Salir

A day and a half left in Mexico. At the very least, I will leave here with a renewed sense of humanity and humility. When the social levels and blind luck are stripped away, we are all made of the same dirt and water when brought before God. The only real difference is what we make of it. Here, as with anywhere else, most people are making the best they can.
The crowded thousands in the mercados - they scrape together their principles with their dirt and choose to try to better the lives of their families.
The long-dead builders of temples - they used blood and clay to make the future aware of their existance.
The silly little foreign writers - well, they do what they can, too, although it often means giving up. Or placing themselves on the highest of pedestals. This trip, perhaps, will be one more chink in the destruction of my own.
However, I'll be glad to be back in the States. Back to the luxuries of flushing your toilet paper, drinking from the tap, and seeing leaves every once in a while. Regardless, may God keep me from ever forgetting this trip.

Mexico

Hopefully, I'll get a chance to write more on both Mexico and Missouri in the next two weeks, but here's a brief description of what I've done thus far.



Tonight, Hannah and I are spending as much time as possible at the nearest internet cafe (which, by the way, has no food, just computers - but it's still a cafe) so that we don't have to go to 'Youth Club' to socialize with the insufferable youth group here. They're basically the source of Hannah's misery here, and will only sometimes acknowledge my presence. However, the family that lives here at the church seems extremely nice, especially the mother, Yolanda (it was the pastor's family, particularly the daughter, that was giving Hans a hard time). Yolanda keeps feeding me, though, and is very offended if I don't clean my plate. She's a great cook, but thinks that I should eat about as much as my father. If I return ten pounds heavier, you can blame her.
We have gone so many places and done so many things! I've seen the most priviledged families and beautiful buildings, only to return to the 'lower middle class' La Mancha district, where we're staying until Sunday. The lower middle class here can only dream of the luxeries offered our lower class; here, I shower on the roof and Yolanda's four-person family inhabits one room. I've never seen so much blind wealth in such close proximity to destitution. Never let me complain about being poor ever again.
I've burned quietly under more cat-calls and objectifications than any human being should have to endure, and I've only been here three days. If women here don't move farther in this world, it's because they're reminded every thirty seconds that they are animals.
I've stood inches away from walls touched and transformed by Diego Rivera and the very worktable where Frida Kahlo dreamed and planned paintings that would change the West's views of Latino intellectualism forever.
I've blown my nose only to see that what came out of it was the color of exhaust.
I've walked and walked and walked and rode and rode and rode over and under so much of this massive city.
I've watched the sun set on the tiny little houses, potted plants, dirty cats, and bright orange lights that make up La Mancha.
And I've only been here four days.

Missouri

I must try to make this quick - the library is closing.

A very, very long drive. Fourteen hours through Atlanta, mountains, Tennessee (and all of its mountaintop fireworks shops), Kentucky, endless Illinois (including Metropolis, the proud home of Superman), and flat, green Missouri.
Days on the lake near a permanent carnival of a town.
Surprisingly, people in Missouri have accents. More surprisingly, that surprised me.
The sun set three times.
An overnight drive back.
I finally saw the Mississippi River.

I must leave now.

7:43 AM, 7 May 2007

I have spent my last night in Boggs, the last night of my first year.

I will shower, dress, pack, clean, and leave.

It was a beautiful year, and now it's over. It will never be the same, but, oh, no one can ever take this from me. This is is mine, forever.



Time to go.

rewind/fastforward/dontmove/fullspeed

This school year is ending, and for the first time that I can remember, I feel more alive for the fact that it happened.

I've dug my pit deeper, pulled myself to its rim, and was carried far away from it (it sometimes casts the shadows in the corners of my room). My relationship with God has waned to the point of desperation, risen high enough that I've caught sight of my old faith, and been warped to the questioning of rightwrong specialuniform changingstatic whoiam whoimmeanttobe. I now know that I can survive without my best friends around, although who I am changes without their influence - I don't know if for better or worse. I still don't know what I'm doing here, but I'm trying to make that into something more or less good.

I've fallen in love.

And really, that's what has changed everything.

I no longer feel old. I no longer feel that time is a better friend the faster it moves. I am so much stronger - I've cried already this year, and it wasn't even for sadness. I still get dizzy and my body still has trouble dealing with stress, but I've kept my weight (a little too well, actually). I've had a couple of conversations with my family that were more than superficial. That should be a goal this coming year, to learn to talk to them a little.
And hey, I'm still writing, aren't I? I must be more than just alive.

Yes, I've been living for about six or seven months now. My life is good. I am always just being born, and I thank God for that above many, many things.

This summer: Lake of the Ozarks, Mexico City, Jubilee Partners. I won't write here often, but I will write.

"Now is only soil. Ideas, the seeds we plant in them, exist outside of that. Now is just a neutral substance, something that lasts forever but never really starts.
Now, we will live forever. Now, we will love forever. Now, we are as the same person, sometimes." - RB

Serpiente: a Petty, Petty Subject

So, I've been fussed at by one girl for leaving my MySpace and LiveJournal accounts. I don't consider our friendship important anymore, so on, so forth. It's so exasperating, but I guess that in many ways she's right - I've moved beyond many of the people I hung out with during my last year of high school. That's not necessarily saying anything bad about them, but I choose a few strands of friendship that I build up and cling to; I'm not interested in having many friends, especially those who could care less about what happens to me and who I am (and vice versa). I'm not interested in remaining friends with people who discourage my spiritual growth for selfish reasons or who don't care enough about where they're going in life to care about anyone else. This particular girl had her chance to be one of the close ones. I clung to the strand that was our friendship until it lashed out at me too many times, at which point I finally let go. After some wrongs committed and realized on both sides she has tried to reconnect that tie, but, once again, I'm not interested. That's the truth.
She has the link to this page; she may very well read this. I know that I'm not being as forgiving as I should be, and that this entire entry has me coming off sounding like a complete jerk. Perhaps I am one.
However, one of Aesop's Fables comes to mind. A farmer cuts off the end of a snake's tail. In retaliation, the snake bites the farmer's son, and the son dies. The farmer approaches the snake, saying, "Please, let's stop this: let's forgive and forget."
"I'll agree to forgive," said the snake, "but I will never forget the loss of my tail, nor you the loss of your son."
By this time last year this girl had caused me and some of the people I love a lot of pain, for various reasons. Aside from her causing me emotional pain, she also caused me to not be able to throw my heart into the welfare of other people in all the time since. My best friends were constantly having to worry about me and exchange frustrations to each other about my situation. The family that had been kindest to her were constantly taken advantage of. The entire situation took a toll on everybody's state of mind.
Yes, the situation has been amended. Yes, plenty of time has passed. Yes, forgiveness has been exchanged on all sides.
But I will not forget the loss of my share of innocence, nor she the loss of her pride and her friend.

another first

Welcome to my latest little endeavor. Here, I plan to write words of a little more substance than I usually do - try to find my way around inside my own head. My faith, my trials, my joys, my thoughts on what's happening around me. Basically, this is here mostly for my own benefit, though you're welcome to read.

In other words, I hope to chronicle here my own search to make one tiny mark on the world I live in.

Or dissolve into meaningless rants. Only time will tell.