Tuesday

March 25, 2008

I am in Chicago. A small piece of me died as we flew in and I saw a ground covered in white. Fortunately there really is not snow here in the city. And I actually broke a sweat walking on my way to my cousin’s house. I realized how exhausted I am and I am resting.

Yesterday was my last day in San Francisco. I began it with the unpleasant necessities of a load of laundry and making all of my possessions fit back inside of my suitcase. My luggage seemed to have expanded substantially and gotten considerably heavier. When I looked outside and could not bear to be out of direct sunlight for another moment, I gave up on packing and went to the Yerba Buena Gardens. I took a nap in the sunshine much like I did my first day in the city. I read and I prayed. I looked up at the beautiful blossoming tree and knew that there is no sense living an angry bitter life.

I forgave.

I read this really great piece in the book I am reading. It was about shalom.

“I believe life is a bottle rocket, a celebration, and it requires everything that we have, and it demands that we battle through fear and resentment, and it demands that we release our need to be the best, the prettiest, the most perfect and together, because the big thing, the forceful beautiful thing is happening already, all around us, and we might miss it if we’re too busy meeting our parents’ expectations or winning awards.

Shalom is happening all around us, but it never happens on its own. The best things never do happen on their own and shalom is the very best thing. In the same way that forgiveness never feels natural until after it’s done, and hope always feels impossible before we commit to it, in the same way that taking is easier than giving, and giving in is easier than getting up, in that same way, shalom never happens on its own.

It happens when we do the hardest work, the most secret struggle, the most demanding truth telling. In those moments of ferocity and fight, peace is born.”
[Shauna Niequist, Cold Tangerines]

And this is the sort of life that I hope to live. I hope to forgive and to hope and to give and to experience shalom. I do not know quite what this will look like, and I had hoped to have that figured out by now. But, I realize, I do not, and I am still okay. Late tomorrow nite I will find myself in my hometown, in my own bed, and I will still have questions. I will still be wondering what my life will look like one month, one year from now. And I will choose to find the beauty around me and I will choose to fight for this life I have been given.

Yesterday I went to the San Francisco Museum o f Modern Art and I was inspired. I walked to the Ferry Building and ate vegan things like tofu and seaweed and I bought some herbs to leave growing in Tim’s kitchen. I went back to Yerba Buena Gardens; I just could not resist lying in the restful sunshine in the green green grass. I bought a Slurpee from 7-11 but I was sick after about eight sips and I let it melt with me in the sunshine. I met Tim and we took the Muni and got off a stop too late and walked through Haight Ashbury and went to the Independent to see Eagle Seagull and Tokyo Police Club. I went to bed and got up early and took BART to the airport and a plane to Chicago and the blue line to my cousin’s neighborhood.

Linda and I and Luna went for a walk and then Linda and Derek and I had dinner at a place called Handle Bar and then for a drink at their neighborhood bar. I like Chicago and it is really not so cold here today and I love my cousins and they way they love each other like it’s for real.

Tomorrow I will spend the day in the city and then I will go home. I am returning with far fewer answers than I had hoped but I have to believe that I have succeeded in what I set out to do; I am reminded that the world is a big big place and I have seen more of it and have remembered small parts of who I am and who I want to be someday very soon.