Stillness

Stillness is one of those funny deals that we through around with great respect to the idea but little adherence to the practice. Be still and know. Be still and listen. Be still and . . . oh look!

It is hard to be still and more so when it seems so unrewarding. But that is the problem We expect something out of stillness, and we are so busy waiting, looking, waiting patiently for that something, breath baited and eyes pealed, that we miss it. We miss everything.

My stillness today was a little atypical. I was attempting to send a text message. This is quite difficult for me. Really, quite difficult. I like to write somewhat correctly. Blatant misspellings are not acceptable (blatant meaning that I notice it). Besides, I wasn't too focused. I would stop and space into the distance. I was out walking for walking, for air, for it is my last day in Grand Rapids until it is time to come back.

Believe it or not, I was being still. Texting does not seem very still, not to those who watch those crack fingers punching keys at 200 words per minute and not to myself or others who labor over each letter, but this was stillness in some strange way. My mind was not whirling. It wasn't focused on much of anything. I was just breathing. Being. A funny concept, I know.

Anyway, amidst that, amidst that still moment after running from office to office tracking down professors and trying to hold myself together, two people popped into the moment, one right after another, two gals from the Spring Semester in Spain. They were both on the phone but they both took a moment to say hi, give a hug, and offer their prayers as I head home for the fall.

Had I not set myself down to breathe, attempted to send a text without much focus, had I not mistakenly slipped into stillness, I would not have seen either of these women who have a gift of sending out sunshine to whomsoever they encounter.

That is the point of stillness--when one is still, one is not expecting, one is vulnerable to the unknown . . . and the gems of stillness, of that unknown, are best seen in reflection.

Some ruminating, marinating, or what you will

• The San Lorenzo Valley is gorgeous. This is a piece of paradise. The trees are awing.
• People are good. Yeah, no, evil, horrid, fallen, inclined to malevolency, however one would like to put it, but also good. Everyone.
• Societies are parasitical. Within each society there are sub-societies living as parasites on the “greater society.” This also means that societies are organisms.
• There are few better feelings than feeling small. Small in a sub-sub-sub-society in a itty bitty corner of a world bigger than our specific expression (yet smaller than our general comprehension); small in the face of history; small standing upon, beneath, surrounded by history; small walking down a one-lane road lined with homes with a backdrop of mountains: San Lorenzo Valley tree-lined ridges, Sierra Nevada snowy peaks, painted cliffs of Valle de Laguar; small in the drivers seat wondering at the constant flow of vehicles; small strolling along West Cliff, through Fall Creek, between tables at Mount Hermon Dining Hall, star-struck at the waves, the ferns, the people, on and on and on; small because while health, relationships, structures, communication, religions, people, words fail, the world keeps turning, flowers keep blooming, language continues evolving.

Summer Service

Warning: Sarcasm and smart-aleckyness is running high.

Service is something . . . well, with which I have a bone to pick.

What a servant. The “humility in serving” is a virtue to be sought (and a cliché to be avoided).  It is one of those top of the line “Christian virtues” too. (Excuse the obsessive use of quote marks . . . and apparently parenthesis . . . I have yet to learn to write in tones.)

It is also my job. And I enjoy my job. 

Just a thought: why is service so valued in ideals but undercut in support? People do not consider waiting to be a way to earn a living.

Here’s the weird-o-ness that just rubs me the wrong way (don’t worry, I won’t point too many fingers . . . only the middle):

These highly social people (I know because they don’t shut up), socially competent people, drag-ass through the shift, complaining about anything and everything and refusing, absolutely refusing to do the bare minimum (serve the damn coffee). This job . . . is a job, shut up? These people are friendly and kind and absolutely incapaz, incapable of bringing themselves to serve genuinely, or serve at all (their job title: server) for that matter.

Contrarily, Miss Antisocial (none other than la escritora, me) who is a genuine jerk inside, rarely smiles, does not socialize, who is incapaz, incapable of opening a conversation more than once in a blue moon, frazzles around the tables serving coffee, would you like room for cream? and even joking with the guests. I’m a bit put out if I’m pulled away from the service sector or told no, you may not continue, go home.

Maybe I misunderstand the word, but paradoxical is how I see this situation. Not to mention mind boggling and frustratingly impossible to understand. 

Relearning America

Home. Home is a concept that needs to be reevaluated but I’ll save that for later. I’m not feeling profound or philosophical today. Maybe tomorrow. But why is home on my mind? Aren’t I in Spain? Those twenty days of adventure?

Well, shucks folks. La aventurera (me) got a little adventured out and is home. Since Friday. Welcome back to the United States of America. God blesumerica. ‘Cause it needs all the help it can get. Kidding—kind of. I’m negative today. We’ll try to keep that off the blog, but seeing as I’m a speaking in various persons about myself, who knows what sort of box I’ll write myself into.

Thoughts:

• U.S. cities are so illogical. (Wait, how many U.S. cities do I know?? Hmm. Maybe I’m not allowed to say that seeing as my city experience is next to nothing.)
• I can’t bring x, y, or z back home from Spain—and not because they are dairy, meat, or produce. America the prude and conservative and more so when hanging around the corridors of the sub-culture called Christianity. Fíjate bien dónde pisas. It is not necessarily better or worse; it is just different and I need to readjust so I’m not always in a state of shock. From, Really? We do that here? to Sure, go ahead. Me? No. From skunk-in-headlights to verbalizing yes I understand but do not agree. Y finito. The difficulty . . . why must people have such a desire to argue? To convert? . . . and more so, me? Open my mouth and say not only something but something assertive? Ha. That’ll be the day. 

. . . and I got distracted so forgot my other thoughts . . .

This summer:

• Mount Hermon Dining Hall
• My bicycle
• Shakespeare Santa Cruz
• Attempts at Socialization (not as in converting folks to communism)

Back to the States—I need to be positive, so what is it about’merica, about the United States that I can’t help but say ahhhh yeah:

• ·      Skylines serrated by ridges topped with trees and trees and trees, ridge in front of ridge in front of ridge in varying shades of greens and grays, with mist trickling down from a blue sky painted with rose, daisy, or iris clouds . . . on and on and on
• ·      Country Music
• ·      Thrifty’s ice cream
• ·      The Farmer’s Market (the Spanish markets are amazing, but I’m but I’m trying to be positive here. There is an extra bit of homey-ness to the Farmer’s Market, perhaps simply because I am not from the city and know these folks)

Que Locura

Vhat can I shay, I’m losing my Mind . . .

Sometimes one does crazy things.

Like a Skype account. That of course, had a very specific reason, to chat with a professor. It was a rough weekend/week.

Or a FaceSpace account. Scary. Do you have any clue how many e-mails fly into the inbox with the creation of that diabolic account? Horrifying. These are things that can be deleted. Perhaps I will be after Spain. I’m really not crazy over it.

Or putting a picture of myself on-line. Que horror.

But what is on my mind recently as a crazy thing?

Hmm . . . Hair.

Tattoos are silly: they cost un montón and what if you decide you don’t like it? Bummer man. You had better be darn sure. But hair . . . hair grows out. Dying it wouldn’t be the best idea for me, because by time it grew back out, it might all be grey (I stopped counting grey hairs when my roommate straightened my hair—“pull it out! Another? Pull it out!!” there were quite a few, and of course they grow back and multiply regularly.

But hair . . . What has been my mantra, anyone?

Hmm. I haven’t done anything yet. I won’t clue you all in anymore to what I’m thinking, but maybe I’ll come back shocking yall. :) 

Thoughts on Culture

We’re reading, or have read part of, a book about culture, Learning from the Stranger by David I. Smith. We’ve only read the prologue, “Relinquishing the Center,” and the first chapter, “How Not to Bless The Nations,” but I am a nerd and find it quite interesting, so I read the following chapter: “Culture and Bad Breath.” I love the way everything is deconstructed in this book—the notion of “culture,” the trouble with any one person addressing culture, the assumptions taken into “cultural experiences,” etc.—with a plethora of examples and excerpts for concepts, for words, for the concept of words . . . and of course, I love the words the author chooses—the underhand humor, eloquent and concise, the section titles (Behaving Yourself in Public, for example, or Talking Past One Another). 

Alrighty, enough nerdiness. What sermon is about to be unloaded? Look out . . . you’ve been warned. No, really, no sermon, just some little ah-has and hmms and ohs and os (not the reflexive of vosotros os but the difference between Oh! and O!)

Café behavior: the cafés here are like little restaurants. Anything less it is a café/bar, which most all are anyway, but point being, my mind goes into restaurant mode. I’ve known for some time that American restaurant service is, well, different. And generally speaking the message is “Hi, how are you, eat, drink, tip, (and leave so we can accommodate more revenue, er, guests).” There is not a high regard for letting people set and enjoy a meal unless there is a hefty price tag. This has always been an annoyance for me, even more so when whomever I am eating out with is impatient with the “slow service.” Take your sweet time, I think without a tint of sarcasm and refrain from kicking my dining buddy under the table. Anyway, I went to a café here to have, well, a café and found myself tense until I paid and left. I could have set there probably a full hour before they brought me the tab, but I happened to only have a quarter-hour to burn. It was exactly the type of environment I wish we had more of in the U.S. but there I was all balled up inside, bracing myself to get hurried along, nagged, hovered over by an anxious waiter. Despite how much I dislike such environments and wistfully wish for others, I subconsciously expect it . . . no wonder the world here is always telling me “tranquila.” I am a tense americana.

On that note: americanos. Eh? Yup, that is us. What does that mean? And what does one say when asked “are all Americans so _______?” Well, no, but I don’t know if we are all generally more so in that direction than the general population here . . . No we don’t all have guns at home. No I do not like ketchup, therefore, not all Americans like ketchup. I couldn’t make you a hamburger safely if you wanted it. Not all of our homes came out of a TV show. But it is shocking what one learns about oneself by hearing cultural assumptions based on personal habits. For example: “¡Annie! ¡Eres super timída!” The following question translated something to the effect of “Are all Americans so bashful/shy/timid?” It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that one is more introverted or extroverted, but that it is written all over one’s face to someone of another culture makes one think. More on that situation—this question came from a Columbiana to an Americana in España. I just love that fact.

Huevos revueltos. Food, no I cannot write without addressing food. Sorry. Last night I taught my mamá here how to make scrambled eggs. Trust me, she is a genius in the kitchen—it is as simple as scrambled eggs are not a common food here. Eggs tend to come (in my experience) steamed on spinach, in the form of a tortilla, or hard-boiled. I did not realize my not spicing food completely to my liking was a quirk. I do not put any spices in my eggs unless I am the only one eating them, and generally I like salt and pepper on top of the eggs rather than cooked in anyway. Mi mamá asked twice about putting salt in and when I mentioned pepper she asked immediately if that should be cooked in, and I shrugged and told her I generally think it’s better to let each season to his or her own liking with eggs and certain foods. I think she found it amusing—she just grinned and said “so you really do like it that way? Each person to his or her preference . . .”

What I’m doing write now: sitting in my room on my bed typing. Completely normal. For me. I’m a cave troll. I’m either in the cave (my room) or out and about (exploring the great outdoors) or hunting (playing in the kitchen) or attending cave-troll school (popping in and out of classrooms and academic buildings at Calvin). I have to remember that my cave dwelling sends bad vibes. And I think worse here than at home. At home it’s a given—look, the troll left her cave!—but here it is an unusual level of time alone. Even if I am doing homework or reading, there is a certain amount of time everyone spends together, it is an unspoken rule (of at least this house), even if that time together everyone has their face in a different screen (Jaime watching the game in his iphone, Raquel on her laptop checking facebook and tuenti, Alicia juggling her ipad, iphone, and computer, while the TV rambles on . . .) they can look up and chat because they are together. Hmmm.

Enough un-profundity for one night. Buenas,

Annie

Lo Nuevo

A New Year, a new blog. Not really. But to an extent, yes, it will be different. January 4^th I fly out of San Francisco, touch down in Germany, Madrid, and finally Valencia, where I spend the night of the 5^th, leaving on bus the 6^th to Denia with the Calvin Study in Spain program. The posts will probably still pertain mostly to the scenery and food, but whatever adventures I run into are fair game . . .and the last twenty days will regard the adventure of arriving to Brussels in time to see the city and catch my flight out in June. Unfortunately, there will not likely be a Sem-Pond Jump in Spain for me. Seeing as I too much enjoyed wearing a walking boot last spring, summer, and fall, and so upon returning home, I just had to get another; having a stress fracture in my heel made that quite easy. 

Vague Philosophical Musings on Fall Semester 2010

Post finals, post packing and traveling, sitting at the kitchen table in a slower paced section of lifestyles it is easy to gloss the semester into “a learning experience” and move on without actually learning anything. What was demonstrable, if anything, in the last semester, that should be carried foward for furture reference? 

1.   One will mess up, and one will make the same mistakes multiple times: No, that is not my excuse for habitual burnout. But, I do think it is necessary that we give ourselves some grace in the penance department. That was a lot of religious rhetoric in one sentence and it is probably in misuse; someone can chew me out for that later. The mistakes are, in essence, the same, but there are leaves of difference that can be found, and those are often signs of growth, of change.

2.   Let’s break that down a bit more—one will mess up. Hi, me llamo Not Perfect. Cannot be, will never be anything but a human being. Call it Total Depravity or Human Stupidity Syndrome or What Makes Life Interesting, it is an inevitable reality.

3.   The Reaction is What Matters. It has been established: we mess up. Now what? Or is it messing up? Everything comes down to a choice of movement. Rewriting past choices is not an option but moving is.

I think this, moving, is the most important bit of knowledge that has become more and more a reality to me in the last several years. I will never know what is next. I have already made the mistake of staking x, y, and z on these carefully laid, intricate, unattainable goals and plans, and now I’m in a state of dizzy confusion, blurry minded, now what?! Move. Quit sitting, wallowing, frazzling, just move. Forward or backward, up or down are quasi-irrelevant terms at this point. “Quasi” because sometimes there are informative tidbits called past-experience and because sometimes our perceptions of direction are completely skewed, but usually both. And, yes, it stinks now: I’ve messed up and all I can see are consequences. And looking back one can say: that was a horrid decision. But was it? All strings attached are somehow attached to the present, and would change that one mistake for the sake of retrospect? Most likely not. The mistake has been made and the options are to move or not to move. Move. 

The Tropes of Tea

Good Earth Tea is, well, quite tasty. It is very much like “Chai”: black tea and spices. And, like most quality, packaged teas, comes with a quote on the attached string and label. But the most recent quote, or more precisely, Chinese Proverb, made my day:

“Kissing is like drinking salted water: you drink and your thirst increases.”

Really? I would not know—although I have drunk immeasurable amounts of ocean water, I have yet to experience the tenor. How far can this be taken? Too much ocean water can make one sick, especially when the rivers are tainted (but hey—I’m still fine, and I drank gallons of Zayante and Bean water!!) that inject the salt water . . . kissing can cause mono and no doubt all sorts of other nasty infections . . . hmmm. But I have yet to get sick on account of the ocean, if anything, it is healing—so is kissing healing? Ha. This is too much fun. I might have to readdress this post when Mr. First Good Buddy stumbles into my life or I trip into his . . .

Tasty Oats

Alright--I am a sucker for oats. New Leaf sells this mix of barley flakes, oats, and I don't quite remember what else, but about a 1/3 cup of that, plus some steel-cut oats, quinoa, rice, dried currants, and wheat germ dumped into hot-hot-hot milk and soaked overnight equals a fabulous breakfast:

I chopped up some frozen cranberries to throw in with some frozen blueberries and heated it up with another splash of milk and/or water and topped it with granola . . . so it looks weird, but, mmm, scrumptious! No matter what el señor Ben Jonson has to say about oats--grain, which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people--I will continue to eat them.

Stoves, Suds, and Smiles

This morning was one of those mornings . . . one that, for whatever reason, everything seemed amusing or pleasurable. Let me rewind.

This last weekend was nutsy: to have surgery or not to have surgery? For those who do not know, the navicular bone and cartilage in my right foot is weird and quite painful, as I discovered in the midst of training for a 25K run in late March. For that and a variety of other trivial reasons, I have been ridiculously cynical of late. Perhaps I was looking for the positive to counteract my moodiness.

Home cooking and baking. Okay, so it helps living at home and mooching off the padres cooking supplies, not so discretely hinting at purchases, volunteering to forge the way through the grocery stores . . . Nonetheless, soaking beans to make hummus, concocting spice combinations for fish, watching steam rocket from the combination of toasted steel-cut oats and buttermilk, the smell of fresh pugliese bread, experimenting with granola . . . there is a simple joy in kitchen creations.

Made by hand . . . and cleaned. Cleaning can be the horror of baking and cooking. An elaborate pizza with homemade dough, various cheeses, tomatoes, spinach, skillet cooked mushrooms and onions, fresh basil, and another with pesto and chicken, and the random brie and pear pizza . . . all are delicious, but the precariously stacked dishes are daunting. But the truth of the matter? I do enjoy the dishes. Steaming hot water and suds, a fresh wash cloth, and the consistent scouring and scrubbing is incredibly calming. And the end product—a drain-tray full of sparkling clean dishes—is so satisfying. The dishes are not always as cute as I have made them out to be; they can be the source of much frustration, the last straw, or simply a general nuisance. But for whatever reason this morning, I looked at the dishes dripping dry and the dirty blender and smiled.

Granola. Yes, my dear Michiganders, Midwesterners, Southerners, and New Englanders, this is soo California. Yogurt and granola. But my little made-at-SLV ceramic bowl with Trader Joe’s non-fat vanilla yogurt, my homemade granola with its latest twist, and local strawberries (maybe not Gizdich, but still pretty darn good) was a lovely sight, a fabulous meal, and a reminder of the itty-bitty, perhaps silly things that make life wonderful.

Treasures: Rodeo Gulch

I live in paradise (sorry to brag). People may not frolic naked (I count that as a blessing, actually) and we may lack fruit trees outside the window; perhaps the temperatures we have in the summer are not always paradisiacal and the fumes from fires encouraged by drought do not please aesthetic sensibility, but Northern California is quite the country and Santa Cruz county is bursting with many of the wonders of nature. If it is mountains one desires, and ours are too small, we are just several windy roads away from the Sierra Nevada range (and Tahoe!! and Yosemite!!). Redwoods? Check. Madrones? Ah yaz. Pines? Yup. Firs? Really . . . yes. Lighthouses? Harbors? Grassland? Farms? Sweeping views? Uh-huh.

Driving home from my summer school class in Aptos today, I decided to take a scenic route, or a severe detour, up Rodeo Gulch. I had not been up that road since last summer and knew it was a fairly peaceful road, and oh, absolutely gorgeous. Apparently I had forgotten how gorgeous. To ye Santa Cruz County dwellers, take a detour someday, sooner than later; it is not a sight to have missed. Take it slow. To ye other Northern Cali friends, stop by, I’ll give you a tour. Anyone and everyone else, come visit for some time, there is so much to see. Bring your bike and walking shoes, these things are better taken in gradually, not flown by. Do not drive the speed limit; 35 mph is too fast to see much of anything.

Rodeo Gulch meanders off of Soquel Drive (busy mania central) and rolls through small, open fields past trees and wildflowers. It is a sparsely populated area of old Soquel, rather undisturbed. The road climbs up switchbacks to the ridge from which one can see the waves of trees tumbling out to mingle with the distant blue of the ocean, bleeding moisture into the dallying departure of fog. From leaving the oak framed vista (and leaving out 99.9 percent of the description before and after the named point) and climbing several turns, the road drops a hairpin and many bouncing curves to a choice: Laurel Glen or Mountain View. Laurel Glen eventually dumps off onto Soquel San Jose Road, which, although a beautiful route, is out of the way. But Mountain View is fabulous also. The trees, the ferns, the stream, oh, everything, everything is awe striking. There is that rich, dark soil on the steep hillside dancing with redwoods and peaking through the yellow grass on the opposing gentle slope. All the descriptions I could muster for the remainder of Mountain View and Branciforte would sound strikingly similar: dark soil, redwoods, mountains painted with green, always green, trees in the near distance with a gently rolling meadow, yellow with grass that will become brown, then green, then watercolor, every year, in the foreground, spotted with oaks, firs, and redwood groves. But it is not all the same. Any film would fail to capture the angles and lighting, and it is not the incompetency of the artists (I did recognize the big tree forests and the clip from Tikal in Star Wars: Return of the Jedi), but nature in its moment portrayed on a screen or on special paper is not, will never be, the same as standing in the spot and realizing, my eyes, all my combined senses, are overwhelmed, in love, and selfishly insatiable.

Folks—it is beautiful. I know that word is overused. And what is crazy is this is, for the main part, new growth. The whole darn place was clear-cut. Gone. That was a bit of a reminder for me: I need to prune myself, or let myself be pruned, to make a millionth a step toward growth. Yes, clear-cutting is extreme, try selective cutting. Just as it is good to let the forest burn periodically, I need to get burned. Otherwise dead, useless bits crop up along the forest floor, little silly things I am unwilling to properly deal with—fears, grudges, dreams deferred—and then when the fire comes through, it is not simply a healthy cleaning, but a devastating burn. 

Initial Musings--what on Earth am I doing?

I’m thinking about starting a blog . . . it could have been started over Spring break, but I would have needed to have remembered my camera (food, yello). It would have served the same purpose as the e-mails (namely, entertainment and expression of sorts, the joy of writing), but it would give me something to do now. The dealio is that I am here, in the place with the people to whom the emails were sent. Who would read it? Does it matter? What would I write about? Books? Adventures beyond the literary scope . . . ha, uhh, really, lacking in that department. I did head out to downtown on Monday to discover . . . no more free parking?! Nope. Not in the immediate downtown vicinity, so I parked two streets over from Pacific, which is no big deal, I’m just sick of gimping around in a boot. Whine whine whine. Pues. Results perhaps on Thursday. But what happened downtown?

Well :) I went to . . . Logos! and Bookshop Santa Cruz! Shush, reading is a good thing. And bought: MacBeth, The Merchant of Venice, and Love’s Labour’s Lost. Cringe. Yes, I do have The Complete Works of Shakespeare and The Necessary Works of Shakespeare. But the latter is what I have at home and it does not have Love’s Labour’s which is what Shakespeare Santa Cruz is performing, along with Othello, which I am super excited about and have full intentions of attending. The other two are in the Necessary volume (what a preposterous idea), but it is quite cumbersome. If I go off to gimp around the harbor or whatever, I would prefer to have a book-sized book, not a text size book to read.

Cooking adventures? Hmm. I made pugliese bread. It turned out fabulous.

Shucks, it looks as though I did do the blog thing. I exist online. What a scary thought. But why a blog? Hmm . . . because, selfishly, I like to write, but I can be very reclusive and as a result unintentionally exclusive. It is not an excuse not to chat with folks in person or on the phone; although I do ignore phone calls sometimes. It is just an experiment—writing semi-publically. Pues. Es todo. Yes, I’ll use Spanish de vez en cuando. Jejeje. Tis fun. Maybe I’ll even write alliterative blogs (oh, it is so much fun, alliteration . . . I carried on a hypothetical conversation in my mind for the endurance of a ten mile run—all of my hypothetical responses were expressed alliteratively).