"Thankfulness...

...is the soil in which joy grows."

i want to remember this:

"If people try to see beauty they will. If one never tries than it is likely they will miss all the beauty that makes us laugh and cry and feel full of life."

"Be well in the ways you can be and wait for wellness where it is not."

--Two great quotes, taken from a letter I received from a friend today. So important, so worth cherishing.

my heart is mitten-shaped

I'm not hating it here, or even feeling "homesick" per se, but I really miss Michigan today.

I wish I could have lived in Grand Rapids when I wasn't in school. There was so much I didn't do or see or get involved with because I was just too busy trying to finish college. Like, The Bloom Collective-- so awesome! I lived like, four blocks from this place, I never once stepped foot inside. I've been exposed to a lot of new (to me) and radical ideas since being in Baltimore, and I hate to think that if I had just had more of a chance to step outside of the Calvin box while I was in GR, I could have started this political/spiritual journey much sooner.

I miss summertime-- biking streets I knew like the back of my hand; breathing fresh, green air; the breeze through my open windows; living on James; eating Brick Road Pizza like, 3 times a week. Seeing my mom and my sisters whenever I wanted. Fresh bread from the bakery across the street.

I miss having a Michigan accent and fitting in with everyone. (It's weird that I grew up here and I don't have a Maryland accent. I feel a little bit like a poser...) What used to be "Hi, how are ya?" has become "How you doin'" or "How are y'all?". Every once in awhile I'll here myself slip into my Michigan voice, and it secretly makes me happy. :)

all things go

Just got back from a retreat with the east coast LVC volunteers. We spent five days in a cabin on the Chesapeake Bay... It was an amazing, relaxing, challenging, revelatory, bonding time, and I loved it.

One reason -- We got to see this every night:


Getting back into city life was really tough today, for a number of reasons. The car exhaust seemed much more noticeable as I breathed during my bike commute; bizarre interactions with people on the street; multiple injuries on-the-job; forgetting about work commitments and bringing a PB&J sandwich as my only food for an 11-hour shift; being in East Baltimore again and feeling anxious and unsafe, then hating that I feel that way...

There were moments of grace, too. My awesome, supportive, goofy bosses; quiet moments in the office, when I feel okay just sitting for a minute; dang that PB&J was good; Lots of TEA; wise and hilarious comments from some 13-year-olds; hopping fences with 86-year-old Ms. Rosetta because she was locked out of her house and we had to break in through the back door; vegan chicken nuggets & Old Bay fries lovingly prepared by my housemate; and, Sufjan.



This video is from Sufjan's performance at Calvin College's festival of faith and music in 2007. I was able to see this live, but I stumbled across this video today, and it was really nice to remember that time in my life and how moving and important this song is to me.

Also, garden update:

sprouts! (winter rye and hairy vetch, great cover crops/green manure... They'll keep the soil from eroding over the winter, and will be a valuable nitrogen source in the spring, when I'll cut them into the soil.)

I'll remember this:

Baltimore Lutheran Volunteer Corps 2009-2010 members at our commissioning service on Oct. 20th... What a great family we are.

There is solidarity in this soil

One of my favorite things about living in Baltimore this year has been seeing the transformation our backyard has taken from this

to this

to this


in less than two months!

It's been a labor of love so far, mostly because of a little thing called heavy metal contamination (not as cool as it sounds... But at least Metallica is not involved). As I was dreaming about and planning my organic veggie and herb garden, I got to know some other Baltimore gardeners who strongly advised me to get the soil tested for lead and other heavy metals, because many Baltimore yards have toxic levels of these nasty things. So, I did. Today I got the letter from the lab, saying that we're in the clear! Everything looked great.

To celebrate, I went out and scattered some winter rye and hairy vetch seeds as a green mulch -- They'll help keep the soil from eroding over winter, and in the spring I can cut them in and they'll add healthy levels of nitrogen to the soil.

I had an interesting realization while I was planting, though. At first, while I raked the yard and began scattering the seeds, I had my iPod on. I was listening to songs about urban gardening (yes they exist), trying to be inspired, but as I went along, I realized that I could feel the autumn breeze on my skin, feel the warmth of the afternoon sun on my face, but I couldn't hear the sound of the seeds falling to the ground out of my hand, or the rustling of the leaves on the trees around me. I was "connecting myself with the earth" by planting seeds, but I wasn't connected completely. So I unplugged, and I listened. And I found nature, wildness, in the inner city. I heard those seeds hit the soft ground, I heard the black birds caw and the sparrows chirp, I heard the rake as I gently scraped it across my freshly scattered seeds. I heard the voices of my neighbors; I heard life. It was beautiful.

Currently, my backyard looks like this:

My Dreams Fly Me to a Place Called Baltimore

Last week marked a full month of living and working in Baltimore. I meant to update as the weeks went by, but it's taken some time to get settled here. I finally feel like I'm reaching that point, but I also know that, considering the work I do here, it's going to be challenging to feel completely comfortable with the way some things are in this city. That's okay, though. One thing I've learned so far is that, in a way, I feel called to live "in the tension." The tension of wanting to be an agent of change while also wanting to learn and be sensitive to the realities of systemic poverty and injustice. Wanting to share my idea of a good life with others, while wanting to be a listener and respect other perspectives. The tension of living a simple but comfortable life, while trying to be in solidarity with those who don't have the option to live that kind of life.

The City Paper recently published their annual "Best of Baltimore" issue, and one of the categories was "The Best Reason to Live Here." I thought I'd share it here, since I think it defines Baltimore well.

"If you've been around Baltimore for a while, you were probably a little freaked out five years ago or when property values started skyrocketing, new buildings started flying up, and decrepit old buildings morphed into luxury lofts seemingly overnight. After all, we like nice things, but we're not used to a bunch of them all at once. It just didn't seem real. And it turns out it wasn't.
And now, we're facing the worst thing to befall this nation and its citizens since the Sept. 11 attacks. Worst of all, this time we did it to ourselves. So now that the economy's tanked, things are tough all over. But you know what? Things have always been tough here, even at the height of townhomes-starting-from-the-300s mania. So now that the '00s gravy train has ground to a halt, the good news is that Baltimoreans are used to doing without gravy. If things are gonna get all Mad Max from here, well, welcome to the Thunderdome.
After all, plenty of Baltimoreans are used to making do with a house they can't unload, to piecing together an assortment of small jobs into a living, to eating low on the hog, to looking out for each other and watching out for trouble, to finding their entertainment and their reason to go on where they can.
As hard and heartbreaking as the months to come will be for many, Baltimoreans aren't hothouse flowers. A row of vacant storefronts doesn't freak us out. Crime's already horrific here and has been for years (we're maybe a little too used to that). Our favorite hometown delicacy is steamed bottom feeders. Our favorite summer treat is shaved water ice with a squirt of cheap syrup. We don't need much, and that seems like a good way to be for a bit.
This isn't a pep talk, it's just the facts. If there's a way to survive and thrive in the current climate, we'll find it. After all, we made it this far."

Transitions

Here I sit, in the spare room of a dear friend's home, staying up late with my thoughts (when I really should be sleeping).

Last week, I made the move from Grand Rapids, Michigan, where I have lived for the past four years, to "home," the small town in Southern Maryland where I grew up. Technically, though, I'm homeless. I will be for a few more weeks, until I move into my new place in Baltimore to start my work with Lutheran Volunteer Corps. Until then, my friend is letting me stay with her.

Since I am homeless and jobless (albeit temporarily), I have a lot of alone time, while my friend and her family are at their 9-5 jobs. The last few days have been filled with phone calls, researching Baltimore, reading up on some pre-job-training literature, sewing, and being really, really inspired.

Here's a quick list of some current inspirations:
1. Defiance, Ohio. They're a folk-punk band from Ohio (kind of obvious), and they offer free downloads of all of their albums on their website (which I *just* discovered this week). They've been on my radar for over a year, since I saw them at a show in Braddock, a neighborhood in Pittsburgh. They... rock my world, for lack of better words. Every verse of every song blows my mind.
2. Outclassed. I also saw them live at that show in Pittsburgh last summer. They're local to the Burgh, and they're way underrated. Incredibly passionate.
3. The Simple Way. This is an awesome community in Philadelphia that I have been following for a couple of years now. I see a lot of similarities between Philly and Baltimore, so I think I'm going to draw a lot of encouragement from this community throughout the next year.
4. Bamboo fiber. This sounds silly, but I've been on the market for new bedsheets (since my college ones are meant for dorm beds, which are a funky size), and I'm convinced that bamboo is the fiber of the future. It's super-sustainable, breathes better than most fabrics (great for regulating body temperature during the night-time!), and it has natural anti-microbial properties!

Just a few things that have kept my thoughts swirling around like crazy these days...