Gaia Community: gioiapura's Blog

ate some cake. not sure what to feel.

Tue, 06 May 2008 05:31:50 -0000

i dont even know.
i just ate a lot of cake.
and im sad. and i should be tired. but im not really wanting to go to sleep.
why is it that i am this way? up one minute and down the next.
i dont want to go home tomorrow. but i do.
its a rough change.
i suck at change.
will i ever get better at transitioning?
i hope so, but i doubt.
chocolate burps.
i want to throw up.

breaking it down to piece it back together

Mon, 05 May 2008 21:57:40 -0000

wow.
so i am done the semester. almost done. minus a paper that is this close to being done.
it feels nice.
does it though?? feel nice? nope. it kind of sucks.

i've changed so much this semester. i think. and i want to figure out where i am, where ive been, where im going. to pause. to reflect. to make breaks and build on foundations.

im leaving for ecuador on june 12 and i want to be refocused by the time i get there. between now and then there is camp and working for people at home. im hoping to have my dreadlocks done in there too. but i think i need to set goals for the next month. goals to foster rebirth. a lot is ending tomorrow... but a lot is ready to be born.
i want to:

use my body to do something everyday. run. walk. hike. lift weights. move furniture. dance. jump. spin in circles until i fall on the ground.

write a page everyday. one single spaced word document. about life. about my day. about God. about a character.

spend time with god every morning. meditating and reflecting and focusing. journaling? yes.

work on playing the guitar. you could do it one day. you can do it again. for fun.

make art. make art. make art.

clean out your room. get rid of stuff. simplify. be simple.

take photographs. lots. and send them to people in the mail. with stickers.

i am really excited and really ready for camp. and i can't believe how God has changed my heart about it. im praying that my attitude keeps up. its going to be hard to go back home tomorrow, especially since i am sort of mourning this semester. its a lot to say good bye to and im not sure they understand that.

Tomorrow I'm saying farewell to:

Going to school with Jenna.

Living in NC 19

Sharing a room with Rach

Being a junior in college

I'd like so badly to say good bye to a lot. I'm learning about me and a lot of what you uncover sucks. plain out sucks. so maybe one day soon I can say good bye to:

eating because I am sad or lonely

not saying hi to people i know when i see them

being busy

not being honest with myself or with other people

change is going to be good. so often it is painful in the midst of it. maybe tomorrow i can let go. stop gritting my teeth. breathe. cry. soak up the sun. let go of myself and be a child of God.

ive been gone so long, but don't you worry, im coming on home

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 22:21:37 -0000

Before i begin for real, and im doing so i guess i am beginning for real, but whatever. i ramble far too much when i post anyhow, but im not so sure this is read by anyone, and what i post is not intended to be read by anyone to tell the truth and so therefore, my rules win. I always seem to be here writing either because i just haven't written in a while or because i am stressed or sad about something. this makes me wonder if i am often a depressing individual, but i guess that when i am alive, i dont really run to the computer and fire up the internet and start typing. that said, this is what makes me feel alive.

salsa, merengue, bachata, you name it i feel it deep down inside.
yoga.
hard, powerful, intense, effective revision of my work.
being absolutely terrified and looking that fear in the face and saying ha.
singing way too loud in the car.
tea parties.

ive got to work on this short story next. and its gonna be a tough one. first of all, it sucks. second thing is that im a bit nervy because i know how much work this semester is and im afraid that doing work now is meaning that ill have no life later, that it will only get worse. there is truth to this fear and yet, it is no reason that i should launch into neurotic rantings when i notice that a sentence is stupid. i still have no idea what im doing in this major here, other than i feel completely honored to be able to be here. Ive arrived at a party with a lot of people i love, don't know who invited me, but dont want to leave despite my minor embarassment at feeling like a party crasher.

First small group is tonight at kathleen's. i was worried i would have too much work to do. but i think there are three things i am gonna make time for this semester, maybe four. small group, yoga, and shaking my butt in the city. the fourth goes without much saying but it would be my friends especially christa. that girl and i see way too little of each other and that is a problem.

ok off to perform surgery. just have to detach myself from it all and dive in without a hint of pride. i can do it. we'll see.

a blustery new year!

Thu, 03 Jan 2008 15:52:26 -0000

               There is an episode of Gilmore Girls from a few years back about Luke's dark day. He has it every year. Nice and constant and predictable. The same day every year he retreats somewhere and braces himself until this particular day is over. Lorelei, unfortunately, is unaware of this ritual, but that is another story altogether. Luke's dark day popped into my mind the other day between thoughts about the brevity of life and the utter hopelessness of it all and I found myself skipping into psychosis. How come Luke can predict his dark day and mine just seem to kick down the front door and announce their presence? Perhaps I could handle cowering in a corner for the same day every year, I could put it on my calender and put a pot of tea on so that my dark day and I could have some pleasant conversation while it came to visit. But no, maybe if I scheduled a dark day here and there, it wouldn't bother showing up. These things tend to thrive off of surprise and sneak attacks.
                  And so, rather poetically, a couple of dark days came for a visit right before new years. New years is the time for resolutions and change, the time when we realize, or perhaps beg and plead with God, that the winter cannot stay forever. We've had our share of Christmas cookies and family gatherings and then we remember that spring, if the future is anything like the past, is right around the corner. But of course, in that week before new years and after christmas I was ready to dig myself a cave of self pity, crawl on in, and wallow away the reat of my years. When i take the time to examine my existence, two things happen: I either glance upon the fleeting expanse of pointlessness and chaos or I come away with a sense of peace and calm, glowing like a kid in a shampoo ad.   I would like to proclaim boldly that I possess such a radiant aura most commonly and once in a blue moon i am belly down in the mud of restrained potential. But, of course, for me, it is safer to be a mess. It is an excuse to stay home, and excuse to be alone. People want to talk to you when you glow, dang it.
                    It is a new year though. The weather so unapologetically announces it with gusting winds and bitter cold. Hello, I am here, you look pathetic.  And so, from somewhere, comes a burst of new energy. It is the day when company is coming for breakfast but my alarm decided to play tricks on me. I'm flying down the stairs, whirling in and out of the bathroom. The little things are unimportant now, there's no time to worry about whether I've shaved my armpits. i am clean and you are here. i'll take your coat and put on some hot water. Life is hard and I've got gunk in my eyes. we've all got gunk in our minds. tell me more.

is that what this is called?

Thu, 01 Nov 2007 21:47:03 -0000

lake wobegon. coffee. chocolate chip cookies. mom. friends. my house. baxter. family.

i feel it moving
settling in my soul like the coolness of autumn
my eyes can not look away
so foreign and yet too familiar
hungry
reaching for something secure
frantic and scattered
trying to dance on water.

Well there, little bugger.

Thu, 25 Oct 2007 11:53:16 -0000

so its been a few days. and to be completely honest, of all the random places i write things down i havent done much of this at all the past few days. i am in a weird place emotionally. part unbelief, part uncertainly, part the feeling that i am wasting my time. i think that i need to take a bit of a break from the computer and from school and from mindless tasks.

also since ive last written, ive bought plane tickets for romania. yeah, that is right kids, im off to romania. to visit who you might ask. well, i don't know for sure. but basically there are some missionaries that welcomes me to come for a visit when i asked. so thats where ill be in a week. wow.

so im gonna get me off this stupid computer.

If I told you,

Fri, 19 Oct 2007 16:33:36 -0000

would you listen hard enough to understand?

I'd like to preface this with a disclaimer.

Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:46:53 -0000

So this might be a grandiose collection of randomness. But in the sense that it is all little bits of my life at the moment, somewhere in thereis a common thread weaving it all together. And I suppose that makes it your job to look beyond the barrage of broken pieces and see what it once was; what it has all come from. I can never seem to get something whole out of myself, it always cracks in the moving process.

I finished Calvino's book this morning with a great deal of dark chocolate. It ended quite fabulously and for the parts I skimmed over, the parts that i relished in really made the book amazing and powerful. He has a real grasp on why we read; what the point of spending hours digesting words on a page really is. My two favorite quotes from the book (what i felt compelled to post-it note mark):
"They have known her since she was a girl, they know everything there is to know about her, some of them may have been involved with her, now water under the bridge, over and done with; in other words, there is a veil of other images that settles on her image and blurs it, a weight on memories that keep me from seeing her as a person seen for the first time, other people's memories suspended like the smoke under lamps."
I think that this is a beautiful, striking image. The thought that people can never really see someone truly; the impact of one's experiences with others and the impressions of others constantly obscure the reality of who we are.
"The world is so complicated, tangled, and overloaded that to see into it with any clarity you must prune and prune."
And so I prune and prune. This is really all any of us do when we seek to try and genuinely figure things out. The harder we look the more we see that very little matters; out vision becomes clearer, less polluted by the garbage we have piled on in an attempt to give ourselves comfort and security.

I've found some new music by Ingrid Michaelson. Recommended to me by a dear friend who has the same music tastes as me, i was fairly confident she was good before I even listened to her myspace songs. But this girl is wonderful. Some of her songs have been on Grey's, but despite how much i love it, im not feeling the need to buy any music right now. ill settle for the four song myspace sampling. Also Brian Campbell, beautiful. My friend matt sent his stuff to me. he's got a true voice. he'll be in roma in january, too bad ill be in the states. too bad.

I wrote some this morning and im loving working on something continuously. For the most part, I write a lot. but i am scattered and random and i write compulsively. i write in a journal and an online journal and on napkins and in blogs and in letters and e-mails. every so often i ponder compiling things into a wonderful repository of goodness. and then it strikes me that i would never do anything with that. the collected works of me would gather dust. a file on my computer with no meaning, no continuity, no purpose. why do i write? i write for the moment, i write because i have to. i write because i need to process and have the rhythm of my pen on the paper or my fingers on the keys. some days i write just to pass the time, but once the words begin to pulse from my fingers and my body finds the movement, it is almost like dancing with myself. i rarely read what i have written or even revise it. is there any point if no one is to read it? which brings me to another point, i never want anyone to read what ive written. until recently ive been shy about even letting people know that i write so much.
about a week ago, i took a crazy step. i sent one of my journals to my friend. she is perhaps one of those people who know my soul better than i do. she speaks truth into my life and brings me to honesty. when i am around her i cannot help but to be brutally honest. of course she is in the states right now and it is painful sometimes to ot be able to share coffee with her and cry openly and freely. but i just needed to give her these writings of mine. Id been reading them one day because i thought about how i hadnt written there in a while and wondered what the heck i had written, and i saw a brief glimpse of something pretty crazy. i was taken aback by the person who had written these things. i was surprised by what i read and drawn in. i knew that i had written every word with the intention that no one would ever see them and yet i didn't know the person who had written this. it was touching and powerful and intense. and i knew that it was me. it was a part of me that i dont show to people, but that i wanted to be able to give. since ive shared it with her, i havent added anything to it.

there is this blog ive been reading for a while. i found it a bit randomly, but i read it all the time. the guy that writes it is beautiful. he bares his soul and is open. i really respect everything he writes there, i envy the way he lives life, the way he is about to be so honest. i think it is weird that i read these things about him and he doesn't know who i am. im toying with the idea of e-mailing him just to thank him for feeding my soul in the way he does. i think id want to know if someone was touched by what i wrote.

im a little homesick. i dont know what im homesick for exactly. i know that God is in Italy. i know this time is full of purpose, ready to give birth to the next path in my life. i am still attached to the familiar. i still seek out comfort. ive not given up my security. my life is still me own, but im trying to let go of it. and it is a lot harder than it sounds.

Of goal setting and my insulated six pack.

Thu, 18 Oct 2007 16:24:19 -0000

If I had to pick one thing that has happened to me over the past few months in the spirit of reflection, it would be that I'm having the curious experience of the cementing of my identity. Now I don't know what exactly it means to have a secure identity and to be honest I hope that my identity is never really cemented exactly. Because that would be a very boring existence. But I am loving being secure in the current condition of my identity and the fact that it will be ever changing.
So I've been struck with a bit of a goal setting bug lately and I don't want to be a setter of empty goals which I've tended towards in the past. Im a dreamer and a planner and typically not one to follow through on plans. I live a simple life, dancing through a simple existence. And elaborate goals aren't part of that life.
But some goals must be. And I know now that in the past, I've not been bold enough or confident enough; I just haven't had the balls. Now though, it is becoming easier to figure out what I want to commit to and what is just a dream; what I really want and what is really important.
And so when I say I want to learn italian or to hike across the states or to run a marathon, i think for the first time ever i may be serious. maybe, or maybe i am just becoming a bit homesick or this is the way that my homesickness is going to present itself. But I hope it is for real. And then again, if I dont fulfill these goals, were they really so important to me to begin with?
On a side note, but a slightly related side note, I've been talking myself into a loving relationship with my body. A relationship that is accepting and understanding and forgiving. One that values fitness over emaciation. And while writing this I realize how odd it might seem that I talk to my body, we have conversations a lot of the time. Being in a culture that loves to eat and enjoy life and relax, it is a new experience for me to join Italians in their gusto for eating and drinking. And in a way, this is the perfect place for me to learn to eat again. To watch those around me and take my cues from them.
Am I getting a little pudgy? I don't really know. But what I do know I that the wine last night was amazing and that I love cheese and pasta and olive oil. I also know that I am letting myself play outside a lot. I can only hope that it won't get too cold too fast. But i hear that the inevitable is happening this weekend.
Im still toying with the whole school issue... I wish I could get some solid advice but I dont know who to ask. The mom has been a bit MIA the past few days and I think I'd want to bring it up with her first. After all, I'd probably end up back in her house if I went through with it.

so i might be a dork...

Wed, 17 Oct 2007 12:06:05 -0000

this afternoon i got a profile on goodreads.com so that i can keep track of the books i've read and the books that i want to read. i really love to read and can't even begin to explain how much withdrawl i'm going through not having a full english language library in italy. there is a small collection of books available to me, but it just isn't the same.
Also, it is time for me to start looking at classes for the spring semester. And so, while it may feel like this question pops into my head every semester, do i want to stay in school? i've been thinking really seriously about dropping out to head in a different direction. im feeling suffocated by the restraints of the college schedule and im not expecting a piece of paper to provide me with an exceptional amount of freedom in a few years. so if im not in this to expand my experience in the present and am not expecting it to open the doors i want to walk through when i graduate, what is the point? i guess i just need to do a lot more thinking about the whole thing. i hear mixed ideas from everyone. its hard to know how seriously to take advice from people, especially when it can be just as enthusiastic and passionate one way as it is the other. i dont think that id really be "quitting" school, just following my passions in a different direction. which if you ask me, is pretty sweet.
missing the mom a bit. loving the italy. chocolate croissant, anyone?

The ups and downs of my gentle stomach

Mon, 15 Oct 2007 11:22:49 -0000

I woke up this morning at a bright and early eight o'clock. I truly wish it were easier for me to get up early, at least I wish I could get out of bed and have a few precious hours to do very little at all and then face the day around 10. And this morning it wasn't very bright either, the pitch black of the bedroom and the cold marble floor made it all too tempting to remain encased the warmness of the comforter. But of course, I have class at nine and I don't miss class. Ever. Unless I'm puking my guts out or am otherwise about to perish. So the next thing I realize, after being struck by how sleepy I am, is that I am hungry. Hungry hungry. And sore. So now I remember what my butt feels like.

Yesterday before dinner, I was possessed by my more athletic overachieving self to participate in an exciting workout known as doom loops. Doom you say, yes, I said Bring it on. After a lap around Alba, Chris and Adam and I did great numbers of fairly ridiculous exercises. It felt really great at the time and I suppose feeling like I've done something is good. Yet, I'm finding myself at that point where I simply refuse to commit to making this a regular activity as much as I would like to be a marathon runner. And I don't think I'm being too irrational when I am figuring that their legs are at least a foot longer than mine.

Right now though, I'm feeling a bit sick after eating lunch. I was so hungry all morning. I watched everyone eat chocolate croissants and leave for coffee and then I ate a lot at lunch. Yuck. Despite the inevitability of a test in Italian this afternoon, I am going to head back to my place and take a short nap. Maybe I'll study there. Yes, conjugating verbs and combining prepositions and articles in bed. This sounds very good. Almost as good as a chocolate chip cookie. Which doesn't really sounds so good right now. Tums, anyone??

Bean soup and the morning after.

Sun, 14 Oct 2007 13:57:51 -0000

So yesterday was my birthday. And what a day it was, totally unexpected spectacularness. I played soccer with friends and we had a surprise birthday dinner and then went to the bar and then watch Back to the Future III. After dinner we also visited this fabulous little place called Banco. Now I'm fairly certain that the joy in this place represents our need for the material and is a pretty shallow undertaking, but the simplicity of it was nice. You pay a euro and you get to pick out a little slip of paper which has a prize written on it. I won a fly swatter. Yeah, it looks like a hand, it's basically the awesomest thing ever. For my birthday I got a huge bar of chocolate and a Pace flag. They bought me a cake and we had a whole lot of wine. The real awesome part of the whole was just being with everyone. Playing soccer in the afternoon, eating dinner together, and all being together and having fun. I have a tendency to doubt the ability of random groups of people to really develop community. In the summers, I work with groups of people and facilitate the development of the group dynamic. But it never ceases to amaze me how good people are. Yesterday really restored my faith in those around me, the power of people to love. Really refreshing.
After dinner, I got a crown to wear and we went to banco and then to the bar where i got a margherita and then we went and watched a movie. Basically it might have been the most awesome birthday ever. I had breakfast in bed, soccer, food, wine, margheritas, and a birthday crown. i realize that this entry seems to have been completely scattered. o well.
Then this morning, the bean soup i had for dinner last night seemed to have gone right through me. Speaking of which, despite the yummyness of italian food, ive not been getting enough fiber. Anyway, i clogged the toilet this morning. hardcore clogged the sucker. and then it overflowed. Im in there thinking o crap, literally and figuratively. and at the same time, adam is ringing to come up to the apartment and comes up and im in the bathroom and there is water all over the floor. yeah poop water on the floor. and adam wants lunch and im in my pjs. and so i ended up unclogging the toilet with the toilet brush, and then i disinfected the whole bathroom. good times.
basically i am in italy. and i am learning that all of these people are beautiful and unique and full of love. and each of them have there own stories and there own quirks. But to have them all collaborate on a surprise for me, was surprising in its own right.

and i am going to start writing a novel. inspired by national novel writing month. im crazy excited. i'll get back to you with how it ends up.

Anne Lamott... you have a way with the truth.

Fri, 12 Oct 2007 12:03:04 -0000

Foibles are not worth hating, was the point: What was worth hating was poverty, injustice, war, the killing of our sons and brothers.

how true.

if on a winter's night a traveller...

Fri, 12 Oct 2007 11:46:36 -0000

I started reading this book last week. It is by Italo Calvino, an Italian author, and it is translated into English. Basically, it might be one of the weirdest, most intriguing novels I've read. The novel narrates a reader who is trying to finish a novel, but runs into numerous obstacles to completing a single book. The insanity begins with the mistake of a publishing company and each time the reader believes he has discovered the rest of the book he is reading, he runs into another book. And each book captures his attention just as much as the one before him, if not more. Calvino has opened a dialouge about reading and how we read, why we read, and what happens to us when we read a book and when we don't complete a book.
It's got me thinking about how life seems to interrupt the books we are reading. We start something, we head out on one journey, and then, by no effort of our own, we reach a deadend. And we try, with all our might, to pick up where we left off and soon enough, we figure out that we have started a completely new manuscript.
So have I been trying to read a single story for the past twenty years of my life, or am I satisfied with each new novel that comes my way, accepting the cliffhangers that will never be resolved and the helplessness that accompanies being only a reader.
But what does it mean to be only a reader?

musings of a congested mind...

Fri, 12 Oct 2007 11:31:01 -0000

so i seem to have come down with a bit of a head cold and somehow it seems to have clogged up my thoughts as well. odd how feeling gross physically makes me mentally lazy. but this morning my roommate went out for cappucino and came back with a teddy bear cookie for me. yeah, chocolate and butter cookie at 11 in the morning. yum.

If uniqueness was contagious...

Tue, 09 Oct 2007 14:25:16 -0000

If uniqueness was contagious, some days I must be the most isolated person I know. Creativity sparks from people I know and yet I seem to have not caught fire. In each way I thought I was special, I discover that I am not so unique. Like a hypochondriac, every imagined symptom leads me to believe that I have in fact discovered what makes me unique; the thing that provides me with purpose. But in the end, my more rational side leads me to realize that perhaps I am not as infected as I thought. Once I was creative and artsy, today I find creativity overflowing from the souls of everyone. Though perhaps some have sought to camoflauge it with a bit more effort than others. I used to take comfort in my ambition to be without ambition, to strive for nothing more than to appreciate life. These days, I notice that after the pursuit of even the highest ambition, everyone is really only seeking to enjoy life in the way they know best. Could it be that my idea of life is just slower and more relaxed? My childhood, my body, my friends, and my faith. Everything I could imagine which makes me unique is shared by at least one other person I know. I sometimes find myself pondering the possibility that there is someone I do not know who shares all of these attributes, another me.
And yet, I refuse to believe that there is nothing which makes me unique. I am certain that if there was nothing special about me, there would be no reason for me to exist. My uniqueness is something greater than a specific characteristic or quality or the color of my eyes, it is an element of my purpose. I have confidence that there is no one else in the present, past, or future that will be able to glorify God in exactly the way I will. Of course this is not to say that my worship is best, or even half as good as everyone elses. But it is mine and because of that my Father is pleased.

Song of a Wanderer by Sasha Dugdale

Tue, 09 Oct 2007 14:09:41 -0000

I am fearless. Fearlessness was seeded in me
In a small flat where all the talk was children's babble
And soft spider replies: doggie, choochoo, baba
And the kitchen clattered and shook with gravy
Boiling over. The bread rose
The meat bubbled in the heat, and crooked spiderfingers
Laid the pastry ring across the seething curd.
I was fearless with wanting to dress my own small body
Walk with long, straight legs down to the street
Before the vegetables, ready mashed and served,
Before the napkin, tucked into my skirt.

But wherever I go I find the same sweet harem
Cloysome to my heart. The same old women and the babies
The same babble. I taste the same smell of meat
From high-up windows. I watch the same old fingers
Kneading bread and see the ancient ring mark on the crust.
And when they ask me, "Why not have a rest?" on some bed
So high and soft and melting, I say, "Yes. I'm really very tired."
And unroll, in a headache of a dream, my limbs
So weary from their walking. Yes, I am captive
To the pie crust and the stove, the women and their talking,
The children's little grip.

Heart by Margaret Atwood

Tue, 09 Oct 2007 14:02:09 -0000

Some people sell their blood. You sell your heart.
It was either that or the soul.
The hard part is getting the damn thing out.
A kind of twisting motion, like shucking an oyster,
your spine a wrist,
and then, hup! it's in your mouth.
You turn yourself partially inside out
like a sea anemone coughing a pebble.
There's a broken plop, the racket
of fish guts into a pail,
and there it is, a huge glistening deep-red clot
of the still-alive past, whole on the plate.

It gets passed around. It's slippery. It gets dropped,
but also tasted. Too coarse, says one. Too salty.
Too sour, says another, making a face.
Each one is an instant gourmet,
and you stand listening to all this
in the corner, like a newly hired waiter,
your diffident, skilful hand on the wound hidden
deep in your shirt and chest,
shyly, heartless.

· From Margaret Atwood's The Door