the long distance typewriter

KBC and MTN

2011-12-30T15:47:00.000-08:00

It is surreal being back in Africa. It is not any different to me than going to Canada to see old friends, except the sounds of birds and car horns, the quick transference into the minority, the lack of linguistic understanding, the food, and the smells. It is foreignly, fantastically Africa. The people of Rwanda are naturally beautiful, spiritual, stoic and lively all at once. It was so dear to embrace the necks of old friends. I have met people in these last few days that have become so naturally a part of my life, it feels like an internal tearing as we prepare to go to Kenya. To see the delight in smiles and laughter. to be embraced as family. to dance. oh to dance. yes i feel beauty and beautiful here.

How healing this time. How perfect its placement in the timeline of heartache. These last few months have watched me raise my head, steady my stance and allow tears to fall in the places they choose to gravitate to. i have allowed their travel without interference or tissues. I have found a painful strength and delight in the growing of my years. Being here is a poetic gratitude from life as it whispers to me "celebrate, for you are magnetically glorious.' i have never felt so strong and so pleased to write such words.

Today i was asked the question of where i saw myself in years down the road. I laughed at the question. I was brought back to a podium in nashville where i told my college graduating class that i had no idea where life would take me. i suppose then i would have assumed i'd be married with at least a kid or two by now... and here i am in Kigali Rwanda laughing and dancing the night away. as i look to the next season of my life i have to think to myself, not what do i want to do, but who do i want to be? who am i becoming down this road? it is an incredible life, in an incredible world that we share. be kind. do something nice for a stranger today. hug someone and hold onto them for a minute. laugh at yourself. do good by people. give yourself some grace. let go of what needs to be. forgive each other. stand up for what's right. stand up for yourself. learn something new. travel. say nice things instead of mean words. cook a nice meal then eat good chocolate. and in the inbetween moments, dance. on top of everything, love. love well. it is all that we have in this lifetime. love fiercely and unreserved. there are no second chances at this. worrying about the future or the consequence, whether it be heartbreak or joy, only steals our moments from love. go live your life. and go love your life. blessings.

Aurora

2011-06-01T12:28:00.000-07:00

My favorite of all the natural wonders. Captured in time lapse somewhere in Russia.

The Aurora from TSO Photography on Vimeo.

The Mountain

2011-06-01T12:14:00.000-07:00

A time lapse video capturing raw beauty of the Milky Way and El Tiede in Spain. At 0:32 begins a sandstorm captured at 3am in a way the naked eye could never see. What a wonderful world.

The Mountain from TSO Photography on Vimeo.

it's trying to lead to somewhere...

2011-04-06T18:57:00.000-07:00

This road we travel. This journey of life. We deviate from our paths for no reason at all sometimes, and other times our reasons appear silly, but the turns happen and our lives take a right at the falling rock and follow the sun's rays to the west until your soul is found in a gypsy town. It is a remarkable thing to pack a car, merge onto a highway that runs down the middle of the place i call my home forgetting that HWY 40 is so much longer than my imagination had dwarfed it to be. For as much as i travel, 40 seemingly ended somewhere just beyond Memphis. it's funny how your mind can trick you into subtly thinking such things. Things i believed when i was a child, like how in my 7 year old mind Watertown Rd. ended shortly after you took a right onto County RD 92. I wonder if i have begun to believe this about the highway of my life. I have grown, i am the person i am, HA! there is so much growing left to do. So much traveling within my soul to uncover more of the person that I already am.

Today my wandering soul took my wandering body to a place high in the Tonto National Forrest. Standing in a bar prolifically named The Spirit Room, these words were spoken into my own journey, "find a place that makes your soul feel good." Beautiful. And as the sun fought to break through the storm clouds over the Verde Valley, this place i find myself in is simply remarkable.

bricks and Berry

2011-01-31T21:27:00.000-08:00

Most times when i sit to write these blogs I don't know what to say. for the last year i have found that articulating in a written form never quite matured into what i wanted it to. there are better writers, better painters, better dancers, better lovers, better servants... and on and on and on... so now i write, in my own voice, in my own time.

it's funny what people build their walls out of i.e. doubt, fear, pain, abandonment, bitterness, pride... and on and on and on... and i wonder how concrete those walls may be. some a shield of feathers cast to a whimsy by the first warm breeze and other bricks of steel coldness will be what weighs down the casket of a life lost and unloved. who gives them such strength but the builder themselves?

I read this from Wendell Berry earlier this week and have so loved it. "The past is our definition. We may strive, with good reason, to escape it, or to escape what is bad in it, but we will escape it only by adding something better to it."

I cannot change the events of my past, nor can i out run them (no matter how many trips i take). I can choose how today goes. I can choose to take down my bricks, one by one, and who knows they might just pave a wonderfully glorious path. My life is filled with wonderful people, remarkable people. For that i am so thankful.

Today has glorious potential. Live well. Enjoy the journey.

slow dancing...

2011-01-20T23:41:00.000-08:00

Take kindly the counsel of the years...

2010-01-21T23:00:00.003-08:00

i cannot count the number of times i have heard women say this January, "this is our year ladies!" (for some reason 2009 becoming 2010 wasn't that big of a deal for guys i guess). It's as if the striking of midnight released a new tide to the shore, a new story to our lives. But our stories are our own. they are connected. we are connected. not even a moment's breath separated last year from this. the physical ailments that plagued us weeks ago still linger. the frustrations of relationships. the uncertainty of employment. the stresses that weighed down our souls do not dissipate with the chiming of a clock or the dropping of a ball on a crowed New York night. no, they do not go swiftly. they do not go kindly. yet, if my memory fails me not, somehow the years have a way of slowly sending these tides back to the ocean. things that vexed me in the turning of 2006 into 2007 seem like distant shadows, memories of lessons learned. and somehow joys remain. somehow we are still here. somehow the sun still shines. Max Ehrman wrote:

"With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,

it is still a beautiful world.

Be cheerful.

Strive to be happy."

Nirvana

2009-09-01T00:26:00.000-07:00

Tom Waits reading Charles Bukowski's Nirvana

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVVzCURucaA#

Long time no write...

2009-07-11T22:51:00.001-07:00

I have been "home" now a little over 2 months. Traveling like crazy since i have been back, work, non-work... It is a strange place in life to be. Wonderful, hard, strange. These last few months have been trying. I have spent so much time worrying about what is next, then i realized, life. Life is next. It is now. It is all around. We have a one hundred percent chance of dying, but living is up to us. I don't want to die with my last thought being, "i wish i lived more than 60% of the time." (or even 98% of the time)

I am approaching a month of being gone from nashville. It seems like this summer is flying by, yet as I pause for a moment, it has been such a wonderful one. The list of things done (in no particular order)

1. Caving (with a great woman and my dog- maybe the dog wasn't such a good idea)

2.Hang Gliding (always a pleasure)

3. Getting back into the climbing gym

4. Going sea kayaking (with an incredible man and some pretty fantastic sea lions)

5. Hiking

6. Frisbee

7. Slacklining

8. Learning how to do a front hand spring

9. Shows (for those of you who don't know i am back on the road with Miss Wilson)

10. Working at the Local Taco (great food, better margaritas)

11. Doing video with Waymore's Outlaws

12. Going jet skiing with my mom

13. Reading

14. Painting

15. Friggin' loving today

I know that there is so much more that has been going on, but life is still moving and i need some sleep to prepare for tomorrow.

be still.

be loved.

H.A.T.E.

2009-03-17T12:27:00.000-07:00

High Altitude Tourettes Experience better known as HATE or skiing in the alps. living in these mountains, it is something you have to do at least once... or only once. hahahaha. i actually held my own, until i didn't understand the swiss hill rating system. um. well. i am walking again.

i am up to my ears in reading right now. Beautiful. i can't get over it. or through it apparently. but bit by bit, i am forming thoughts about where my life shall lead next.

spring has arrived. the flowers are beginning to bloom. color everywhere. the white is subsiding and life is new. how i have longed for warm weather. come quickly!!!

just a few thoughts for now. more to come.

be still. be loved.

far and near and everywhere in between...

2009-03-09T13:53:00.000-07:00

Learn to teach. Follow to lead. Live to show the Way. Love. just love.

Months pass. The wonderings begin. where to next? Oh how i miss so many at home and oh how i will miss those here. My head has been spinning with thoughts, frustrations, questions. We stop growing, we stop learning, we stop living when we stop asking questions.

Life is a curious thing. So filled with ugliness and beauty, sorrow and joy, weeping and laughter. we live in the tension. we live in the in between. it is in the valley between the mountains where things grow. Here, wine grapes. I live at one end of the Rhone Valley. Known for its red wine... this is a beautiful thing. but that is besides the point. the point is this: today i went for a walk. the mountains were covered with snow filled clouds. but the valley shown magnificently clear. i was amazed at how green the grass in the valley shone, spring is near. the sign of new life. the sign of hope. i continued walking to the small, and by small i mean tiny church here in Huemoz. Out in the courtyard is a swing set with two seats that fling you graciously closer to the heavens. i sat on the taller one and in a burst of laughter and song, i sang. loud. in fact another girl staying at L'abri who is from Romania walked by and laughed along with me. it is the good life. it is a good life. life, in its essence is good.

my ponderings continue. caught somewhere between faith and doubt, i am alive. i am well.

be still. be loved.

2009-02-19T00:49:00.000-08:00

"history, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, however, if faced with courage, need not be lived again." maya angelou

the snow lay softly on the mountains this morning. it has snowed much in these last few days. i spent all of yesterday shoveling snow. i even conned some local kids to shovel with me by saying that if they shoveled one of the walks they could use the snow for a fort. i love kids. ha. my bones are sore this morning. i am tired, but alive and well.

i am learning so much about growing and moving forward. moving on. moving up. growing endlessly toward heaven blue skies. i think that i have such a fondness for mountains because they stretch themselves, longing so much for the sky that the erupt from the ground, contradicting gravity and silently conversing with the stars they succeed at the impossible.

living in a house with 27 other people (give or take 1-5 people passing through at a time) makes life very interesting. everyone knows your arguments, your sadness, your laughter, your socks. i came with 14 pair of socks and last time i checked, 6 are accounted for. there are 2 functioning showers, 4 functioning toilets, 1 kitchen, mismatched plates, mugs and silverware... we share everything from our lives and sorrows to our beds, clothes, snow pants, songs and absurd stories. there is rarely, if ever, silence in the house. there is this hodge podge of beliefs, styles and dreams. it is a mosaic. it is as beautiful as stained glass and can be as fragile too. i am amazed every day at my own selfishness living with this many other souls. i feel old. i feel young. i feel free.

life is meant to be lived moment by moment. drinking in all of it. soaking it 'til our bones are full of it's magic and wonder. i cannot change the things that have been. i cannot make them any different, but i do not have to keep living in that place. the pheonix dies in the fire then rises from the ash. stoke this fire then i will burn this fortress down. i will fly. i am.

be still.
be loved.

questions...

2009-02-16T12:45:00.000-08:00

it is the question beneath the questions beneath the questions. it is the question that drives us to study theology, philosophy, science, art, anything really... we ask the greater questions of life and death, God and pain because, when it boils down to it, we want to know one thing... "do you love me? (am i even loveable?) then this question poses others like: why? why not? what is this pounding in my soul? we seek truth, we seek God (or even to know the existence of God) because we truly just want to know if we are loved. it is all we hope for. all we want is for someone to love us.
I have been decompressing my image of God over these last few years and in the silence i have found, to quote a song, that "a voice rises within me saying hold on my child, i'll give you strength, i'll give you hope, just stay a little while. i believe in the sun even when it is not shining and i believe in God, even when there's no one there."
today was a hard day. i long for the familiar. to be in the company of people who know me, know me well. to sit and read with my dog at my feet. to have coffee with my dad, sit in the kitchen with my mom, play catch with my sister... the comforts of home.
i sat in a chapel today weeping. i sang with a broken voice through the tears as i looked back on the life i have had. it has been anything but orderly, nothing like i planned it to be, far from what i had originally hoped. yet i am not disappointed. i am glad at who i am. to feel pain deeply is to enter into a beautifully broken world, to see colors brighter than before, to cry and laugh and feel all of it. to sit in a tiny church in the swiss alps and know that i am loved... this is goodness.
my roommate from england told me this today and i cling to her words, "this day will pass annie, and don't forget that you are lovely through all of this, it's beautiful to be broken."

ask.
be still.
be loved.

Toliet seats and Rilke's grave adventure

2009-02-05T13:50:00.000-08:00

...so we go on living. one breath at a time. one heart beat, then the next. to steal a thought from Mary Karr, the clock ticks, "now, now." there is urgency with every step, a hurriedness to every bite. then i woke to that awful sensation. and my mind said in a voice resembling Ralph from the simpson's, "Oh no! my mouth tastes like burning." a few hours later, i emerged from the stale cold bathroom, pepto pink tiles lining the walls seemed a like a sunrise next to what was emitting itself from my own being. no nausea, just puke. 2 days of puke.

today was our day off. Tim and i had planned to go to a town about an hour or 2 away to visit the poet Rainer Maria Rilke's grave. ( i inserted Early Spring one of his poem's below) such beauty to his work, such insight into a world that is so beautifully broken with potential. well, thanks to my late night rendezvoux with le toilet, plans had to be changed. we instead made a winter world in my bunk, complete with poetry and drawn pictures of the grave yard. it was a beautiful day, one of which i slept much away. to be ill and wrapped in the warm arms of a poem seems just like the stillness my soul was searching for this week.

i mentioned in my last blog that i had received some hard news. the funny thing is, i am so happy it came. i am so glad that it is finally done. that though it may have initially been hard, it is good. we watched a movie last night called "the choosen" about 2 jewish teenagers who become friends. the hasidic one's father tells him towards the end of the movie that he spent much of their time together in silence because it was in the silence that he learned how to connect his head and his heart. the son learned the great pain and loneliness of the world, while at the same time learning the great joy and compassion or it as well. the father asks, "was i wrong to teach in this way? was i not a good father? i do not know." i think that was such a beautiful image of God, we think that He is cold, or not there, but in His silence He is loving us more than we could ever know and teaching us how to use that love.

i am learning. it is good. it is silent, but for that i am thankful.

be still. be loved.

Early Spring

Harshness vanished. A sudden softness
has replaced the meadows' wintry grey.
Little rivulets of water changed
their singing accents. Tendernesses,

hesitantly, reach toward the earth
from space, and country lanes are showing
these unexpected subtle risings
that find expression in the empty trees.

turkish baths

2009-01-29T14:19:00.000-08:00

There is an interesting moment in life when it all seems too much. When the weight seems like it will surely break not only your back, but every last bone in your body... when the pain of growth seems more ominous than the static of numbing the heart. when you stare numbly into the mountainside, hoping that for a moment, it would come alive and embrace you the way your mother did when you scrapped you knee or fought with a playground friend. there is a tenderness here in these overgrown hills. a dangerous safety. for the first time in a long time i have been able to be still and face the demons i ran from for so long. there is nothing more frightening and freeing than the ability to stand in the midst of my demons and face the reality that the worst demon might just be myself. a friend once said that bitterness is the poison that we drink and wait for the other person to die. i have realized the gravity of my own selfishness, and the pain of my past. at moments it seems too much, but then a song rises in the air, mingling with the clouds, dancing until they become one. it is a beautiful moment, somewhere in the in-between.

i am so thankful to be here. so thankful to wake up each morning. so proud that i am taking very hard steps to become the kind of woman i hope to be. i love life. i love simplicity. i love walking up and up and up... until the horizon seems so close and so far all at once.

we wake up each day, eat breakfast, read books, clean, discuss, shovel snow, make snowmen / angels, dance, sing, laugh much, cry often....

the chalet i am living in was once a home for kids with physical disabilities and disorders, it was a place of healing and care, outside of its inhabitants, not much has changed.

today i went to the turkish baths near by with two of the guys here, Thomas, a worker here and Timmy Time, a rock star organic farmer from Washington state. We spent the day swimming under a canopy of mountainous skies, steam baths, saunas... and avoiding old men in speedos (a near impossible task). it was a really refreshing day, much needed for my body and soul (sometime i may write about the hike we took the other day, which ended with us not being able to find a path down and using a ski hill complete with trudging through 4 feet of snow for about a 1000 ft drop... but that's for another day). My favorite part of the day was going into the turkish baths... there was a men's, women's and co-ed. the co-ed was packed, don't know about the men's, but the women's was completely empty. it was a room filled floor to ceiling with white tiles, only the ceiling had pin hole lights in in, looking like the stars were my only companions. i danced in the mist of the heat and starlight. liberation. freedom. my soul is at ease. i got some pretty hard news today, but honestly, i could not be more at peace with my soul and the life i have.

i love you all, and miss so many. if only my arms could stretch continents. for now i keep you in my heart, on my mind and through my prayers.

be still.

the swiss know how to make mountains...

2009-01-10T10:23:00.000-08:00

i have debated writing a new blog many a time, but the simple fact of the matter is i don't know where to start. what is one to say when they wake up every morning to the most beautiful sight they have ever seen? when the sun breaks over the mountains during breakfast and the lake of fog in the valley below glows a soft pink? when the snow smells sweet and looks like icing spread thick over a sky of mountains? when the red wine is served mulled and warm? when the smell of homemade bread warms the air just before every meal? when the chocolate has the texture of melted butter in your mouth? where to start i ask?

i have been so overwhelmed this week. wrapped in beauty and books. i woke the other morning at 4:30 and couldn't fall back asleep. i sat in my bunk and listened to the night whispering sweet hymns down the halls of this chalet built for giants, kings and well... servants like me. that morning as the hours past i got up, took a cold... freezing shower (unknown to me, we ran out of oil during the night rendering us without heat or hot water). i watched as the snow capped mountains turned from the blue found on a marines formal dress to the softest amber. it is a humbling place to be.

i have slept well. i feel better than i have in years. i feel alive. i have the energy i did when i was in high school... if any of you can remember how obnoxious that was...

i have so much to learn i am sure of it. discipline is hard... i haven't read a full book in what seems like years. i have already read 2 since tuesday. i have fallen in love with the routine... hoping that i continuously keep falling in love with it.

it is a magically normal place to be. 3 meals a day, chores, study. plain. simple. peaceful. wonderful.

so i will go now, stand on the balcony and watch a full moon shine, whispering its prayers as i do into the mountain's slumber.

arrived in Dublin

2008-12-30T20:33:00.000-08:00

so i made it to dublin. i am stopping here for a few days and to bring in the new year before i head on to Switzerland. Pete and Curt decided to come along, and i am so very glad to have them here. we have certainly enjoyed ourselves thus far...

first a flight to NYC. then a layover... we had enough time to go out into the city and walk around, eat some pizza, enjoy the company of each other... a cab ride or two... so i may or may not get motion sick, which you wouldn't think since i lived in almost constant migration on a moving vehicle for the last few years. i was so very glad to get back to the airport...

wrapped in the excitement of it all i woke sunday morning, stayed up all night until monday, flew out monday and arrived early tuesday in Dublin without ever sleeping on the plane. i was so excited to get into a bed... however that was not an option. our room would not be ready until 2 or 3 in the afternoon. it was not quite 9 am. so we wandered. what a beautiful wandering it was. we enjoyed some breakfast (for 2 hours) and some stillness. however the stillness and the exhaustion met and we again took to our wanderings. i truly like Dublin, or at least what i have seen this far.

i got in bed around half 2 (2:30) dublin time... 8:30am nashville time, 47 hours since i got out of my bed at my sister's house in west nash. i got up for about an hour to have dinner, and it is now almost 5 in the morning here and i just woke up. beautiful.

i can say that i am excited for this journey. i am excited to grow. i am excited to become...

listen to the music of life. dance with it's rhythm. enjoy it's company. today i live.

oh the blessing

2008-12-28T20:46:00.000-08:00

So i wrote a blog about being alone... i want to clarify... 1. it was late. 2. i am not heartbroken, was, a long time ago. 3. i am sooooooo Loved. 4. i am sooooooo loved.

allow me to elaborate.

there are times in life when we build things up and we fret and we begin to believe things that simply aren't true. over these last few weeks of preparing to go, i began to worry that i would be ever so alone on this journey.

HOW WRONG I WAS!!!

this past sunday i was overwhelmed in e-mails, "i love yous," prayers, hugs and tears. the outpouring of love in my life is so wonderful i could simply drown in the joy of it all. to know that so many will keep me in their thoughts and prayers over the next months (and even years) is to know how alone i am not.

so thank you to all who are walking this journey with me. my heart is glad and my mind is humbled.

the inaugural thoughts

2008-12-28T00:30:00.001-08:00

so here it is. my first blogger blog. in a world filled with blogs, opinions and ideas, what make mine unique? why are mine so special? i am not sure really. in fact, i don't know much these days. not much at all.

i am about 28 1/2 hours from departing from this fair homeland of mine. i am off on yet another grand adventure... i am off to discover, not more of the world (although that is a nice bonus), but more of myself. i am leaving a town where i have been loved, where i have laughed, where i have cried, where i have become who i am.

it is 2:34 in the morning and i am struck with a cruel reality. i am alone. it is the holidays and it is so ever present. not alone in the all encompassing sense. no, i am loved dearly by many... but alone in a different sense. i am leaving this town in which i have almost been married twice. as the time approaches for my departure, someone told me of the impending engagement of the man i was to marry. my heart is in a strange, strange place. while i know that it was not meant to be for many reasons, i am still saddened with my oneness. my mom asked me earlier this week if i was afraid of being loved, to which i replied, "(insert word) yeah i am." only once in my life did i allow someone to love me, all of me, and they left. what is that to say of who i am? that is a question i don't know if i want answered. i am leaving this town with the pain it has brought, but also i am leaving this town with all the joy i have experienced here as well. it is bittersweet for sure...

so here i sit. about to go and face this loneliness in a whole new aspect, and i don't know what to do with it. it will be hard, this is inevitable, but it will be good. my heart is open. i long to be loved. i long to be me. i long to be loved as i am.

can i say what i will learn? no. but i can say that i will miss those who have loved me well. my friends, my family, my family of friends.

to those of you who have loved me in my darkest hours and brightest days, i will miss you dearly. you have been my strength and my compass towards the love of an Almighty God.

Thank you.