Where's the revolution?

Well, I had decided that I was going to quit with the blog and try reconnecting with my writing self with the traditional pen to paper. After all it has been over a year since I bought a new journal and was able to add a full one to my growing collection for over a decade's worth of pages now. Of course then I begin getting all these comments from friends who are reading this silly crap so I suppose I will keep it going.

Everything is going pretty well. I am still feeling a little stuck but I'm getting used to the idea of my own company being enough.

So, I work at Peace Action. I guess this makes me a 'peacenik'. I am frustrated with the word peace. Seriously, it's the most jaded word I can think of. The very sound of it to my ears evokes all the wrong imagery and I know that it must do worse things for those who are much less progressive than I. When I think of peace I think of a white dove, a bunch of long-haired bare-footed young people with flowers in their hair, of large protests with people singing songs.
These images are not effective. As an activist I am incredibly frustrated by the labels I am given. My life has led me in a direction and caused me to fall in love with Africa. I am fated to always feel that I bear some responsibility there. I wound up working at Peace Action almost by accident but I am learning so much and am grateful for becoming intimate with the organization. Yet, I am ashamed to say that being a peace activist is almost the worst sort. I am regarded as a hippie, liberal, brainwashed, tree-hugger, an extremist. My father says that 'they've really got me'. They being those of the mindset that the United States is not the great nation that so many perceive her to be, or rather, blindly accept her as. Those who believe that there are many solutions to problems besides war and destruction. Believing that it is possible to exist without war is seen as idealist, impossible, silly. What about the lunacy of war? Why the universal acceptance of such barbaric, unnatural behavior as that?

I am not making myself very clear perhaps because this is such a big idea that I am trying to convey. The fact is that I am considered "very left wing" and "stubborn" by many people and this is something I disdain. The fact is that I am a humanitarian to the very core. I believe that 'peace' is not enough of a word to describe what it attempts to. Perhaps there simply isn't one word that can be so all inclusive. Peace is more than the absence of war. It is the existence of equality, security, justice.

Often during the course of the Bush regime we have been inundated with these messages of fear and national security and defense to protect our citizens from the terrorists who wait to pounce on us at the moment we let our guard down. What I don't hear is people making the intrinsic connection of terrorism to the world system that we have created which oppresses so many and benefits so few. What meaning do three thousand Americans working in the trade towers have to some men whose families and people have suffered so much more deeply from the policies imposed on them by the developed world? I am fully aware of how controversial that observation is and that is because so many people in this country have truly bought into the rhetoric they've been handed since childhood, the distorted history, the powerful notion of patriotism, and the unpopularness of being outside the box of accepting those things as they are.

I mean, it wasn't until recently that I became bold enough to express myself and my opinions about these kinds of things publicly. Still I face resistance from my own friends and family for caring about what matters. So, when I turn a conversation about the size of the rock on everyone's engagement rings into a discussion of how diamonds have no link to love and marriage and actually have caused a tremendous deal of suffering in Africa and Asia, I am seen as the downer. It is more 'cool' to be ignorant, to be immersed in the pop culture, to be unconcerned about politics and world affairs. And to participate in democracy... well who does that?! It's not as if we have control over anything, right?

I wish I could spend months just sitting and calling Americans all over the country and asking them what they thought about the world. They would all complain, at least most of them, about how things are going. Many of them would even claim it's hopeless and helpless. But, I would almost guarantee that the majority of them would have done nothing about it. They may be sitting and watching CNN and learning about the death of Heath Ledger and not even notice how long that has been consuming the network's attention, as well as their own.

I felt a few brief moments of grief when I read of Ledger's passing. He was, after all, a target for teenage girlhood infatuation and I do own 10 Things I Hate About You but he is also just one man. Only one man of many who died tragically on January 22. There are thirty American casualties in this month alone in the Iraqi and Afghanistan wars. Countless individuals in those two nations have also fallen victim to these unneeded wars. That's 30 faces that were fresh and young just like Ledger's; thirty people with tremendous potential if only their energies had been focused elsewhere.

There is a campaign against us. A campaign to keep us unaware. To change the definition of news and information. To change the definition of democracy. I know there are a lot of people out there who believe that it's quite naive to think that life without war is possible. I am not necessarily saying that it is. It definitely is not possible at this moment in time all over the world to have complete peace, but I don't see why it is not possible at some point in the future, and to some extent beginning now.

The thing is that war is the most primitive of our human behaviors. We try murderers as the utmost of criminals. Those who have taken the lives of innocents without provocation. We have evolved to that level of intelligence, where we possess enough of the things we need in a society to never have a need to kill someone for one's own survival. We have even come to a place where we begin to question the humanity of purposeful killing of those we deem as the worst of criminals. And yet, we still stand on battlefields possessing ever new technologies of how to kill people in all the worst ways. In battlefields those who kill the innocent are valiant warriors. But we are no longer fighting for survival. It is not a time for us or them. We can all exist here together, as long as we are willing to share.

So as war is allowed to keep happening and we remain oblivious to the tragedies of our world, tragedies that we share a role in creating, I grow more fearful for the fate of our species. We are determined to become more globalized, more connected, while at the same time trying harder and harder to protect ourselves from one another. Building defenses, weapons that could cause ultimate destruction, armies, and wars.

Where is the anger? Why isn't anyone making noise about the preposterousness of this world? Why should a few people sitting in $1,000 suits in closed-door meetings be deciding the fates of nations? Why are we ignoring our role?

When I was in college I thought many times how I wished so much to have been alive in the late 60s. To have seen how everyone came together for change. Hunter S. Thompson captured it best in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,

"Strange memories on this nervous night in Las Vegas. Five years later? Six? It seems like a lifetime, or at least a Main Era—the kind of peak that never comes again. San Francisco in the middle sixties was a very special time and place to be a part of. Maybe it meant something. Maybe not, in the long run . . . but no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time and the world. Whatever it meant. . . .

History is hard to know, because of all the hired bullshit, but even without being sure of “history” it seems entirely reasonable to think that every now and then the energy of a whole generation comes to a head in a long fine flash, for reasons that nobody really understands at the time—and which never explain, in retrospect, what actually happened.

My central memory of that time seems to hang on one or five or maybe forty nights—or very early mornings—when I left the Fillmore half-crazy and, instead of going home, aimed the big 650 Lightning across the Bay Bridge at a hundred miles an hour wearing L. L. Bean shorts and a Butte sheepherder's jacket . . . booming through the Treasure Island tunnel at the lights of Oakland and Berkeley and Richmond, not quite sure which turn-off to take when I got to the other end (always stalling at the toll-gate, too twisted to find neutral while I fumbled for change) . . . but being absolutely certain that no matter which way I went I would come to a place where people were just as high and wild as I was: No doubt at all about that. . . .

There was madness in any direction, at any hour. If not across the Bay, then up the Golden Gate or down 101 to Los Altos or La Honda. . . . You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning. . . .

And that, I think, was the handle—that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn’t need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting—on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. . . .

So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark—that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back."

I wanted so much to be a part of something like that. Yet, I recently watched the documentary 1968 and I began to change my mind. Martin Luther King Jr. had led a movement for civil rights and made strides, he then took a stance on the war in Vietnam and faced great resistance and animosity toward this 'switch' in his focus. However, he explained how his goals were always one and the same. The war in Vietnam was just an extension of American racism. Oppressing the weak and the poor. He made the decision that rather than pushing for civil rights he would sink to the roots of the problems, not just domestically, but with America relative to the world; he was going to take on structural violence. When he was shot that year the world cried. Then Bobby Kennedy was shot, the man who might have been nominated President and taken up MLK's mission. Thompson's wave not only rolled back, it rolled past where it had been to start with. Those who had valiantly sought to restructure the nation, challenging all that it was at that time, had been removed from the picture. The lifeblood and energy was sucked out of the movement and all shrunk back in shock and fear. Shrunk back so far that they are quiet even now. Perhaps it vacuumed out the hope when hope was all there really was.

Certainly they must be out there. Those same activists who fought for civil rights, an end to Vietnam, women's right to vote. Where are all those voices now? Where is the energy and the movement? Why is there no revolution?

Obama won in South Carolina today. I am glad of that. He brings me a shred of optimism. Yet, I am still in great fear of our destiny. I don't believe we can really survive another President like George Bush. I believe that without beginning to set forth in a new direction soon that the United States is going to swiftly tumble, in my own lifetime. There is a Chinese proverb which states: "If we do not soon change our direction we will surely end up where we are headed". I am glad to be a part of the pull to change that direction, but I am unhappy with the connotations it brings to my life. How do we make peace cool? How do we make it right? It truly is the only thing that makes sense.

Lost and not found

After five days of fasting I have had a lot of time to think about things in my life besides food, coffee, drinking, and socializing. It's been enlightening to see what an enormous role food plays in our lives. I have had a really tough time of it and I don't actually think it has to do with the lack of eating but with realizing that I used to eat to fill a void that I'm now just realizing exists. They say that being overweight is a symptom of a deeper problem and I now understand that. My problem is nothing tragic, it's simpleminded. I am ashamed that in my life, where I've gotten nearly everything I've ever wanted, that I can find things to feel miserable about. Yet, I feel it.

I feel a bitter loneliness. It's something I cannot repair it seems. I have so many friends, though many of them are very far away now. I have an incredibly loving family. I share my apartment with two other people, one of which is my brother but I feel so alone. I feel misunderstood by everyone and I don't feel any personal connections that I can rely on in California. I really do love it here completely but I'm sill not sure I didn't make a mistake. I left everyone I love.

I hate writing like this. There's no content. It's just bullshit whining. I just feel like ever since I came back home from Africa I have been a complete maniac. I can't make sense of any part of my life. I like my job but I don't love my job. I like my city but I am not overwhelmingly happy here because I cannot find people to enjoy it with. What fun is seeing and doing amazing things alone?

Anyways, ugh! I just feel like I'm in a rut. I'm just waiting. Waiting to put in my time at my job before I can move onto doing what I really want to be doing. What I'd love to be doing. Waiting to take my French oral again so I can actually get my degree and move on to grad school or the Peace Corps or another job. I have been so lazy lately it's like I don't know myself and I think it's because I'm just not entirely happy. Everyday there are so many things I mean to sit down and make myself do and I never do them. Literally, my bills are late, my room is a disaster- including a desk that it has taken me over a month to put together, my paperwork for my job is late, I haven't studied French in weeks. I don't know what's wrong with me. I have no motivation to do anything and yet I'm so stressed out by not doing it. It's like a catch 22. I feel almost overwhelmed by my passion to the point of being immobile. Does that even make sense? If it does it must sound pretty freaking stupid. I just wish I knew what was missing. I guess it'll be easier to get to the bottom of now that I'm actually looking to figure it out.

On a lighter note, I am quite enthusiastic to be working at Peace Action during such an enormous election year. I'm so happy to see George Bush leave office I can hardly stand it. It's amazing to think that he's been the President since I was 14 years old. Wow. I remember seeing him on Oprah then and wanting him to win the election because I thought he seemed nicer than the other guy. HA! How naive and stupid I was. I mean, I really didn't know anything about politics! Now I know that something positive has got to be in store for this country and for all the world when he is no longer in a position of power.

Barack Obama was on The Daily Show tonight and I am absolutely crazy about him. He's getting a lot of slack for not clearly stating his position, and I hate to buy into the guy that all the young people are buying into because then he just seems idealistic. But, I think we need an idealist to run the country for once. Someone who believes that you don't need to wish that things were some other way but believe that they can be so. I want to see someone who will finally make it so. Listening to Obama talk actually gives me butterflies. He's the kind of person that would get so many Americans involved in politics and the very fact that he is an African American shows such enormous progress for our nation that it's simply blissful. Tomorrow is the New Hampshire primary and I cannot wait to see the results. Obama has been strongly in the lead in today's polls and I'm betting that his appearance on the show tonight helped.

Anyway, I'm all over the place right now. It might very well be that I have not so much as chewed a piece of gum in five days. I am going to read and sleep and see if I feel more normal tomorrow.

Fasting slow

It's 2008 and I feel full. Like I've just eaten a satisfying meal. The truth is I have been fasting/cleansing since yesterday. I needed a fresh start. To feel like I went nakedly into a new year and a new time of my life. I am using the Neera master cleanse diet which is a combination of lemon juice, palm syrup, cayenne pepper and water. I need to reconnect with myself.

My Senior year of high school and freshman year of college were incredibly hard times for me. I'm not sure what sparked it, maybe just the idea of so much change and so many decisions to make, but my Senior year I became quite depressed. It's possible that I was merely experiencing what's completely normal to feel at such a strange time in life when your entire world is about to shift into one that's unfamiliar. I saw a doctor who asked me two questions, literally two, and then put me on 100 mg of Zoloft. I had friends that had been diagnosed as bipolar and were only taking 25 mg.

I consider that my lost year of life. I remember it in a fuzzy way, like I was under anesthesia. I turned into a zombie. Where before I was breaking down into hysterics over very little, I now was unable to have a truly emotional response to anything. I slept constantly and felt tired ever still. We returned to the doctor and he lowered the dosage, I believe to 50 mg, though I cannot remember now. I continued to respond the way I had before as I went off to college.

The first several months of college were even more tumultuous for me than had been the previous months. My brother had supposedly impregnated a woman from a bar the previous year and we had taken her in as if she was going to bore the child that would be our relation. He was born and I considered him my nephew for the first three months of his life. My mother in particular grew very close to him. After three months my brother decided to take a paternity test as his relations with Colin's mother were not spectacular. It turned out that he was not the father. The legitimate father was Colin's mother's ex-boyfriend and he immediately entered their life and took on that role. He and Colin's mother quickly became engaged and all seemed to be going well. Then a tragic thing happened. My mother called me with the news that Colin had been abused by his father and was in the hospital in critical condition with Shaken Baby Syndrome. It was the sort of thing you never think you'll actually have to witness. The story you read in the paper and say, "how sad, how terrible", but never the story you tell as your own.

On top of that atrocity my father entered into rehab for alcoholism for a 90 day period. Of course that was not a truly negative thing but his absence was noticeable.

The first month I was at school I met a boy that I dated and fell for, lost my virginity to, and within a week he was dating another girl. I was crushed. A few months later I came home from college for winter break and saw an ex-boyfriend from high school. We had been on bad terms but he said some nice things to me so I decided to forgive him and accept the idea that maybe he'd changed as I had. I went to his house for a get together, got so intoxicated that I blacked out completely and was sexually assaulted by him. Afterwards I felt disgusting and I blamed myself. It took years and a therapist's insistence of it to say that I had been assaulted. I had lost so much. My innocence, my naivety, all my ideas about sex, love, relationships. I still struggle with knowing how to respect myself emotionally and physically and what to accept from men. I still expect and demand much less than I deserve. Mostly I think it is out of fear.

Girl Interrupted is one of my favorite films. I think it expresses in magnificent beauty what I was feeling at that time. When I was undergoing all that hardship I considered suicide. I didn't know where I belonged. "I know what it's like to want to die. How it hurts to smile. How you try to fit in but you can't. How you hurt yourself on the outside to try to kill the thing on the inside."

The world seemed too big and distorted to me. I was different for giving a shit. Maybe even unpopular. I didn't want to see more or know more about the misery and ignorance, or feel the overwhelming helplessness. I wanted to just float away.

So, I am telling this sorted history of 4 years ago because it is important to how I feel lately. That zombie feeling of disconnectedness is alive in me again. Since I came home from Africa I have experienced it. I wonder if it is a long-term side effect of the medications I took during that year or if I have lost touch with something. During that time in my life I was religious, which was strange because I had questioned religion since I was very young. It only lasted a short time but when it ended it went completely. I still researched religions, took classes about them, and found them fascinating but I no longer practiced any form of one myself.

Now I'm looking to connect that disconnect with myself with the disconnect I've had with my spirituality. I always associated spirituality with religion but lately I have been reconsidering that concept. I heard a very intriguing person on the radio who talked about energies and eastern thought and made me very curious about ideas out there that I should be taking in. I do believe that we are all made up of energies and that we need to be really in tuned with the environment and the Earth and how that relates to ourselves. I believe that we are pulled in certain directions, not by a being but by a magnetic force. I also saw a report by two prominent doctors stating that prayer actually does have health benefits. Not that God is up there listening and granting people's wishes, but that the actual act of prayer releases things in our brains that help to generate good results for our well being.

I recently quit eating meat for a variety of reasons and I've been slowly coming into my own. I'm learning what is important to me and what I really believe in and becoming bolder in expressing it openly. I feel tremendous happiness. I've literally gotten nearly everything I've ever wanted and I'm only 22. I have my education, I have traveled and seen more of the world than many if not most people do in a lifetime, I live in a city that I love, and I have a great start in the career field that I most want to be in. My life is all I want it to be practically. Yet, there's something missing. Some contentment I'm lacking. Perhaps the happiness simply has no outlet or I don't know how to connect it to the actual everyday life I lead. Whatever it is, I feel the need to investigate spiritual possibilities for myself. New angles and ways of looking at life, people, relationships, and emotions. I want to be focused on my health more both physically and mentally and to do something about this awful room I've been living in.

I am also reading a book about money and what it means in our culture and how connected it is to our livelihoods. It's gotten me thinking about a lot of things. I am glad that my ideas of success from an early age were not related to wealth and materialism but I do have a lot of ideas about money that may not be right. For instance, I have had this overriding idea that money is simply bad, the root of all evil. My new job as a fundraiser for an organization using money for good is leading me to reconsider those concepts. Money certainly can be evil and unfortunately probably is more often than not, as it consumes so many people whole but at the same time it can be the root of good deeds in the world. It can finance the best of our intentions and values. It can represent and make alive the best of humanity, the core of our souls. It's tremendously powerful in its capacity to work both for and against us.

All these new ideas I've been thinking about have thus led me into this spiritual journey, which includes this fast I'm doing. I'm hoping to do it for at least 10 days as they claim that helps to reach the greatest depths of the cleanse and I hope that I will manage to keep up with writing about the entire paradigm shift I am undergoing as well. For now I must rest, however. Good night.

Ode to

I cannot believe I have not written a bit since August. My life is entirely new, and perhaps that's why I've been neglecting this hobby of mine that is so essential to my wellbeing. When I am happy it's hard to write... perhaps that's why all the best artists were always alcoholics and suicide victims. When I start to feel lost I remember that writing is what I need. For me it's like a cool rag to the forehead during a fever; as the words flow, the temperature slowly fades into a peaceful rest.

I have many updates as you might've guessed since I haven't written in over four months. 2008 is approaching and I have a great deal on my mind. Living in Los Angeles is a wonderful and difficult thing all at once. I feel so stressed, overwhelmed, and somewhat lost one minute and perfectly at home the next. In fact, often those feelings intertwine in the same instant. I miss having my friends and family around me all the time. I'm really excited to take some time off and see everyone. I realize how truly independent I am now but that doesn't necessarily mean I feel good about it. I feel accomplished and happy but wish that I had someone to share all of it with. I know this is not a profound revelation by any means but the simplest of human needs. Perhaps I should take a few steps back and maybe get to the point... or digress from it I dunno.

In July of 2006 I was preparing myself to travel to West Africa for four months, where this blog began actually. It was an incredibly intense and strange time in my life. My nerves were a wreck, I was chain smoking constantly, living alone, and wondering what my life was going to look like in a couple of months when I wandered into a complete unknown. I knew the next year was going to be full of change and I didn't know at all in what direction. I majored in African Studies in school and going to Africa was the culmination of those years of my life. Going would determine if my college career had been appropriate or not. So, when I met a boy that summer, very unexpectedly on the street in my small college town one night, who wound up being my neighbor, it led to an interesting period in my life.

I'm not writing to write about Africa, or even about that boy really. I'm just writing to clear my head. To remember myself. I'm writing to unravel the many days that have passed when words have not flown from my fingers as I have mulled over the many thoughts of each day and lacked an outlet. I'm also writing to tell a story of who I was, who I am, and who I'd like to be, and to see if those people have anything in common with one another.

So, last July I found Benny on Court Street. He was quiet and subdued at first, which really sheds a lot of light on the person I now realize I don't understand at all. I suppose I have to admit that he was from day one, pretty damned ambiguous. Benny was by no means the ideal guy for me. He certainly didn't treat me the way I deserved to be treated. He'd disappear for weeks at a time with no call, no contact. He'd call in the middle of the night, high on coke and drunk on Jack Daniels and ask me to come and pick him up. I was stupid and gave in. He met me at a very vulnerable time in my life, when I was scared and lonely and needed desperately to feel any possible connection with another person. When he wasn't being downright awful he did have his moments of charm as well. He made me laugh and he made me think about things in a new way. He treated me like an old friend and I felt an immediate comfort around him. For a few months we ran to and fro between each other's houses in the middle of the night. We'd fight and then make up and then make love and then we'd spend the day sleeping, say goodbye and not ask when we'd talk again or what we were doing later. The moments together were what they were, we didn't ask about the past, or even about the present, we simply lent ourselves to one another without question or curiosity. One night, though, I really needed someone... and he came. He comforted me. My grandma was sick and he had lost his and he got it completely. His tattoo for her was evidence of their bond and we had that in common.

A month passed and my time began to wane. My fear was growing ferociously and my excitement was building. Benny and I bade each other goodbye without much consequence. I honestly didn't believe I'd ever see him again. You see, we went to school in Ohio but while I was moving to Africa he was moving to California and if you're American then you know that Ohio- Africa is just about as far as Ohio-California. And yet I went, somewhat reluctantly, in the opposite direction of this new and interesting person to fulfill my dream. A person who I knew was probably bad for me but who excited me and made me feel something I have only felt a couple times in my life. I'm not being articulate here because I still to this day cannot describe that feeling further because I simply don't understand it.

I went to Africa in September and moved in with a Senegalese family. My host brother pursued me almost immediately and I tried to resist him. He was persistent, however, and I wound up breaking one of the cardinal rules of host family life and having an incredibly serious relationship with my sibling. I felt that I was in love. I don't know anymore if I was or not. It's impossible to understand all the feelings I was going through during that time in my life and if what we shared was love I just don't know anymore. I'd like to think that it was, though. It was a strained love, however. It was on a limited time only basis and though I tried to plan for a future with Alex a part of me always knew that was the case. And so I looked on and wondered what life would be like in the future, in America, in Ohio... and I wondered about Benny. We sent a few messages while I was overseas but it felt as impossible as my relationship with Alex was since coming back to Ohio still meant a huge chasm between us.

My life changed so much in Africa... I've talked about that in many blogs past and it feels so far gone that I wish not to discuss it now because it will only serve to torment my emotions even further. I came home almost exactly a year ago now and spent several weeks feeling utterly lousy. I missed my boyfriend and felt so empty and helpless to change what had become of us. I felt a loss, as if something had died. I suppose it had really... not just something, but a part of myself. So, as time passed and the reality of my life here began to set in I ended my relationship with Alex, which by that point seemed almost silly. I hated to undermine the importance of what we'd had because it was very real at the time. If I hadn't been in love with Alex I certainly loved him. He treated me like a queen and he was a wonderful, hardworking, sincere and kind person. There was absolutely nothing wrong with him except that he lived an ocean away from me on another continent. Such is the downside of traveling I suppose.

Nonetheless, I began talking more frequently to Benny. He said things like, "California is not that far away" and through these chats my curiosity was born again. So for six long months I tried to plan a way out to him. I thought if I could just see him and we could talk, if we could know that the last time we saw each other wasn't the last time, then maybe... maybe something might just really be happening. I couldn't get away from school though and so I was forced to wait until June, after graduation. It was agonizing in some ways. To be back and walk past his old house all the time and wish so much that I could just drop by and see him. Just see him. The waiting continued. Sometimes he would revert to his ways of being inconsiderate. I wouldn't hear from him for long periods of time and I would get determined to forget I ever met him. I would delete his number and try to stop thinking about him and always, like a homing pigeon, in just a few days or hours, always he was right there with a call or a text as if he knew that at that moment I was forgetting.

So in June I came to California and I was nauseous when he came to visit. I was so nervous and excited to see him, it was something I really hadn't expected would happen. We went out that first night and had an okay time, nothing too special. Just getting reacquainted, but as soon as we got in the cab he grabbed my face and kissed me and it just felt so incredibly right, it was spine-tingling. We hung out for the next several days after that, with really no more kissing, but just being together and enjoying each other. I met his mom and saw a new side of him, the side that I had only glimpsed in Ohio but that had kept me interested. I had an incredible time with him. I felt so content. Just as if I didn't care what anyone else in the world was doing when he was there; I was grounded.

And then once again we said goodbye. It was more difficult this time because it had been so perfect. Our time together so absolutely good. Leaving felt like tearing off a band-aid. One you try to leave on to avoid the sting as long as possible. I went back to Ohio and I waited again. A couple months later I got in my car with my father and we drove west for six days with whatever belongings I could squeeze.

I didn't move for Benny. I have loved the very idea of California for as long as I can remember. I longed to go to school here but couldn't afford it. Moving here seemed like a dream but when my brother did it two years ago it became more like a possibility. My week with Benny helped to make my decision a little easier. It was nice to know I'd have a good friend nearby and it definitely strengthened the wondering of what might be if we were in the same state again and not going anywhere for a while. Yet regardless of him California has made me indescribably happy since the day I started towards it. Everyday I look out my kitchen window, drive south a little and see the beautiful Hollywood hills in the distance, or go to Venice and see all the diversity and watch the beach at sunset, I know I made the right choice in coming here. I don't know how long I'll stay but I don't regret it a bit.

I came with no idea of what I'd do with myself and I've done really well. I got a part time job tutoring kids in math and language arts and then began volunteering at Relief International and interning at Amnesty International. After a couple months I got an offer from my current employer, Peace Action West, as a Development Associate. My job is to meet with major donors and update them on our campaigns and successes. The organization has a fascinating history of grassroots work and lobbying. We activate people who may or may not normally be politically active and give them an avenue to participate. We help them connect themselves to the political process in a most basic way that many Americans have forgotten. Through this politicians become accountable again because their constituents are paying attention and participating. We remind people that Congress is representing them and that if they aren't talking they won't be heard. Our goals are to create a better US foreign policy and basically to save the world from assured destruction from war, nuclear weapons, insanity, and greed. It's a great job and I've learned a ton working there. I feel so lucky to have gotten it but it has it's downsides as well.

It's actually a lot more emotionally draining than you'd think to research politics and the state of the world for a living. It's discouraging at times. Sometimes I start to think that maybe there really isn't hope for change. I used to read about politics when I came home from work and watch documentaries, constantly filling my every waking minute with knowledge about the world and the state it's in. Finally I realized that I was going to make myself nuts and socially unacceptable so I decided to start reading a good novel sometimes and occasionally try spending the day not thinking about the big picture and just enjoying life.

I will certainly be writing more about work in the future because it is a huge part of my new life. Right now just isn't the time because I'm distracted.

So, now here I am in California, working full time, not seeing Benny, not even sure if Benny thinks of me beyond the confines of his friendly obligations. I'm going back to Ohio in three days for the holidays and I have never felt that I needed a vacation so badly. The real world is slapping me in the face with loan repayments and bills and I never seem to even come close to catching up. I wanted to be in Africa again by now, in the Peace Corps. I'm fine with this alternative for now but I'm not sure what I'm doing. I'm teetering. I don't need to decide anything now but I wonder, will I stay at Peace Action for more than a year? Will I join the Peace Corps even though I began reading that book that talks about how terrible it is? Will I do it just because I really want to go to grad school and don't see how I can if I don't join? Am I beginning to settle someplace? That frightens me.

And anyway, I feel it's time to start over... start over without that feeling of waiting for him. I had this sense that I was just waiting my turn and then I'd have my chance to find out what we missed out on when I flew away last year. Our timing was never right and I was just waiting for that to change. A part of me hoped he might want that somehow too. That perhaps there was a connection that could transcend time and distance but, I think it's time to let go of that. I think it's been way too long and that perhaps I have been very wrong the whole time.

That kiss we had in the cab, that night he came over and stayed up all night talking to me to make me forget that my grandma was sick, that night we trekked to Venice beach and laid there less time than it took to get the 18 buses home, all those minutes of insanity and bliss all mixed together in a cocktail of feeling, it's definitely not easy for me to let go of. But, alas- it is the new year so I suppose there's no better time to try.

Just Dad and me

Bah! So much has changed in my life in so little time that it doesn't feel at all like reality. I am here in Los Angeles for almost a full week now. The rest of the drive out was phenomenal and I will never ever forget getting to do that with my dad.

After the last time I wrote things got even more interesting on our trip. When we began our drive from Cincinnati I had noticed an unusual noise in my front tire. The car had just had a great deal of work done on it and so I hoped that it was simply tightness from the new brakes or something of that nature. My dad said, "If it's gonna happen, it's gonna happen out there" (because he thinks he's Captain Ron) and so we decided to get on the road. By Oklahoma City the noise was getting much harder to ignore and I was getting worried so we went to a Firestone. They had a three hour wait before they could even take a look at it and since we had a lot of miles left to go we weren't really up to chilling that long. The guy did come out and peek under the car and check a few things on the wheel and assured us that as far as he could tell there was nothing seriously wrong. However, by the time we started driving the rest of the way through New Mexico it was apparent that something was in fact seriously wrong. I called ahead to a Firestone in Gallup, New Mexico because it was the next relatively big town. My father, who had been so optimistic before, was now beginning to worry more than me and say things like, "we're never going to make it all the way to Gallup". But alas, by the grace of whomever we did and as we pulled into the Firestone my car sounded like the biggest hoopty you've ever heard. We found out the problem was a wheel baring and within a few hours the guy was able to fix it at a pretty reasonable cost. While waiting everyone we came across started talking about the big parade that was set to happen in Gallup that night.

Gallup is right in the heart of Indian Nation, as they call it, and we had randomly shown up on the day of the 86th annual Indian ceremonial parade in which Native Americans from all over the country come to dress up and dance for the hordes of townspeople who fill the streets. We had only put in four hours of driving time that day but there was no way we could miss this so we visited a local pub, met some people at the bar and had a few brewskies and then watched the festivities. It was so fun to see an entire town so excited.

After leaving Gallup we continued westward to our next stop- the painted desert and petrified forest. For three hours we drove through some of the most dramatic and breathtaking scenery I have ever seen. An ancient basin has left behind layer after layer of brilliant colors in rolling hills and deep badlands. If I still used a film camera it would've cost me an arm and a leg to develop all the exposures I took and yet none of the pictures can do the reality justice. If a picture is worth a thousand words then seeing it with your own eyes isn't worth any because it renders you speechless.

Finally we drove to Flagstaff and up into the mountains and to the Grand Canyon. It would take a great deal longer to give that great big rivet in the earth the appropriate amount of attention but I was thrilled to get to see it for a couple hours. Unfortunately, my dad's health was a factor impending my ability to really enjoy the Canyon. Which brings me to a serious issue in my life as I'm getting older.

My father is one of the most amazing men I have ever encountered in my life. He inspires me to find a man who respects women and treats me well. He inspires me to treat all people well. He has so much to do with the person I have become today and will continue to grow into as time passes, which is somewhat ironic given our dramatically different approaches and views on just about every touchy subject.

As a child it is difficult to see the true humanity that is in all persons, but especially that which exists in our parents. Looking back I realize that to some degree I sincerely believed in my youth that my father was something of a superhero. A builder by profession, I saw him shape raw materials into structures. In our small town everyone knew him making it difficult to ever go out without his interacting with a handful of people. He was always kind and funny to every friend or stranger he came across. My family often wonders why I am so trusting and social but looking at him it is so obvious. Our 'annual' pig roasts complete with tons of grub and drink and even hay rides drew hundreds of people to our house. The parties every Christmas for two days filled the rooms with laughter, song, love, and tons of people making it hard for me to understand Christmas for anyone being anything less than an enormous celebration. Dad was always the vibrant host, cook, and creator of the secret 'recipe', an eggnog known to have knocked many on their butts over the years and even rumored to have led to one of my cousins. When any toy I had became broken, no matter how or what the problem I left it on the counter for Dad and awoke the next day to a perfectly good plaything. I firmly believed that my father could do just about anything, even buying into his story about how he hung the moon each night from his giant ladder in the barn.

As the years past and childhood drifted a lot of hard realities creeped into the picture I had of my father. The hardest being a very serious addiction to alcohol. What I hadn't known and still continue to understand more and more as I grow into a woman is the incredible loneliness that existed in my home. My mother did everything in the world for my brother and I. My father was a provider, a wonderful man, a fun person, and a hero to me but he was owned by an illness that few understand who haven't been so intimate with it. He loved and still loves my mother with all of his heart but alcohol had a hold on him that prevented him from being the husband and father my mother had dreamed of. After 20 long years of enduring a very painful situation my mother made the very difficult decision to get out of it. Their divorce when I was 12 was incredibly hard on my father. The Kenny Chesney song That's why I'm here (http://www.songmeanings.net/lyric.php?lid=124871) rings poignantly true for loved ones of alcoholics, and for my father the most important lines of that song were " I know for us it may be too late, But it would mean the world to me If you were there when I stand to say: It's the simple things in life Like the kids at home and a loving wife That you miss the most, when you lose control and everything you love starts to disappear, the devil takes your hand says 'have no fear, have another shot; just one more beer".

The end of my parents marriage was a blow I don't think my father truly ever recovered from. When the door had closed on the opportunity to bring any hope into their relationship he lost hope in everything else for many years. Our relationship with one another was tumultuous during that dark time in his life. We would sometimes go months without speaking, sometimes only speak to argue about his life choices. I felt bitter, abandoned, betrayed. My Superman had fallen and I was too young to understand the real dimensions of what had taken him from me.

Now here I am, I am grown. I am older than my mother was when my parents were married and yet I don't feel adult enough to make many decisions at all. Yet, I am old enough to see how we are all flawed, all prone to err, even prone to lose control. Each decision we make effects our lives in ways big and small and sometimes I may take years to really see the results. I now feel nothing but enormous love and tenderness towards my aging father. Our drive across the country together was probably the most time we've ever shared all at once. We talked, we laughed, we saw the country and I am so grateful for it. My heart broke a little for I know my father may not have much time left and that our drive may be one of the last great memories I get to have of him. His hair, nearly all turned to gray now, his aging body which seems to shrivel up more and more and to betray him with the great pain it causes him to suffer. A lifelong smoker he becomes easily short of breath. By 9 pm each night he is difficult to communicate seriously with because of the amount of bourbon he has already consumed throughout the course of the day. Through it all he is still my hero. It is obvious he cares not for himself but for his family and loved ones. A part of me resents him for not trying harder to be around to walk me down the isle or see his future grandbabies, or just to be there for John and I for plenty of visits back to Ohio. Yet, I know we cannot force people to change their lives and to worry constantly about them doing so will only be a burden on ourselves and them. I hope deeply that my father is around for all of those things for I see now that I love him even more than I ever knew before. Regardless, our six days of driving into the sun will forever bring a smile to my face and a tear to my eye and remind me to be a better person regardless of who I am.

O Beautiful for spacious skies

The past two days have been the most exciting I've had in a while. Monday at around 4 pm my dad and I climbed into my loaded down 96' Ford Contour (Julie) that has only a smidgen of life left in her and began our cross-country journey to Los Angeles. We drove through Indiana and Illinois and stopped in Missouri for the evening. My brother made this drive almost exactly 2 years ago but he made it all the way to Oklahoma City the first day, intent on making the most of his waking hours and getting to California as quickly as possible. My dad and I aren't concerned with time, though money is a tiny issue for we poor folk. We want to see the country and so far it's been absolutely incredible. I have been on four continents and in major cities around the globe but have never driven past Chicago, or been in any state past Illinois aside from California until now. I really had no clue how incredibly vast and breathtaking this country really is.

Monday night we stayed at the prestigious Congress Inn... or at least maybe it was when it was built some decades ago, but it was decent enough. After breakfast at the Cracker Barrel (maybe my favorite vacation restaurant) we headed into St. Louis and visited the arch. I flew over it a number of years ago when one of my first international trips had a layover in St. Louis but really knew nothing of the historical and cultural symbolism it held. As I stood before the 630 foot stainless steel structure representing the gateway to the west for travelers gone long before myself I realized it was the turning point in which I crossed into a new chapter of my very own life.

After checking out the museum for a tad we hit the road on into Oklahoma and spent the night in Oklahoma City. This morning we visited the cowboy museum (mostly for my dad) which was definitely one of the most well-done museums I've ever seen. It included absolutely beautiful gardens and countless exhibits including a done-to-scale western town where we asked some folks to snap this pic of us in the county jail.

After the museum I wanted to see the National Memorial for the victims of the Oklahoma City bombing. I don't know what I expected. For most of my life when I've heard mention of Oklahoma the first thing that came to mind was that horrific day. I was just about to turn 10 years old when and had stayed the night at my grandparents' house. I remember waking up to the continuous stream of images from the scene. My grandmother explained that some terrible person or people had set off a bomb killing many and injuring more. As I watched the scenes of rescuers pulling bloody shocked victims from the carnage and saw children even younger than myself I had so many questions. I didn't understand. Someone had done this terrible thing on purpose?


Visiting the memorial today was heartbreaking and eerie. Being in the place, in a city only slightly larger than Cincinnati, where on a regular morning people going about their regular morning routines had their lives shattered or lost put into perspective the way in which we take our own undisturbed routines for granted.

The symbolic memorial they've created does a great deal to honor the victims without erasing the horror and sadness of that day. The empty chairs stretched the length of the building represent the presence of the absence of those lost, with 19 small chairs for the children. On each end of the yard there is a gateway with a time engraved on it's face- one reads 9:01, the minute before the bomb exploded, the other 9:03- the minute after.



The survivor tree, as it has come to be known, was the only remaining tree around the building which actually caught fire when cars in the parking lot surrounding it did, the blackened bark evidence of its suffering and that which it witnessed. When first approaching the exhibit there was a charred odor in the air and though it is unlikely to be related to the blast now 12.5 years ago it triggered an even stronger emotional response.


The speaker we heard described 9:01 as the minute before innocence was lost. For me that took on even deeper meaning. At age 9 that bombing was the first real glimpse I'd had of pure unexplained evil. It was the beginning of the end of my own innocence and seeing it today solidified that.

Oklahoma City is no longer just a community of people who in my mind are constantly trying to overcome their worst tragedy. It is a unique, interesting place with friendly people that suffered an incredible, unimaginable tragedy the likes of which can never be fully understood by any normal human being. It will take much longer than 12.5 years for the wounds to fully heal from that awful event, proven by the man working at the cowboy museum who explained to us that his barber's granddaughter was the deceased child in the arms of the firefighter in the famous picture below. Yet the people of that city are united and strong, probably stronger for the grief they endured together. Their hope is visible and their kindness prevails. For Oklahoma and this country it was a historical moment that effected many lives and for myself it was a frightening glance at what pain life can dole out so unjustly.

Tonight we are camped out in the rather fine Comfort Inn in Santa Rosa, New Mexico. Traveling through Texas was beautiful and I can't wait to see what landscape rolls out before us on tomorrow's drive.

If you're American and you've never taken a cross-country drive I strongly encourage you to add it to your list of things to do before you die, and make it sooner than later.

Life 101

I have been out of college a month and a half and I feel burnt out on reality. I'm frustrated and discouraged. I feel like I'm watching my dreams become more and more unrealistic. I'm angry and feel deceived. I went to college for four years so I could spend my life doing something I enjoy but I feel as if the people along the path to get me here never told the whole truth. They all made it seem like going to school was like opening this great door into a realm of endless possibility.I did so much throughout college, working my ass off. Between the Global Leadership Center, studying abroad twice, working at the restaurant, being in Alpha Phi Omega, starting STAND and a slew of miscellaneous other things I barely had time to sleep. I put myself through all this misery to wind up nearly $30,000 in debt and living at my parents house wondering if I should've gotten another waitressing job before picking up and moving across the country with no job or money.

Where was the honesty about the number of interviews, the dumb questions I'd be forced to answer on the spot, the waiting and waiting... and more waiting just to hear that someone 'more qualified' was chosen? Why didn't they explain that even though you go to college nearly every employer is going to want someone with 1-5 years of experience in the field? If I had known that I guess I would've tried getting a real job while I was in the middle of trying to be a full time student. Just how exactly is anyone supposed to get this experience anyway if no one will let them work for them without it?

To top off the stress of having -$30,000 and rising... or... lowering.... err.... anyway- I now have my family trying to pour it on thick with the guilt I should feel for moving to the other side of the country. Forget being grateful for me not moving to China or someplace back in Africa or anyplace else in the entire world. I think to them it's about the same. I don't understand... I thought this is what people do. We grow up and we outgrow our beginnings. Home towns are just starting places to send us on to something more. To prepare us, mold us into our future selves. What good is that if my future self is here now and can't go and face the rest of this incredibly vast place in which we live? I know that many if not most people are satisfied with that staying put and there's nothing wrong with that. It just isn't and hasn't ever been for me. The thought of it scares me half to death. It feels like stagnation. I want to go on to more adventures and new people where I can keep on changing, growing, learning. I'm not ready to believe that college was the best years of my life and that carefree time in my life is over.

Being around my family is somewhat of a downer. They seem so cynical. I know that I'm young and naive but I want to be old and naive one day. Sometimes it's like they're trying to break my spirit. I say that I believe in things like equality and volunteering, that I'm a bit of a Marxist. I believe in having a job that pays less but does more for the world and mankind. I care about things like human beings instead of things like money. They treat me like some dumb kid who just doesn't get it yet. Part of me thinks they're right, that one day I'll just buy in- sell out. I'll give up the persistent hoping and just buy a house and do the 'normal' crap.

How do we ever know our true limitations until we have pushed ourselves to them? I have such big dreams of giving it my all and really changing the world, even if it's just a tiny ripple. I feel them starting to die and I need to build a resistance. Our whole lives people fill us with all this hope that we can do absolutely anything with our dreams. Maybe I never released the childlike beliefs that all those posters from QUEST class instilled in me.

In a way I feel cheated by all the inspirational messages over the years. Everyone so filled with faith and belief in my potential and the certainty of my bright future. Perhaps all that pampering filled me with undue confidence. I always believed strongly that I was supposed to do something important, big. What if I was just supposed to be average?

I wish sometimes that I hadn't been so spoiled and that I knew that now that I have to I can make it out there on my own. Out in the big cruel reality of things. I think that some hard knocks would've made my writing better at the very least. My life hasn't been perfect but I'd say it's been just short. Now my standards are so high for the future. I don't want to settle for less than the job of my dreams or for less than... my dreams themselves. I just beg of all powers that be that something good comes out of the experience of moving to Los Angeles. That it isn't a mistake made based on one of my many whimsical decisions. This isn't whimsical- it's huge. The biggest risk I've ever taken and... well, I'm afraid of failure like everybody else. Los Angeles, brace yourself cause I'm coming with high expectations.