April 23, 2010

• “HAHHAAAAHHHA” I yell hysterically as I bang down the stairs. My knee is better. I can’t feel it creaking anymore. Balancing my lil’ netbook in one hand, I bound up the stairs, my heart pumping and my tummy fluttering.

  Free to write. Alone in the house. With a good book and the windows open.

  I have been praying something a little differently lately. About ten times around the track (indoor—it is still too cold outside in the mornings), I stop singing whatever song is stuck in my head and remember that I am praying. And then I remember why I am praying. Because I need it. And I need it so I can get me out of the way. Then I can live for bigger things.

  Otherwise, it is just Rachel jogging in front of Rachel, all day long. yuck.

  “People who live good stories are too busy to write about them.” –Donald Miller

  I have lived deeper in the times I have not outlined for you on paper. Often, they become mingled into stories, lessons learned, and advice I now give…but never captured, like many other moments. Too sacred to be written. Or maybe too complex, or difficult.

  I have had a couple times where I sat down and thought about huge choices I had in front of me. I signed, made the right choice, and thought “But that life would have made a good story. I could have written a good book from that choice.”

  Hmm.

  Donald Miller’s new book is about stories. I want my story to be about helping these Brazilian kids. Being a part of their lives and giving them opportunities they wouldn’t have otherwise. I want to be a part of this beautiful country and people. And this scares the crud outta me. And I am not sure why I want this, or why it scares me. I am afraid of answers.

  I am trying to train myself to capitalize “I” the first time I type it. Word  always did it for me. But weblogs and other publications don’t, darn it. It is a part of becoming aware of detail. And that detail matters.

  I am reading a German philosopher who doesn’t believe in paragraphs. It is translated lectures and they make my head hurt. His name is Theodore Adorno. I wouldn’t call him Teddy.

  He says that we create concept by taking all the ideas and such around us, and finding what is in common about them. This concept then becomes our focus, our way of doing life, how we explain things.

  But Adorno doesn’t like concepts (although he grudingly accepts them). He says the point is to find the little things that dropped through the cracks, the things that aren’t in common, and study them. He believes that in the detail of what we are quick to dismiss are the secrets of real philosophy. Of real life.

  I don’t know if I agree with him—I haven’t finished the book. And his style makes me bristle and want to disagree. But nevertheless…there is something about the details…

  “When we look back on our lives, what we will remember are the crazy things we did, the times we worked harder to make a day stand out.” –DM again

  I have lost some of this. When younger, if any guy showed interest in me, or just wanted to hang out, I made him walk the dogs. Walk places. Normally ending up buying food. I didn’t want to do the normal things. But lately Thursday comes and I think about the weekend and look up what movies are playing. My creativity is being sapped.

  I guess that creativity is what I am hoping to find again once the semester is over. But I am a little scared that a lil’ bit of time isn’t enough. That it is a whole lifestyle thing. And the switch/jump/change is making me nervous. I don’t do transition so well.

   

  • 1:34 pm
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