"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...

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

...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.