Got my residency card.

Now what?

Work meeting in a few days, formal or informal, don't know yet - hopefully will get to do more of the journalism I came here for!

This, I could get used to.

Long good busy day... workmovegosinghelpwalksing. Almost fell asleep on the bus home, my one holdout-against-depressing-tourist-places friend is caving tomorrow and I'll be the loner. Leaning on a friend here to get pierced, and her mom's all for it. One of my best friends in the States had dinner with my family last night after I coaxed them into it, and now I'm jealous of them all. More residency bureaucracy tomorrow- how my luck would it be if they finally kicked me out now I'm not so hungry for escape?

Got annoyed at forgetting footage, started complaining to myself in Slavic without having to think about it. Finished one video, built another ground-up in the last 24 hours, rave reviews. Have to rewrite an article with more info. Doing a photo shoot tomorrow for friends. Love my job.

Helped moving friends clean their place, spent a sweet hour out with their Tesoro who is currently my favourite one-year-old on the planet. Walked where we normally walk, and then some, carried him on my shoulders, taught him birdcalls, took photos. Come July, I'm not gonna see him again for a long while. He's not even gonna remember my name by then....

Learning the song "What Do We Know" and learning it on the guitar. Slung its case on my back yesterday and jetted the house to play by the train tracks yesterday, surprised the commuters and ticked off a German shepherd. Haven't broken anything all week, started packing for vacation a week ahead. Be very proud. Put a pause to overprocessing thinking and stayed out of the kitchen (related?) and haven't been OCD about cleaning, been highly productive and charmingly distracted.

And- wrap thy head around this- I'm quoting less. Still singing at every turn, but the need to sum it all up, spin it over, is lessening... then again, I'm writing more poetry lately. Words and word again.

huge fan of being busy, of being tired and content, grabbing tiny moments of silence and soaking up the shades of cloud edges in the sunset, soaking up the notes and tones in my roommates voices.'

tons of work this week. easiest way to deal with it is to back off from normality, stop all other busy-ness and activity and watching. it's just me and my music and my computer, and hugs to those who want them, laughs and a helping hand to those that need them.

for the rest- especially when i'm running on very few hours of sleep- i just stop wondering, stop feeling. stop trying to figure out what's going on in my friends and roommates heads, stop caring what they think of me. all my emotion, all my energy, is wrapped up in turning pressure into presentation. in taking lifeless dv tapes and memory cards and crafting out living stories.

there's pressure, and the moments of, "o... am i worrying you by deliberate absence?" but there's also a definite freedom in blocking out everything around me. tap me on the shoulder and i'll tell you how i've been- if i remember. and i'll ask you how you've been, and listen. but in a minute or two, i'm gonna walk away and back to work, and, for once, not replay the conversation over and over in my head, feel through it all.

the whole processing process? dramatically different or deleted these days...

Connecting...

Watched 'Terminator Salvation' yesterday, enthralled. The last movie I watched in a cinema was 'Quantum of Solace', last year - I'm not a huge cinema person, but for explosion-movies it helps to have the surround sound and utter silence and blackness surrounding....

What really hit me in both movies was the level of trust in crazy, life-or-death, worlds. In 'Quantum of Solace', it was 'M' letting Bond have free reign to go his missions solo, against all common sense, no matter the consequences. "He's my agent!" In 'Terminator Salvation' it was the resistance everywhere standing down against orders because they trusted John Connor. Without trust, Bond and Connor would have been on their own, flamed out, and then probably died. But they took that extra step to stay connected with others and that made the difference.

I tend to connect when it suits me, when I have time, when I think it's worth it. A certain level of trust floats around, but not nearly what it could be. If it came down to life or death, and it was my voice over the cell phone or shortwave radio- would others listen?

Surreal, random, happy day... and one of the best here yet. Connected much?

Incorrect sunny weather. Lolcats. Outspoken Aussies.

Personal tour by a white monk.

Confused waitress who didn't know whether to speak to us in English or Slavic.

Freshly painted room, but no glitter.

Heart-sharing with a friend, no, two friends, one online and one here with me.

New piercing, a long-promised birthday treat with a friend.

Tons of coffee. Tikka masala. Gerbils. A tram that went the wrong route.

Random parade... random concert... random speed-walking race... random military/redcross/greenpeace recruitment event.

Skyped. Chatted. Sang. Texted. Threw pennies in a fountain.

Electric sunset, blood and hugs, wishes.


Deep content.

Haven't blogged anything in a while... started a new notebook two weeks ago when life got particularly frustrating, and have written in that. Everything from laughing at adventures with friends to copying half-chapters of Lamentations - "I will lay my head in the dust- there may yet be hope." Lots to catch up on, particularly hope.

I've been missing directness, missing authority. I don't do well with vagueness. Got told by my boss that 'if there are any lingering ideas of rootlessness, put them to rest." Which I needed. And life has gotten better this last week, in ironic ways.

Have had some really good talks and hang-out times with my roommates and friends... on the heels of some fairly heated arguments.

Time's ticking down to vacation and volleyball with some old favourite teammates... and realised I'm not in love with volleyball anymore.

More work assignments just as my hardrive crashed and burned. (Now fixed, and I only have to make up three months worth of unfinished video in one month, thanks.)

Have been volunteering at an international preschool (adorable kids that I can talk to in four different languages) and at a Canadian school for VBS preparation. Either way, I come home with paint stained arms and a huge grin.

God... has been good. Very demanding this last month, showing me just how much I don't let Him into my everyday life. Just how much I've been 'waiting on the next best thing' and not caring enough about life and people *now*. And my friends have helped put concrete nudges (and/or scoldings) to His point that I don't trust enough. So I'm working on that.

I have *seen* my residency card at the bureau... the people say I need one more piece of documentation. I kinda think I already filled it out. Twice. Months ago. But at least I know it does exist in a physical state and after five months of deliberate non-committal to anything, I soon won't have any excuse left. Unless work-travel, that shining star which pretty much lured me into this job, actually starts happening... in which case I may not have to commit to anything here after all. "Oh, sorry, I can't get too involved, I'll be out of country that week. Maybe the next three too. I'll drop by and hug you, lend a hand, when I have the time."

Oh, language. Almost forgot that, as excited as I was about it this week. Apparently, between time length here, the month of intensive class, and deciding I liked it enough to start thinking/singing/talking in it... I've finally gotten the hang of it. No where near fluent, or even half fluent. But I can half-listen to a conversation on a tram and understand most of it. I can ask the lady at the supermarket how she is, and follow the answer. Pick out a mistranslation on subtitling of "Amazing Grace" with the college kids. And I want to take the B1 exam in it before I leave in a year and a half.

Crazy to think I'm already a quarter through my contract. So much more I could have done, could have been. Have honestly wasted so much. For shame, I know. But somehow a lot of the non-committing has worked its way into a foundation (which I've never been good at, by the way) and that leaves me really ready to take on the rest of the time. I normally am gone- or about to leave- a place by the six month mark, and can tell myself, "Hey, not too long now. Just another few weeks." Instead, I'm faced with choices I've never had. Quit, or choose to work through the storms while knowing there will be more.


So, yeah. That's me, this May. Un-cryptic enough for you? Be proud- I've been saying more of what I think lately. But I do have a quote to end on.


'I'm not ready.'
"I'm not either. I never will be....
I'm not going to get it right.
I'll never have it together.
But I'm willing to fail with you.
I'm willing to mess up again and again.
To do it wrong and torque you off.
... I've never kept a relationship long enough to for someone to see I'm a screw-up. I left them wishing for what they saw, left them believing the myth....

I want to be real with you."

- 'Unforgotten', Heitzmann

Houston - we are a go.

Residency is accomplished. Now what am I supposed to do?

Realised what my problem is- lack of distance.

To be a good journalist, I think, you have to maintain a certain distance from the subject.
You have to be able to present the people with a relative amount of outside or overhead perspective. And you have to be able to show the events in a way that relates to the viewers/listeners.

The best kind of journalist, then, is someone who is both an insider and an outsider. An insider to the extent of understanding at least a little of what's going on; an outsider to the extent of relaying the story to other outsiders so they can understand it too. An insider has more understanding, but more responsibility to stay and contribute smoothly. An outsider has carte blanche freedom to ask questions, to be awkward, to come and go as needed.

And while this job - on paper - needed exactly the kind of insider/outsider I am - in person - in real life so far there has not been enough *distance*. Which seems a little counterintuitive, since common logic says a person should move to their place of assignment and settle in. I actually think I might have done better, job-wise, if I had never settled in. I no longer have the edge of 'newness' all around me, and, possibly more dangerous, have no sense of urgency for most of my assignments. A time deadline is knowing today will soon be gone. But a *space* deadline is knowing that *here* will soon be gone. Multitasking is simple. Multi-spacing is not, or not until teleportation is invented.

I'm dependent on events and scheduling for the unconscious moments of life that I can translate back to others. And in the everyday life that I'm slipping into, it's way easier to watch the fireworks on tv than to hunt them down with my own camera. Besides, they'll be there next holiday, right? So will these people, along with the seasons. Once I'm anchored, I can always capture them later. I am getting so comfortable here that it is hard to tell the city's stories. I am getting so close to the people that it is hard to tell their stories.

Because stories wait somewhere between the first handshakes and the last hugs.

"We travellers are in very hard circumstances. If we say nothing but what has been said before us, we are dull and have observed nothing. If we tell anything new, we are laughed at as fabulous and romantic."
- Lady Mary Wortley Montagu

cliche


hi, i'm lost, confused, and blinded
standing two steps from your door
but i stop to ask directions
like everyone who's gone before

i'm a cliche
you invite me in
anyway

i'm too short to see the street signs
i'm too tall too see the curb
until i trip all over
everything that i deserve

then i ask why you're not at eye-level
but i'd push you away if you were
i want to know why you're not here at my side
when i look for you round the next curve

i'm a cliche
you invite me in
anyway

one of these times i'll get it right
i'll learn to bring you the questions first
before i work them out myself
and bask in all the sunrise burst
of what i didn't need to know at all...

and one part just hit too close to home, as it were.

"Do not be afraid, Abram,
I am your shield,
your very great reward."

how awesome of a conversation-beginner is that? God comes to you and says, "you have no home, you've been wandering for decades, and you just survived a war. do not be afraid. I'm protecting you. I will be worth it all for you, what you've been working through is not meaningless."

and what does Abram do? exactly what I do, over and over. exactly what i think and what i *say*, over and over.

"O Lord God, what can you give me since...."

nice way to start a reply. with yourself, right? 'since' becomes the issue, not God or His promises. in Abram's case, it's his lack of children that's stressing him. so they have a whole conversation on that issue, and God promises him heirs, and (finally) "Abram believed the Lord, and He counted it to him as righteousness." dot dot dot.

point being, God promised Abram protection and, more than that, Himself. "I am your reward". trophy at a tournament, princess in the tower, acceptance to ivy league schools or promotion in the military. "I am your reward." who gets God as a prize?

and, more frustrating, why is Abram- why am i- so dense about saying, "never mind about that- WHAT CAN YOU GIVE ME, SINCE..." ???

Today this is my country.

Maybe it has been for a while... maybe it will be more mine later.

But today, through the sunshine, the blizzard, hours exploring, and unpacking bags at the end, it was mine.

Got chased by tractors. Barked at by dogs. Waved at by farmers during kilometres of back road biking and gulping in the beauty and freedom and SPACE. Avoided riding through the puddles (mostly) and came home so tired, but oh so content. New favourite place to escape to, as much as I'm fond of our city.

Hills, real hills- did you grow up in them? Did you ever forget the comfort of not seeing more than a few bends ahead, and then suddenly a whole valley dropping at your feet? Did you round a bend to be surprised by a wayside crucifix with small candles still burning? I spoke out loud before I thought about it- "He's not *dead*! He's not dead anymore, y'all, He's *alive*!" Do you think Jesus objects to tiny quiet places in a northern countryside, to small quiet corners where He's remembered with devotion and delicate purple flowered vines? I think He'd like it. But remember why we remember Him! "Why do you look for Him among the dead? He is not here, HE IS ALIVE!" as the angel said on Easter.

Life, she decided, was settling into a comfortable soundtrack.

The days each had their own arrangement of music, varying from morning to afternoon and sometimes from hour to hour, between the classical orderliness of meetings, easygoing R&B and jazz for working at home, and random outbreaks of hiphop or rock during city adventures.

She had thought- oh so mistakenly- that sometime after her arrival in the country life would settle into a pattern. But there was no rhythm to these days whatsoever. The only solidity at all was that (generally) she and her roommates were asleep between 3 and 7 am. Thanks to the invention of laptops, she could do her work at any hour and at any location (top picks? 11pm while away babysitting, 9am next to the kitchen radiator, and 4pm at the coffeeshop.) Meals were eaten whenever and wherever hunger struck (top picks? a 5pm gyro while riding a bike home, 3am cold cornbread with a book, an orange on the way to volleyball, and noon-ish espressos and crepes on a weekend.)

Food, though, had maintained the magic of community in a shifting life. Some mornings, after long weeks or late nights, the only words spoken were, "Do you want coffee?" Some evenings, "Do you want soup?" was an innocent beginning to hours of hanging out. Inviting friends over for meals - and the subsequent preparation and cleanup - made the often-empty apartment suddenly feel like a home.

The only thing was, she learned... not to expect more than there was. To be content with the serendipity of hot coffee, the occasional hug, and spontaneous adventure offers. And to adopt the motto she found inscribed on an old building - "faber est suae quisque fortunae," Latin for "each man is the maker of his own fortune"....

"Revelation" - Third Day

My life has led me down the road that’s so uncertain
And now I am left alone and I am broken,
Tryin’ to find my way, tryin’ to find the faith that’s gone

This time, I know that you are holding all the answers
I’m tired of losing hope and taking chances,
On roads that never seem,
To be the ones that bring me home

Give me a revelation,
Show me what to do
Cause I’ve been tryin’ to find my way,
I haven’t got a clue
Tell me should I stay here,
Or do I need to move
Give me a revelation
I’ve got nothing without You
I’ve got nothing without You

My life has led me down this path that’s ever winding
Through every twist and turn I’m always finding,
That I am lost again (I am lost again)
Tell me when this road will ever end

I don’t know where I can turn
Tell me when will I learn
Won’t You show me where I need to go
Oh oh
Let me follow Your lead,
I know that it’s the only way that I can get back home

Give me a revelation,
Show me what to do
Cause I’ve been trying to find my way,
I haven’t got a clue
Tell me should I stay here,
Or do I need to move
Give me a revelation
I’ve got nothing without You
I’ve got nothing without You

I have cried three times since I've been here, all in the last thirty days. Normally I can go for months, so I'm going to blame on circumstances. Or lack of. For example, I made it through saying dear goodbyes back in the States without melting down, ditto for a month of intense language school here (in a totally random, slavic language, fyi). Hard but surviveable.

However, when I was told I couldn't have a video camera till later, if at all, I lost it. Cried my eyes out for half an hour, then survived into my sixth or seventh week and was rewarded with a love of a camera. Two, three weeks of happiness... and then my grandfather passed away. That, at least, is a good excuse to cry, mourning the loss of someone who was had such a loving impact on life.

And tonight, I lost it again. But this time, it was not in the privacy of my room, and not for family or work reasons. Out on the evening street, snow falling and mixing with the tears, walking the last bit home so I wouldn't climb on the tram all red-eyed. Or maybe just so they wouldn't think I was drunk, since I was definitely crying and definitely *laughing* out loud.

I found volleyball. Right up the road.

You probably don't want all the details, and unless you're one of a rare few, you likely think that, if a camera's a bad excuse to cry, volleyball's a worse one. But there were guys playing- good ones- and they invited me to come back next week and play. There are womens' volleyball and basketball teams too, but I'm not sure if they're college or club.

Point being, there is nothing on earth like telling God you'll trust Him for friendships and activities in a new culture, working with what you're given, and then suddenly having Him drop something like this in your lap. Amazingness. Even if it does involve tears.

3/2/08

This is home. Ergo, I'm gone.
Up before you, out the door
You left unlocked once more - it sees
A new adventure every day
And anyway, I have my keys

I wipe m feet and come in quiet
Not for me your friendly riot
People grouping, hula hooping
I'll be back some time, no hurry
Out again or in, don't worry.

This my home turf you've adopted
I pick up right where I dropped it
Fancy that- I'm fancy free
Staying here where there you see
Much delighted, less surprised
I'm home
I hope you've realised....

Walking home one day this week, I was thinking about some story I read when I was 11 or 12. A friend accuses an artist of being cold-blooded, throws out the statement, "If someone you loved died, the first thing you'd do would be start sculpting." She doesn't reply. A month or so later, one of her close friends- maybe boyfriend- dies. "I'm sorry," she whispers, and starts sculpting....

So I'm thinking about this story, realising that I'd probably do the same thing. Start looking at old photos, at videos, writing poetry and memories down. My grandfather's been in poor health for a long while, but we've had some last great memories this past year and a half in the States, between my old home in west europe and my new-as-of-january home in east europe.

Really God-timing, because I just got a call from my mom- today he went home, to Heaven. And I know he walked (or flew, or whatever spirits do) up to God with the hugest smile on his face and said, "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith!!!" And God said, "Well, done, good and faithful servant, enter into your Master's joy."

I've never known anyone as consistently faithful. I've met some awesome guys on fire for God, and that was definitely an attraction for me, because I've seen firsthand what it looks like to grow old in that. To share Jesus with total strangers, whether it's a friendly conversation or just a kind word. To interupt and accidentally (or on purpose!) annoy your wife while she's cooking Thanksgiving dinner for sixty three relatives- and then humbly apologise before she can even say anything. To still love that wife enough to pull her aside for a kiss or brag on her after fifty years of marriage. To have time to tease and talk seriously with each grandkid, no matter if they're 22 or 1. To wave your kids off on the plane for overseas, time and time again. To travel overseas to see those kids and your grandkids, and not complain about traveling expenses or annoyances but be honestly excited for them. To help as you can in the community, write letters to the governors and president about political issues you feel strongly about. To be a patriot, and believe in your country, and yet study issues and act in them.

And there's so much more my grandfather was. And I'm not there with my family- all of it- to *celebrate* his life and what we've gained from knowing him, but he knows I loved him, and he was proud of me for coming overseas on my own path. Which is the better for having seen him walk his.

So what do you do when you roll over in bed on a beautiful sunny morning, look out the window on your adopted city, and the first thought that drifts through the glass is, "This is too big for me. What am I *doing* here?"

And what's a wee bit unnerving is that this is happening to me more frequently (not the sunshine, mind you, the question). I hoped that longer I was here and the more I got to know my city, the more ready I'd be to answer that. Because I know I'm here for a reason. It just happens to be Father-sized, and while it's abstractly comforting to know it's not about me, a lot more faith is required. A whole lot. *Reckless faith.* I've started writing that on my wrist (without the period, b/c there are rarely periods after faith) to remind me what's going on. Or at least what should be going on.

I have my job, and I love it, but in some puzzling way it's giving me more questions than it's answering. The more I have permission to bounce in my fun bubble of warm apartment, hilarious roommates, video editing on my computer, and friends at gym and fellowship... the more I look out my window and say, "Today's not going to be enough if I stay in that safety."

Ever heard the song "I AM" by Ginny Owens? "How can I understand/This thing You're gonna do?"/"That's not your problem," God replied/"There's a bigger picture/ And you don't have to change the world /I'm your creator, I am working out my plan
And through you, I will show them ... I AM"

And I think faith is just going to have to be enough, even on sunny days.

Both promised imperfect neighbors. Both boasted emphatic leadership, zealous disciples, and hearty opposition. It wasn't a question of faith or no faith. It was a decision to put his faith in God or man."

- "Echoes", Heitzmann