Back at This Thing

Spanish film paper must get done tonight. Still have my abolitionist, feminist, romantic paper in the works. Gotta finish that puppy up too (not tonight, but real soon).

I'm having some late nights, no doubt. Actually, I'm going to be nonstop until Thanksgiving break, pretty much. But thank God I haven't had this overwhelming feeling of despair. Seriously, thank you, God for that.

I'm feeling like, I should be freaking out right now. I should be feeling overwhelmed right now. But I have this feeling of like, it's going to get done. And it has been getting done, and it will get done. I thank God for just . . . I dunno, general calmness.

I really don't miss freaking out. And I don't want that freakoutingness to ever inhabit my mind again. Thank you for calm, focus and peace. And sweet chai tea to keep me awake.

Feminist, Abolitionist, Romantic Cuban Writer Ahead of Her Time

Ah, Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda, little did you know that one day your radical little 19th century novel that you tried to front on (yeah, we know you tried to act like you didn't write that junk when you conveniently left it out of your "Complete Works" that you published later) would be the cause of internal anguish for a poor little first semester PhD student with a propensity for procrastination trying to forge her way through the vast, unfamiliar land of the upper echelons academia.

I like you, Gertrudis, I do. I think we would've been friends. I would have called you Gert. Wassup, Gert! Gert-TAY, what you up to, girl? Oh, lamenting your life because Ignacio de Cepeda's being a jerk? Forget about that guy, girl. He ain't worth it. I mean, his name is Ignacio. Boo. Super unsexy name. Gert, I read this little passage you wrote in your diary, and I hope you don't mind that I share it with everybody. I think it embodies what a passionate, misunderstood woman you were, bound by the limitations of your gender and the expectations of your society:

"Where is the man who could fulfill the desires of this sensibility as fiery as it is delicate? I have looked for him for nine years in vain; in vain! I have met men; men, all similar to each other: none before whom I could prostrate myself with respect and tell him enthusiastically: 'You will be my God on earth; you are the absolute master of this passionate soul.'"

Gert, you are no joke, are you girl? A little dramatic, but I feel you. It's that Romanticism, I know. Anyway, back to my paper about your novel. If you only knew what a fuss we're all making about you now!

The One Thing I Can't Control

I haven't done the single thing in a while, but here we go.

One of my FB friends posted this article link from Relevant, and I thought it was pretty spot on. Spot on as in, this is exactly how I feel. What I like about this article is that it's not a lament; rather, it articulates exactly why being single has proven frustrating to me in the past. Because it's the one thing I can't control.

I feel like I'm just now realizing what it means to trust God. To finally let go of the reins. It's had to do with the move, I know it does. Like somehow, moving here, to literally start something new was a physical manifestation of a spiritual move God was working out in my life. Making this move was actually finally refusing to give in to a certain fear that I'd harbored for a long time—that if I made another move and committed more years of my life towards pursing something as time consuming and challenging as a PhD, that it would plunge me back into instability and take me even further from finally "settling down." Honestly, the control thing in my life was not limited to my singleness, and the author makes a point of that in the article. I like this quote:

"There is nothing more gracious than areas of our lives that remind us that we don’t have control. Praise the Lord that I don’t have control over my marital status. The pain of losing control reminds me that I actually never had control – in any aspect of my life. Some of you reading that might find it offensive, but it’s so gloriously liberating."

I never had control in the first place. It's almost funny. And it is gloriously liberating.

When we were little, my dad used to play this game with us. We loved the Christopher Reeve Superman movies and my dad used to make us think we could use our "powers" to change the TV channel. We would make a laser sound, point our hands in that way you do when you have powers towards the screen, and the channel would change. We'd do it again, and the channel would change again. We didn't know that dad was secretly using the remote control to do it. Then when he'd get tired of changing the channel, we'd use our "powers" again, but the channel wouldn't change. And then we'd get frustrated. "Dad! My powers aren't working anymore!" But we were never the ones doing it in the first place. We never had "powers." Dad was controlling it all along.

This is not to say that we do not have the power of choice. Even when dealing with singleness, it will ultimately come down to making a choice should the time arise when you would be single no longer. Mind you, the Superman game my dad would play is not an exact analogy . . . it just underscores the point of not having ultimate control. Resting in the knowledge that the One who does have ultimate control is good is what is liberating.

These Realizations

1. I have a presentation coming up in Afro-Hispanic Identity. It's a split level (grad/undergrad) and split department (AfAm Studies/Romance Languages) class. My presentation partner is a spunky, funny girl who's a sophmore. We make a pretty good team. I am 10 whole years older than she is. How did that happen? Just a couple of years ago, I was her. I still feel like her. But then I look back and think. I suppose I have done some things, been some places and had some experiences that would merit my being ten years her senior.

2. Pride is not just believing in your own ability, thinking you can do it on your own. It's also thinking you can't do it, thinking that it getting done nevertheless depends on you. Whether you think you can or think you can't, the problem is that you think it revolves around you, when it really doesn't. If you believe you can, don't forget that God is the one who does it through you. If you're afraid that you can't, believe that God is the one who will do it through you still.

3. Love is much less romantic than I used to think. Love is not romance, and romance is not love. Romance has its place, but it should not be conflated with love. Lots of people are unhappy today because they've failed to make that distinction.

4. Consistency. Waking up every morning, and doing it. Day after day. Some might argue that it leaves a bland taste in your mouth, it makes your movements robotic. Nah. Being consistent doesn't mean being inflexible. Here's what I can say: I don't miss the roller coaster.

Earthquake in Turkey

This is so horrible.

I feel especially touched by it because I've become friends with a really sweet young lady from Turkey through this program I signed up for with the International Student Organization. In fact, Saturday night she invited me over, and her boyfriend (also from Turkey—they actually met when they were in the same intensive English program when they arrived in the States), who had come down for the weekend, made a traditional Turkish dinner we all enjoyed. It was so sweet of them. They were so welcoming and hospitable and I felt so privileged. I felt that feeling I always feel when I am allowed access into a world apart from my own. When I'm able to begin to gain some sense of understanding of a different culture. I feel enriched, I feel like I'm a part of something bigger . . .

I immediately contacted my friend to express my concern and to ask if her friends and family were okay. When I read her response, this line brought tears to my eyes:

"My family and friends are ok, thank God, but my people are so bad situation. I am so upset for them."

The only thing I could do was offer to pray.

Current Song

Everlasting, your light will shine when all else fades . . . Never ending, your glory goes beyond all fame . . .

When productivity mode descends . . .

Oh, finally. It feels so good. Knocking these suckas out. I think I might even earn a gold star today.

My friend just had a baby,

and I'm so overwhelmed, and so happy, and wish I could be there so badly.

This is a friend I grew up with, from back in the day. Back in the Italy day. Before I moved back to the States and got culture shocked day. My only real childhood friend. And then we went to college together. I mean, I have other friends with babies, but this is the first time a friend of mine that is super close has had a baby and I'm just so excited. He's my first "nephew."

I can't wait to hold him. He is so beautiful.

Praise and Worship Repertoire

So far:

"Mighty to Save"

"Heart of Worship"

"The Anthem"

"How He Loves"

They're not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but I'm so happy. There's something about strumming hippyish, dude-we-totally-love-God kinds of songs that fills my heart with Jesus-rock gladness.

Literature and Friendship

I realized today, while talking excitedly, sometimes talking over each other, about symbolism, themes, allegories, and the significance of certain plot points of a Joyce Carol Oates novella with a friend, that one of the things that makes a friend a really good friend is being able to talk literature with them.

There's something about engaging each other literarily that adds an element of dynamism to a relationship. There's something magical about being able to incite each others' minds to acts of critical thinking.

I'd venture to say that bonding over the written word is one of the most intimate forms of bonding. When you truly engage with a piece of writing, to some degree, your heart gets caught up in it. When you're able to share that ardor with someone else who taps into that same reserve, your brains become friends. There's something special about that.

Kinky Gazpacho

Just finished reading a memoir of an African-American woman who studies abroad in Spain and falls in love.

There were so many things I identified with, I just devoured it. Her identity issues because of the environment in which she grew up, her penchant for foreign language and culture, in some measure, as a way to escape the binary, the "Are You Black Enough? Police" as well as the "White People in Charge."

And then Spain. The places she explored were the same places I explored. Madrid, Salamanca, Sevilla, Cádiz. The liberation of being considered American before being considered black, but at the same time, the issues that arise from being black in a country where there are very few blacks and ideas about black people are heavily based on stereotypical representations and skewed towards exoticism.

And then her search for black culture and African presence within Spanish history. I sort of saw it as a parallel to my interest in Afro-Latin American studies.

It was a quick, engaging read. I don't know why, but it's funny when I'm presented with the fact that I'm more like other people than I think. I've always kind of clung to the idea that I'm a unicorn, a unique being who exists in a category of my own because there is no one else who has grown up the way I have AND has had the experiences that I've had AND believes the way I do AND is doing what I'm doing with my life . . . but not only is that kind of thinking a little absurd, it has allowed me to create and claim a place of tortured individuality. A self-imposed melancholy solitude due to the burden of "not being like everyone else." I am an individual, but I'm beginning to see that maybe I'm more like everybody else than perhaps I'm willing to admit.

Chopped

I absolutely love this cooking show. It's like an adrenaline rush. But this time the stakes were so much higher and it was so much more exciting. I know, it's a cooking show and I'm not a foodie or anything even close, but I can't explain its allure. I had to post it this time, though, because at the end, I teared up. Omg. You just have to watch it.

Today is not a day for lunch bringers.

No benches, no sitting in the sunshine, no visions of inhabiting a grassy knoll with my guitar. Today, I think the sun thought we took it for granted. Basking in those sun rays in as late a month as October as if you were entitled to it. It had been holding on to that hurt. Still trying to shine as if it didn't matter, but finally realized that it did matter and couldn't hold it in any longer.

A constant shower. Finally putting it all out there. Getting it off your chest. Desahogándose. Not even caring that you can say in one word in Spanish what it takes 5 to say in English. And not caring that it also works the other way around. That's okay, sun, sky, clouds and the rest of you celestial things that conspired (perhaps in sunnerly solidarity) to make this day the world of wet that it is. Knowing my carefully sculpted curls are going to give in as soon as they have an encounter with the sultry humidity.

I have something a lot of you weren't counting on. A sunflower umbrella. Oh, yes. Though I trudge through the valley of the puddle and mud, I will fear no evil. Stay in your gray. Go ahead and wallow, sun. I know. Sometimes you just have to have it out. But I've got my own rays. And I'm still bringing my lunch.

Knowing vs. Believing, Part II

After Sunday morning service. And I couldn't believe that one of the main points of the message was "comprehending" vs. "apprehending." Different words but the same idea I was pondering last night. Comprehending (knowing), apprehending (believing).

While comprehending is cerebral, an acknowledgement, apprehending is motivational, in the most literal, concrete sense of the word. It causes you to move. It impels you towards action.

When you know something, it is the acknowledgement of a fact. When you believe something, it causes you to embrace and apply that knowledge to your life.

So, maybe another way of articulating the difference between knowing and believing is that knowing is acknowledging truth while believing is living by truth.

Knowing vs. Believing

Productive Saturday. Finished a Chilean novel (and was first to post on the comment board for the class! #gettingmynerdon) Washed clothes and hair. (That's a lot right there. Especially the hair.) Made myself a nice dinner (+chocolate chip cookies). Now I'm about to get my chai tea on and get cozy with a (non-Spanish) novel.

My mom called earlier and we chatted for a while about everything. I call her "lady" and she calls me "daughter." I don't know when we started doing that. And during our conversation, I said to her, "I guess I always knew it, but I'm finally starting to believe it."

I knew what I meant when I said that, and she knew what I meant when I said that, but afterward, I kept thinking about it, and wondered how I would explain it to someone else.

What is the difference between knowing something and believing something? At face value, they seem to be the same. If you know something to be a fact, that must mean you believe it to be true, right? But then I thought about it this way: A long time ago, and I remember this as clear as day even though I must've been only 2 or 3 years old, my mom set an iron up on the ironing board and said "Don't touch it. It's hot." I knew that it was hot. I had watched my mom iron before and had seen the steam rise. I knew that it could burn. But I guess her telling me not to do it made me want to do it. And I put my whole hand on it. I got blisters. Maybe that's what it took for me to believe that it was hot? To experience it myself?

But then I realized the "experiential" argument didn't hold up either. There have been times in my life where I have experienced the goodness of God over and over and over. There's no doubt that He's good. He's proven it to me time and time again. But why can I say then that at one point in time I still didn't believe He was good even though I knew it from experience?

I think I've come up with a more satisfactory explanation. Knowledge is temporal. Many times, the validity of something is based on a set of circumstances. In this particular circumstance, God was good to me. On another occasion, He was good again. In this situation, He was good yet again. But what was the measure of God's goodness based upon in those instances? The outcome. I knew that God was good because He allowed good things to come my way. I knew He was good because things worked out positively in my favor.

But believing that He's good is holding fast to the idea, no, the truth of His goodness regardless of the outcome. I'm finally starting to believe that come what may, He is ultimately good. It's like a breath of fresh air. That's why the worries that used to cloud my mornings no longer have any sway. It's an unburdening. A catharsis. Those things I used to grasp so tightly were never my responsibility. Never in my power to control or change. They were never my burden to take on in the first place. I know things aren't always going to work out as I hope. But rebuilding dashed hopes is a part of His goodness. Leading me towards an ultimate plan, what may lie outside of the scope of my hopes, is a part of His goodness.

The prospect of turning 30 next year used to clench my stomach in adrenaline-drenched knots. Still unmarried, still unsettled, still unsure. And 30. As if when March 30th rolls around, the death knell is going to sound, my fertility levels are going to drop precipitously, and I will transform into a shriveled shell of my former, once youthful self, left to be further sapped by leeches of instability. The beginning of the end.

If that isn't the furthest from the truth. Thinking like that is what leads people to make unwise choices. It feels like I'm finally starting to live in the freedom God has always offered me, and it is beautiful. It is believing.

The Forty Rules of Love

I'm reading a lovely novel by a Turkish writer named Elif Shafak called The Forty Rules of Love (recommended to me by a new Turkish friend). Without getting into all the details of the plot, one of the main philosophies utilized in the book is Sufism, a mystical sect of Islam. I don't really know much about Sufism apart from one of its iconic figures—the whirling dervish.

Anyway, one of the characters in the novel within a novel is a dervish (so far, no whirling involved) who often cites certain Rules of Love that are related to the situation at hand. Some of the rules sound kind of New Agey and hippyishly mystical, but some of them are strikingly beautiful. This one about patience really caught my attention:

Patience does not mean to passively endure. It means to be farsighted enough to trust the end result of a process. What does patience mean? It means to look at the thorn and see the rose, to look at the night and see the dawn. Impatience means to be so shortsighted as to not be able to see the outcome. The lovers of God never run out of patience, for they know that time is needed for the crescent moon to become full.

I guess I've always associated patience with waiting and defined waiting as passive. Like, if you're being patient, you're just chilling indefinitely. That really isn't true. If you believe God (not just believe in God, but actually believe Him), then you believe in the truth of His nature. He is good. If you really believe God is good, then you trust He's not going to leave you hanging. When you are truly waiting on God, you're not just hanging out in this amorphous netherworld of uncertainty. You know that He has no choice other than to perform His Word.

One of my little bro's phrases would be "I got you," meaning, he would pay for my food or whatever it was I wanted (or that he was going to hook me up with some chicken or an ice cream cone when he worked at Chick-fil-a) or that he was going to take care of some detail or other that I either couldn't do myself or that I was worried about. I can see him now with his goofy grin: "Giiirl, you know I got you!"

Strange that I would compare my little brother's phrase to the nature of God Almighty, but it's true. God has always been like "I got you." Being patient is actively trusting that He really does.

Genesis: Protective Brothers Gone Wild

Genesis 34.

I have two brothers, and despite the fact that I was a quintessential bossy big sister (and still am when given the opportunity), they are pretty protective of me.

But Simeon and Levi took it to the next level. Chillax, guys, I know the prince got at your sis (and it's not like he didn't try to be honorable about it and make it right), but was slaying all the men (while recovering from having just circumcised themselves) of an entire city as well as pillaging the place really necessary? Sheesh.

Genesis: Biblical Mean Mug

I think Laban should be credited with the first recorded mean mug in history.

And Jacob beheld the countenance of Laban, and, behold, it was not toward him as before.

—Genesis 31:2

This was hilarious to me. What kind of look did Laban have? Bear in mind that Jacob had bamboozled Laban out of some cattle, so I'm sure he wasn't happy. (I guess he forgot about how he did Jacob dirty concerning his daughters.)

In any event, I think the Bible makes it clear that at some point in time Laban began mean mugging Jacob, after which Jacob took it upon himself to secretly deuce out. Nothing good can follow from a mean mug.

Weekend

It's always nice to go home for a little while.

Got my hair done, saw my people, showered my little babies with huggies and kissies, ate good food, had coffee with old friends, gave an impromptu guitar concert.

And now I'm back and ready to do this thing.