a novel

something about order and chaos. about being busy, but feeling grounded and controlled. about sleep and deadlines. about spontaneity and productivity. something about learning how to be a collective self. about the power of the neo-cortex and that of the limbic and reptilian brains. about negotiating romance and relationship. something about faith. about viewing God through the lens of attachment theory. about trinity and orthodoxy and salvation and sin as exclusive self. about the mothering christ. something about explanations. about the words cat and beanstalk. about trying to make sense to the world. about overlapping language, contrasting experiences, and collaborative definitions. a lot about hope. about now, about yesterday. about tomorrow. about this week. about next. about the summer and then the future. about plans and dreams and life and... hope. something about me.

i went home with a friend today. his parents celebrated with injera and wat. we ate with our hands while debating faith and politics. comfortable. delicious. familial. i drooled over his bookcases and his chess-set collection. he pulled out the souvenirs he has brought home from all his travels. and i was struck by the realization that not all of us life in the temporal. I sat in the living room as he discussed his semester with people who have known him for the past 21 years and plan to know for at least that again. they were comfortable criticizing him, laughing with him, and encouraging him. he rebuffed kindly and thoughtfully listened to their advice. they speak into his life in a way i do not. here he is at peace here in a way i have not seen him at peace elsewhere. and so i went home with a friend today. we will spend less than 24 hours here. and yet i can extrapolate so clearly what i miss without this solidity in my life. a place that is there; roots in the ground. i'm jea...