amtrak

July 8, 2005
Amtrak to Jacksonville

Families that travel together, stay together. That should be the Amtrak motto; it might get them more business.

So the thing I notice about this train traveling business is that there are a lot of African-Americans that travel the rail system on the southern half of the east coast. And they travel as families. It’s pretty amazing really. There seems to be a whole other side to the culture that I haven’t seen much of. They are mostly kind (even to white people) and it’s almost like it is relaxing or something. There is kind of a calming effect that the train has on people anyway. It’s like magic. (except in the middle of the night when they are going 80 miles an hour over really old tracks and make you rock back and forth so bad you feel like you may fall out of your seat, it feels funny)

I’ve heard rumor of the government cutting spending so much for Amtrak that they are no longer going to have continuous service to the places they have had. Which is a travesty I think because my children may not be able to take these types of trips when they are my age or even younger. And they won’t get to hang out with the stuptifying weirdo’s and the African-American families and the older Jewish couples that ride the rails. The great American equalizer, for the most part. I mean there still is business class and probably first class, and there are sleeper cars for the overnight stints, like the one I just did from DC to Jacksonville, but the majority opts for the abundantly spacious seats and leg room of the coach class rail. Sleeping was defiantly a challenge, but once you get tired enough you just kind of pass out for a couple of hours.

The changing landscape of the east coast has also been a plus, though I hate to admit that I slept through my favorite parts of the states, southern Mass, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. Now speeding through southern Georgia the massively mixed foliage of pine trees, oak trees, Spanish moss, shrubbery is nice. Much better than railing through the slums of places like Boston, New York City, Newark, Baltimore, DC. Pretty much everything outside of those places has been pleasant. It’s like the parts of America that they don’t want you to see. Parts that you never fly over on your way to big airports. That’s the other part of the Amtrak that I like, the honesty of it all. It isn’t pretentious in any way; it just doesn’t apologize for what you will see. The conductors don’t apologize for who you will be passengers with, nor with their vastly varying flares do you feel like you are being patronized, “water, juice, soda?” “watch your elbows”.

Ah yes, the great American railway system. A tragedy to ever lose, should be preserved for history’s sake. A wanderer’s best friend.

You should at some point in your life take the train down the east coast, or maybe up the east coast (it’s much less expensive on this side) and experience for yourself some of America’s richest culture. Do yourself a favor and ride the Amtrak.

big white house, 4th of July, avoiding conflict

moments have brought me to the present state that I am in in a suburb of Washington DC. I am at my friends' house. Or at least the house she is staying at for now. It is this enormous white thing, with an AWESOME yard and a forest in the back yard. I like the back yard. Needless to say. there is an issue of massive avoidance of conflict (on my part). My friend and her mother decided to fight this morning, and the old thing in me that wants to run away and hide from any type of conflict rose up. I hate it. I hate yelling, I hate the sound of peoples voices when they are angry with each other, I hate that it is a mother and her 26 year old daughter that have chosen to give up the fight of deference and kindness to give into the demons inside us that makes us fallen. I hate that I heard the whole thing, and I hate it when my friend talks about it, she says her mom was screaming at her. She wasn't screaming, she was joining in just as if not more ferociously. but she has chosen not to look at that piece of her fallenness. Instead she took the road of victimhood, just as her mother was and still is doing all morning. Ah, family...the reasons are very clear as to why for a very long time I never wanted anything to do with them, or the idea of having one.

But I guess we all do that. I do it all the time. When I am just as guilty, I take on the victims side of things. What is the right way to deal? Especially when we are the children, children that may be more whole than the parent of offense. I never fought with my mom, I just didn't talk to her. I fight with my dad, but mostly because I have a lot of energy about something, or he is being ignorant, and he likes to banter as much as I do. But my mom and me, I don't remember when I ever screamed at her. I think I always felt smarter than her, superior to her, and at the same time, as though I would never add up to who she is. It is a strange dichotomy.

But in all of my time as a daughter, especially now that I am older and hopefully wiser, I feel that it is never okay to scream at your mother. I really have no idea what she has been through in her life. And even if she trys to manipulate me, I don't have to play according to her rules. I am an adult. I make up my own rules, or better yet, I hope it is the right way.

My mother is worth my time. Even if she pisses me off. She is worth me taking the time to cool down and to talk to her like an adult. Like a friend. Honesty about feelings is really hard for me, but its even harder for my mom. But I have watched her blossom into a woman who is able to articulate much more then I ever imagined her to be able to. it has been a LONG HARD road with my mom. We didn't even have a relationship until she moved to Kansas City 5 years ago, and even then, the first year, shoot two years was hell. I would come home after the nightwatch and she would just be getting up, and I would talk to her because I felt obligated to. I never wanted to. And the only thing that would come out of my mouth would be about all of the pain I was discovering in my heart about who she was and my relationship with her or my lack of relationship with her. She would just look at me angry under her placid facade and ask me why I couldn't just forgive and move on. "Because I can't mom. Because if I did I would be kidding my self and would just stuff it all like you have your whole life" I would say things like that. It really hurt her at the time, and we didn't talk a lot, but she began to discover that she had indeed been stuffing her emotions all of her life. And I watched Jesus take this womans life, who, I believed, had destroyed mine, and I watched him turn her into a mother that anyone would be proud to have. I am not ashamed of my mom. I think she is as amazing as every stranger that meets her thinks she is. But they don't know how amazing she is. They didn't know where she came from, from the lifetime of some type of abuse or another, from the shame that shaped the legs she walks on, that gave her a belief that she was worth only the shit that she got her whole life. They don't even know the half of it. I am so proud of my mother. She gives me hope for my life. That even when I get to her age I will still be able to change, because Jesus is in the business of never leaving us alone.

If you are reading this and you have recently been an asshole to your mother, go apologize, even if she started it. Take the low road, be honest, if you have as much maturity as you profess to in your own mind let her make her mistakes and have compassion on her. She doesn't have the understanding of her heart in the way you may have it of your own. The only way that any of us make lasting change is if there is truth and love. My life is a great example of that, and my mothers' an even better one. It's never too late. I'm sorry if you don't have a mother like mine who loves Jesus and who wants, in her latter years, to know him better. But pray for her anyway, and don't play by her rules. You are not bound to those rules. That is the beauty of adulthood. Just because you have familial tendencies, doesn't mean that the power of the Grace of God and his life in you cannot change it.

my prayer for you and myself is that we learn how to take the low road, and honor each other beyond what is offered. My prayer is that we lose the manipulation, and the obligation and the bending to those things, that we get out of the boat in more ways that we can even imagine. Remember, "there is no spoon", well, "there is no boat". The rules we are conviced that we are bound to are not reality. There remains a higher set of values and principles and rules by which we must continue to die to live to.

God help us.

vermont

July 1, 2005
Windom, New Hampshire
Youth Storm NE, Foster’s house

My journey continues. Through the weekend I will be in New Hampshire, Boston, and will get to Washington DC on Sunday.

Vermont was not what I expected. I anticipated more laughter. Not that I was extremely disappointed or anything, it just didn’t hold the punch of fun I was hoping for. A lot changes in 2 years. That is a no-brainer I guess.

I experienced Jesus in a way I haven’t seen or felt him in a really long time. That was very nice, needless to say. It was good to see old friends and to meet new people too. I must say I really do love Vermont, and I wonder what future the Lord has for me there.

So I woke up this morning with a nasty headache, nausea, and cramps, not a fun combo. Then when I got up I went to the bathroom to blow my nose and as I was merely blowing my nose, my back went out. Not fun. So I am still pretty uncomfortable even though it is not as bad as it was this morning. I couldn’t ‘t believe the combo. I had a glimmering moment of the thought that maybe there was some resistance to me continuing my journey. Come to think of it there were quite a few strange things that happened while in VT.

I was able to escape to one of my favorite places in the earth, the river in Mendon, VT, just up Route 4, it was beautiful! Under a canopy of light translucent green trees and dark comforting conifers. I took 2 rolls of pictures and have yet to develop them…I hope a few turn out. I did a lot of experimenting. I sat next to the voice of the river and missed my friends who are now all scattered abroad, never to return to the same city in which I now live.

I guess I don’t know what is happening on this trip or why I am even on it in the first place, all I know is that I am on it. I have wanted to write much more then I have, but traveling takes a lot out of me, and there are so many people to catch up with, although I am at my friends’ house and I am in the other room typing this.

So in the midst of all of this too, I found time to read a book, and I have begun to have my perspective change about some things, relationships in my life. Wondering about the faithfulness of God in certain aspects of my journey, scared, terribly scared that I have much more responsibility about them than I maybe should be taking. But I am not sure about that either. I may have more thoughts on that later.

I feel as though this is not a very well written update, and so I do apologize, and hope that at some point I will have another moment of inspiration to creatively process my heart in the present moments.

My love to you, pray for me to not be so tasty to Mosquitoes…