Lost & Found

Ummmm...I found my coat!

After losing my beautiful (read: functional and loved) waterproof zip-shell Columbia in October and receiving a new raincoat for my birthday last month, the Columbia returned.

I was working at the group home (for the last time before Costa Rica! hurrah!), bonding with one of the few good staff there by cataloging all the things I have lost this year, when Kaluna, the wonderful woman listening so graciously, stopped me.

-Wait. What color was it?
-Light blue.
-What kind?
-Uh, Columbia I think. (Offhand, in an embarrassed kind of way. Nobody at this job is exactly rolling in dough, and here I am misplacing a fairly expensive article of clothing).
-Wait! Wait just a minute. (Goes to a closet I didn't know existed and pulls out...my Coat!)

Back in October when I asked Brooke, the new supervisor, about the coat in reference to the lost&found location, she wished me luck and told me someone had probably stolen it.

Apparently Kaluna came across it when she was looking for a coat for a resident, but she knew it didn't belong to any of them because there was no name plastered in permanent marker across the tag. There it was, hung in the closet, and it even looked like someone had thrown it into one of the six million loads of wash we do every day. The wolf pin I found on the beach this summer is still attached.

Stolen indeed.

New Year's Resolution: sew my name into all my clothes, in order to assist the goodwilled people of the world in returning my things when I lose them.

Fort Flood

Bad news: the heating system at the Fort has malfunctioned--a pipe broke on Sunday night, flooding the Resident Director's office and a GRACE room with water, flowing from the 2nd floor and hitting the electrical system, which started a lovely chemical-scented sauna of steam/smoke. Fire dept arrived at midnight. At 6am, another pipe burst into a shower over one of the Benincasa guest rooms down the hall. The Fort has been transformed into a wind tunnel lined with furniture and fans. I'm moving out this week--glad to get out in case of mold, to which I am allergic, but sad to leave BC in such disrepair.

though i am heavy

I part the out thrusting branches
and come in beneath
the blessed and the blessing trees.
Though I am silent
there is singing around me.
Though I am dark
there is vision around me.
Though I am heavy
there is flight around me.

-Wendell Berry

Dear Tender Reader,

I'll be taking a vaca from the blog. The end of the semester calls an end to my daily posts, but do not fear, oh faithful readers of cyberspace, these trivial musings will continue in Costa Rica. Read on.

The Dark in the Middle of the Tunnel

Last night we took the tunnel to the Motherhouse and Sister Kathi decided not to turn the lights on. When I came through on my way back to the Fort, I decided to walk it in the dark alone.

What a thrill. I have always loved being in the dark by myself. We used to go on Night Walks at Silver Lake, ten little girls holding hands in a line. I always wanted to let go and hang back, to be swallowed by the silence and the solitude.

I almost got lost in the woods there one summer. Around midnight I was heading back to my cabin without a flashlight. We don't have that much lighting at camp, but the stars are usually enough. When you get into the tree cover, you can usually look up and find the trail's mirror image where the sky shows. Farther back though, the branches grow across to meet each other, and tree roots make a footpath feel like forest floor. No one had remembered to turn on the porch light at Juniper, so I shuffled along deeper into the woods, hoping I was following the curves of the path and not walking in circles, until its dark sides vaguely materialized.

Walking through a dark tunnel is easy. Even if you can't see your feet, you just have to keep putting one in front of the other. One day, I might try running.

Balog Saga

GOOD NEWS:
President Balog and his Cabinet (I have no idea who comprises this governmental body, but it sounds important) fully support the proposal Adam and I submitted to expand Aquinas' non-discrimination policity.

Not only that, but they want to go even farther.

Adam met with Balog yesterday, and said that Balog talked about updating student, staff, and faculty hiring and admission policies to protect gender and sexual orientation issues.

Woah!

Now the Board just has to bite.

The proposed changes will be up for debate in January at the next Board meeting.

Drill

The other day we tested the new fire alarm at Aquinata.

The old one sounded like a doorbell or a mellow cell phone.

The new installment is properly aggravating, but the "ding dong" of the old alarm still rings ironically above it.

During the fire drill, Sister Kathi brought out hot chocolate and a charcoal grill, over which we roasted marshmallows.

Best fire drill ever.

How can I keep from singing

Driving without music is weird for me. Since my car radio is broken, I tend to sing a cappella a lot when I'm traveling. The oddest snippets of songs emerge out of the silence. Today, a few lines of an old hymn that happens to describe this urge to sing:

"My life flows on in endless song...
I hear the music ringing;
It finds an echo in my soul--
How can I keep from singing?"

Lazy Day

Sometimes, instead of doing anything productive, you decide to watch Harry Potter on TV.

You know you might regret it later.

But you probably won't.

Crip Power!

Crip Theory: Cultural Signs of Queerness and Disability by Robert McRuer is a queer reading of disability studies (or is it a disability reading of queer theory?...not sure, but so interesting!).

Here's a quote cited in the first chapter from Gloria Anzaldua, a black feminist, from her 1981 book This Bridge Called My Back:

"We are the queer groups, the people that don't belong anywhere, not in the dominant world nor completely within our own respective cultures. Combined we cover so many oppressions. But the overwhelming oppression is the collective fact that we do not fit, and because we do not fit we are a threat."

Jon has complained about "not fitting." I wonder if he has ever considered this as a form of power.

God Hates Fags?

I think the Sister I see for spiritual direction (a member of the Catholic church who leads me in Buddhist meditations and believes she might meet a Muslim in heaven) is an LGBT ally.

There is hope for this world!

Synchronicity?

On Monday night, I dreamed of ghosts. My dream self, like my real self, puts little stock in the paranormal. While inside a purportedly "haunted" house, my dream self dared the ghosts to prove their existence.

Something physical, I qualified. Make me levitate.

In a split second, I was upside down, suspended by my hair. This vivid sensation remained with me when I woke up.

On Monday afternoon when I started my car, my very-much-demolished casette player spoke. This tape player ate my CD/MP3 converter four months ago. My brother, in taking it apart to fix it, broke the radio too. Unable to extract the tape, he left the entire console disassembled and left for college. I driven hundreds of miles in complete silence since.

Two days ago, when I turned the key, the car meekly surrendered the tape.

Unwilling to challenge anything that might grab me by the hair, I accepted the offering with a "thank you."

I may have heard the faintest echo of a chuckle.

Advent Alive

Yesterday was the beginning of Advent, the 25 day season of anticipation, longing, and waiting before Christmas. At Anchester House (which is named after the street, by the way), we reflected on a passage from Isaiah. My favorite lines: "we are withered like leaves"--which is how I feel in winter at the end of a semester (limp, worn out, sucked dry)--and "we rouse to cling to you." I love the word "rouse," the idea of getting up in the middle of the night, of becoming more childlike, more alive. And "cling"--hold me, God. Hold me together in the busyness. Keep me alive.