Individuality

Horah I'm in Kenya. There is so much to do and so much to see. *sigh.

Right now I'm sitting in my office (yes it's a real office with 4 walls, a desk, AND a window) on my first day of internship at the Caucus for Women's Leadership. For more information go to kwpcaucus.org. I will be doing a lot of reading and writing while I'm here. Excited mostly because it will be hands on learning. Not only that but it's great experience.



I flew in on Friday night. The plane ride was long. 8 hours is the same no matter how comfortable your seat is. But I arrived safely into the hands of my hosts. When I got into bed that night the one thing that kept replaying in the corners of my mind was "I am alone, completely alone, with strangers." The Ochola's are related to friends back in the US. I feel so welcome, but the comforts and familiarity of home are all gone. What can I do but put myself out on a limb? I am learning to trust in people as well as trust in myself. I'm finding that in my 23 years of friends, family, and aquaintances, there are worlds of relationships I have not yet explored. Business as well as friendships alike. And in these new cultures I'm discovering that I can survive without familiarity. Being a part of this culture, partaking in conversation and seeing how life is run has given me the opportunity to look back at my own culture. I am an outsider to what is familiar now. It's hard to understand exactly what you want when you're in the thick of it. Leaving the US and all that I knew, I feel as if I've stepped out of a pool and am now wading in someone elses puddle. But this new perspective has allowed for shingles to fall from my eyes.

And while I look I can see the things that I was trying to gain at home. At school I felt as if I was spinning my wheels in water, plunging into the exercise but getting no results. Now I feel that I can weed out what was holding me back and move in a new direction, unencumbered by the spinning wheel factor. And I realize that I don't exactly need those things. There is a huge division between culture and necessity. One man's shame is another mans glory. In this way I can truly look at myself, now that I have been stripped bare of culture and duty, and decide independently what armor I want to acquire, what position I want to take, and what person I want to be.

just leafing through

sometimes the wind blows you and you just go. why? because there's nothing else to do. i like being in control of things. but this summer i have no power over anything. normally it would frustrate me, that i know so little about my immediate future, but right now i figure that if God got me here, he's going to push me through some open door right?
there's nothing wrong, exactly. it's just that everything i planned this summer in some way is happening, just not in the order i wanted it to... that and i'm not the one orchestrating it. it's like my life is being fed to me one flavor packed morsel at a time. and between these influxes of information and willingness to DO, i get to dilly dally, write my book(s), read, watch movies... and if i'm lucky go on random adventures across europe. hahaha... my God is a random God. and thus my life is a random life.

"Oh I'll just jot it down," say the English

Good news, Goood news. I finished the story board for The GateKeepers. Bad news is I seem to have lost one of my notebooks that is chocker block full of GateKeeper secrets and notes. But whatever. So I've finished the story board and now, besides printing some notes on characters and symbolic meanings, all that's left is to get started writing/ sifting through my rough draft and deciding on what I can salvage of the first six chapters. Writing a novel is a process that I didn't plan on picking my way through when I first dreamed up The GateKeepers. I've been dreaming it up for months and only now am I settling in to WRITE it all... but the process is good. It's even fun. So as mom would say "believe in the process." And as my cousin Sara would say, "picture the outcome, know that it will happen, and then just do it!" I believe in me. I really do.

Not London, but England

I'm in London, been here for the past 3 days. I'm settling into the family warmly. Haha. THeir is no danger, they seem to be accepting me as their own (as if they were a pack of wolves or something). But really, my family here is great to me. I believe that I will have a great time. I just have to be willing to look for my own adventures. Mostly I've spent my days drinking tea and writing. Haha, what is more English than that? Yesterday they took me to an English village. All the buildings are wicked old but in perfectly good use. School kids were darting all over the place in their various uniforms. And when we found a shop to settle down for tea in, it appeared that the whole town had the same idea at the same time. Ha, it was truly fabulous.
Upon arrival I soon discovered that my family's daily routine consisted of crouching over a keyboard, and staring fervently into it's screen. Their all computer techs (which helps cuz my computer is dying). And they all work at home, which means I only have to venture to another room for some good conversation. Ha.. What I did need was my own work space. And I found it. How surprising is it that it was the kitchen table. Funny? Well the table tips to the left whenever I lean over it, there's a window, and it's right by the tea drinkers traffic, but it's all mine. What more could a writer want? Now... I just need to forget about my lazy comforts at home and get on with the writing! Aha!

and he told me to drink

All this time I have been standing in front of a crack in a rock surrounded by sweltering dessert. And I’m begging for the trickle of water that slips from between the boulders to be at least a weak willed stream.
Be ye careful what you wish for.
Maybe it’s the object I’m looking at. Maybe it’s the source and not my inability to believe hard enough that God wants me to have the water. Because all it takes is my shoulders to slacken down in submission for the ground to start shaking in this wasteland.
I can feel the tremors of this dessert floor. I can see the crack lines along this natural fault. I can hear from my standing position a roar of water so faint it teases my parched spit glands. And I fear with any sudden move the ground will split and swallow me whole, sending my parched and sun bloated body between the mounds of broken earth and into the crashing waves below. I yearn to be carried off in that current. Like a sign from God, letting my body yearn like that in complete submission to His will is all it takes for my fear to turn into courage, for the ground to slip out from under me, for the water to ravage and consume me.

Life-sicles

Life is so much bigger than the plate that Andrews hands it to me on. When I am there I feel as if my vision is obscured and everything they give me and tell me is somehow OK. But when I am free of that pin holed perspective I can feel the magnitude of life. I can sense it like a hunter knows the presence of its pray. I want life. I want all of it. And I want it as big and as roaring as I can get it.