This isn't quite the time I had imagined to be spending in Houston. Sitting around planning when to devour the ice-cream I've been anxious to taste since I found out about its existence. Being marooned in a city that's too big for anyone's good. Feeling dehydrated of all energy, just wanting a cool dark rock to disappear under.
I'm shedding a skin here in Houston. Or at least in the process of beginning to grow a new one. Houston has been a great desert for reflection. It has been a vast lonely hell in which to weep and gnash my teeth. Somewhere between a retreat and the laziest I've felt in a while.
I'm listening to Death Cab's new single You Are a Tourist. It sums up how I feel sweetly. In particular:
and if you feel just like a tourist in the city you were born Then it's time to go And define your destination There's so many different place to call home
This week I feel like I've had some meaningful correspondences with a few people. I called Bren earlier this week and I spilled out all the thoughts I'd been having vocation-wise. Over the weekend I had written to David a very long lamenting email (appropriate for the supposed end of the world) and received a reply from him today. Every day I read Kathy's blog wishing I was there to bask in her awesome insightfulness. It all makes me miss South Bend, where no one is trying to argue that the over digitized fluff on the radio is real music, or that modeling is meaningful, or that the Catholic church is perverse and evil, or that community is some impossible ideal.
I've never felt so aware of what an idealist I am. So much so that my ideals have become my reality. Here I hear people talk about saving up to buy condos so that they can live luxuriously alone. My friends in South Bend always talk about buying houses that they can use to build community and offer hospitality in. You know, when I first moved into the Worker I was really nervous, so nervous I put off showering for a couple of days. Insert something about being laid bare within a community. But I remember the day I took my first shower there. I might have even washed my hair. At the time the second floor bathroom had an amazing shower head that made you feel like you were showering in a rainforest or under a waterfall. And from that point showers became part of my litmus test for the homeyness of a place.
Jess's shower was great for singing. The Peace House shower had that great world map shower curtain. Mara's shower featured body wash from Trader Joe's. Suzanne's shower has the most amazing shower head, several settings. But sometimes I have to take two showers a day here and it doesn't ever feel like home. Warm showers, more likely cold showers, singing, not singing. Nothing. Oh well.
In a semi related vein, apart from the holy spirit that dwells in each of us, I don't think there is anything more perfect than water. We went swimming in James's parents' pool last week. And it was incredible. I'm found of telling Stacy "I just want to be in the water!" I love the ethereal weightless feeling you get from being in the water. And I think Sheila should start an aqua yoga class. And I really can't wait to possibly be dipped into the Atlantic Ocean. I think the thing I love most about water is its immense symbolism. In the Tao te Ching, the analogy of stone being eroded or smoothed by a stream is used as an example of how the soft overcomes the hard. Water is essential liturgically.
This has rambled on enough.
"Sing, if you can sing, and if not still be musical inside yourself."
--Mary Oliver, More Evidence
Location:Wisteria St,Bellaire,United States
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