and we stare at the sun.

The poetry may not be coming, but the thoughts are, thronging in by the hundred thousand, making me question myself, the things I hold dear, and most importantly, the things that I don't. I feel like I'm staring at the sun, gazing into the most glorious thing I can think of in sheer desperation for some motive or inspiration to move forward. I am static; stationary but never still.

So, let's talk through a few of the things that have happened this week, or, better said, are in the process of happening. Pardon my wars with semantics.

On Sunday my parents came into town, on their way out of it. From Sunday to Friday, our 5 precious last days, they are here spending all of my free moments with me. Today is Thursday.

I feel now like I have something to offer an orphan: a simple "I understand."


Monday night I got my world rocked by Andy Marin, a guy who wrote a book called "Love is an Orientation" and who has dedicated his life to living among and serving the LGBT community. Whoa, right? Who does that? Not a lot of Christians these days. I'm still really struggling through what ministry without compromise would look like in a situation like that, and yet I feel drawn to the oft-misunderstood and ultimately the hurting.

Andy brought up four people who were either gay or lesbian and Christian as well, which I found to be an interesting combination. (I've never really known how far those two could really intersect. I remain confused.) These 4 wonderful people came and talked to us and these 4 wonderful people broke my heart. How can we not see them and love them? How can we reject them and turn them away?

At the same time, none of them were anywhere near where they probably "should be". All of them honestly believe that God will supply someone for them in the future (except for, of course, the bi Roman Catholic monk), same-sex or otherwise. I can't imagine being in their shoes or needing that kind of mental fortitude, and yet...

It's the "and yet" that gets me.

Sunday night we had a belated birthday party for me, which was fun and dysfunctional. We invited both brother floors, which was very lucid of us. Everyone left about midnight, and that's when my Mexican brother and his hippie friend showed up for some late-night pizza and jam session. It was totally impromptu, which is always the best, and we got to hear the angelic tunes of a folk master in hiding. (That would be the hippie boy.) We conjured up some three-part harmonies and some cool new friendships in the meanwhile. It was like our old Sunday nights all over again. My parents are so good at this hospitality thing, this loving kids thing... and I guess I just don't fully understand.

Why leave something you can do so well?
Why leave somewhere where you already making a profound difference?

I guess it's not mine to understand. It's their call, not mine.

Still.

Wednesday night we repeated Sunday night, although this night was much more intensely worshipful. Mom and Dad went to SMF first, and got prayed for hardcore. It was great - I even prayed for them aloud - and that's not something I typically do. Then we went back to the apartment, and there was hippie boy with his guitar, and Mexican brother too. We grabbed a couple guitars and a djembe and rocked out with some mad vocals.

I have to learn how to play the guitar. This is getting ridiculous. Music is my passion and I can't accompany?! Things have got to change.

Everyone left, but hippie boy stayed for a little bit longer, running a couple circles in my mind. He did it again this morning, which was rather an inconsiderate thing for him to do. I told him to stop, and hopefully he did.

and we stare at the sun.
You'd think we would notice our eyes were burning out.

Stop this train

Stop the train

I just want off

I just want to sit on my paint-chipped bench and feel the breeze and close my eyes and sleep.

I don’t want to fight and I’m tired of the edge. Forever almost-toppling has lost the aura of wild and new; it’s all just danger to me now. My rhyme and my jive and my smooth talk have died. My fake strong is all gone and I don’t want to be free

I’ve been 35 days at the job, and I have morphed quickly into the neurotic, nail-biting, never-say-never, wannabe reporter that must’ve been hiding inside me all this time. I’m reaching for the stars – or at least interviews with them. I have way too many ideas and not enough follow-through, but I’d rather be passionate than a really good employee. Not that I’m bad, and I’m amazed at my own actress capability in the professional field – today I’m wearing high-waist black pants, a blue turtleneck, a vest, and open-toed heels. I took a good look at myself in the bathroom today, which I try to refrain from doing on a regular basis, and saw a librarian staring right back at me. She surprised me, but I wasn’t exactly repulsed. There was something strangely natural about seeing her there. And yes, I do comprehend the oxymoron that I just fearlessly utilized.

Trouble is, I don’t know if I can write anymore.

What am I doing, trying to be an adult? What made me think I could do this? Since when are you any kind of writer? Take your pick from the latest sampling of questions plaguing my consciousness. It’s funny – I always thought that humility was supposed to be some sort of life-choice, but it’s becoming obvious that the choosing was done for me. (Wow, what doctrine does that sound like?) I have no choice but this meager, blind, step-by-mini-step lifestyle. This does repulse me.

Growing up is hard. Can I just put that out there? At the risk of unmasking my thinly veiled childishness, I have to say it.

I’ve acquired the all-too-easy yuppie addiction to caffeine, and my twice daily visits around the divider to the cubicle with the pot seem like something out of a now-clichéd existentially inclined movie, with the protagonist some sorry accountant in some other sorry cubicle surrounded by a world of grey and office blue. I try to envision the room with some red or gold or russet in the walls; some warm tones to make us look more human. Warm tones tend to bring out blushing cheeks and sparkling eyes and laughter; warm tones tend to play down the spots and the pimples and that spare tire we all inevitably have, in varying sizes. Not that we’re really afflicted with the cold tones here either – the lights are white and bright and sparkling, like so many revealing hospital lamps. They’re rebuilding something on this building, but it’s too far up for us to see anything but the cranes and platforms it takes to get there, and little splashes of paint and cement are the only window decorations for our only window. They accent the forever overcast sky nicely.

I sound like a downer. A total downer. I should really be ashamed of myself. I really should.