It's 9:22 p.m. I'm sitting at my kitchen table, reading an essay on Reagan, his charismatic and millennialist views, and foreign policy. There are two dudes on the third floor of the house next door working on bikes. Nice bikes. They have a bike room up there with a couple of stands. I don't know what's in the stand right now because I don't want them to catch me staring. If I go into the bathroom I can hear them talking about specific mechanics, setups and parts. It's wonderful. I could use a way to relax right now.

I have to figure out which bike to bring with me to Chicago. There is training that needs to happen but there is general fun that also needs to happen. This is quite a dilemma.

Oh, did I mention that summer gig in Chicago?

Back to work. Nope. Out to this.

darn. They put down the blinds.

Frustration!

Running. I'm frustrated with running.

The day before I went to El Salvador, I ran a very comfortable 7+ miles. Eleven days later, I tried to run with my occasional running group and had to leave the run at 1.5 miles. I jogged around a soccer field for a few laps and then rode my bike home. I was sick in El Salvador, but not too sick. That evening's run could be explained by our 3 a.m. arrival back in New Haven. OK. Fine. I would give myself a break on that one.

One month later, I'm still struggling with runs. I went on a run this morning out in Woodbridge. About 5 miles and some change. I just. don't. have. the. energy. anymore. I don't think I can blame lack of sleep. I slept at least 8 hours last night. I got 7+ the night before. I'm eating OK, trying to watch what I eat but eating enough. I am cutting back on coffee, and I really hope that's not the reason. Uh oh.

Maybe it's time for a break from running.

That's going to take a lot of discipline. But, when your stress reliever and primary exercise is a big downer I guess you have to take drastic steps. Thank goodness for bikes and even for .... machines. Maybe it's time to start swimming again. So - starting this weekend, I'm going to try to take a running break for a week.

^boring, I know.



I was reading something for class by Henri Nouwen. My professor assigned a short section from The Wounded Healer, including this:

We live in a society in which loneliness has become one of the most painful human wounds. The growing competition and rivalry which pervade our lives from birth have created in us an acute awareness of our isolation. This awareness has in turn left many with a heightened anxiety and an intense search for the experience of unity and community. It has also led people to ask anew how love, friendship, brotherhood, and sisterhood can free them from isolation and offer them a sense of intimacy and belonging...

But the more I think about loneliness, the more I think that the wound of loneliness is like the Grand Canyon - a deep incision in the surface of our existence which has become an inexhaustible source of beauty and self-understanding.

Therefore I would like to voice loudly and clearly what might seem unpopular and maybe even disturbing: the Christian way of life does not take away our loneliness; it protects and cherishes it as a precious gift...

When we are impatient, when we want to give up our loneliness and try to overcome the separation and incompleteness we feel, too soon, we easily relate to our human world with devastating expectations. We ignore what we already know with a deep-seated, intuitive knowledge - that no love or friendship, no intimate embrace or tender kiss, no community, commune or collective, no man or woman, will ever be able to satisfy our desire to be released from our lonely condition... Thus we keep hoping that one day we will find the man who really understands our experiences, the woman who will bring peace to our restless life, the job where we can fulfill our potentials, the book which will explain everything, and the place where we can feel at home. Such false hope leads us to make exhausting demands and prepares us for bitterness and dangerous hostility when we start discovering that nobody, and nothing, can live up to our absolutistic expectations.

Many marriages are ruined because neither partner was able to fulfill the often hidden hope that the other would take his or her loneliness away. And many celibates live with the naive dream that in the intimacy of marriage their loneliness will be taken away.

When the minister lives with these false expectations and illusions he prevents himself from claiming his own loneliness as a source of human understanding, and is unable to offer any real service to the many who do not own their own suffering.


Nothing really going on, I just thought it was an interesting point.

What do you think?

I was driving back from a fantastic birthday party this evening when this song came on the radio. I haven't listened to it in years. I turned it up loud. I offer that as a great way to listen to it. Go ahead.

Plenty is going on lately. I'm house-sitting and dog-sitting out in Woodbridge. I've had some meetings with professors, and they've given me some honest feedback on a few papers. I have a lot of improving to do. I'm not the same writer that I was when I left undergrad, nor the same writer that succeeded in policy work. That's OK, but I have to learn how to write academically at a masters level. I suppose that's part of why I'm in school again.

This party was interesting. David is Kate's roommate and threw this party for Kate's birthday. He likes to go all out, and going all out this time meant gel (decorative Jello) wrestling. Dave and Kate are wonderful roommates who really care about each other. They're not romantic (nor do they have the potential for it with each other), but they joke about being an old married couple. Each is very special to the other, and they help take care of each other. It's wonderful.

The party started on the div school quad and then moved to a place where he had an inflatable pool set up. There was also a bonfire. There was a bit of dancing, too. Spring is breaking here, and most of us ran around without jackets on. It provided me a chance to have some conversations with people I hadn't spoken with in a while - real conversations where you talk about things that feel like they matter. This usually doesn't happen at parties (or bars or while dancing), but for some reason it did tonight. I appreciated hearing some folks' perspectives on social life at YDS and for those who have crushes or relationships, how those things are going. Some folks are struggling with the social scene at YDS, and it was helpful to hear their perspectives because I am often pretty oblivious to what's going on (cliques, exclusion etc.) Socially, I try to show up, be decent (which I'm not always so good at doing - it can be hard for us moody folk), act toward the other as God (if there is a God who is benevolent and has a will for our existences) might want me to do. I mess up a lot, though.

I've been avoiding talking about feelings for a couple of months (kind of a feat in God school). I've had a couple of conversations recently that did a pretty good job at cracking me open (sonofa!)- people who have known me for a while and who know how to call bullshit on the front I put up. These people are wonderful, but damned if I'm not interested in it all anymore. I've let the door creak open a little bit again, and developed a certain type of feeling that has really caught me off guard and potentially made me vulnerable again, and, well, I had written off some of these things for the rest of my life. But, you know, plans are a load of horse shit.

Anyway, I guess these situations will work themselves out in time. How can they not? They won't sit stagnant for the rest of my life. That would be lame. How much do I want to face some of these questions again? Not much, but if life does what it should, it won't let me ignore the most challenging, foreign, important, and... rewarding questions.

Maybe the best we can do is to try to treat ourselves and others as a benevolent, loving, compassionate God might want: with benevolence, love, and compassion.

For now, I'll go cuddle with the dog look at some empty space.

edit:

These undergrads make things like this (they get funding for it, too):

brain puke, re: babies

I have a bunch of friends who are pregnant. Some of them are pregnant on purpose; others are not. Yay! and Yay?



I'm not particularly set on having babies. Most of the time I like to play with babies and then return them to their parents. Babies are cute and funny sometimes, but that doesn't mean it's right for me to have one. I'd rather have a dog, but I'm not ready to give up my routines for a dog right now, and school would really get in the way of caring for a dog properly. I think that babies need more love and attention and care than I think myself capable of giving right now. Well, I could probably come up with the love. Love has certainly surprised me in the past. I hear that when you have a kid, often there's a love that comes to you, or from you, for that kid like nothing you've known or experienced and it's wonderful. I bet it changes your views on a lot of things. (Maybe being in love and being willing to share life with someone does that too.) My hope is that if I were to have a kiddo, that love would help me to be OK with giving up my freedom and having someone dependent on me. I squirm when someone gets too close, and I know you mess up a kid if you keep him or her at arm's length. It's hard enough not to do that with adults. (How do I start that project?)

A couple of years ago I sorta decided that I wouldn't have babies, not wanting to mess up some kid's life and future (I'm likely not going to make enough money to pay for your therapy, junior). I'm not going to commit to that decision, though. I make no decision about that future now. When I was younger, friends told me they thought I would make a good mother. I used to be doting, attentive, and caring to people - perhaps that's why. Would it be any better if the father (presumably my husband) wanted to be a stay-at-home dad?

I hear, though, that Ivy League eggs are worth a lot... maybe if I get really desperate for cash that's the way to go. Kidding. My eggs will have to carry around little dictionaries to look up heuristic anytime someone uses it.

Anyway, I also sometimes wonder what my married or parenting friends think about their peers who aren't doing either of those things. Or, what do my single and non-breeding friends think about their married or parenting friends? Are there regrets? Do some feel left out?

----

The Lux et Velocitas individual time trial and crits were this weekend. I was a marshal for just about three hours in the cold rain on Saturday. My fingers were too cold to work a camera, so I only got one shot of the Cat B women lined up to start. It was a good course, despite very wet roads, involving hills and a finish up on East Rock (which you can see in the top right corner of the photo).




















Women racing! Good
---
I'm taking one ride per week, usually on Saturday, and running three days per week. There's at least one other workout in there, probably two. Thursdays are the only definite no-workout days, but now that it's warm out, I can fit in a walk before I go to work at 6. I'm really tired on my runs lately. I don't know why. I've had less oomph in my runs since I got back from El Salvador, but it might also be due to 7 or so hours of sleep per night. I'm afraid I thrive on more. Eep!

A generous and dynamic Christianity?

Wicker Park Grace's Stations of the Cross for your potential Easter meditations

Way More

Saturday was quite a day. I woke up at about 7 a.m. to go riding with Andy B. on the Farmington Canal Trail. I figure it's around 30 miles or so. We started on the Hamden section and rode until the path stops in Cheshire. On our way back we followed the "closed" (quotation marks are OK here, I think. The sections are deemed closed but are actually not closed, only incomplete.) sections of the path, which dropped us about two blocks from my house. The sections of the path are finished, but they need to be connected. As it was, we had to stop and walk or hop our bikes up over curbs to get back on the trail. It's a good trail, with few stops for roads and lots of open space so you can go fast.

I made it back in time to shower and go get my hair cut. It looks like this now, only usually a bit more messy.
















Later that night I heard the Yale Philharmonia. They played Four Sea-Interludes by Britten, Cello Concerto No. 1 in A minor by Saint-Saens, and Mahler's Fifth Symphony.

Only a few notes, because I'm not a music critic, just an occasional observer with only a little free time on her hands:

1. The violins on the Britten piece played as if they were one instrument. Their pitches and timing matched almost exactly. They open up the piece and they did it well on Saturday night.

2. The Four Sea-Interludes has... four parts to it: Dawn, Sunday Morning, Moonlight, and Storm. I found Moonlight to be the most moving. (Youtube - Bernstein performance of it)

3. For the Mahler piece, his love song to his wife Alma, the Adagietto, is the kind of thing that "might awaken those parts of you that you shut down to protect yourself; the places of greatest reward, remote, formerly so close. Maybe." At least that's what I wrote spontaneously on my program guide during the performance. Here is a performance of it (Mehta conducting):