east west

i swear, if one more person says i look like an equestrian today....

posted by jessica @ 12:50 PM 1 Comments

i think i chose the wrong playlist

apparently we (or at least, i) forgot how difficult the winters here can be - despite the surprise two-inches of snow we woke up to on tuesday morning,subsequently shutting the city down for two days and counting.

there are times when you just need an adrenaline rush to keep you going. (i guess that's what skiing's for, eh?) or something forthcoming. or something curious yet still familiar.

i miss our roommates tonight.
i miss trishawna tonight.
i miss laura tonight.
i miss old versions of friends tonight.
i miss long drives on straight roads tonight.
i miss college tonight.

please don't tell me i'm the only one.

posted by jessica @ 8:45 PM 2 Comments

go there

all things soviet + public transportation = perfection

http://www.polarinertia.com/jan07/bus01.htm

posted by jessica @ 7:01 PM 0 Comments

collapse the light into earth

At least there are blue skies. Yesterday I went outside and just stood on the front porch, eyes closed, trying to absorb it - let's quite literally save it for a rainy day. The mountains are overwhelming in their whiteness, especially when they come out of hiding. take-your-breath-away-huge.

A comet was here this weekend. I forgot to see it. That I FORGOT to see a comet is something unfortunatelycharacteristic of me now, which would not have happened five years ago. I remember specifically driving south on route 72, headed towards cornfields and cornfields only, simply to glance a better view of the sunrise before my 8AM. And now I find that I have my head down while we cross the willamette in the morning and the sun breaks through to outline the sky in gold.

I'm reading a book called Prague, by Arthur Phillips. It's actually about Budapest, but that aside - there is a character in the book that I am simply amazed exists. My words won't do it justice, but he focuses on qualifying nostalgia. Putting it to words, tracing the patterns, figuring out the "why?". If we tend towards emulating the 1950's right now, what did actual twentysomethings in the 1950's emulate? The 1920'? And what did actual twentysomethings in the 1920's emulate? How far back does this go, this leapfrogging and longing for a time and place that we weren't even a part of? Do we take it all the way back to the Napoleonic Wars, to Charlemagne, to the era of the Caesars?

(Tangent #1: Sometimes, while listening to Simon & Garfunkel especially, I will have this memory: I'm on the BQE, pulling in closer to the city - the Manhattan skyline breaks through, and I feel like I am finally home. The thing is - this is my father's memory - when he back home to Queens after Vietnam in the 1970's.)

(Tangent #2: The final week of my advanced english class in romania, I gave my students this assignment: They were to simply respond to C.S. Lewis' quote "If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world." Now that I look back on that, what a difficult assignment, to try to flesh out a response to something so intangible in an equally intangible language.)

(Tangent #3: While home for Christmas, we were driving north up I-81, headed towards a lunch in Harrisonurg with David & Laura. I couldn't stop looking out the window - see the contours of the mountains, they look like velvet, why do they undulate like that, why is that barn there, see how the undergrowth parts to show the red clay, the oaks are so delicate, there are my beloved locust trees, I wish we could hear the cicada - and we passed a sign that said "VIRGINIA HORSE CENTER - EXIT 288". I can barely explain this, but felt such intense emotion in seeing this sign - what a wholesome land.)

posted by jessica @ 12:53 PM 0 Comments

a running tally

settled. that's what we're striving for. let's knock off all the other new year's hype filled resolutions (except for sushi on a conveyor belt) and let's shoot for simply being settled this year. settled with our jobs (no matter how stress-inducing), settled with our friends (or lack thereof), settled with our hearts (don't worry how how long it may have been gone). happy with who we are, knowing God made us and was PLEASED when He was done.

we were anticipating snow this weekend. come sunday evening and the air is still and the temperature approaches 45 or something comparable (no overcoat necessary for a walk to the store). no snow for the willamette valley. peter and i were talking about that magical feeling when you're lying in bed and mom comes in and says "jessica - no school today - it snowed last night". and you wake up, bare feet planted on the mattress, and peer through the window. each time, it does something inside - to see your world transformed in white. covering all the blemishes and impurities. if we were to raise any children in portland, i doubt they would ever know the wonder that. chalk another point up for moving east of those cascades.

posted by jessica @ 4:46 PM 1 Comments