Extended Stay

I am proud and humbled (figure that one out) to say that Operation Appreciate/Love/Invest In Cleveland is going remarkably well. Each day is another baby step away from bitterness at my current living situation. But I have to say, I still feel like I am really on an extended stay or visit to the city -- despite the fact that I just wrote a rent check, I have now worked three weeks straight of nearly 40 hours each week at the same Starbucks location, I recognize most of my customers and they recognize me, and I have an employee parking pass attached to my windshield that makes an electric arm go up and down at my will.

So what makes a place feel like home? Can a place be home even when it doesn't feel like it? How does this whole thing work anyway?

The Scientist

Any of you who know me probably also know that I do not do "good-byes" notoriously well. Well, I haven't even said goodbye in Austria, yet (I have about three hours to go) and I am already not doing well. Blame it on lack of sleep, lack of nutrition, complete emotional exhaustion or just a really tender heart. Whatever it may be, I have already cried at least once this morning thinking about having to leave and am beginning to again, as I write this. This trip has been absolutely indescribable, really. And I am really ready to go home. I am ready for normal showers (not with windows in the bathroom or showers in the kitchen), I am ready for my bed (not plywood or a couch), I am ready to return to Starbucks and my regulars (not sleeping any time I have no rehearsal or concert to play), I am ready to drive my car (not ride 4-8 hours in a bus, plane or train), I am ready to go to small group and ready to see my parents and ready to go back to church (not just listen to their sermons while sitting next to teenagers making out on the plane).
But I am not ready to leave. I am not ready to leave quaint little Europe, it's architecture, it's lighting and it's history. I am not ready to leave new friends with potential depth of friendship, or at least really great music making. I am not ready to leave really high quality food. I am not ready to leave life on my own. Most of all, I am not ready to leave my good friend Christian. He has been a constant encouragement to me since I met him 5 years ago in England. We have had some of the most amazing conversations full of honesty and depth and vulnerability and truth. Which we tend to follow with a ridiculous question about the merits of farting. Truly.
It's time for me to begin transitioning back into "the real world," but it's times like this that truly make me long for Heaven, because I do not like to be parted from my friends for long, especially not really good, true friends. The kind who stick closer than a brother.
I would like to encourage you, today, or sometime, to call up a friend, or write them a letter (I really like letter writing ... they can also then keep it to refer back to later) and remind them that you love them and what impact they have made on your life. We all need to be reminded every now and again.

But I must say, after re-reading this, it sounds like he died. But he hasn't. So I do have the hope of hanging out with him again relatively soon, like, this summer when he comes back to the States for his sister's wedding or when I hopefully go to Finland again for Halo. *phew* Smile's back on my face.

I don't know what song can sum up my feelings best, but I'll go with Natasha Bedingfield's rendition of "The Scientist." Also here's a photo of Christian and Michael taken by Christian's neighbor from a pre-Christmas party in Austria.


The Scientist
(original by Coldplay; cover by Natasha Bedingfield)

Come up to meet you
Tell you I'm sorry
You don't know how lovely you are
I had to find you
Tell you I need you
Tell you I set you apart
Tell me your secrets
Ask me your questions
Oh let's go back to the start
Running in circles
Coming up tails
Heads only science apart

Nobody said it was easy
It's such a shame for us to part
Nobody said it was easy
No one ever said it would be this hard
Oh, take me back to the start

(Take me back to the start)

I was just guessing at numbers and figures
Pulling your puzzles apart
Questions of science
Science and progress
Do not speak as loud as my heart
Oh, oh tell me you love me
Come back and haunt me
Oh and I rush to the start
Oh running in circles
Chasing our tails
Oh coming back as we are

Nobody said it was easy
It's such a shame for us to part
Nobody said it was easy
No one ever said it would be this hard
I'm going back to the start

(I'm going back to you, yeah
Oh, oh yeah
Take me back
Take me back
Take me back to you
Take me back
Take me back
Take me back
Take me back
Take me back to the place where I first loved you ...)

Better

Just made it back to civilization, I mean. Graz. Everyone is fine. All luggage is accounted for. And now it's time for bed. But we did have a lovely walk to Christian's apartment. It was long because we were tired, but it was beautiful because it's snowing again. Not like angry China snow that eats away at your bones down to the marrow ... but gentle Graz snow, welcoming us back and making things look new and clean. Thanks, Graz. I like you too. Another update will come tomorrow since I am allowed to update a blog in this country. No bitterness, though. Yes!

Song: Better
Artist: Regina Spektor.

I keep singing it when I wake up from any number of naps I've taken in the last few days of travel by bus and plane.

Love You 'Till The End

It's true, wherever I've recently been is where I want to live. I wonder why that is. The world has so much magic in it. It's true, I believe in magic. My friend Andrew used to call computers magic because he didn't understand them. Andrew is a very smart person. VERY smart, but I somehow have always admired that he didn't put forth the effort to learn about computers. He just accepted them as magic. When he pushed a button, they turned on. Like magic.

I'm watching P.S. I Love You right now. I don't have the strength to turn it on. Or to not cry. This movie is so good. I don't care what you say. I don't have to justify it. It's good. Sorry 'bout you. You're probably not even arguing with me. But whatever.

Wherever I am, I just want to be home. And the footage of Ireland just came up. I miss it.
I don't really know why I miss it. I remember being really ready to come home when it was time to. I remember not liking being alone. But right now, I'd give almost anything to be back there again. Something about it just fits in my heart. Maybe because it was my first adventure on my own. Completely. On. My. Own. Me. And God. Just us. And I suppose, thus will my life be until I'm thirty.

Love You 'Till The End
The Pogues

I just want to see you
When youre all alone
I just want to catch you if I can
I just want to be there
When the morning light explodes
On your face it radiates
I cant escape
I love you till the end

I just want to tell you nothing
You dont want to hear
All I want is for you to say
Why dont you just take me
Where Ive never been before
I know you want to hear me
Catch my breath
I love you till the end

I just want to be there
When were caught in the rain
I just want to see you laugh not cry
I just want to feel you
When the night puts on its cloak
Im lost for words dont tell me
All I can say
I love you till the end

Southbound Train

The temperature feels like summer. Everything else feels undeniably like fall. The world is preparing to rest.

I'm a little confused and frustrated about life right now. My heart is in so many places that I seem to be unable to actually be in any one place fully. First, my heart is with all the Halo people, so really, it's in last month ... which is not even a place! I want to be in Finland with all my Halo kids. The fellowship, the focus, the mission, the purpose, the fun ... even though it was pretty busy, it was somehow the most restful and relaxing time I've had in awhile.
Yet, I love Muncie and I want to be here with my church, with my small group members, with my parents. But I don't have the patience to be home with my parents anymore. That's probably a little bit okay. I am, after all, 25. In terms of American culture, now is an acceptable time to move out of the house. No one should really still be living at home with the parents. But I can't afford to live on my own quite yet, not responsibly anyway. I don't want to answer any of their questions. I don't want to talk to them, and yet I hate that I can't talk to them about many of the things I think and experience. Part of this town feels like it won't allow me to grow. "That's not acceptable. People don't change." It seems to say. But I know that's not true.
I want to be in the city of Chicago because I have so many friends there and it's a city I love in my mind, maybe idolize a little.
I want to be in Cleveland, because I also have now developed a base of support there ... and a job.
And it seems that every one of my places, everywhere that my heart is, decides to do activities at the same time.
So next weekend, my small group in Muncie is attending a church-wide retreat and I've been "kicked out" of small group (not really) so they can have 100% attendance, but I really really WANT to be there. Yet, I have to be in Cleveland all next week for an Erie concert and it's great to go up there and be with my friends ... but it's going to be terrible, because I know where my small group will be. And I feel I've grown very much apart from them, because that's what happens when you are absent from a place.
They are the same people that have always made up my small group, but returning to them makes me feel like I imagine I would feel returning to my Starbucks in Boston where everyone I know has left.
People in my church have begun relationships, ended relationships, had children, gotten married, gotten pregnant, made decisions, moved away ... and I've missed all of it. All. Of. It.
I have missed out on everything because I've been doing everything.


Southbound Train
Jon Foreman

Oh
I guess they'll say I've grown
I know more than I wanted to know
I've said more than I wanted to say
I'm heading home
Yeah, but I'm not so sure
That home is a place
You can still get to
By train

So I'm looking out the window
And I'm drifting off to sleep
With my face pressed up against the pane
With the rhythm of my heart
And the ringing in my ears
It's the rhythm of the southbound train

Oh
And the wind starts to look like her hair
And the clouds in her bright blue eyes
As the sea and the shore fall and rise
Like her breast as she breathes by my side
And the moon is her lips as the sun
Is headed on down to the sea
Like her head as she lays down on me
Until we reach oceanside
Over and over
I hear the same refrain
It's the rhythm of my heart
And my sleepy girl's breathing
It's the rhythm of my southbound train

*harmonica solo*
(also, why this song is awesome)

Oh, I suppose they'll say I should've known
Or maybe I'm just feeling old
Like a lawyer with no one to blame
I'm headed home
Yeah, but I'm not so sure
That home is a place
That'll ever be the same

So we're picking up our things
And we head out in the cold
And your eyes are where you carry the pain
When I hear the whistle weeping
It's crying to the sky
It's the rhythm of my southbound train