautiful... i have a new favorite classical music era.  post romanticism.

reading Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.

sort of laughing...

sometimes it bothers me how jonathan safran foer's style is so pretentious.... at least Niffenegger had the decency to be human.

also...  there are no jobs in our city.

ive applied to about 15 places... that seem all over the spectrum if you ask me...

ive dug deep.

but you look on craigslist and its like.... DEAD.

plus it doesnt even matter if you have a degree... thats not what they want...

they need people who have bussed tables before.

they need people who are sioux chefs.

they need people who can pack up and move to some god forsaken joint in southern oregon to teach pre schoolers... WHY ON EARTH is that on the portland listing?

everywhere i apply they just sorta look at you sadly...

why would they give me a job when 500 people just got laid off from Nike and more from Intel?

Chevron and a bunch of car places had to let people go too...

i'm sorta trying to decide if it wouldn't just be better to sit inside my room all summer and read.

i'm becoming quite good at it.

THINK ABOUT IT.

if i don't spend money...

i dont need money.

if i don't hand out with people... and become a recluse... reading and growing a brain so huge my room can barely contain it... 

welllllll i don't need need to spend money.

i  can walk across the street pulling my brain in a red wagon behind me while I head over to the library...

id read RILKE, DOSTOEVSKY, L'ENGLE, and listen to music from before my birth.

waiting shell...

i finished The Time Travelers Wife again...

my nose opens and closes, flinching like a bunnies while i let the water spill over the brims of my eyes.

the ending of that story is so perfect.

so heart rendingly perfect.

i can't handle the parts of stories that you already love, that you already know before youve finished the first sentence of the paragraph...

you force yourself to gulp the rest of the words down but they are mute... 

they already exposed their fruit to you and now they lay open and exposed like a barren womb....

the new life writhing in your mind as you stare out the window...

and then its so difficult to read the passage out of Homer that follows....

imagining Odyssius reaching Penelope on the shore.

the great loves of the world are all connected...

the same two people...

man and woman...

being reborn again and again...

more human than any of us....

and we are all searching to be enfleshed...

that we might be born into the right time and that THIS time... one of the great lovers might inhabit our vessel...

that we might take part in a great story.

just now.

i'm lying on my back in the dark listening to the gurgles and slops of rain outside my window.

and its just about the grandest thing ever.

the mail came.

i'm listening to Bridges and Balloons.  (trying to get in the rarely listened to decemberists songs)

i'm naming the bike Percival.

... on the table there is an unopened letter from Oxford.

southeast.

more and more i feel like i'm living in the wrong part of town.

im buying this little girl:

i am not a huge pink person... but i kinda like it.

its understated... 

its not Falcor...

but she's like the accompanying side kick type who will lead me to him and then sacrifice herself valiantly when i have to rescue him and it leads to a bloody battle.

she isn't fixed.  and i'm proud... maybe she'll have children then.

and today all i've been doing is listening to stories: hazards of love, eli the barrow boy, peter and the wolf, the emperor and the nightingale... 

i just bought The Mysterious Benedict Society, which i forgot that i'd been looking for until i stumbled upon it.  

(that would be a good requirement for an island shrouded in fog:  you can only find it once your forget your looking for it).

or maybe that would be a good requirement for a book: which is exactly what happened.

i wanted it originally because Carson Ellis did all the illustrations... and since I cannot afford her prints I should take advantage of this tangible piece of artwork.

but now i'm more intrigued because it is a new york times best seller and has been compared to roald dahl and lemony snicket or a new more sophisticated harry potter.

i'm totally in the mood for a read like that.

i've been rereading The Time Travelers wife... and its whimsical... but i want something fresh... 

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is supposed to be next but i think i'm going to swap it.

Then the History of Love.

i'm really excited for all of this.

but i can't keep my head in the clouds too long because i need to find a job.

i'm sorta stressed out because of how few are available right now.

no one is hiring. sighhh

i just discovered Rilke

how weird... to discover things you like for the first time..

its been a while.

The First Elegy
Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the angels' hierarchies?

and even if one of them pressed me suddenly against his heart:
I would be consumed in that overwhelming existence.
For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror, which we are still just able to endure,

and we are so awed because it serenely disdains to annihilate us.
Every angel is terrifying.
And so I hold myself back and swallow the call-note of my dark sobbing.
Ah, whom can we ever turn to in our need?
Not angels, not humans, and already the knowing animals are aware

that we are not really at home in our interpreted world.
Perhaps there remains for us some tree on a hillside, which every day we can take into our vision;

there remains for us yesterday's street and the loyalty of a habit so much at ease

when it stayed with us that it moved in and never left.
Oh and night: there is night, when a wind full of infinite space gnaws at our faces.
Whom would it not remain for--that longed-after, mildly disillusioning presence,

which the solitary heart so painfully meets.
Is it any less difficult for lovers?
But they keep on using each other to hide their own fate.
Don't you know yet? 
Fling the emptiness out of your arms into the spaces we breathe;

perhaps the birds will feel the expanded air with more passionate flying.

Yes--the springtimes needed you. Often a star was waiting for you to notice it.
A wave rolled toward you out of the distant past, 

or as you walked under an open window, a violin yielded itself to your hearing.
All this was mission. But could you accomplish it?
Weren't you always distracted by expectation, as if every event announced a beloved?
(Where can you find a place to keep her, with all the huge strange thoughts inside you

going and coming and often staying all night.)
But when you feel longing, sing of women in love; for their famous passion is still not immortal.
Sing of women abandoned and desolate (you envy them, almost)

who could love so much more purely than those who were gratified.
Begin again and again the never-attainable praising; remember: the hero lives on; 

even his downfall was merely a pretext for achieving his final birth.
But Nature, spent and exhausted, takes lovers back into herself,

as if there were not enough strength to create them a second time.
Have you imagined Gaspara Stampa intensely enough 

so that any girl deserted by her beloved might be inspired by that fierce example of soaring,

objectless love and might say to herself, "Perhaps I can be like her?"
Shouldn't this most ancient of sufferings finally grow more fruitful for us?
Isn't it time that we lovingly freed ourselves from the beloved and,

quivering, endured: as the arrow endures the bowstring's tension,

so that gathered in the snap of release it can be more than itself.
For there is no place where we can remain.

Voices. Voices. Listen, my heart, as only saints have listened: 

until the gigantic call lifted them off the ground;

yet they kept on, impossibly, kneeling and didn't notice at all: so complete was their listening.
Not that you could endure God's voice--far from it.
But listen to the voice of the wind and the ceaseless message that forms itself out of silence.
It is murmuring toward you now from those who died young.
Didn't their fate, whenever you stepped into a church in Naples or Rome,

quietly come to address you?
Or high up, some eulogy entrusted you with a mission,

as, last year, on the plaque in Santa Maria Formosa.
What they want of me is that I gently remove the appearance of injustice about their death--

which at times slightly hinders their souls from proceeding onward.

Of course, it is strange to inhabit the earth no longer,

to give up customs one barely had time to learn,

not to see roses and other promising Things in terms of a human future;

no longer to be what one was in infinitely anxious hands;

to leave even one's own first name behind,

forgetting it as easily as a child abandons a broken toy.
Strange to no longer desire one's desires.
Strange to see meanings that clung together once, floating away in every direction.
And being dead is hard work and full of retrieval before one can gradually feel a trace of eternity.
Though the living are wrong to believe in the too-sharp distinctions which

they themselves have created.
Angels (they say) don't know whether it is the living they are moving among, or the dead.
The eternal torrent whirls all ages along in it, through both realms forever, 

and their voices are drowned out in its thunderous roar.

In the end, those who were carried off early no longer need us:

they are weaned from earth's sorrows and joys,

as gently as children outgrow the soft breasts of their mothers.
But we, who do need such great mysteries,

we for whom grief is so often the source of our spirit's growth--:

could we exist without them?
Is the legend meaningless that tells how, in the lament for Linus,

the daring first notes of song pierced through the barren numbness;

and then in the startled space which a youth as lovely as a god has suddenly left forever, 

the Void felt for the first time that harmony which now enraptures and comforts and helps us.

The Second Elegy
Every angel is terrifying. And yet, alas, I invoke you,

almost deadly birds of the soul, knowing about you.
Where are the days of Tobias, when one of you, veiling his radiance, 

stood at the front door, slightly disguised for the journey, no longer appalling;

(a young man like the one who curiously peeked through the window).
But if the archangel now, perilous, from behind the stars took even one step down toward us:

our own heart, beating higher and higher, would beat us to death.
Who are you?

Early successes, Creation's pampered favorites,

mountain-ranges, peaks growing red in the dawn of all beginning,--

pollen of the flowering godhead, joints of pure light, 

corridors, stairways, thrones, space formed from essence,

shields made of ecstasy, storms of emotion whirled into rapture, and suddenly alone:

mirrors, which scoop up the beauty that has streamed from their face

and gather it back, into themselves, entire.

But we, when moved by deep feeling, evaporate; we breathe ourselves out and away; 

from moment to moment our emotion grows fainter, like a perfume.
Though someone may tell us: "Yes, you've entered my bloodstream, the room,

the whole springtime is filled with you . . . "--what does it matter? he can't contain us, 

we vanish inside him and around him.
And those who are beautiful, oh who can retain them? 
Appearance ceaselessly rises in their face, and is gone.
Like dew from the morning grass, what is ours floats into the air, like steam from a dish of hot food.
O smile, where are you going? 
O upturned glance: new warm receding wave on the sea of the heart . . .

alas, but that is what we are.
Does the infinite space we dissolve into, taste of us then?
Do the angels really reabsorb only the radiance that streamed out from themselves,

or sometimes, as if by an oversight, is there a trace of our essence in it as well?
Are we mixed in with their features even as slightly as that vague look

in the faces of pregnant women?
They do not notice it (how could they notice) in their swirling return to themselves.

Lovers, if they knew how, might utter strange, marvelous words in the night air.
For it seems that everything hides us.
Look: trees do exist; the houses that we live in still stand.
We alone fly past all things, as fugitive as the wind.
And all things conspire to keep silent about us, half out of shame perhaps, half as unutterable hope.

Lovers, gratified in each other, I am asking you about us.
You hold each other. Where is your proof?
Look, sometimes I find that my hands have become aware of each other,

or that my time-worn face shelters itself inside them.
That gives me a slight sensation.
But who would dare to exist, just for that?
You, though, who in the other's passion grow until, overwhelmed, he begs you:
"No more . . . "; you who beneath his hands swell with abundance,

like autumn grapes; you who may disappear because the other has wholly emerged:
I am asking you about us.
I know, you touch so blissfully because the caress preserves, 

because the place you so tenderly cover does not vanish;

because underneath it you feel pure duration.
So you promise eternity, almost, from the embrace.
And yet, when you have survived the terror of the first glances, 

the longing at the window, and the first walk together, once only, through the garden:

lovers, are you the same? 
When you lift yourselves up to each other's mouth and your lips join,

drink against drink: oh how strangely each drinker seeps away from his action.

Weren't you astonished by the caution of human gestures on Attic gravestones?
Wasn't love and departure placed so gently on shoulders 

that it seemed to be made of a different substance than in our world?
Remember the hands, how weightlessly they rest, though there is power in the torsos.
These self-mastered figures know: "We can go this far,

this is ours, to touch one another this lightly; the gods can press down harder upon us. 
But that is the gods' affair."

If only we too could discover a pure, contained, human place,

our own strip of fruit-bearing soil between river and rock.
Four our own heart always exceeds us, as theirs did.
And we can no longer follow it, 

gazing into images that soothe it or into the godlike bodies where,

measured more greatly, it achieves a greater repose.

fiddle dee a da

make the company jump!

At some point I plan on having a library.

many of you know this.

i don't necessarily want it to be open to ANYONE... mostly my children, nieces & nephews, and the occasional stray cellist who needs a place to stay for the night.

because 

(interjection: i love josh updike.... just called... and made me laugh harder than i have in a long time... praise the lord for his persuit of that boy)

anyanyanyways....

i want to have this library...

and across the double doors I want to write in large forest green calligraphy (which will look beautiful against the dark brown stain)  

The Tree House

all swirly and huge...

like the artwork in Rudy's.

and i want to refer to it as such...

"mom! Phone for you!"

"I'm in the tree house!"

=perfect=

captives.

harrrr (pirate hook stabbing at the air)  

today i took captive 

1. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

2. Gone with The Wind on VHS

3. 60 years of Illustrations By NORMAN ROCKWELL

4. The Art of Lisbeth Twerger

5. My, Magic, and Mystery, One Hundred Years of American Children's Book Illustration

I set free several folk art books and one on figure drawing ... The Time Travelers Wife remains in my cabin.... still enjoying it.

its amazing how much more knowledge you have available to you when your ships motherland is next to the cedar mill library.

praise God for books.

i won't lie...
if no one goes to the way tonight.. .
i'm going to be extremely sad.

baaaaaaaaaaaalling.

hahahaa... get it... like bawlin = crying uncontrollably.
and ballin= being a downright cool cat.

edward.

i'm sitting back here folding cranes and micah comes in asking for me...

"someone's here to see you..."

edward comes nervously around to my doorway.

he's missing his two front teeth and he's sorta doing that blank little kid expectant stare...

he brought me his cup of animal cookies from church tonight.

(my heart is sooo full)

i gave him a hug and showed him my cranes and let him pick... 

he chose the only large white one.

i love edward so much.

he is my favorite.

i walked him out to the car so i could say hi to everyone else...

they are so adorable...

everyone so excited to see me and shouting...

anita OF COURSE kept shouting about how different i looked... taller she said...

amauble had a huge bandaid on his forehead from where he cracked his head open...

my little brother said casually when i came in the house that it was edwards idea to swing by our house...

that when he got his animal cookies he immediately told mom that he wanted to come and give them to emily...

he insisted she stop by the house so he could come see me.

i love that little boy.

its amazing to see how your significant love for an individual makes them like... blossom.. bloom... bubble up with returning love...

this is the little boy who can't sit still in class and causes too much trouble... 

he's being forced to repeat kindergarten.

but around me... because i honestly see him as so bright and significant... he tells jokes.. is well mannered and all around one of the most thoughtful and sweet tempered little boys i've ever known.

i keep getting kinda weirded out...

cause... like... i keep thinking about how kids grow up...

you can't always have a significant relationship like that when it goes over different genders...

i can't be like... edwards reason to succeed.. thats weird.

you know?

but i'm just not good with girls...

thats why i want to have at least 3 boys... 

i sorta want 1 girl... so i can do girl things with her...

but... boys are so much just... BETTER.

and if it was my own boy... i wouldn't have to worry about its being weird to love them so much.

it sucks that i even have thought about this...

that a sweet moment with a precious little boy would become slightly sad cause i have to think about how you act later... 

maybe it will take care of itself...

he'll grow out of liking me so much and be just like... cool with me like jaffedy ...

but thats sad too.

it just sucks how you can't be GOOD friends with people without its being weird sometimes.

its raining today...

i love the rain.

hayley mills.

i went to the cedar mill library and rented a bunch of hayley mills disney movies...

ahhahahahahaaaaa

soooo funny.

that girls hair! :)

i won't lie though... i'm basically in love with her wardrobe

the 60s are my favorite.

'

in the oregonian! :)  "what makes a good date?" ahhaa

the moment before.

so sometimes... your expectation is better than the follow up to the event.

in fact almost all the time.

michelle is preeettty different from how i remember her...

i should have prepared myself by thinking over the last year... and how we haven't really had much mutual affection shared.

a year and a half ago she broke my heart by telling me she was tired of being my friend and didn't want to work at it.

God convicted her and i guess idk... we just kept going...

then i didn't go to her birthday til late and that hurt her pretty deeply.

then she ignored me all summer.

at the end of summer came back and realized lauren and i were actually leaving and got all frantic.

talked sometimes at school and talked about how much we missed each other...

ignored me over winter break when i came to visit at onyx house...  barely said goodbye in passing.

5 months= many phone calls with tears saying she misses me.

followed up by my visiting to surprise her...

its like... the initial reaction was really happy but... then it was just like... ok well i'm going to go hang out with my friends... youre cool with going to meaghans... spending the night... i'll see you tomorrow at lunch right?

like... i'm combating against my love language of like... quality time to say that michelles is words of affirmation and thats something i struggle with... so if she doesnt feel my affection why would she show me hers?

but... 

i mean i wont lie... 

it feels extremely insensitive...

when meaghan is like... "i want to show all my friends you.... i just want to show you off cause i miss you and think your so cool!"

michelle who's supposedly my best friend like... leaves me to go hang out with hers and then gets mad at me last night when she actually asks me to be honest about how i feel about her leaving to go hang out with someone else...

i said... well... i mean obviously its fine.. you know the situation better than i do...

but i sorta came down to hang out with you...

i haven't seen you in 5 months and i was feeling pretty excited to spend time with you...

and its like... you don't even care.... 

it honestly hurts my feelings so much that she obviously puts me on the shelf and treats me like i'll always be there.

of course i will...

but i'm entitled to being treated like a friend.

and

i can't handle in conversations when she talks down to me...

its either like... shes saying vulgar things... talking about the lord excitedly... joking around... or being mean to me.

it makes me wonder what happened to the attributes that draw me to people... like those in andrea, meaghan, or grahm...

who actually.. idk... kinda seems annoyed with me too.

its just hard... 

cause like... these are people that i'm so excited to be around that my filter i guess just goes out the window and maybe i'm annoying them...

idk...

considering thats already a point of insecurity for me... 

its really hard to like... i guess hear grahm say things that seem more pointed to make fun of me than encourage me.  i'm really not used to that.

onyx house friday night.

singing songs that I KNOW.

songs i've sang for years.

that are significant to my church and my friends and my memories and my relationship with the lord are so thrilling.

its summer.

i'm home.

grahm's drumming and smiling.

and these are people i love.

who are familiar because its the northwest and they are friends of friends i've grown up with.

and my friends are alllllll here.  every single one of my closest friends is here.

its summer.

i'm home.

-emily

i love being home.

honestly

i haven't even gone to MY home yet...

but just driving through portland and then coming to Eugene is like healing deep california wounds.

being in this air is like... beyond anything i can describe.

listen to The Crane Wife 1 and understand that the sound of the music in the first 2 verses sound like the outpouring of my soul right now.

i suprised michelle...

then i hung out with meaghan and we went all over the place... walked down to the river...

it beautiful.

we just sat under a full moon on a bridge and talked.

and breathed the air.

i wore a peacoat and a scarf.

im not weird.... i fit in and am normal.

i belong here....

like... i love it so much.

i feel whole.

don't forget!

summer reading:

milan kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being

for coram deo.

pictures of studying.

final etudier of the year.

sooo right now i'm sitting in a hallway in Duke under a skylight...

its pretty dim in the rest of the hall and all the classrooms are dark so i'm up here for some secluded study time before my next final.

this morning I had 3d design and children's lit all before 1.

i was up until 4 last night studying for luke acts and finishing my costume for 3d.

my fox costume is swell.

i'll definitely post photos when bill sends them to me.

slash youll probably see me wearing it around.

(i can't even believe how sexual my costume is on accident.  basically i chose a fox for the fact that i like them, and i'm a complete tease.  i don't mean to be... but i am i guess...  then i realize that i made it entirely out of bed-sheets i slept in last semester and bra fabric.... who AM i?  honestly I didn't even think about it).

i wrote my luke acts paper last night and yesterday finished all my 2d.

never got around to studying for children's lit but i took it today and it was super sheezy easy.

there was one question where she asked what HER modified version of Bloom's taxonomy was like and what the application was to children's literature...

obviously if i'd studied I would have known that but i only faintly remembered her touching on it earlier... so i just wrote bloom's taxonomy that I know and hopefully she'll give me most of the points.

but that was the only one that I wasn't 100 percent sure about.

I got an A on my book too.

SOOOOOOO.

basically I know I have an A in art and faith, 3d design, children's lit... 

and in luke acts I'm pretty sure I have an A but it could possibly become a B... he's a pretty tough cookie and though I've received really high A's on all my assignments that's what happened last semester and I got a B. so we'll just have to see.

in 2d i'm really not sure.

i didn't do half of the critique write ups for other people... considering they were stupid.

and i didn't do this half assignment in class where we cut up paint cards and glued them on a notecard ... cause that is stupid.

honestly my pieces were like 20 x better than 3/4 the class so I'll be super annoyed if I don't get an A.

I should probably just ask him and see if I can't do anything to make certain I'll get one.

following this post:

luke acts final: review strauss quotes and finish outline for paper.

sticky's in bible passages

take luke acts final.

shake duzik's hand. cause you loved having him for 2 semesters.

go read walking on water for 3 hours.

take notes on every chapter.

traipse about in your fox costume and show cherie.

get napkins for art and faith FORT PARTY.

sleep.

TOMORROW: give books to ashlyn.

pay 2.00 to the library.

Build a Fort and eat oreo's and drink milk and tell stories for Art and Faith... (gosh i love this class)

say bye to all the seniors :/

talk to Chris about storing some of my art in the summer.

clean out studio.

tutti fruttie with sam and andrea to celebrate the birthdays ill miss this summer.

sleeeeeep.  maybe watch little women?

WEDNESDAY: pack.

paint studio.

do laundry.

ask if i can sleep in kelsey's extra bed.

innapropriate and immature.

so many people thought throughout the centuries past that the day we had an african american president would be the day that pigs fly.

alls i've got to say is... 100 days in... and swine flu.

peace yalls.

reflections on prayer.

Recently I have had so much difficulty with prayer.  I am really battling back and forth in my mind with the ideas of how wicked I must be to not care about talking to the Lord, and the fact that the Lord knows this already and loves me.  It’s so cyclical because shouldn’t my understanding of his loving “while I am still a sinner” cause me to long for him (explored under attitudes for prayer)?  But I don’t really long for the Lord right now.  Do I fake it til’ I make it and just read scripture out of obligation?  Or is that frustrating to the Lord?  Shouldn’t I give him a contrite heart, considering that is what he always says he wants?  Is this question just a way of getting out of doing the work and an excuse to be lazy?  Has my Christianity become a self help program were I become good enough to enter into the Lord’s presence or am I concerned about really glorifying the Lord?  Where does the idea of entering or exiting God’s presence come from anyway?  Isn’t that made up, considering God never leaves me and is inside and outside and in my mind, heart, words, thoughts, and actions?  The problem is I don’t love Him and if my faith has ever become confusing I have always turned to the mantra of “Love God, Love People.”  Maybe the answer is to obey God, and I’m just becoming silly in needing to feel the amorous affection that comes sometimes into my heart towards Him.  Obeying shows God love, so does loving my enemies and “one another.”  These all prove our LOVE for him.  But I can’t help but think that it is out of a feeling of duty and fear of not doing it rather than love.  But when I think about serving my husband in the future even when it feels out of obligation and not amorous attention that sounds like true love to me… so why does it not when it is directed towards the Lord?  Why is it that when I talk with the Lord in my head it feels almost as if I’m talking to someone completely removed from this whole ordeal?  Is this a problem I’ve created myself, a wall I’ve built up that I’m staring at that Jesus just walked around?  Am I really that foolish, to stare at a wall and address next to me the person I’m trying to get over it to see? 

Is prayer then really, as I know in my heart of hearts the simplest form of just being with the Lord and expressing yourself and sharing in his expression?  When Jesus arose early and sat with the Lord alone was it his mere being with God that caused him to become like him?  Did Jesus love God?  Was this love amorous or raw and earthen and older than time?  Truth feels raw and rough to me, and it smells like rain on tilled earth.  That is what Jesus love for his Father seems like.  Deep.  Beyond comprehension or words; Past what a bridegroom would feel for his bride, or a father for his child, or the master for his servant. 

I think that you can’t pursue God wrongly, and it is prideful and wrong for me to wait to address Him because I’m afraid of doing it in a way that won’t be completely worthy.  How could I ever be worthy?  Don’t I know that by now?

It’s like the tax collector.  He was right in his wrongness; another paradox of Christianity.  He did not look upon the Lord because he was ashamed.  Now a person might examine this and say that this attitude would be saying to Jesus that you did not trust what he did on the cross for you and that you didn’t believe he was who the Father saw when he looked upon you.  One could argue this.  But Jesus praised the man and said he was right in the father’s eyes.  Maybe this passage is more about just entering, rather than allowing a fear to hold you back from the Lords presence because you didn’t do it right.  The priest got it all right, but even in that got it all wrong!  It’s not about how you enter into the Lord’s presence but the glory you allow of his to fill up your life.  If you’ve filled yourself up to the brim with your own pride because of you’re self righteousness then how can God fill you with HIS righteousness?  Jesus has come for the sick and so when he sees an empty cup in his presence he’ll fill it up.  If he sees a full cup that doesn’t please him any more because its still just a stupid cup.  He takes joy in filling me up with his own righteousness and that is something I just simply have to become alright with.  It’s more important to simply allow God to Be glorious than to worry about bringing  him something he’ll find glorious.  I’m just not good enough and I never will be, but it is the attitude that acknowledges this that he wants.

i'm so depressed.

i'm so ready to go home.

i miss my mother so much.

i just want to sit on our couch with my blanket and have her rub my back.

i want natural light and candles.

i want green trees and grass everywhere and to drive down sunset hwy or cornell and enjoy the tremendous clouds and the brilliant sunshine.  I want to stare at the colors.

i want to have the choice to go up into my tree house or not.

to go into MY room and be all alone.

i want to be able to hear EVERY person in my house from my room.

i want to identify people by their footfalls on the hardwood.

i want to breathe OUR air.

i just miss home.

My dad is graduating tonight.

Ariel and Paul are in town and my whole family is together to see my dad graduate... it feels so unfair.

i want to be there to see him.

i want to clap and whoop and holler for my daddy who has worked so hard to learn 3 languages and study tough scripture with all these brilliant men.

he's so cool.

and i'm so proud of him.

i'm excited for mother's day.

i'm going to work extra hard this year to make it special.

home.

tonight ..

i layed on my back on andrea's floor and stared at the cieling.

i just wanted to escape.

everyones rooms are cluttered with boxes and their things.

we're all packing to go home.

and now... when i need it more than ever, i cannot have tidiness.

i need sea foam with a smattering of yellow ochre.

white birches with a field of breezy poppies.

sky.

i need to lay on my back in my bedroom with my windows all open and the walls illuminated by the sunshine.

i miss just being able to be quiet in my room.

azlyn's always in there.

which is fine... its her room.. but i just need time by myself.

but the thing is you can't do that around here.

there's no where safe to go by yourself as a girl.

for example... i'm sitting here on the floor of my friends room and now Pink has just come on... 

i can't handle that.

i need silence.

i need breezes.