Confession:

I may or may not be enthralled by

tiny houses

also this is maybe my favorite

Wednesday Nights

Maggots in the Microwave
Ants in the Honey
Fire in the Oven

Alice and Melissa in the Backyard
in the Baby Pool
Fully Clothed








"So, This is Life Apparently"

PFGCT

biking
friends
food/feasts/dumpsters/gardens
miles
Virginia
5am
Music
Sweat
Smiles
Prayers
Christian Anarchists
Catholic Workers
Post Petroleum Farms
Hippy Communes
Crunchy Punk Anarchists
Kitty Litter
Mountains
Hospitality
Provision
innertubes
naps
raps
ghost stories
jokes
hallelujah
friends
biking

6 days

12 days of solitude

Last day as a (fulltime) farm girl

was good but glad its over





special thanks to Liz, Clare, Adella, Molly, Hunter, and My Home Group for keeping me sane-ish

I'll (still) (probably) let you down

I'm allowed to make mistakes.
I'm allowed to fuck up.
I'm allowed to be a mess
and mean
and have people not forgive me

i'm allowed to loose contact
i'm allowed to wallow within myself and wonder why no one sees me for who I really am- absolutely great!!!!
I'm allowed to portray myself however I want and be something completely different.
I'm allowed to write off my defects as personality types, traits, disorders, traumas.







but then I would be stuck in a state of callow immaturity.
and most likely


alone.




Song: Brainy by The National
followed by
Paper Ships by Dead Man's Bones

it gets worse

more days pass as a farmer girl.
Clare joined in.she's my best friend.

Inked

These are the most beautiful tattoos I've seen. Makes me want to get

inked

So you think you want to be a farmer

you don't.

It is Tuesday. I have been Farm-sitting since Thursday, and this is the first time i've sat down.
No. Really.
And, I feel guilty because I have two things I need to get done today. they will take all day. and I know I need to just go do them.

But this hour I am giving myself to sit on the porch and drink too-strong coffee I made and look and listen with Poppygirl and this one hummingbird and Brian Lee and His Orchestra and feel the air and smell the air, is absolute and beautiful and not found outside of the countryside.

so maybe you do.

languages and songs

this is what i've been thinking about lately:

some people speak the same language as you.
and
some people sing the same song as you.

but most,
do neither.


and,
when you find someone that does both,
that is nothing short of a miracle. and. be in their life as long as you can.


Who speaks your language?
who sings your song?
who does both?
do you even know what i mean?

remember when

things were different and it was only last year?

Today

I was 3 hours late to work.







I just needed to let that out.

forget good will hunting

The Philosopher Kings





is a beautiful documentary.
If i made films, this is what they would maybe be like.


we're all just people.

Traipsing

School is over.

The celebration:

Went stomping around the dirtiest part of town with my friend, Liz and her new roommate for the summer, Ben. Until 4 in the mornin'.
When we made it home, wet and muddy and smelly. It seemed there was only one thing to do-
build a giant living-room fort and fall asleep.
So {Fort Lost Hope: Ultimate} was born.

One of the most fun things I have done all year.

Other things that make the list:
- Biking to New Market
- Hiking Alone on Ice
- Baking Bread with Daniel Broomba-kini
- Starting Farm Work
- Visiting Molly in Ithaca, twice
- Seeing Hadestown, Jonsi, Dr. Dog, Soil and the Sun, Yann Tierson...
- Meeting Adella, Alice, Abigail, Billy, Lani, Jake, Hunter, EARTH Clubbers, Liz, Nick, Rachel-Sarah, Jenna, My whole homegroup and everyone at OCP ever
- Every single time Clare came to visit
- Driving to VA Beach with Nikki to pick up my new bike
- Meeting Seth Martin and Jon Roberts//Philly
- Every single Sunset H'burg has to offer
- woo!

(P.s. my friend did a fun post about me)

Current Events: Osama

- Lars Justinen, 2007

Raw

This past weekend I saw the movie Blue Valentine. ugh. I mean, it was good. Anything that produces a strong reaction after viewing, has to be good. But I had to go to my friends house to pick up some camping gear. I screamed very, very loudly in my car on the way there. I cried on her living room floor very hard. and screamed some more. I was just angry. ugh. Watch this movie if you really feel you have to, if you don't feel that strongly- save yourself the torment.
Why was I screaming? Why was I crying? Something about everything being dumb and hopeless...Something about love being an emotion and not a commitment... I can't even really say.

I needed the camping gear, though, because I spent the night at my place of work this weekend, and while I have a tent and sleeping bag, I needed a tarp and something squishy to sleep on. I work about an hour from where I live on a family farm, doing farm stuff, keeping some hogs, chickens, and turkeys happy and healthy. This sounds like sunshine, doesn't it? It is. But, it is also exhausting. My sleeping bag wasn't warm enough so by the time 5am rolled around again, getting up to start the day felt like Goliath... and I had misplaced by slingshot. Somehow I managed, but not before I ran over the waterhose with the riding mower (this thing is a rusted beast from like the I don't even know. This is how to control the speed
yea, that is a turtle icon for slow and a hare icon for fast...)

Now, it is exam week. I am studying art history like a feign.
These are my two favorite paintings that I have to know:
1.) The Little Street by Vemeer in 1657. Dutch Baroque


2.) The Death of Marat by David in 1793. French Neoclassicism


I really feel mesmerized by both of these. They are both so beautiful and intimate.


Also, I have decided that I am going to learn how to play the drums. I'm going to just learn. Soon. Maybe in a year, I can join a really poopy band, and have some fun.


what instrument would you love to have instant knowledge of? (p.s. have you heard of the kora?)

ASATP

I just saw a professor in slacks and jacket and black leather shoes with groomed facial hair and a furrowed brow with a manila envelope tucked under one arm about the age of 46

riding a




through campus.
He kicked his leg so forcefully, he glided so smoothly

St.Clare of Yorktown

A conversation with Clare:

Clare: I think I'm going to hike Mount Everest
Me: Have you been reading Into Thin Air?
Clare: No, I just watched this tv show on it, and I think I can do it.
Me: Clare... Mount Everest is... like... known to be the hardest hike in the world.
Clare: No, it's the tallest mountain in the world, but I don't think it's the hardest. I mean in this show these people weren't even that intense, they just had $40,000. I think later in life I might have $40,000 to hike Mount Everest.
Me: Yea, I mean, I guess you could totally hike Mount Everest.
Clare: Yea. I'll be up there and say, "This is like cross-country skiing....except easier!"
Me: or, "This is just like that time on the treadmill at the gym... except easier!"
Clare: or, "This is just like that time I went to go get the mail... except easier!"
Me: or, "This is just like that time I read that one book about love and loss...except easier!"


So. If you know any good Sherpas, please inform myself and I will pass the information along to Clare

What a weekend

This weekend I dropped everything and drove to see my friend Molly in Ithaca.

I have been close friends with Molly for 7 years now.
(7 is actually kind of an inside-joke for us.
Maybe this year will be kind of an inside-joke for us.)

What does Molly mean to me?
-She is the teacher of pretty things in my life. The words Aesthetically Pleasing can sum up everything I've learned from her. For example, this typewriter, which she owns, is extremely aesthetically pleasing.
-She is the dreamer of dreams. Molly has a beautiful imagination. She has a whole estate full of beautiful dreams. Known as the "L-house", which is so much more than a house, or place, but is really a concept and a hope and feeling that lives somewhere between her sternum and 2 scapulas.
-She is a great planner and gift-giver. My two favorite gifts from Molly were a Polaroid camera(a few years before Polaroid film was discontinued)and this book, a companion to The Secret Language of Birthdays. (Birthdays are also kind of an inside joke for us as is the book)



[as you can see, the Polaroids are a primary source in the decoration of my room]

So I went to Ithaca. Because a man named Jon needed a ride to Philly. And I wanted to give it to him. I met Jon because he was playing with Seth Martin as a Mender.
It was a really nice drive with interesting conversation, burritos, and beautiful hospitality via CircleofHope community members in Kensington, Philadelphia. and a stop at this coffeehouse called Leotah's Place.

I really enjoy Ithaca, the view of the mountains and lake Cayuga. And I really enjoy Molly and all her friends. The visit was short, but the time was sweet.

I made it back to Harrisonburg in time for MACRoCK, to see Brooke Waggoner and Timbre

I went to bed around 2am and woke up in the morning to drive to see my sister in Richmond. She and her boyfriend Karl were in town from Chicago where they live. We met my mom and stepdad, Steve, here to have a nice and good dinner.

Driving back Home, I stopped in Charlottesville to visit my new friend, Hunter and drink some rooibos.

It was a full weekend that confirmed the fact that I don't ever get sick of people. I am inherently social. Yet still consider myself to be more introverted at my core.

What are you? An intro or extro?

Love is a powerful word

-Earl Harris, age 8, Washington

What would you tell our First Lady?

melissa redd : ?

I am different.
than
I used to be.

and I am grateful for the change.

Now is the time that I get to decide who it is that I want to be. I get to decide my interests and knowledge to carry. I can be me, whoever that is.
Most likely, I will change many more times in my life; interests and looks and location and dreams.

but i hope i'm still doing this same sort of crap until i'm old and gray.




people I love at a place I love.



driving back home, almost there.

thom yorke: ?

i cannot figure out if i should take this seriously or not. is thom yorke taking himself serious, does he think this video enhances his cool factor?



or here

nope, i think thom knows he looks quite silly, and that he has no idea what to do in front of that camera.








we're all just people.

बी माय सेल्फ

here's the thing. this post was going to be about doing things alone.
I was going to talk about my experience going to a Dr.Dog concert in D.C. with no one to accompany me and I was going to post this video.

but I need to write about India. and what that actually means is that I need to write about lost dreams. Do you know what I mean? Do you know about lost dreams?

Do you know about being young, or being old and wanting
to be and to have and to run and to jumping?
Oh GOD! open your old journal, your eyes and your brain
because let me remind you that today aint the same
as the dream you invented and watched play out on the ceiling
while your pencil scratched, and eyes began leaking.
I'm not talking about the fireman, ballerina, or rock star

I'm talking about that thing you wanted to do one time that no one thought you could.
and you didnt.....


I'm talking about India, folks.


There was a time in my life where I thought about India all day long. and I imagined myself washing clothes, and cleaning sores, and feeding old men with cinnamon skin and white beards some chana masala, or vegetable soup, or pile of rice, or whatever. Laughing with the Sisters in their white and blue saris. reading books, and exploring Calcutta, and moving to the country and living alone in my house with a garden and a cow named Meghdoot. and I screamed in the softest tones at my mother who told me it just "Might Not Be in the Works." because how could she say that? I could feel India in my heart beat. Lub-dub.

but I didn't go.
because it just wasn't in the works.
This was all over 2 years ago. But lately I've been reminded of India.

1.) I watched a movie called Sita Sings the Blues

2.) I ate at Taste of India the other night for dinner (yummmmy) then threw it all up at 3am (grossss)
3.) I received a postcard from a friend who reminded me of this lost dream. the front had a picture of the Taj Mahal. the postage was a Mother Teresa stamp. woah.
4.) everytime I go to type my title into this bloggything, it translates my words into HINDI>>????? why? weird?!!


Will I ever go to India? Probably not.
I'm content where I am. There are so many people to love here. and there is so much to learn here. Why would I leave just to feel some sort of idealized, romanticized adventure?

... because sometimes i still feel my heartbeat go. Lub-dub...

पिएता

Have you ever seen Michelangelo's Pietà?
Most likely the answer is yes.

I, however, had not. I was sitting in my GARTH class, eyes glazed over as we went through Leonardo's sketches and inventions and last supper and his Mona, all about Pope Julius II and all the extravagance he added to Rome, Michelangelo's David, etc. I find art history very interesting in itself, but my mind is prone to wander even when I really would rather it wouldn't.
Anyway my professor flashes Pietà on one of the screens and starts talking about Michelangelo's work not really being quite as developed yet. On the other screen is a detailed image of the sculpture- one staring directly into Christ's face.
I can't really say what exactly it was, but I just start crying. My throat tightens, and I'm not listening anymore, and the tears just sort of roll out of my eyes.
Am I a dramatic person? ...I've been told this before, so maybe yes. But I really didn't want to be crying. I just was, silently. Nobody else was crying and nobody else noticed I was.
I can't even really say what exactly it was, but it was something like-
there was too much beauty in that delicate moment caught in painstaking, hard, and less-than-malleable marble stone. It was the eternal-youth in Mary's face as she held her son's aged, frail, wiry body with so much maternal care- it brought to my attention their dynamic relationship: Mary the mother, Jesus her son- yet also her Father. Also, the peace on Christ's face, his complete acceptance of his death for what? For me to sit in an Art History class? So maybe that's it. I wasn't crying for him, I was crying for me- for my complete lack of urgent responsiveness to his great gift to the World...

for what it's worth.
Here it is:

Today

This is my face:

This is the side of my face:

(And that is my tiny, messy, sometimes impractical-to-actually-cook-in kitchen)
This is what I did today:
Made and baked bread for 5 hours with Daniel Broomba-kini... really, so great.
This is what I'm doing right now:
Cleaning my whole house.
Here's why:

Clare Shanley is coming tomorrow (with boyfriend in tow)
This is what we're doing:
Dancing to Indian music, using our fingers,hands,shoulders. Dingadinga
These are 5 things I love about Clare:
-She is so knowledgeable! about history, politics, movies/books/music, saints, life (as in, "Today is June 3, so it's the feast day of the Martyrs of Uganda, you know like the ones Damian talks to in Danny Boyle's Millions)
-She is so fun! because she is the right mix of spontaneous and lazy (as in "let's go drive around in this lightening storm and eat oreos")
-She is so inspirational! because she's shaped her life to return to those waiting for her in Lesotho/Africa/et al
-She is so practical! she is the voice of reason in my messy life/brain (as in, Melissa- don't drop out of college...)
-She is so good friend! (<--??) because she calls, and cares, and laughs-til-ya-can't-breathe (she brings me groceries!!! when she comes to visit, are you serious! great.)
These are things to be excited about:
Dr. Dog and Yann Tiersen. Jan 28th and Feb 15th.
All Around Good Vibes.
It will be warmer in 2 and 1/2 more months.
Accordions

Onward, or better yet...

Sometimes, everything is different from the way you thought it would be.
Hallelujah! Because don't ya know when you look over your shoulder, without fail, you are so grateful. Why can't we seem to remember this every.time.it.happens?

Hallelujah! for unanswered prayers
Hallelujah! for unexpected bends in expected straight roads
Hallelujah! to the One who knows so much more than I

Right now I am looking over my shoulder, grateful that my life took a sudden turn away from where it was speeding towards. Simultaneously, I'm looking head on at a new bend that terrifies me, that changes everything and leaves me (what feels like) empty-handed.

Hallelujah! to the day that I see why.

Facts:
I am nobody's wife. Praises!
I am not a nurse. or maybe I am, just differently than I previously thought.
Onward! or better yet...
Present! for I've learned the vast importance of living this day, this moment.

On another note: I made sweet potato casserole one hour before class started. Result: interesting, half-baked casserole with brown sugar-crumble topping oddly mixed in with orange potato goodness. Feelings: Not too bad.


What was a bend in your road that now makes you want to say, Hallelujah! ?