...and they laughed...

So I was taking the train back up to Loyola tonight, and the strangest thing happened. A man came onto the train car that I was on, as seems to happen so often, and he started asking us for our attention "Attention ladies and gentlemen, please, your attention please" he said. However, usually when people do this it is because they are announcing that they were convicted felons and are telling us that they just "need a few bucks to get a tie" as they usually say. This guy, wasn't doing that though, this guy was selling art. Some of it was stuff he had put together, or done, himself, some of it was published collections, and most importantly he was selling his poetry for "only a dollar", but... I couldn't afford it, I honestly couldn't even give this man a dollar for his poetry, because I didn't have even that, because I am a broke college student who's annual outflow of money is higher than probably 65% of the population's income. The worst part wasn't the fact that I couldn't help him, the worst part was that this guy was just trying to sell something that we could all use a little more of in our lives and they laughed – the people on the train openly mocked him, and I did nothing. I can really relate to this guy, though, this guy who's just trying to make an honest living selling art, and nobody gives a shit, and actually, actively dislikes him for it, that freaking sucks. Sometimes, if you can't get a job all you have left is your art, and if no one is willing to buy what you create, what do you have left?

Waves

When I was kid, we lived in Africa. For vacation from my parents' rather strenuous work dealing with the creation of a language, my family would go to the Indian ocean. Sometimes Mombasa, sometimes, Kilifi, most importantly, we went to the ocean. We would go to the beach, and we would play in the waves, play with the hermit crabs. There was this one time that we found this gigantic hermit crab, it was freaking huge, the shell was like 7 inches long. There is so many good memories wrapped up in our times by the Indian ocean.
After my sister died we took a vacation, kind of to take a break from my parents' work, but also to kind of spend time together as a family, and help us all to smile again. I think it was that trip that I began to associate waves with healing, and rebirth, because I think it was during that vacation that I began to be able to live my life again. I really have no idea how much time elapsed in between when she died and when we went on that vacation, but I honestly don't remember anything in between the two events, besides like random people always being in our house, that's all I can remember.

Being here in Chicago its nice, because I am right by the lake. I can hear the waves if I just walk a hundred yards. Sure, it is not the ocean, but lake Michigan is a large enough body of water that you can't really see the other side anyway, and its mostly the sound that refreshes me, anyway. The sound is so important for me, when I went to the lake during the really cold times here in Chicago and it was frozen, I felt, almost, worse than I did before, just because the water wasn't allowed to make the sound that it wanted to make so desperately.

George, if I were a house, I would want to be a house built by the ocean, too, but I would want to be built by the Indian ocean, so I could always hear the waves.

Lost and found in the Streets of Chicago

The title of this post is a reference to one of my own songs, is that sad? haha.
Today has been a good day. Let me back up, though. This past week was midterms week, and it was horrible. I had two papers, and 4 tests in one week. One of the papers and two of the tests fell on Thursday, so needless to say Thursday was a bad day – too much to do in not enough time. By the time Friday rolled around I had slept an incredible amount the night before and was back to being sane again, which is why, in general, I am doing great, but last week was, as I said, horrible. Yesterday I hung out with Matt Rhea and just enjoyed being, and not have to anything, it was great. Today, though, brought maybe the one of the strangest and yet totally expected adventures of my entire life – bold words, I know. Today I tried out a new church, I had done a little research on it before I actually went (I mean, I'm a modern day church goer, we don't do anything without googling it first, do we?) so I kind of knew what to expect: high church, older congregation, more "conservative" than I am used to, and a ministry to the Dinka Lost Boys that came in 2001, which has since become a ministry to all refugees that come through their doors, or into their view. The church service itself was pretty cool, it reminded me a lot of my experiences at the deepening from back in the day when I was still in youth group, rather than leading it, which was cool. They had an intense amount of incense, which really doesn't bother me anymore, if anything it just enhances things for me. During the service, it was probably the first time I've been in church in a long time and actually been able to just let the service happen and not have to worry about how "cool" something is or how "frustrating" some part was, and I was able to just be, which is the whole point anyway, right? The beautiful part about the church came afterward though, when Matt and I were invited up for their "coffee" hour, which actually turned into lunch, and the meeting of about 100 new amazingly interesting people. First came Abraham, he is a Dinka Deacon at St. Paul's, turns out he knows my mom and is related to one of the priests at St. Bartholomew's, which is absolutely amazing to have that connection, there was another woman who is involved in Sudanese ministry, as well, who also knew my mom, so that was funny. The most random of all the meetings though was this girl, she apparently is the child of Wycliff missionaries and spent time in the Philippines, and grew up in Dallas, TX. Do you ever have the feeling, when you look at someone, you feel like you know them, but you know that you don't, but there's just someting about them that reminds you of something, something inside of yourself? Well, to be honest, this rarely happens for me, because I rarely get the chance to meet people who grew up in similar circumstances as me, but in this case, she has lived a similar life as me, and actually knows people that I know from when I was a child, and that is just absolutely amazing to me, to be able to connect what I am with what I was when I was child.

I was thinking about it, today, and I was wondering how different I am now, as compared with how I was when I was child, and I think I realized that I really haven't changed that much. I am still the observationally inquisitive boy always watching, imitating, learning by modeling, never really doing more than I see around me, being shaped by my environment in every way that I can. I am still the quiet kid, and I am still trying desperately to understand what is happening around me by watching, rather than acting and influencing. I honestly think that that will kind of be true for the rest of my life, and there's not really anything that can be done about it, besides pretending to be something that I am not. Someone told me recently that the classic definition of a hero is "standing up to fate, and in spite of the tides smashing against you, you still do what you are supposed to do", well, I'm not sure I've ever gone against the tide, and I'm pretty sure I've always just gone where I feel that tide take me (its taken me all over the world), and I don't really know if that will ever change, either.

I took a pretty unbelievably refreshing walk today, but that, is for a later time.
I hope you all are well,
peace.