The Brothers Carnival

Every time I do this I feel as though I must apologize... this is, after all, not what a blog is for. But, nevertheless, every time I finish a great book I need a forum to record some of its gems, so that years from now when I look back I can remember what was.

This week was Brothers K.

Only the unwritten can truly live a life. So who I was, what I was, had to be unwritten. - Everett

Suffering is above, not below.

And everyone thinks that suffering is below.

And everyone wants to rise.

~Antonio Porchia

There are kinds of human problems which really do seem, as our tidy expressions would have it, to "come to a head" and "demand to be dealth with." But there are also problems, often just as serious, which come to nothing that we can recognize or openly deal with. Some long-lived, insidious problems simply slip us off to one side of ourselves. Some gently rob us of just enough energy or faith so that days which once took place on a horizontal plane become an endless series of uphill slogs. And some - like high water working year after year at the roots of a riverside tree - quietly undercut our trust or our hope, our sense of place, or our humor, our ability to empathize, or to feel enthused, and we don't sense impending danger, we don't feel the damage at all, till one day, to our amazement, we find ourselves crashing to the ground. - Kade

"There's something missing," he told Chekhov, handing him the last brown bag. "But there's always something missing. Having things missing, even indispensable things, is a fact of life, don't you think? And life goes on anyhow. Except for the missing parts. Which were indispensable, so of course it goes on all out of whack. But that, hell and damn, is why we prefer things like cooking and eating brown paper bags to philosophizing. Don't you think?"

Chekhov stared at the falling snow, chewed his bag, voiced no opinion. - Everett

We never know, with regard to the inner life, who or when lightning is going to strike. Often we don't even know when we ourselves are the one so stricken. - Kade

Because an eye for an eye is smart, see, but love is dumb, lovers are fools. - Kade

No sign of the people, nothing left of 'em now. But still shining down. And still trying to maybe tell us, Enjoy it down there. Live like you mean it. 'Cause once upon a time, this was a world too.

I feel as though we're all headed in slow motion for a car wreck, knowing already that we're all going to be injured. - Kade

It's clear to me now that the economy of the psyche, the inner checks and balances, our inner workings are so tricky, so impossibly fragile, we're so easily crushed, that I can't believe any longer that it's me alone, or even me and you alone, or even me and you and luck alone, that's keeping me alive. I feel now that we could die or be killed or be driven mad by grief or disaster at any moment. Even the strongest of us. Or be killed on the inside without even being touched. Yet my reaction to this, Tasha, has suddenly ceased to be anger and begun to be gratitude. - Everett

Why does my whole heart, every beat, round the clock, answer my mind's constant groaning with: but wait, but wait, but wait...?

I have been something of an emotional wreck for the last week or so. While that statement may sound glib to some, for me, the guy who will remain emotionally objective through a hurricane, that´s tantamount to a nervous breakdown. It started out with Carnival. The Mt. Everest of emotional peaks. For two days (which are really just one LONG day), the entire world descends on a tiny little town in Bolivia to celebrate a 2000 year old tradition that remains the Continent´s largest folkloric festival. Involving over 28,000 dancers and 10,000 musicians, this street parade lasts for more than 20 hours... which means that if you´re young and somewhat out of touch with reality, you may think it´s a good idea to try to ¨live it up¨ as they say and be right in the thick of it the entire time.

Emm hmm...

I almost made it.

After about 14 hours of dancing, shouting, screaming, yelling, running from police, running from mobs, running to bathrooms, getting sprayed with water, getting sprayed with foam from these terrible little spray cans (which, by the way, are supposed to be non-toxic yet still cause terrible rashes), and eating whatever street food I could get my hands on, I just HAD to take a break. At one point I was so covered in foam that my sunglasses fell off my head and were instantly scooped up by a little kid who proceeded to put them on and then laugh at me. Not knowing what else to do I laughed right back at him, but he may have sensed this as some form of aggression because instead of returning my glasses like any responsible 8 year old he whisked off through the crowd never to be seen or heard from again. Sigh... I hope he trips in a puddle.

Needless to say it was hectic. I would have loved to be able to share some pictures with you all of the madness, but the sheer number of people in the streets means that you will, with your full knowledge but complete inability to prevent it, have your pockets rifled through at least two or three times while being crushed into the sweaty back of the person in front of you. So fortunately for me I left my camera at home. EVERY other person that I know of in my party who took a camera had theirs either stolen or lost.

It was great.

But then on the emotional flipside of Carnival there is the continuing job hunt that grows ever more depressing and ever more threatening towards my self-esteem. It´s not so much the lack of opportunity, although that has something to do with it, but moreso my inability to reconcile what my heart asks of me with what my bank account tells me. I don´t want to just find something that works, I want magic! And right now that desire means that I must live quite simply in order to meet my financial obligations, even while I continue to search for that THING that I can´t articulate and barely know how to imagine. And THAT, my dear friends, stresses me out at times.

But just as Everett in Brothers K comes to question, I too must grapple with the understanding that even as my head groans my heart responds, with every beat in my body, ¨but wait, but wait, but wait...¨

For Tim

About seven years ago I was in the middle of a college crisis. I had finished two years of school without knowing what in the world I was doing there, and didn´t have any particular desire to wrap up the other two. So, after spending a year in Oakland with Mission Year I decided to head out to Jordan and see what the Middle East had to offer. Needless to say it had more to offer than I was prepared to accept. I was overwhelmed in an entirely wonderful way, and spent a fantastic 8 months living, learning, and dreaming.

But, like all of life, the mesmorizing parts were divided up a great deal by the somewhat menial parts. I had many a day of thankless labor and questioned existence. One of the families that helped me get through some of the hardest parts of my time in Jordan was the Donley´s, a family of one father (my boss), one lovely mother, one somewhat senile dog, and 4 crazy boys. At a time when my own family was going through difficult times, and I was on the other side of the world, they embraced me in a way that could only be described as life-saving. I had never had younger brothers and these 4 disheveled louts were simply overflowing with energy and life. We´d stay up late playing video games, we´d wrestle in the living room and break lamps, we´d play capture the flag all night while the ¨adults¨ had their Bible study. I was 19 and on the cusp of learning what it was to be an adult myself, but in their youthfulness they taught me what it meant to be a rolemodel, a new experiene for someone who was used to simply learning from others.

Tim, the second son, was finishing up 8th grade, and when he wasn´t in school and I wasn´t repairing cracked irrigation lines, we´d shoot hoops together or go bug the nurses at the hospital. He was a good friend during a time when I had few by my side.

That was a long time ago. He has since graduated from high school and joined the marines. I was in the states when I heard he was joining up and managed to get his phone number and call him the day before he left for basic training. It had been years since we spoke, but there he was, on the other end of the line, sounding freakishly similar yet much more grown up. We only had a few minutes but I encouraged him as best I could, told him to continue pursuing life with the same intensity he had always had, and then I prayed for him and said goodbye.

This morning when I hopped on facebook I learned from his younger brother that Tim just lost both of his legs to an IED in Afghanistan.

Just like that.

He´s in a hospital right now. Suffering from a pain I´ve never known and grappling with the prospect of an entirely new life. One that he, nor I, nor anyone ever would have imagined for him.

Is God glorified in this?

Do we lift our heads and whisper through our tears, ¨God is great¨?

These are the questions that those of us who call ourselves religious have to grapple with. Yet in my pain I know that the answer is indeed, ¨Yes.¨ God IS glorified. Perhaps we may not see it now, how could we, but when the bandages come off, when the smile slowly creeps back into his life, and when Tim has the opportunity to say, ¨In spite of everything, I will choose to love.¨

That is when we will know that God is indeed very very great.


It´s a terribly long road. One that, for Tim, has begun again on an entirely different level, yet one that we all walk in one way or another. If he´s anything like I remember, in spite of everything, I imagine Tim will choose to run.

Here´s to you Tim.

Boulder Hats and Big Sticks

Signs of Impermanence

by Edward Nudelman

The fact that I'm getting old and not just older.
That wine in a glass tastes better than wine
in the stomach. That all matter is not only
streaming toward the edge of the universe
but that my tears are too, and not from the passing
of next of kin, or even from sad visions, but from
old movies seen too many times, and never more
upsetting than the last time, when the ghost,
for instance, had no face and only pointed.
The fact that you can never find good bacon,
you can never relax in the tub, you can never
have a dream that doesn't have at least one
ominous sign. That breath becomes heavier
than gold, time lighter than air, and striving
cumulonimbus. A house on a hill on a country
road with pale sky shimmering? Try to find one.

He´s just like me! I think, amazed despite the pain. He´s just a grownup boy, stuck in a body, stuck in a life. And his life isn´t working. It´s not working at all.
-(Kade) Brother´s K

He who strives to be of use in this world soon burdens the people with his own insufficiency. -Lao Tzu

Two nights ago while I was walking home I came across a woman standing in the middle of the street yelling at anyone who came near. She had bandages on her arms and was carrying a canvas sack that sounded like it was full of empty wine bottles. It was only about 10:30 and there were still various groups of people on latenight strolls, but this particular street was almost barren thanks to this woman. As I approached the woman her eyes met mine and she shouted something at me that I couldn´t understand. I stood there with a mixture of perplexity and amusement as I considered my options for getting home. I could backtrack a couple of blocks and go around, I could press through with teeth bared, or I could just stand where I was and look somewhat naive. After some careful consideration I chose the third option.

There we were, two solitary gunmen facing each other in the streets, her with her bag of bottles, me with my grin of disarmament. As the seconds passed I noticed on the opposite sidewalk but still on my side of the street were two campesina women huddling in the shadows cast from the streetlight. I hadn´t seen them before but apparently they also needed to pass by this way and were unsure how to proceed. I made my way towards them and asked what was going on. After a quick discusion I learned that this woman was some kind of mental patient who occassionally roamed the streets at night. She had been known to be violent but was also quite scared of people who showed agression.
They asked me where I was going... 8 blocks south.
I asked them where they were going... 4 blocks east.
They looked worried.
I asked if they wanted me to walk with them.
They said yes.
With our newly formed posse we gathered our courage and pressed pass the woman in the street. One of the campesinas (indigenous women from the countryside) picked up a massive branch that had fallen from the tree to use as a threatening stick, and the woman in the street got the picture. She sneered and kept her distance, but at the same time moved with us as we made our way down the street. It was really a weird sight to see. There´s me, walking along with two Bolivian women wearing boulder hats and carrying large satchels of goods they had been selling on the streets (and one with a big-ass stick), and a third woman trailing right alongside us screaming and cursing. Usually I don´t really find the amusement until later, but in this particular situation I couldn´t help but chuckle at the absurdity of it all. With 3 eyes on the woman following us, and 3 eyes on the ground in front of us (sidewalks in Cochabamba are pretty perilous) we pretended to have ourselves a somewhat normal conversation, almost as if we were friends out for a walk.
What do you do here?
I´m studying Spanish and looking for work.
**Son of a $@&%# put down that stick**
Oh how lovely, well your Spanish is very good (Bolivians love to lie about this).
Oh well thank you (rolling eyes).
Do you like Bolivia?
**You are a BLACK MAN, I´ll kill you!**
Yes very much, the people are very nice.
**Stop walking away, are you afraind?**
How much longer are you going to stay here?
A few more months (I love to lie about this seeing as I never know the answer)
Oh that´s nice. Do you know Virginia?
**I´m not afraid, I´m not afraid! This is MY street!**
Yes, it´s very nice, a lot of Bolivians live there.
Yes, one day we hope to move there as well.
**Don´t walk that way! Turn around! TURN AROUND!**

Eventually we made it the 4 blocks to their house and they thanked me for walking with them. As they made to enter through their gate they asked what I was going to do to get home and I shrugged my shoulders and said, ¨Don´t worry about me, I´m pretty sure I can run faster than she can.¨
I actually laughed out loud at my own joke, but both women just looked at me like I was somewhat crazy myself.

All in all it was a fantastic night. I´m really quite uneducated about the social services that the Bolivian government is able to provide for a woman who is suffering like that, but I hope and pray that she can find peace soon. I´m doing my best to consider my next steps should I bump into her again, but for now I´m just tickled to have had a somewhat generic conversation with two women who I normally would never have had the opportunity to converse with.

Life continues to amaze me.

A Thousand Words

Pictures pictures pictures! In spite of not having a real kind of job, my life-pace is quickly gaining speed as I continue to settle in to Bolivian life. Here are some photos I snapped of random happenings that I felt were worth mentioning.


This is Kodi getting some lovin. Like most wonderful dogs he loves to run around in the dirt as soon as he gets a bath, so really this is a rather futile attempt, but fun nonetheless. That´s Jonny on the left, Kodi´s dad. He´s one of the sons of Doña Mary, who I rent from, and he loves karaoke. The other day we sang a duet by Romeo Santos and Usher... it was one of the more awkward-yet-culturally appropriate moments of the past month and I promised myself I would never tell anyone about it... soooo don´t tell anyone.



Here´s the main house. My room is directly to the left of the camera, but I spend a good deal of time in this little courtyard hanging out and traumatizing the parrots, who can been glimpsed in their cage on the right.











This is a road. It has gates leading to homes. And if you follow it long enough you´ll reach those mist-covered mountains, where you´re just as likely to stumble across wild llamas, waterfalls, or cocaine farmers in equal proportion. Although the waterfalls are easiest to find because they tend to stay in one place.








An apartment complex currently under construction across the street from my house. Like all individuals who have an insatiable desire to get to the top of things, I wanted to sneak onto the roof of this building to admire the view, but was advised against it by every single person I mentioned the idea to. Hmmm... I guess I´ll have to go at night.






This is Hiroshi. Grandson to Doña Mary and bane of my existence. Don´t be fooled by his I-had-two-mimosas-for-breakfast grin, he´s really quite the little curb-stomping gangster. The other day he swatted me with a fly swatter. A fly swatter. Those things have germs. After disarming him and swinging him around in the air a while to show my disproval I think he finally got the message and has learned to fear me.






Okay this picture´s not all that funny. Well... I guess it could be depending on your level of personal nurture and parental love... but for the sake of argument we´ll just say it´s not all that funny. But don´t worry, it wasn´t my blood. I went out the other night with some friends and after a hilarious night of dancing we were about ready to make our way home. By this time it was late, again for the sake of argument let´s just say it was between 10:30 and 6:00, and one of the guys in our party decides instead of taking a taxi home, which is cheap and infinitely more secure than walking, he´s going to... yep... walk. To complicate matters he´s also somewhat intoxicated, which doesn´t help in the whole avoding-robbery/murder scenario. He takes off, and after a somewhat hurried discussion I take off after him with another friend while the rest of the group makes their way home.
We made it about a block and a half when suddenly we hear a girl screaming her head of, crying, and asking for help all at the same time. (I marvel at how some people can do this) As we round the corner we see three guys pinning another guy to a wall and laying into his face with their fists. (why in the world can´t i just say fighting? there were three guys fighting another guy... nnnoooo i´ve got to sound creative with the whole laying into face thing... what is that? imagery? well it´s poor imagery if anything and i should be ashamed) Anyway, even though our friend was still off wondering by his lonesome, I wasn´t about to let some guy´s chances of having a full set of teeth be ruined by one night´s drunken brawl, so without further ado I started hollering (it´s good to sound like you´re mad in these sorts of situations) and hauling guys off of mr. punching bag. The fight broke up momentarily as my buddy and I tried to figure out what was going on, but just as things seemed like they were going to settle down two of tender meat´s friends came rushing around the corner and suddenly the playing field was leveled and a proper brawl could ensue. Sorry mom for the language but I clearly remember at that exact moment thinking, ¨well shit.¨
Even though I was actively restraining one of the original beater-uppers, one of the friends of the victim rushes up to me and without even a hello punches me in the nose. I know right? The gall of some people... not even a ¨how´s your night going¨ or ¨hey i´m about to try to hurt you.¨
Well, needless to say this presented me with a moral conundrum, what with my pacifistic tendencies and all. Although I should clarify that even though his intention may have been to bash mr. gringo (that´s me) in the face it turned out to be more of a flail, and the extent of my injuries didn´t range beyond something you´d receive while dancing in a mosh pit at an Insane Clown Posse concert (not that I´ve ever been to one of their shows, no no no, i have standards). My nose was fine and if anything was injured it probably should have been his pride at throwing such a weak punch. At that moment I thought about giving him a bro hug in case he was feeling ashamed about his previous attempt at injuring me, but I figured the safer, and probably more universally appropriate thing to do would be to avoid further interaction.
I explained I didn´t want to fight him (which wasn´t true, i actually kind of did because i was pretty sure that would be an easy WIN in my book) and that I was helping his friend. After some more name-calling and head-butting and punch-throwing and courage-mustering the brawl started to ease into more of a scuffle, and then into something quite similar to football players congratulating each other after a touchdown. The two groups took off in opposite directions and my friend and I were left standing in the street surrounded by our own amazement... and the girl. Yeah she was still there, still crying, and still visibly shaken from the whole previous experience. In between feeling my nose to make sure it wasn´t bleeding I managed to figure out where she lived, and to make a much longer story somewhat shorter, we eventually managed to find a taxi and get her home safely.
So I think that´s a happy ending. I was wondering, like any conservatively educated Christian, What Jesus Would Do (WJWD right right?) to break up a fight. I imagine he probably would have been much more creative. I can see him singing, or perhaps walking on one of the puddles of rainwater that were collecting in the street (unfortunately i can´t do either of those things). Maybe he would have drawn in the dirt or shared a parable that would have confused everyone into thoughtful reflection. But I don´t know... maybe he would have yelled and hauled guys off of each other and taken a lame punch in the nose. That´d be cool. I doubt it but that´d be cool.

Either way I´m reminded that it´s hard to love people sometimes. People are stupid. Granted, that is just one of many characteristics that also include beautiful, brave, mysterious, and Christlike, but still. We tend to do stupid things. And in the midst of those stupid things, those poor decisions, I find myself continually learning how to love well. Even though I totally suck at it most times, in my little self-satisfying sort of ways, it´s a challenge, and one I am quite happy to spend the remainder of my years pursuing.

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The Rose is without why
She blooms because she blooms
She does not care for herself
Asks not if she is seen.
~Angelus Silesius

I went to some kind of hipster party the other weekend. The night started when I got a call at about 10:30 from someone who clearly knew me well:
"Hey Bryan, I'm at this party. You should come. Here I'll give the phone to someone who can give you directions."

After listening to someone rattle off directions in Spanish that included, "turn right after the green gate," and "once you find such-n-such a street, keep going 2 blocks and turn left when you see a wall," I realized I was probably never going to actually make it to the party.

Nevertheless adventure beckoned.

So after driving around with a more than amiable taxi driver, to my utter surprise I actually found the house. Don't think I'm taking creative liberties here, I had put my chances at less than favorable and yet somehow managed to find the right place. I suppose maybe that's divine humor right there... Leaving taxi man with a nice tip I passed through the gate of a compound up in the hills and found myself instantly transported to some house in Orange County. The driveway consisted of some kind of imported grass that was more or less able to withstand vehicles, and as I rounded the corner I found myself looking at a nicely heated pool, the kind that doesn't have edges so the water is perfectly level with the ground (what do they call those, infinity pools?) set beneath a beautifully decorated wooden patio. The entire back wall of the house was glass, providing its occupants with a wonderful view of Cochabamba but also creating a really creepy voyeuristic feeling in every single one of the more than 20 rooms where the curtains weren't drawn. If Cochabamba ever got cold I couldn't imagine what the heating bill would be. As I stood there gaping a nicely groomed Labrador trotted past me...

...with a monkey on its back.

Are you picking up what I'm putting down yet? Swanky does not begin to describe it. I mean... they had monkeys... who does that in real life? Not the big ones that have to wear diapers and fling poo at you when you're not looking, but the cute little spider monkeys that only want to be held and fed grapes.

I threaded my way through the assorted hipsters who were milling out in the yard, each one sporting assorted varieties of black horn-rimmed glasses, shoulder tattoos, v-neck shirts, scarves, skinny jeans, and creative facial piercings. Someone put some sort of beverage in my hand and I was off and running... milling with the best of them, pretending like I was totally used to having parties at glass houses on the hills of Cochabamba. Someone was grilling up assorted bits of meat and passing them out to whomever was hungry, as I swung by the grill I half expected to find an ostrich wearing an apron, but alas, it was just another dude with carefully messy hair and interesting-looking tattoos.

The night went well for the next several hours, I fed pieces of fruit to aforementioned monkeys and chatted with some very lovely Bolivian girls who, I'm sure, where very much interested in my personality and spiritual views.

The rest of the night was fairly uneventful... eventually cocaine showed up and I was tired anyway and decided it was probably best to say my goodbyes.

As I made my way past the shnazzy pool and out the well manicured driveway I couldn't help but marvel at the similarities between people around the world. Here in this place, where poverty is ever-more apparent and that much more difficult to ignore there are still those who work hard at living their utopian dream. (we call that a dystopian dream actually ;)

Being a Christian really forces one to redefine the world's concept of "having a good time." I enjoy a nice gathering of folks as much as the next guy, but I suppose if I want to live responsibly, or at least in a way that glorifies God, it would do me well to remember that even as I celebrate there are those who suffer, and as much as I can, my place is more closely with them. More and more I am learning that the trick to life is learning how to rejoice in the midst of suffering... which is not what this post is about whatsoever, but what is nevertheless a crucial aspect of my existence. Hmph... well that thought ended things abruptly.

Things I Continue To Learn

My apologies, dear reader. This particular post is designed to help me look back on my time in Bolivia and remember what was. It's primarily for my sake. Nevertheless, here are some things that have inspired me lately...

All that we wonder about and think and do is inevitably affected by the kinds of people we are, our temperaments, our histories, our surroundings, our limited horizons, our interests, fears, needs, and perversities. Sometimes these conditions are so pervasive that we even mistake them for Christianity itself… These continuing factors cannot be avoided. We cannot rise above them to gain absolute or universal truths, but we can acknowledge them and compensate for them as best we can.
We do so by fostering a certain modesty and self-awareness. We acknowledge that we are limited human beings who are always to some extent going to be wrong. But we compensate for this chiefly by opening ourselves up to as wide and varied a “community of disagreement” as we can find. It will be full of people as limited and conditioned and mistaken as we are, but fortunately they will be limited and conditioned and mistaken in different ways. If we open up to them, there is some hope that their insights, whatever their shortcomings and idiosyncrasies, will challenge and complement and correct ours and ours theirs, so that together the questions we ask and the insights we bring to bear and the conclusions we reach will be more adequate than had we been left to ourselves. (Not Angels But Agencies, Michael Taylor pp. 131-132)

Totally conscious, and apropos of nothing, you come to see me.
Is someone here? I ask.
The moon. The full moon is inside your house.

My friends and I go running out into the street.
I’m in here, comes a voice from the house, but we aren’t listening.
We’re looking up at the sky.
My pet nightingale sobs like a drunk in the garden.
Ringdoves scatter with small cries, Where, Where.
It’s midnight. The whole neighborhood is up and out
in the street thinking, The cat burglar has come back.
The actual thief is there too, saying out loud,
Yes, the cat burglar is somewhere in this crowd.
No one pays attention.

Lo, I am with you always means when you look for God,
God is in the look of your eyes,
in the thought of looking, nearer to you than your self,
or things that have happened to you
There’s no need to go outside.

Be melting snow.
Wash yourself of yourself.

A white flower grows in the quietness.
Let your tongue become that flower.

~Rumi

Chance had cast me on his island, chance had thrown me in his arms. In a world of chance, is there a better and a worse? We yield to a stranger’s embrace or give ourselves to the waves; for the blink of an eyelid our vigilance relaxes; we are asleep; and when we awake, we have lost the direction of our lives. ~ Susan Barton (Foe)

I ask you to remember, not every man who bears the mark of the castaway is a castaway at heart. ~ Cruso (Foe)

“Your master is dead, Friday,” I whispered.
Friday lay in his little recess wrapped in the old watch-coat the surgeon had found for him. His eyes glinted in the candlelight but he did not stir. Did he know the meaning of death? No man had died on his island since the beginning of time. Did he know we were subject to death, like the beasts? I held out a hand but he would not take it. So I knew he knew something; though what he knew I did not know. ~ Susan Barton (Foe)

Sometimes I wake up not knowing where I am. The world is full of islands, said Cruso once. ~ Foe

There comes a time when we must give reckoning of ourselves to the world, and then forever after be content to hold our peace. ~ Foe

We are accustomed to believe that our world was created by God speaking the Word; but I ask, may it not rather be that he wrote it, wrote a Word so long we have yet to come to the end of it? May it not be that God continually writes the world, the world and all that is in it? ~ Foe

Quietness

Inside this new love, die.
Your way begins on the other side.
Become the sky.
Take an axe to the prison wall.
Escape.
Walk out like someone suddenly born into color.
Do it now.
You’re covered with thick cloud.
Slide out the side. Die,
and be quiet. Quietness is the surest sign
that you’ve died.
Your old life was a frantic running
from silence.

The speechless full moon
comes out now.

~Rumi

For many many years I feel as though my life has been a frantic running from silence. It's when I move to other countries, when I find I can't easily communicate with others, when my days and nights aren't constantly filled with this party and that gathering that I begin to slow down.

This is when I become spiritual.

To love life and all of its messiness, this is a gift.