Too Many Options!

Questions:

-Should I stay here in Austin or move back to Ontario...and if I move back where do I live there, Port Hope, Bobcaygeon, or Toronto?...or somewhere else entirely different?
-Should I go to Grad school, and if so where?...and what should I major in Fine Arts, English or Counseling?
-And if I stay in Austin, should I continue on at Hope Chapel or should I find another place of worship?
-And if I marry do I want to marry an American, and do I want to raise kids in the US?...and anyway, where are my possibilities of meeting someone I click with more...possible?
-Or should I continue my query into working and living overseas?

I am mulling over all these questions and many more. I feel overwhelmed...and part of it is that I need to make a decision pretty soon. There are pros and cons all over the place. I am tired of temporary living and want to make a home somewhere, and yet, I can't stop moving and am often thinking about where to be. My age and the place my family is play a part in all this as well.

Specific or General?

As I was riding my bike in the neighbourhood today, I was thinking...thinking about the specificity of our Callings. At first I considered, "Are our Callings like the husband/wife thing - we have only one for our life's duration?". Then I thought, "Surely not...perhaps it is more about location - calling and purpose are connected to where we are at a certain time, both physically and metaphysically". And yet, I wonder...

I have many interests, many passions, it is hard to consider one greater than another.

I have a friend who emphatically told me that she believed my calling was a very specific one. I think (though I really don't know, I should ask her) that she was implying I am made in such a way that my giftings are very specific and I am strongly directed in one or a few particular ways (does that make sense...?). Does that mean I am not well-rounded? Should I be glad for that?

Well, here I am, here and now, wondering what is next for me, what do I dedicate my life to the next while? A choice has to be made, and it has to be made sooner than later. It is good to remind myself "there is no fear in love".

Poem I Like

The Bird

I have grown tired of sorrow and human tears;
Life is a dream in the night, a fear among fears,
A naked runner lost in a storm of spears.

I have grown tired of rapture and love's desire;
Love is a flaming heart, and its flames aspire
Till they cloud the soul in the smoke of a windy fire.

I would wash the dust of the world in a soft green flood;
Here between sea and sea in the fairy wood,
I have found a delicate wave-green solitude.

Here, in the fairy wood, between sea and sea,
I have heard the song of a fairy bird in a tree,
And the peace that is not in the world has flown to me.

-Arthur Symons

Saturday night thoughts on Townes

I just finished watching a documentary on Townes van Zandt. It was sad...he was sad, permanently, it seemed. He died of a heart-failure. In the time he hurt his hip to the point he came home and died...did he meet with his Maker?
The thing I liked best about this beautiful, soft spoken man was his ever so subtle smile. It would creep up and out...he would take you on a slow and tantalizingly gripping journey until the smile would appear fully and you would thrill! I don't mean that drunken grin, and loud-mouthed non-sense...but the shy smile that spoke volumes of who he truly was.
He lived in a half-truth reality...no, not like mine, different. Does being in reality (can I say "greater reality" or is there such a thing?) mean being in less pain?

Joy, Fear, and Barfing

I am recovering. Yesterday during my preschool class I felt horribly sick and rushed to the little girl's bathroom, knelt in a stall (on who knows what) and vomited over and over for the duration of the class. Fortunately Miss Tracey, my aid, finished teaching the class. Later she told me that when I left an "epidemic" hit the class and all the little ones were suddenly sick as well.


So after this experience I started pontificating the act of PUKING.


As a child I had many fears. One of my fears was vomiting. I tried mentally to keep myself from what I thought the worst part of illness was, throwing up. Now however, I desire the act because I know it will bring relief.


Other things I greatly feared - getting shots and getting spankings. I felt such anxiety that I would experience more suffering simply in the before than I would in the thing I feared.

This is one of my (our) great struggles still.


The flip side of this? JOY! The joy that is found in anticipation. This is where joy for me always lay. I remember as a child some of the joy I would experience was before vacations. Looking forward to the adventure that lay ahead.

Anticipatory joy is related to my enjoyment of airports for example. And this joy can be found in our earth-life as well...the before death kind of joy.

The End

PS Here is some joyful news...Jane's son was found fine and alive and working in the Foreign Legion, ah ha!

nothing to say

i don't have much to say but i am sitting here wanting to write and there you are looking at me, calling me...black on white, do it...write.

it is sunday, it is cold, cold for texas. i don't like this, it makes my skin dry. i am aging. i watch the couples at church, he puts his arm around her, they look down at their little one sleeping on the pew. i am a big girl...life goes on...

and on...

and on...

i finished reading; gilead, the ladies of missalonghi, and am on mister pip (lloyd jones). i watched ratatouille, a pbs show about the weather/water, and the elephant man. the latter made my inside bleed and i have to take a break from media input for a bit.

i am getting tired of celebrities.

i want to join a community of my friends and live in the country and grow my own food and be happy. i want to meet a funny man who has love for me. i want to eat more pomegranates. i want to go to amsterdam in february for the shelter city hostel reunion. i want to use my body more - be active (i exercised today).

on the way home from mom and dad's i heard a poem on the classical station - Edgar Allan Poe's City in the Sea. http://books.eserver.org/poetry/poe/city_in_the_sea.html. i like "time eaten towers", and "But light from out the lurid sea, streams up the turrets silently...". i like "in each idol's diamond eye", and "melancholy waters", and "While from a proud tower in the town Death looks gigantically down".

my friend jane, her son is missing in italy. he may be hurt or confused or worse...no one knows. people are searching for him. she came home this week after being there for a month with her husband. their emotions are raw. no word. http://search4jef.cfsites.org/index.php

Olive Oyl

I became Olive Oyl for a few hours October 31st, 2007. I was a huge hit surprisingly. A photographer even asked for some poses (which I gladly did with my Olivey zeal!). A few people asked where Popeye was and I usually just replied: "no popeye in my life, only brutus' or whimpy's". But, I felt happy. I even jumped in an inflatable castle (called a "moonwalk")...which they deflated while I was in there...but I got some good jumps in beforehand.