patty cake patty cake
i am going to bake. not a cake, but brownies. just thought you all should know.
let's get together and feel alright
the shadow lounge in east liberty is a place of healing and renewal for me. i inevitably learn new things about myself, about people, about god. it is also just a plain old good time. A told me last night that he is moving to houstin for grad school. E told me has was moving to U Delaware. N is headed to Austin and I to DC. crazy times. things are beginning to shift, even at the lounge. through it all, there is a strong thread called community that holds us all together. ahhh. feels good.
the shame game
oh, how often sneaking suspicions and doubtful inklings infiltrate my thoughts and shape enormous and elaborate hypothetical scenarios until i am convinced that the whole world is against me. i like to call it the shame game. apparantly i am an old pro. I have a propensity to feel guilt even when it is not rightfully mine. this guilt is like a slow working poison or a frog in a frying pan. turn the heat on little by little so the frog doesnt noticed he is about to meet his demise. so it is with the shame game. you dont even know you're sick til you're dead. game over. well, i tried out a new strategy today and was able to successfully dismantle several guilt-brain concoctions. glory be. but the process felt more like "out of the frying pan and into the fire." i wrote a letter (scary) made two phone calls (more scary) and went for a bike ride (most scariest). *sidebar* if the just cause for fright eludes you, ask DP. she knows. *end sidebar* that about sums up my day. bonus points for me. we shall see what comes tomorrow, oh insidious game of shame, we shall see. until we meet again.
heartaches and asian food
last night i spent the greater part of my evening with two close friends. I felt incredibly emotionally raw going into it because of the rapid acceleration of my life. My heart was full and heavy with both joy and sorrow. and as it turns out, my friends were feeling much the same way. i feel stuck and trapped inside mixed emotions of guilt and affirmation. i hate feeling as though i have let someone down. part of my heart is ready/terrified/excited to embark on another part of the great adventure of life. but a hefty chunk of my heart is equally terrified/terrified/terrified of leaving the place i have grown to call "home" for the better part of two years, of leaving the community which has walked along side of me through tremendous healing, of being forgotten, of not being needed, of once again feeling painfully lost and ungrounded. of feeling unsettled, of losing my home base. I feel desperate, to tell you the truth. desperate in my need for the gospel. desperate for my community not to think i have abandoned them, desperate not to be shut out. desperate for restored relationships. I am desperately thankful to be in this position of great need. i discovered last night that i was literally and figuratively starving. i was starving for fellowship, for more of christ, for the healing of sickness in my community, and for asian food. tofu, coconut milk, udon noodles and chopsticks were agents of great change. several hours of conversation and bowls of hot asian cuisine later, i found that i was delightfully and most satisfyingly full-- mind, body and soul. i felt relieved of the fear that i have already been written off. i once again felt the freedom to LIVE here. my hope is that my last five months in pittsburgh will be lived to the full. full of great people and great food.
CALIFORNIA (knows how to party)
and by california, i clearly mean D.C. It was a week of celebration with new and old friends. i find that i am starting to get excited about the shape my life path is taking. anticipation is a really funny feeling. it is terrifying and calming all at the same time. my summer is pretty much all sorted out, what with weddings to go to (and plan) and driftings toward the BIG MOVE. the move to a much different and much bigger city, the move into a different social group, the move into living life with someone, the move further out of fears and into freedom. change is something that i have historically struggled with. it is extraodinarily uncomfortable for me and my body tends to physically resist it. and so it begins. i can tell because i have gone to yoga twice in the past twelve hours and still feel tension in my shoulders and neck. My body, much like my life, is being simultaneously settled and stretched. i am learning new physical and spiritual postures. my muscles and my heart are finding greater balance as i press in deeper to the source. my brain is often stuck in a frenzied gear. yoga has been wonderful because it provides a place for me to be more disciplined and pay attention to what i am doing with my mind and my body. my most focused times of prayer are during yoga. through the undertaking of these new patterns i find my whole self becomes more grounded. it has been sprititually fruitful for me to meditate on christ or a particular passage as my body and mind align with my breath flow. it is a relief, to be quite honest. i get so easily distracted otherwise. i have a lot of trouble being still. so my spiritual stillness before god is most focused when the rest of me does the same. i really did not intend to blog about yoga, but i got in my car at 6:40am to attend a yoga class. it was a great way to begin my day. the real point of this post was to say that i am looking forward to my life. i love to think about all the possibilities that await me in D.C. this is going to be a great year. i can feel it. literally.
