Miles

I am never separated from people anymore, even when I fly far away from them.

Not that it's not different, being friends with someone faraway as opposed to someone close, but I have a cell phone and a webcam and so does most everyone I know; we don't lose each other.

So I only leave places, not people, which is maybe why it hurts so much: because I'm not used to having to give one thing up to have another, but that's what you have to do when you go, because we still haven't figured out how to be in all the places we love at once.

I'm a San Franciscan; it comes naturally to me to think of leaving my heart when I leave places I love (we have that song and all). And it hurts, like I imagine it used to hurt when you left a person you loved: an obsolete ache that has been felt by too much of humanity for too much of history to dissipate so quickly — so it echoes.

Escaping / (freedom is seeing what is)

"it is looking in the mirror. seeing what's there. not seeing what your mind sees. seeing what is physically in front of you. that reflection is ok. that reflection is perfect. that is what you learn. and you keep looking. at each limb. at each freckle. at each hair. at each curl. each wrinkle. each line. each curve. and you look. and you see. and you learn. you are more than enough. you have the strength to be you.

"focus not on the walls but the gaps in the fences. for they are always there."

– Liv

A letter from Jeanima: 3/24/2012

text:

Jeanima is very pleased to write you this letter. She greets you in Jesus' name. Her family and she are doing well. She's doing well in school. She got her passing grade in the first term exams. People are rebuilding a part of the church. Do you have any gardens? Please pray God to guide her in everything she does. She is praying God to keep you safe and healthy in everything you do. She wishes you Happy Easter 2012. May God's peace be with you!

As always, if you have ever helped pay her sponsorship fees, consider it addressed to you.

Following my feet

Sometimes I just need to get outside, and my feet know exactly where to go.

A confession regarding travel

I am torn about going to Ireland this year...I am always torn about international travel, since early in 2010 when I made a decision to reconsider it.*

I have a sense that international travel has become the new "doesn't count as consumerist" consumer good for Classy, Educated, otherwise non-acquisitive people.

But I don't think it is an unquestionably fine choice to make. And while I pass no judgment on you, it's really important to me to be consistent in practicing what I believe.

There the issue of environmental realism, for one. Flying from one continent to another uses up a lot of petroleum (see also: oil wars) and emits some truly nefarious gases.

There is the question of how I, a person who aspires to live simply and in a way that does not belie my support for economic redistribution, ought to earn and use money.

I want to practice contentment. I don't want to consume senselessly, even of things like travel that I really enjoy. I don't want to accept my entitlement to do things that, in the equitable world where we could all afford to do them, would be environmentally unfeasible for everyone to do.

Certainly what one person chooses to do has little effect on the rest of the world, but still. Impact aside, being consistent, asking the questions, makes me much happier than having everything I "want" does.

I still have not made a permanent decision about international travel, but the question and the unease will not leave me alone. (It's part of the reason why I turned down the internship in Uganda last summer.) So I take it seriously.


*I say "international" because in a USian context that's mostly synonymous with intercontinental/really long-distance. I'm not sure where I would draw the lines.