i surrender

i surrender to the blog... peacefully of course.

i (somewhat reluctantly) begin this journey of blogging with the intention of it serving as an easier avenue for those interested in keeping tabs on me to keep tabs on me. i also intend for this to provide a glimpse into the tangible experience here, though i suspect my inner thoughts and worries will flood this blog from time to time, too. it will be interesting to see where the boundaries lie...

for those of you who received my e-mail, i feel compelled to state that for all the rambling i did, i left out a lot about what i am ACTUALLY doing here. perhaps it is because, right now anyways, i am doing a whole lot of nothing. i have the summer to soak up the free time and to ideally prepare for the road ahead of me. those of you who know me well know that i am usually only semi-successful in my plans to plan ahead, and often i spend more time planning to plan ahead than i ever do on work that would prepare me for the future. this topic always reminds me of jason hackley, whose birthday is the same day as mine, and who was convinced that taurus individuals could be pretty lazy people. lazy...i dunno. ridiculous procrastinators, possibly.

i have been spending my days in my strangely idyllic apartment, contemplating all that this experience has brought to me so far and searching for concrete things in this new place to hold onto. i have finally caught up on sleep. i have the most excellent oscillating fan anyone ever owned and enjoy the challenge of using it to the max on summer days when this communist-style abode averages 85 degrees F. the whole apartment is not only physically warm, but emotionally inviting and charming. it is appropriate that there is much sunshine flowing in constantly.


when i meander out of my apartment, i find life ebbing and flowing in the town below me. the tide of this community makes so much sense, but my mind still cannot wrap its head around the wonderful idea that is 'break time' everyday from 13:00-15:00... or later. it has taken me a fews weeks to decide that there are truly no options for buying food around this time and if i feel like i need some privacy, this is the optimal hour to take a stroll around the area. a huge river, the largest in this country (and no, for some reason the danube doesn't count), runs right by and there are some pretty little hideout spots to sit and watch the river, and the day, flow by. i am thankful to have this opportunity to enjoy the nature here, though admittedly, the nature here is far different than that of the gorgeous mountains in the southwestern part of this country that remind me so much of home.

today, on a bumpy bus ride back to town from 'the big city' (a nearby town), we slowly came up to a Roma family in a smaller village enroute waiting at the bus stop. the happiness that was borne in the eyes of this family, with their two small children playfully tangled around their bodies was the most beautiful thing i have seen in a long time. they had blue eyes that reminded me of turquoise marbles my brother and i used to play with. of the famous picture of the afghan refugee girl on the cover of an old national geographic magazine, taken so many years ago, her eyes gazing into the camera and directly into your soul. i love that when you look into people's eyes, sometimes they invite you inside to stay for a while and warm up from the long, cold journey that can be human interaction.

it made me retrace my mental steps. and to step back from my outsider's viewpoint. to ask why it is that i have come all the way here to judge, to offer sympathy and to pretend to understand the lives of individuals i see only through a bus window. the radiant happiness that i could feel as i gazed out that window next to me does not exist within material boundaries and is entirely unrelated to the type of house this family lives their lives in. happiness, and the peace that has brought me here, cannot be defined by this wealth of material desire. rather, i find again that my mind and heart have circled around the reality that our realities are shaped not by what we have, but by how we think and how we appropriate those thoughts. when you look through the window with this outlook in mind, life begins to look incredibly beautiful.

there are so many journeys like this one awaiting me. i can't wait to write more about them. and to watch all of the amazing sunsets along the way!