up in the air

Above all else, I'm afraid of boredom. I'm afraid of being stuck. I'm not just wary of not being entertained--I'm well aware of how draining it is to be "on" one hundred percent of the time, and sometimes periods of retreat and refreshment and solace are entirely necessary.

But to succumb to ennui, while the world is awake and inviting and OPEN? While there is brokenness to fight and people to love and worlds by which to be taught? While there are mountains to climb and seas to swim in and friends to make and roads to run and fresh air to breathe?

Portrait of the notoriously super-social ENFP: believes in a bizarre cosmic whole; great deal of zany charm; disconcertingly spontaneous; short attention span; tends to get bored easily; incredibly intellectual-turned-captain wildchild; global learner


I want to forever rail against consolation, and not just philosophically. There is work to be done here. Now. There are systems to be assessed, and structural injustices to be understood.

And then there is personal sin. Not so small, but overlooked most of the time. Sometimes I really see interpersonal workings as pointless, when macro-level changes from policy and legislature and entrepreneurship are so much more inviting in their scope and promise. Things are meant to work together.

And we are to use who we are, not lie around lazily until some third party assigns us work, but to passionately and fully be ourselves.


How do we remain interested? Interesting?

Dear November

1. DENVER (and Carrie Sawyer)
2. Tango music
3. PEER freaking REVIEW
4. Day of Prayer
5. Thanksgiving in South Carolina
6. Candace's Basic Training graduation
7. Kant's Prolegomena
8. Chapel talk
9. Latin Easter Vigil

Dear October

1. Brendhan's Basic Training graduation
2. Graduate Record Examination
3. Richard Wilbur's A Hole in the Floor
4. Pride and Prejudice piano music
5. Requiems
6. Plane tickets
7. Bobotie and chutney and
8. South Africa overload
9. Wendell Berry's Fidelity and tears, tears, tears

when life hands you waders...

...go fly-fishing in the Manistee River! My time at Au Sable in Mancelona, Michigan proved to be some of the most healing time I've ever had. To be in such a raw and alive place was such a blessing--and a great time of refreshment. Some lessons:

There is a lot you can read in three weeks. Sometimes you even get in an

entire season of LOST! We started every morning at 7:30 with community

breakfast (and rotating dish duty) and would sometimes spend up

to nine hours in the field!

The Michigan Department of Natural Resources

has a lot lot lot to learn about the tenuous

relationships between species--especially

stupid flies and stupider caterpillars. These

things were everywhere, and sometimes when

all else was still and quiet, the only sounds to be

heard were the tiny drops of caterpillar poop

falling through the leaves. GROSS.

All of life's stresses can be solved by viewing

the world from the vantage point of the top

of a glorious dune--especially if getting to the

top involved a race. Even MORE so if you

were the winner of said race.

You will get more excited about a rose-breasted

grosbeak sighting than you ever thought possible.

The Mid-West has some remarkably ethereal

celestial occurrences.

Best friends and rivers are

a winning combination :-).