!

I feel like I write this a lot, but I love steel band.
Today, we had a concert. So, we got together and put all of our stuff out for a while. Then Doctor Doom (name has been changed for privacy purposes) told us he wanted to talk about something kind of serious. So, like 6 of us sat in a circle on the stage, and Doctor (pronounced Docta) Doom told us about why he became a vegetarian 7 years ago, and how it has changed his life. He offered to let us borrow his books on animal treatment. He told us that he buys all his food locally, and picks out the eggs he eats himself...so no chickens are treated unethically.

Then during our practice, we basically dance around like crazy while playing the pans. Then while other bands are performing...be have an even better dance party back stage. Then we get on stage and share our music with everyone else, and invite them to our dance party. And even though few people accept our invitation to dance....everyone wishes they were having as much fun as us. Before we played, one of my friends said "It doesn't matter if no one dances with us or shows any expression...as long as they can feel our spirit. It's all about the spirit" :)

test. dumb test.

Ugh. I am so sick of my parents worrying about me doing wonderfully on the ACT. It is such a stupid test. Who ever decided that knowledge can be determined by the speed you read, and how quickly you can comprehend things? Why do we have to be judged? What is the point of turning us into numbers? I hate it.
And that is why I am so nonchalant about it. I just don't see how it could change my life so drastically if I bomb it. My parents are always saying "you don't worry enough about it", or "you shouldn't be so laid back". But, that is what I have to be. If I worried as much as them, or expected that I always do perfect. If I were pressuring myself as much as they pressure me to get at least a 32... I would be so insane that I wouldn't be able to take the test.

It is really making me angry how worried they are. Today, they asked me 5 times if I am prepared for tomorrow. 6 times if I have everything I need. (a pencil and a calculator) Seriously...how could I forget that? and Prepared? Um....isn't this a test to see how much I have learned and how much ability I have to learn? So, being prepared has been going to school, and talking, and reading, and learning my whole life, right?

Ugh. SOCIETY! judgement. worry. why?

skittering through my psyche

I feel like I want to write something, I just never know what to write. I have been dreaming a lot lately. And day dreaming even more. Last night I remember having a dream about going to every person I cared about and giving them a hug. It was so weird. Then all day today, I saw people I haven't seen in a while that I have been missing...and my dream seemed to actually happen. It was goooood.
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Today was just good. lovely actually. Saturday night I spent a few hours reading some psalms and praying and I feel like that really changed my Sunday drastically. When I got back from California, I found some music to play for the service on Sunday, and called my piano teacher to see if she could accompany me. So all day Saturday we practiced, and I was feeling kind of bad about it because it wasn't enough practice really. But, in the service today...it was so great. I have learned to love worshipping through playing...so much more than singing in church. I can be so much more passionate, and ...I dunno....it is difficult to explain. Anyway, the song went sooo well, and it felt great, and weird too. I was so into the song and worshipping that I completely forgot about the people watching. So when the song was over, I was kind of stunned by the fact that other people just watched me worship...and it was just very strange. not really awkward or bad, just strange. kind of good though.

Today was just one of those wonderful days. I was driving a few times today...and it was so good to have the windows open, and my hair blowing all over the place and crazy, and the music on, and singing pretty loud sometimes. I always laugh at myself...because I think about what people are thinking in other cars about me. I love driving near a person who is enjoying themselves, and clearly loving life. It makes me laugh.

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When people get comfortable with each other, they seem to be blunt and horribly honest sometimes. I like honesty, and I can be quite blunt (most of the time, actually), but people say things that are mean and horrible. And the other day, two people that love each other pissed me off because they had been so mean to each other for a couple days. And, it was over petty things that had no significance...and I couldn't figure out why they wouldn't just say one nice thing. So I just said something like "why are you being mean to one another?" or something like that. They both just froze and stopped. We like to say we have "arguments" or "heated discussions" or "fights" but no one says things like "we were being really mean to each other". It's such a simple thing...but a lot of the people around me do not act nice.

i've developed some new hobbies over break....

growing bamboo

and

skateboarding


i'm pretty horrible at both of them so far.

The Art of Blue Tape Spirituality

"I'm still a wordy woman. But my prayers are no longer wordy. In fact, there are barely any words to them at all. How do I then pray?

I pray with art, with images and color that reflect out loud the embers that still burn in my bones. I pray with paint, and glue, and scraps of paper that I collage together. Quiet time. This is my best time to do art.

When my father died this past summer I went to a local art store and filled up a bag with supplies. Before we had even buried him an art piece flowed out of me. Grief, prayed out with images rather than words.

I had another crisis, an emotional crisis earlier this summer. It caught me off guard. An incident tore an old scab off a hidden hurt and I bled all over the carpet. In times past I would have headed for the basement and prayed it all out to my father in heaven. Instead, I grabbed my art box, a glass of wine, and sat at my table, collaging images and phrases of grace and beauty. It has now become one of my favorite art pieces, a vivid prayer that hangs on the wall of my bedroom. It is a living prayer that has yet to be amen'ed.

How do I pray? I listen to the Blues, and sing. I sing my prayers along with Mavis and Ted and Muddy. I hum and harmonize, prayer boiling over like a kettle of simmering black-eyed peas.

I danced my prayers this week. A friend invited me to a concert in a nearby park. A dozen of us swirled and twirled in time to the guitars. I jazzed up my Pentecostal two-step and became lost in the magic of the sound. Prayers throbbed through my bare feet into the earth. The trees and the sky watched me, the dancing prayer warrior, as I slew dragons of grief and despair.

I do not know how to pray anymore. I do not know how to stay locked in my basement, alone with loud words and ghosts, unholy or otherwise. My prayers now have life, have purpose. Like blue tape, the tape I keep in my art drawer for using whenever and however. Prayer is no longer confined to words or places in my life. It is whenever and however. It is like blue tape."
by Pam Hogeweide

A few days ago I was wondering what I would do over spring break. Then on Saturday, my parents reminded me that we would be going to California. So..yep, that's where I've been for that past few days.
Today I went for a bike ride on the beach all day. About 30 miles there, and 30 back....it was pretty great...freeing. I actually came here to look at some schools, and so far that has been wonderful. College visits are so awkward for me. I am really bad at asking good questions and I feel like I am not part of the community and it is just awkward. But...I could most definitely see myself living here in a little more than a year.

But...we'll see. I have no idea what could happen between now and later.