This is Christina
on the day that she leaves for New York.

(and Herodotus.)

It has taken her only one night to pack.



(I give this sketch to her for her NY home.)



Outside, Christina removes her key from its chain
while Brent awaits.



A last moment...

.

and good bye, roommate.

I have a room of my own.

Christina has just left. She drove her hardy Volvo, dubbed "Maple," around the corner of Worth Street and toward New York horizons. It took five minutes to load up her minimal possessions (her irreverence for the materialistic is one of her distinctively beautiful qualities), and as I look around the apartment I see the sprinkling of momentos that she left for me: three colorful wine bottles that had decorated the first room we shared when I moved in, a vibrant blue painting she finished just the other night, some magazine cut-outs that cristened the apartment before we had other decorations, a hand-me-down bookcase.

There are some who have become a significant part of our lives and then must enter into a current that carries them into a different landscape away from us. And the significant ones leave on our spirit a stamp of their essence.

Nonetheless, I feel at peace about her leaving, as if nothing was cut short. Her gentle complacence tells me that she also feels like this chapter has had a proper conclusion.

Now, this.

It is a profound moment for me, because I officially have a place of my own! I have for about thirty minutes, now. This is my first home that has been mine and mine alone. And it feels like mine! I now have an oasis from the noise here. I'm not sure how long I will go without a roommate, but I'm going to revel in my independence for the time being. I can fill the walls, the cabinets, the refrigerator with whatever my little heart desires! I wonder what reflection this new-found freedom will allow to take shape...

I feel like I'm starting to see how it is possible that I will, eventually, evolve into a self-assured adult.

Which reminds me...

I have a job! I am now an employee at the Wisteria Cottage Café. I was sitting in the café just last Friday when Lacy, one of the owners, asked me where I worked. When I told her that I was currently unemployed, she asked if I would like to work there. I quickly said, "yes!" She then interviewed me and told me that she would soon give me an answer.

Then this evening, while waiting at the apartment with Brent for Christina to return from the car shop (we didn't know if Maple was, in fact, drivable) I was surprised to see on my phone that I had received a voicemail; I was even more surprised that it was Lacy asking me if I could start work tomorrow! I immediately returned her call and emphatically agreed.

In just hours I will begin training for my new job!

I feel like God is lovingly setting the stage for me to grow.

I worked at a certain corporate bookstore throughout over two years of my life.

When I was on vacation, I was retreating from this place; when I didn't have to work a day, I was recuperating for whenever I had to return there. And my opportunies were teathered there whenever I made plans.

Now that I don't work at this place anymore and I've severed the connection that had become so woven into my life, I don't feel as differently as I had expected. I feel like I've just cut from my lifestyle an unnecessary strain.

Now, it's time to hunt for an unnecessary strain of a different flavor.

I'm nourished by a beautiful talent.

She creates a cornucopia of emotions and sensations with the diaphanous trail of her words. You've been given a gift, a gift that makes the world feel with more texture and appear with more vibrance. She interprets the pattering rain, the freshly cut grass, the sound of indifferent birds into a realm of spiritual beauty,

elevating the banal into sublimity.

I am an entrepreneur.


The ambitious, moving force of enterprise gives me energy

(I have no interest in a life that's dedicated to material gain.)



I am an artist.


The limitless, unmappable landscape of creativity gives life meaning

(I enjoy the creativity of others too much to have confidence in my own.)



I am an adventurer.


The daring, active effort for excitement earns a fulfilled retrospection

(I lack the energy for a life that's lived to move.)



I am a scholar.


What I learn becomes a substantial, untouchable appendage of who I am

(Simplicity may be the only way one can see the world as it is.)



I am a dreamer.


Possibilities gild the commonplace

(I'm afraid of missing out on the mercurial present.)



I am a pragmatic.


Security provides a blank canvas for personal development

(Spontaneity paints life with unpredictable, vital vibrance.)



I am a philanthropist.


I ache to use what I've been given to help those in pain

(I am lazy and I spend my resources on superficial amusements.)



I am an adult.


Autonomy nourishes my sense of success as self

(I dream about the kind of woman that I will be when I grow up.)

Why won’t you lie next to me?

We’ll watch that show that we like to watch and we’ll laugh at them like... love one another like… We’ll exist with one another with that quiet understated _______ that’s as sure as your heartbeat muffled by the bone and skin beneath my ear

I love you.

No I can’t (I know this like winter) .

I love

It’s the pieces of you that have always filled me. I have to remember that metallic taste of what you are. Yes. Remember that Cling to that Use that

to bear it.

I played in the rain today.

The white-noise symphony of a billion droplets quenching the earth had lasted throughout the afternoon. We gazed out of our open windows at nature’s catharsis, and I felt that I too needed cleansing.

Let’s play in the rain, she says.

We walk out of the door and onto the steps. The noise that had filtered into our apartment surrounds me, becoming a part of me, transporting me from the cocoon of our appropriate place and into something shamelessly real.

Simply knowing becomes feeling, hearing, experiencing as the cold droplets patter my skin upon a hundred places at once, my hair transforming from a mop of curls into dripping, drooping tendrils.

The appropriate homes down the street stay appropriately dormant as their occupants sit nestled by the appropriate fires, the rain happening like a gray afterthought. The very rain that is sensually overwhelming me.

Yes. Let’s play in the rain.

I want to experience the rain.

Life seems to get easy at times.

I've arrived recently at a point in which I've thought that I may be figuring out things, as if I've finally gotten that bird's eye view of myself moving from one point to another throughout this life-game.

But I've been thrown off-kilter again. Just when I've thought that I've come out of the rapids and into open water a wave throws me back into another course. Though I may see the new situation with blinders on, facing each new fall as it comes to me, I'm armed with the knowledge and the wisdom from my past experiences.


So I'm excited about this new challenge, for it's adding yet another facet to my character. Life seems to get easy at times, but I don't want for it to stay that way. How else can I be weathered into a stronger, more life-experienced person?

Thank you, God, for humbling me. And for keeping life interesting.

I'm done. I've been finished with the semester for five days and I've been taking advantage of a new peace of mind. This semester has been quite hectic. It's been the sort of time in which one feels guilty for reading a book or having a day on the town, one feels guilty because the weight of what should be getting done is constantly on her mind! But that time has closed for now.

That's something that's interesting about school. Unlike most careers, one can look forward to the end of these one hundred thirty-two credit hours knowing that the burdensome assignments shoveled onto our reluctant little schedules will disappear, the slate of academic responsibilities wiped clean upon a designated hour.

But thinking of myself having a job that has no definite, ending deadline is exciting. Attention would turn from the due-date, from that ever-brightening light at the end of the stress-tunnel, and to the overall effect of my work.

As a student, my whole life has been spent moving towards inevitable promotions: elementary to junior high to high school to college. I've graduated to the next level mostly based on elements that aren't in my control, elements like my age and the expectations set by my parents.

But in a career, out there in the "real" world, I have the power of my direction. I believe in the cliche that every decision makes "all the difference," and each choice could be a crux in my life (there are reasons why that is a cliche).

The power is in me to be recognized as a person whom I would respect. It's comforting and exciting to know that that, on the other side, there's a production much more profound than my transcript.

So, yes. I'm done for the semester.

I'm done with the essays and the tests and the busywork. And when the papers pile up this fall and I feel like my levee may very well be breaking, I have to take a deep breath and remind myself that the world is a much bigger place than the presently looming halls of academia.

These past weeks have been the sort in which one can only stay sane by facing one task at a time. I've been chin deep in papers and tests, but I can finally relax!

Now, as for these past two days, my life has been an example that sometimes everything seems to work furiously to open up a new and unforseen future.

I have an apartment. A home.

It's a beautiful, brick building on Worth Street, and I'm giddy when I picture myself studying on its uneven, wooden floors or washing dishes in its lovely, white kitchen!

Less than thirty-six hours ago, Christina and I were sitting on the steps in front of the building, our adrenaline pumping with the excitement of knowing, of believing we are meant to live here.

But we didn't have the money.

Trying to figure out what I could sell to make four hundred dollars within twenty-four hours (the room we wanted apparently had a waiting list of eager-to-be-tenants, and it was a first come, first serve deal) I decided, "Christina, if it's not meant to be then another door will open. We may just be excited because this is the first place we've toured. I just don't see how we can get the money."

But within two hours we had it. Somehow, we had gotten the money along with the blessings of our families and friends.

Built before 1920, the rooms in which we'll be eating, sleeping, and studying throughout the next year have been standing through World War I, the Harlem Renaissance, The Great Depression, Pearl Harbor, the Red Scare, Beatlemania, the Moonlanding...

I'm living in a place that has a character as unique as the chips in its paint.

But what I may be most excited about in this new life-chapter is my roommate. I sincerely believe that I couldn't ask for a better companion throughout the year than Christina, my spirit-sister.


I should be moving within the next two weeks, and I'm incredibly optimistic. Everything has fallen into place so well that this must be of God.

I'm afraid I've found a new addiction in the local cafe's Tiger Chai Soy Latte. Don't be deceived by its seeming trivialness: this is an expensive addiction. As a matter of fact I've driven the fifteen miles to Java on the Square for this cursed drink on three occasions this week alone, always with the redeeming proclamation that I will study there.

I'm in the cafe at this moment, my drained cup setting next to me, and I most certainly am not studying.

This has been an absolutely and gloriously lazy holiday. This may be the first break (fall, spring, Christmas or of any kind) in over a year that I've actually taken a break!

Today my parents and I took an excursion to the metropolis of Etowah, Tennessee. Actually the only proof of civilization there is a single street lined with antique shops and other quaint little places, such as the pink, black and white checkered Talk of the Town Ice Cream Parlor and the beautifully old and elaborately decorated Gym Theatre.

My favorite part about this place, however, is the landscape, for Etowah lies within the shadow of Starr Mountain: a ridge that exhales its cool air onto the town and echoes of a time when there was nothing but the mountains and the rocks and the water, when a native would go into the forest without the expectation of any one but the creaking trees and scurrying animals.

The sky was gray today as it drizzled mists of rain, and the fog glided in patches over the hillsides. A mystical and cathartic atmosphere permeates the Smoky Mountains on days like this one, and they are beautiful days to live in Tennessee.

OZU. After reading about him in Muriel Barbury's The Elegance of the Hedgehog, I investigated the filmsmith. I'm far from disappointed.

Rather than the "what if" scope of so many films, Ozu enlightens us to the sublimity of human experiences so common that they're almost necessary. I'm talking about a father's disappointment, the security in a mother's guidance, the limits of and fundamental need for a friend's release, the sometimes inevitability and feared banality of a future in the corporate system.

The metaphysical endurance of relationship is realized in his films so that I look at my family and friends, and I realize an ultimate meaningfulness that they bring to life.

There are three types of artists:
those who portray what should be
those who portray what could be

And those who show us the world as it is. This is Ozu.