-Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel
Have a week full of hot tea, good stretches, and sweet words!
xoxo,
Michy
(To see my post from last year's march click: here)
A Moveable Feast |
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"For many of us the march from Selma to Montgomery was about protest and prayer. Legs are not lips and walking is not kneeling. And yet our legs uttered songs. Even without words, our march was worship. I felt my legs were praying." -Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel This weekend I participated in my second (the 9th annual) Historic Thousands on Jones Street. It was moving and powerful and I'm glad I was able to share the streets of the capitol with so many inspiring North Carolinians for a few hours.
Have a week full of hot tea, good stretches, and sweet words! xoxo, Michy (To see my post from last year's march click: here)
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Ciao, ciao a tutti d'Italia! Many wishes for Christmas and Happy New Year! I suppose the old adage is true: time really does fly when you're having fun. My, oh my, has this month been a while ride. Since my last post I've: moved dorms (for the fifth time in a year), finished my third semester of college, seen Austria, France, and Italy (x3), finished one book and started two more, hiked in the Italian Alps (i dolomiti), drank a lot of Italian coffee, and climbed many-a-hotel stairs. Truly, I do not know where the last two weeks, month or year have gone. In my mind 2014 is still a blur that I'm trying to make sense of. While this past year hit me with some serious challenges I am grateful for the refuge I have found here in Italy, yet again. I am continually surprised by my love for this place. Words can describe my gratitude for this country's and its people's generosity, humor, and capacity to give love to a stranger. As we embark on a new year I am buoyed and encouraged by the knowledge that there is always an ending to things. To flowing rivers, to chapters in a book, to the book itself, to a good night's sleep, to restless nights, warm embraces. Even days, weeks, months and years: these things all end, whether we will them to or not, whether we spent those days, weeks, months, and years filling them with fear, happiness, laughter, or tears. Time passes without hesitation and those periods have ended.
I would be lying if I said I was ever ready or happy to embrace the change that traveling to a new place involves (whether I've been there before or not), but there is no force in this world that I can employ to stop time or prevent the inevitable change that the passing of days and nights demands. The only power I have within myself is to be grateful for each sunrise. ............................................................................................................................................................ This morning Stephen took me out for coffee. Today is Friday so the market and its patrons crowded the streets of Montichiari and surrounding cafes. After trying to get into a few we found one neither of us had been to before with a table in the back corner. Over espresso we talked about Stephen's impending move back to the States and my upcoming semester. Neither of us could understand how three years had passed since he first came to Italy. We talked about the weight we'd gained and lost, the hair he'd lost, our crooked teeth and how we've grown. Of course I'm still a kid (and he is, too) but we couldn't ignore the passing of time. I cannot ignore how the past three years have shifted our goals, plans, ideas of the world, who we are, and who we are becoming. When we got back to the apartment I stopped at the bottom of the stairs to take in the smell: a mix of hard water, tired buildings, stale coffee, wet cobblestone, and baking bread. I thought back to my first night and day in Italy. I knew so little and was so young. I am still young with a lot of ground left to cover but I am more myself than I was back then and take more time to look at the sunrise then I did before. I think maybe what each new year marks for me is not a milestone to mark time lost and opportunities taken or missed, but the bitter-sweetness of one ending and the hope found in the beginning of another. I can only hope that for all of us this year leads us into: laughter rooted in full bellies, strength in our weakest moments, love in our moments of doubt, redemption and recovery for our changing world, and many opportunities to see the sunset and rise its reliable steadiness. Despite the many challenges we can face in this life I still believe this world is beautiful and that this life can be sweet. So much of what lies ahead remains a mystery to me, but I will keep looking for the sunrise. It is all I can do, and I know it is worth the effort. "What else should our lives be but a continual series of beginnings, of painful settings out into the unknown, pushing off from the edges of consciousness into the mystery of what we have not yet become." - David Malouf, “An Imaginary Life” ............................................................................................................................................................ Photos from this trip abroad: With love and light, dear ones! "Take long walks in stormy weather or through deep snows in the fields and woods, if you would keep your spirits up. Deal with brute nature. Be cold and hungry and weary." ~Henry David Thoreau I was reminded today that it is almost December--the last month of 2014. What is funny to me about this year is that I feel like all the moving forward I wanted to do hasn't happened.
Of course, like usual, I'm being to hard on myself. I have experienced, tried, and accomplished so much this year, but in a lot of ways I don't feel better than the person I was nearly 365 days ago. I don't feel older, or wiser, or smarter, or stronger. 2014, in many ways, has left me more confused, lost, and tired than I wanted to be. But, then again, maybe that's where my problem lies: in the wanting. I have felt like I've been in a pressure cooker for most the year to know what I want and when I want it. In terms of school, my religion, my spirituality, my body, my mind, my friends and my family. The truth is though I don't know what I want. I don't know if I like Mumford and Sons or Jason Mraz more, or if I should ask forgiveness for playing this song on repeat. I don't know if it's okay to accept Bs for B work or if it's even okay to let myself turn in B work. I don't know how well I think critically or if I care to think critically at all. I don't know to hold four languages in my head at once and remember all the right words all the time, because if there is one thing I truly don't know it's what I want to say. This year seems to me to be some sort of a 20 year crisis. I don't know who I am in a world asking for answers. I don't know how to step into adulthood, or womanhood for that matter, without the knowledge that who I am and what I'm doing is okay. That, me, with my pudgy stomach and recent penchant for pizza at 10pm is okay. That, me, with my sociology classes that force me into questions I don't have answers for is just okay. I don't have to pass with an A or even an appreciation for the experience, I just have to work through it. That is one thing I've done this year: I've worked. I don't think I've worked harder at any point in my life than this year. Which may seem like a silly statement coming from a 20 year old, but these past 20 years have been my whole life so the work I have done means a whole lot to me. One thing that I've loved since I got my first (paying) job when I was 16 is that my work never looks the same. Sure, when I was scrubbing toilets all the toilets looked the same, but I knew how I worked and where I worked could always change through my own volition. I realized early on that the quality and kind of work I created in whatever job I held depended upon how well I could respond to the tasks in front of me. If I scrubbed every bathroom like they were all covered in the same spots, or filled every breakfast order like no one preferred peanut butter over cream cheese my inability to respond to variance in my work would affect my job and my community. The same principle has held true for me this year. So much has changed. My guess is that I've changed so much and so quickly that the only remedy to my confusion and wandering is to put in the work to find myself in the messes I've made this year. Last year around this time I wrote: "Dear 2014, from 2013 I asked to be "kinder, and wiser, and laugh more, and love more, and relax more, and write more, and see more sunsets, and have more adventures, and take more pictures, and read more, and learn more, and do more for others". I have certainly done all those things and more. From you I ask for those things still, but also for better ears to hear and better eyes to see in hope of finding a little more clarity and a little more peace. Perhaps I don't see, or hear, or feel at peace as deeply as I had hoped, but I know (I hope) I will find clarity this year. If anything I will embrace this ever-changing experience called college in preparation for an ever-evolving experience called life. I will work hard with the knowledge that sometimes that's all I can do: be okay and pass through until what I'm really working for comes along. Stay strong, dear ones, and never (ever) lose hope that the sun will rise and new horizons will give way to beginnings. I hope you bring in the first of December surrounded by those you love! xoxoxo, Michelle Dear Fall Break, YOU ARE HERE! Thank you for annually giving me the time to play, step back, recharge, and refocus for the last eight weeks of the semester. I am grateful for you. Dear Twinner, I like getting texts from you at 11 pm asking if we've ever gone to Chuck-e-Cheese. Your sense of curiosity blesses me. (My answer: maybe?) Dear Blue Ridge Parkway, I've found myself climbing your mountains these past eight weeks more often than I ever thought I would. Thank you for your colors, wind, clouds, overlooks, randomly placed bathrooms, and hills. Dear Autumn, welcome to Western North Carolina. I hope you stay for a while. Dear Maya Angelou, thank you for teaching about caged birds. Caro Mamma, ti amo, ti amo, ti amo. Thank you for your phone calls, for sending me tomatoes from our garden, and your joie de vivre. Don't stop calling. Dear Tupelo, you are as sweet as the honey you are named after. Thanks for keeping me company this weekend. With love for you, thoughts of lentils, and gratitude for new friendships,
Michy #CHALLENGEALERT: This week write a letter to someone you miss, someone you love, someone you haven't spoken to in a while, or just someone and send it to them! I'm sure it will make them smile :) "What is home? My favorite definition is “a safe place,” a place where one is free from attack, a place where one experiences secure relationships and affirmation. It’s a place where people share and understand each other. Its relationships are nurturing. The people in it do not need to be perfect; instead, they need to be honest, loving, supportive, recognizing a common humanity that makes all of us vulnerable." ~Gladys Hunt from Honey for a Child's heat This weekend I spent time in the mountains with my Aunt Patti and Uncle Rob.
Together we: climbed the highest peak east of the Mississippi ate delicious potatoes at (almost) every meal sampled local brews discovered new Asheville area favortie: restaurants, street performers, book stores, and wine contemplated buying motorcycles and took pictures of our feet. I'm grateful for the time I was given with them this weekend! What did you do this weekend? All my love and more, Michelle Today I spent my afternoon climbing trees and picking crab apples to make cider.
I am blessed. <3 Michelle Last night my dear friend Molly pulled her car over to watch the sun set on September. I'm grateful for her wonder otherwise I would have missed it.
I woke up this morning not even realizing it was October or that September had past. I'm remiss that time and I are moving so quickly without any promise of slowing down, but I welcome this new month as a new beginning. This month I'm looking forward to: Homecoming weekend Fall Break (!!!!!!) Orange Leaves Cool mornings Bonfires Community building Working outside Camping Cinnamon coffee and long hikes in the woods What are you looking forward to this month? All my love and more, Michy "Take long walks in stormy weather or through deep snows in the fields and woods, if you would keep your spirits up. Deal with brute nature. Be cold and hungry and weary." ~Henry David Thoreau Last night I camped out under the stars on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Even though it was cold the sunrise was worth it.
Montibus in claris semper vivida fides (Faith is vigorous in the clear mountains) <3, Michelle |
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