It has the stale must of centuries before at the edges of the fabric, browning, hardening, and unwilling to leave. And yet, it is new. It is the most brilliant breath of fresh air that has ever graced the lips of those who feel as though they have suddenly awoken from a deep sleep. It is their awakening. It is their moment where the world doesn’t look different, but simply more defined. The blur has gone. Crystal-clear focus. Greeting everything and everyone for the first time all over again. The point of no return.

“That she was seeing with different eyes and making the acquaintance of new conditions in herself that colored and changed her environment, she did not yet suspect.”

I’ve realized that you can’t declare a personal “awakening”, you can’t demand it. It simply answers a question you have yet to ask. It’s as if it’s been an imagined shadow following you for years.

The corners of eyes alert you, and with a sharp turn you spin to see nothing but what was there a moment ago. For the briefest of seconds you can see it. You cry out “Ah-ha! I found you!” And just as quickly, you exhale- disappointed, you couldn’t have been wrong. There is substance to this tug in your gut, the chills in your palms, and it has been hiding in the soles of your feet this whole time.

There is a thread. A conversation spoken sometimes in whispers, sometimes in loud screams of frustration or excitement. Late in the night and early in the morning, there are secrets and joys being shared with abandon. Sometimes we feel beautiful despite it all, and sometimes there is shame- the anxiety and expectations of the world knock hard on the door and we let it in. There are mountains and there are valleys, there are puddles and there are rouge waves, there are Tuesdays and there are moments so fragile we’re afraid to breathe. I wish the world could see the truth that emulates form this sacred place, but the world does not want it. It seeks to destroy it, to tame it.

“I had the craziest dream last night. I was dancing the white swan.”

People have often said to me, “there is such beauty in the broken”. I’ve always hated this saying. It makes it sound as if we’re simply trying to find a way to make the ugly pretty, to throw make-up over the busted and damaged just to make everyone else feel more comfortable with it. We can’t get rid of it and we don’t want to deal with it so we might as well try to make it look good.

But maybe the brokenness is beautiful all on it’s own. Maybe the brokenness doesn’t need a makeover. Maybe, just maybe, the damaged just need to be heard for who they are, for what they are, not for what they could be.

The good, the bad, the shameful, the regretful, the hopeful. We are broken. We are damaged. We are busted.

And we revel in it. 

Let them tell you that you shouldn’t shine so bright, shouldn’t talk so loud, shouldn’t take up so much space in the world, they’re merely dreaming.

“There was something about the island that made the girls forget who they had been. All those rules and shalt nots. They were no longer waiting for some arbitrary grade. They were no longer performing. Waiting. Hoping.

They were becoming.

They were.”

While I watched Princess Catherine wave gracefully to her admirers, sitting next to her new husband, the future King of England, I couldn’t help but be baffled by the surreality of it all. Maybe it was because I had only slept for four hours and I insisted on wearing a plastic tiara that was cutting off circulation to my eyes.

I think, however, that the main culprit lies with the fact that I allowed myself to separate from reality, and enter into a world that could not harm me, could not hold me down, or put me in a box. I allowed myself to let Kate’s reality become my surreality.

I remember the first time my fantasy world collided with reality. I was four and it was a hot summer day. I went out to my driveway and waited for my neighbor to join me in my plan to hi-jack our garden hose and run under it the ice-cold water. After some time passed, and I was no longer amused by my collection of sidewalk chalk, I decided to go looking for him. As I rounded the corner of his house I saw a tent sitting on top of the browning grass. His platinum blonde hair was barely visible through the mesh, but it was certainly his, so I went inside. The thick smell of must and mothballs surrounded me and I could already feel the sweat dripping down my neck as I zipped the tent back up and sat down across from my newly-found friend.

“Why are you in here?” I asked, already mildly irritated that I left my chalk for a pop-up sauna.

“I didn’t feel like playing.”

“Why?”

“My grandpa died today”

I remember not being able to comprehend this statement. We sat there in silence for a few moments as I tried to mill over what he meant. To me, the solution was obvious.

“Why don’t you just go dig him up?”

“I already asked, my dad said I can’t. He’s in there forever.”

Forever.

I distinctly remember the images that flashed in my mind. A small blonde boy with a shovel, pushing dirt aside as his Grandpa jumped out of the ground with a smile on his face (apparently I found this picture endearing and not creepy-as-hell)…as if it had all been a big game of hide and go seek.

Because, up until then, that’s all life had been to me, a game that no-one could lose. Chutes and ladders, without the chutes. I had no time or patience or this rain reality was bringing to my parade.

I was angry, and I was afraid.

The world had told me “no” and there was nothing I could do about it.

If his grandpa was gone, where were we? Would we be here forever? Could we find him? Why was there no other possible solution?

We cannot go back. The world turns and we cannot stop it.

Some people spend their whole lives trying to resurrect the “used-to-be”s. People who have found themselves trapped because they’d rather not open their eyes at all, then open them and see only photographs.  An existence that will always be hollow.

And sometimes I’m afraid that I’m not much different. Afraid that I am one disillusioned decision away from those who cannot move on because they are lost in the dream of how it was. Unable to except the reality I’ve been given.

I have no idea how I got here,  7 short days from graduating college, but yet, here I am. Covered in battle wounds that have been forged and healed by the past 22 years of my life. Glorious chaos.

Our experiences and our stories define who we are, they’ve made us. I think we fear reality because we know it will change things, and in turn, it will change us…and we are helpless to stop it. We cannot demand that the world from spinning. We can’t control the air we breathe, the sun that rises and sets, or the car that swerves out of it’s lane directly in front of us.

But the beauty of all of it is that, life will always go on. We’ll always be transitioning, growing, changing- and the sooner we come to embrace that, the quicker we are able to slow down our lives and embrace the moment our feet are standing in. We start to be able to understand that (in the words of Libba Bray) “to those who will see, the world waits”. For those who are looking for it, there will always be opportunity for what your soul needs.

Some people say it’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey. I would argue it’s more about how we lace our shoes.

So I will wake up on the morning of May 7th 2011 and accept that there is no re-start button. I’ll turn my tassel knowing that there is so much I do not know, so much to discover, and that this is only the beginning of many moments that will change things forever with or without my consent.

Huzzah.

Cinnamon and plum steam engulfing my face. The clank of the descending escalators taking me to a train that urges me to keep up.

But that story has been told. Substitute different memories, agendas, schedules for that most fitting.

We thought 18 was borderline ancient and we celebrated our moment in time.

On the back steps in a neighborhood in downtown Chicago. Barely able to breathe in the muggy summer night. We thought we would save the world, prove everybody wrong. You could almost drown in the youth of it all.

The backseat of a convertible that may as well have been flying. Standing ovations and arms full of flowers, unstoppable.

Sitting along a basin of glistening water, hidden from the chaos of tourism. The world was so quiet, it was all ours. Sharing the air only with people that treasured me as much as I did them.

So where does that leave you?

Sitting in a coffeeshop in a strange, yet familiar, city. Dis-placed, foreign. Because despite how disconnected you feel, you secretly believe that we are all more responsible for one another than we’d like to admit.

How do we move on when it feel like the moments of the past are a dream? When we know by tomorrow, today will also be fading. Time stops for no-one, hurt is hurt, and all of this relativity is damn near suffocating.

Today is a day that I wish I had it all figured out. That I could sit here and have a sky-opening, world-shattering moment of clarity. Instead, I have a jumble of choices, begging to get to know one another.

I’m frustrated because being fully present doesn’t seem accessible in the places we call home, and with it, contentment decides to hide it’s face as well.

I guess there’s always tomorrow.

Today I wake up a little less broken than the day before.

And it’s with that she let her right foot drag behind ever so slightly as the thoughts collided with her at the crosswalk. This was no time to pause. It was time to move. The mundane had seemingly (without her consent or awareness) began to change into a redundant teenage drug scene from an over-rated 90′s romantic comedy. Swirling and loud she knew it wasn’t profound, but it was the happening of the hour. Why did it have to be meaningful? Was it possible to go through the day with shallow thoughts and replaceable actions? Starting over the next day with no roll-over.

And those virgin eyes had only heard the stories of the darkness, stolen glances from the storybooks of less fortunate friends.

‘There are things we can and things we cannot keep’ she reminds herself. She silently debated if this was a mantra full of longing or full of joy as the door seemed to push open of it’s own accord.

How does someone begin to deal with the madness of this world? What a recycled question continually thrown behind a shoulder of a discouraged thinker caught immediately by the next curious and newly wide-eyed student.

Her mind was moving faster than what seemed possible, but there was such beauty in the impossibility. It’s obvious how people get trapped in fantasies, a mental Disneyland-esq escape from the confusion that follows the countless stories of suffering.

But she could fly and the air was so new.

Stuck behind old bars she must endure

An exit nothing more

than a familiar dream

Where is the wind

She used to know

‘Better to have loved and lost’

The newly caged bird says,

‘Than to have never

tasted the sky at all’

The others in cages near-by

convinced they are free

because trapped is all they know

‘Oh, what chaos’

She laughs,

‘If we all experienced flight’

‘How are they content with this metal?’

She asks herself.

Pacing back and forth

As they dream of their finite world

This cage is gilded and glitters

But it is still a cage.

I know why the caged bird sings.

She is alone

She is beyond what the world sees

And she has a new song to show for it

But no one will listen

Naive little birds,

Your wings defy captivity,

And yet you leave them rusting by your side.

The caged bird has a song

Because no one believes

She has anything else to say

They’ve never ridden through the clouds

Or tasted a frigid night

And her love affair with the sky

is disregarded as fantasy

They didn’t like her old lyrics

But they knew it by heart

Deaf to her new ideas and dreams

“Your mouth should only move,”

They taunt

“If it is the same as before”

A revolution to her renaissance

So I know why the caged bird sings

Because I keep her locked up in my heart

The world I’m in is not

Trustworthy enough to cherish her.

So until then,

I keep her trapped under lock and key

Until I find someone okay with

Who I have come to be.

(Thank you Maya Angelou for inspiration and for understanding the sorrow of both caged and free birds)

I wish I could explain the chaos bouncing off the interior of my ribs. It’s simply unstoppable. I feel like it may consume me without any notice. Goodbye life as I’ve known it.

I’ve been spat back into the old sandbox and it’s terrifying. I can’t play here anymore, I don’t belong. I’m so much more than when I walked away and this sandbox is far too small.

Below me is 5th avenue Beaver Falls with far less traffic than I’ve been used to the last few months. And this is home. The world is quiet here, but the silence feels louder than I bargained for.

It truly is a new beginning. The idea of tomorrow is such an unknown factor right now. It’s only this hour that exists to me.

One at a time.

One at a time.

One at a time.

One sticky summer night I was crouched low in the grass surrounded by my team mates. The only way we could retrieve the flag we desired so badly was to wait until the moment was right and charge full force, the entire ragtag militia into the stomping grounds of our enemies. We waited, the night air thick of humidity and fireflies. Each breath was precious and I was sure this was how the trenches of WWI must have felt (I was really into historical fiction as a kid).

Suddenly, despite our well-thought out task, a terrible thing happened. Half of our group, perhaps tired of a lack of action, or for that matter, unaware of the impact of the action of silence, ran to the other side. My loud whispers were frantic and full of disbelief as I tried to get them to stay, but they wouldn’t listen, they were determined to do it on their own. Within 5 minutes the game was over, and we had lost.

DC is full of choices.

Are you a democrat or are you a republican?

Are you working for the government or for a non-profit?

Black or white, rich or poor, powerful or powerless?

Never will you find another place that makes a better poster-child for polarization.

Everyday, this city wakes up to fight for what they believe in. But very few are ever fighting for the idea that maybe, just maybe, both sides could be believing the same things. Unity and compromise take a back seat to the god of being right.

Before I came here, I had seen a lot of things. I had seen hunger, spoken with people who did not know where their next meal would come from. I had seen poverty that made my head spin, homelessness, depression, those who had been orphaned.

Yet, the nations capitol has shown me something I had never been exposed to.

Extremism.

It was something I had heard of before, myths made up by newscasters to get better ratings. And yet I have never found the words of JFK upon his inauguration more appropriate “When we got into office, the thing that surprised me the most was that things were as bad as we’d been saying they were”.

For the first time I have had to witness an nightmarishly large amount of people who spend ALL of their time and energy yelling and spewing hate because they are too blinded by their own pride to admit that maybe there’s something to the idea of working together. They are victims of fear and ignorance creating a ripple effect that leads to more and more division.

I spent a lot of time here imagining what the world would look like if Christians acted by the title they take on so lightly. The truth is, that many in the church are following the disciplines of their faith, they are loving ALL not just the white upper middle class heterosexuals. They see no difference because they are humble enough to know that they are just as broken as the next man. And as the guilt and anger pile on as I watch these people crush the beauty of the faith I hold dear, I want to stand on my own street corner and proclaim the truth.

But I know that is not the answer. You truly cannot fight fire with fire.

I have choices just like this city. I’m choosing to leave it and seek unity.

It’s not about what side you’re on, it’s about refusing to demonize that which you do not fully understand or that which is new to you.

Half of the battle of finding peace is just being willing to see it.

“People are often unreasonable and self-centered. Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of ulterior motives. Be kind anyway.
If you are honest, people may cheat you. Be honest anyway.
If you find happiness, people may be jealous. Be happy anyway.
The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway.
Give the world the best you have and it may never be enough. Give your best anyway.
For you see, in the end, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.”
- Mother Teresa

I have said farewell to so many  faces, neighborhoods, and histories that I will never be able to revisit, and now, I slowly prepare to begin the next phase of my journey. The light at the end gets brighter.

Nomads tend to have problems stopping.

We started out fumbling…

All of us confused and scared, abandoned in a new world full of fast moving trains and ladders of life that we will only get the chance to dust the bottom rung of. Yet, this is where we placed ourselves, and we made due.

We pitched our tents on this uneven and unforgiving ground, lying awake at night gazing at the blue and red of police lights come together to make a beautiful purple on the ceiling above us. Our eyes closed but our mouths kept moving, whispering prayers to make this place a place where we belong.

Now we can do nothing but move forward and we find ourselves craving those standstill moments where seconds were hours. Rumble away metro, you carry my insecurities in your cars.

Self-discovery is a funny thing because I’m finding that it always discovers you and efforts to find it are humiliatingly futile.

I’m changing, and I will never be who I was again. It’s an odd feeling to say goodbye to friends, or rooms, or cities, but it’s an even stranger feeling to say goodbye to yourself, to parts of you that you thought would be with you forever.

“People always remain in unnecessary corners” – Freya Stark

Well, I can’t promise a complete lack of symbolism.

So far things have been unexpected to say the least.

I am astonished by how much I have to learn about everything. I’m not even talking red lines, transfers, and bus schedules. I am so clueless about my next step, for the first time in a long time. And yet, for the first time in a long time, I feel like I am seeing clearly.

These days aren’t groundbreaking, in fact they are hot and full of miles and miles of walking, but they are days in a new place that I am realizing will be behind me before I know it.

I continue to have visions of a month from now when getting groceries and riding the metro will become mundane and probably annoying, when this place will not feel like camp but home. And then, at the same time, I hope these things never get old. This place has drawn me to it’s ever-moving chaos  for 15 weeks. 105 days to explore and learn.

So many chances to make it all worth it.

I do miss Geneva, yet I have never in my life been more sure of the certainty that I am exactly where I need to be.

I’ve always known, to some extent, what the next step will look like… that luxury was left at home with the clothes that wouldn’t fit in my suitcase.

My thoughts move as fast as the metro in rush hour, prone to be interrupted by delays and crowds.

and once again the unknown and I deepen our friendship.

I love it here. The contrast of extreme power and extreme poverty and finding myself somewhere in the middle of the rush.

I forced myself to walk slowly today. I’m done giving into urgency. I want to admire the color of every town house, the bold blues and reds. I want to be sure of the cobblestones beneath my feet and I want to give credit to every streetlamp for guiding me home. This place is only what you make it.

The picture above is the view from the roof of my building. Every-time I open the door to the outside air, I feel the stillness, and i know that I know nothing about tomorrow.

and i love it.

The smell of movement refusing the art of ceasing is enough to enlighten any sense of boredom or monotony.

Change it up, as scary as it might be. Shake it up, despite all your fears.

Get up.

Wake up.

Feel the steady beat.

I’m ready, but not in the least.

The word adventure brings a smile to my face.