Time it was

I am in Fort Lauderdale, Florida with my father, after visiting my grandparents for a weak one-day tour. I haven't been down here in 2.5 years and until this moment, I didn't think too much about it. As I walked away from my grandpa, his eyes watering up instantaneously, I wondered if this could be the last time I see him. I quickly hugged him, then turned around again for another, and then one more time for another. He stood and waved us goodbye. They can't leave, they aren't healthy enough. I have to go to them. They sit around all day. They live day-to-day. I told them I love them.

I need to remember to send them the pictures I promised.

My Summer in Pictures - a small sample

A small glimpse of my summer...at least what I caught on camera...




Our beautiful home for the night. On top of Sugarbush mountain, Vermont with Lizzy and Bud















Bud and I hiking in Vermont








Nantucket '07. This video cracks me up. "Hey, quit ruining the rich people's views, alright?"
Check this out if you want a hysterical vision of the place with the highest consumption rate I have ever seen [Nantucket, Massachusetts]



Lindsey (not pictured) and I sharing a very [cheap] bottle of wine before the pops play.

Upward Bound UNH Summer 2007

UB IS WHAT?? Last day, group picture

Group U, UNITE!













Elizabeth and Giobari

Zlatan and Kellie















Community meeting before Boston trip









John Edward Matthew Bosselman (aka JBoss), Maura, and some hot chick at the infamous Trivia Night.














Caitlin, Meghan, and Tiff about to go on the scariest ride I've ever experienced.









And last but not least, the wonderful staff I got to work with!

Loneliness

As human beings, not only do we seek resolution, but we also feel that we deserve resolution. However, not only do we not deserve resolution, we suffer from resolution. We don't deserve resolution; we deserve something better than that. We deserve our birthright, which is the middle way, an open state of mind that can relax with paradox and ambiguity. To the degree that we've been avoiding uncertainty, we're naturally going to have withdrawal symptoms--withdrawal from always thinking that there's a problem and that someone, somewhere, needs to fix it.

The middle way is wide open, but it's tough going, because it goes against the grain of an ancient neurotic pattern that we all share. When we feel lonely, when we feel hopeless, what we want to do is move to the right or the left. We don't want to sit and feel what we feel. We don't want to go through the detox. Yet the middle way encourages us to do just that. It encourages us to awaken the bravery that exists in everyone without exception, including you and me.

Meditation provides a way for us to train in the middle way--in staying right on the spot. We are encouraged not to judge whatever arises in our mind. In fact, we are encouraged not to even grasp whatever arises in our mind. What we usually call good or bad we simply acknowledge as thinking, without all the usual drama that goes along with right and wrong. We are instructed to let the thoughts come and go as if touching a bubble with a feather. This straightforward discipline prepares us to stop struggling and discover a fresh, unbiased state of being.

When Things Fall Apart. "Six Kinds of Loneliness". (54-55)

Pulling Out

Of the war that is. BBC News published an article this morning (presumably along with every other news source in the nation and, quite possibly, the world) that the US House passed legislation calling for the removal of most US Troops from Iraq by next April. I really haven't been following this quite as well I should have been, but I do have an understanding of the gradual turnover of opinions being seen in the House and Senate from the past couple of months. So far the House and called to end US military involvement in Iraq three times--which were either shut down in the Senate or by President Bush.
It's quite interesting. There is a quote in the BBC News article: "But Mr Bush rejected calls for a withdrawal of US forces, saying it would be disastrous. He said troops would only be withdrawn when conditions were right, 'not because pollsters say it'll be good politics'."
Well, my question is when will conditions be right? When will it feel "okay" to leave the Iraqis on their own? When all the building are destroyed? When military officers outnumber citizens? When their culture becomes extinct? When Iraq is no longer Iraq?
The fear that has been pumped into our hearts in astounding. I don't know what or who to blame here, in fact, I don't feel like I can blame anyone or anything. The people are turning on our current administration, and that change I can certainly see happening. I think most people can. But what I don't understand is why we continue to sit. We protest, we march on Washington with our ready-made posters and our visible slogans that muster up chuckles and laughs. But it all just divides us more. I don't even know where to start. It's so disheartening.
And I can't possibly have an educated opinion on how the Iraqis must feel, must want, must need for themselves. I have never talked to one of them. I haven't gone there yet. I haven't seen the events turn for so many years now. I can't possibly know how to think in this matter, and neither do most people. I will never trust what the newspapers are saying, what the television shows, what the President of my own country has to say about the war, about the people, about what they need and what I need. I can't possibly believe in that.

Currently I am reading this book called The Suitcase: Refugee Voices from Bosnia and Croatia. "A woman with two little girls said, "I have even lost faith in humanitarian aid. I have a feeling that even people who are helping us are doing it for themselves and not for us. That is why I want to forget my story and never tell it to anyone again. I don't even feel like a refugee anymore. I just feel poor (79). To think of humanitarian aid, something I want to devote my life to, in this way, breaks my heart. It doesn't even make sense that people could be hurting other people, saying they are helping, but really are just helping themselves. Does this look similar to anything we are seeing in Iraq? To help create stability for the Iraqi people? To help bring them democracy? To help them regain their own lives? History seems to repeat itself...

In some ways I wish I had been paying attention since 2003, with my ears and eyes closely following the news headlines on TV and in the papers. But another part of me, the bigger part, is okay with my withdrawal. Its because I just do not trust the eyes, the ears, the telephone of information that is strung from person to person and finally dumped onto the colorful headlines of Fox News, CNN, ABC, The Times, The Globe, etc etc. The point of the game telephone is to see if the message changes at all when whispered from person to person. Usually it ends up changing, which in turn changes the purpose, the idea, the understanding of what has been said or seen.

Let's connect the dots. I still feel at a loss...

Otro Mundo

I have been waking up peacefully.

This hasn't happened in a while. I don't get sudden headaches like I used to, or wake up feeling like a train hit me after being completely sober the night before and getting enough sleep. I am reading, biking, writing, breathing, smiling.

I started my job at UNH last Sunday. The past week has been TC training, where 12 of us college-age do gooders get to play trust games, name games, and sit in classrooms all day and learn about important rules to fostering a safe and spiritual community for high school students.

The students who come to this program are tough, at least this is how it seems. They come from broken homes, poor homes, homes with no room, a home they cannot call home, discomfort, conditional circumstances, isolation...and much more. I am going to learn so much.

But they haven't arrived yet. They come tomorrow morning at 10 am and I have to be a bubbly, open hearted role model for the next 6 weeks. I have a feeling I have no idea what is coming. It feels like the calm before the storm.

More perspective = growth. When you can start seeing the world through someone else's eyes, that is when you are learning, that is when you are growing, and that is when you can better balance yourself when times are hard. Reverting back to the starting point, your original thoughts, your original perceptions, is when you are running away from whatever it is that fears you. When we refuse to look at things another way, when we refuse to listen to how someone initially views a situation, a conversation, an event, we are denying ourselves truth.I hope to gain more perspective than I can imagine.

I am enjoying Durham so far. It's interesting to be at the school that many of my loved ones have lived at for so many years. I am glad I have this to hold onto.

I went on a bike ride today into Newmarket. I saw a hidden entrance to a small river/pond (I actually couldn't tell by the shape of it, but I am pretty sure it was a large river, I need to learn the geography of the area better!). It felt like I was back home at Beaver Brook, on my rock, reading and listening to the world move around me. It makes my skin move, or maybe it was just the ants crawling all over me. I saw a chipmunk. You can see so much life if you sit still and observe.

OH

And I bought my ticket to Croatia yesterday.

Depart: September 3, 2007
Boston, MA ----> Zagreb, Croatia
Return: December 27, 2007
Prague-----> Boston, MA

It's all happening...

Catching up with honesty

Every letter, its own magical, imaginative creation. Each word, an innovative continuation of that creation. Each sentence, a hope for understanding.

This is my blog, and I will say it proud. I hope for many things to come of it. I hope for people to gain insight into my very dynamic and ever-changing life. I hope to stay focused in my writings, to have mindfulness while writing, to catch my words up with my thoughts and breathe each sentence in as I go. I hope for understanding.

I most likely will not write in this too much during the summertime. My main objective is to keep you all informed of my journeys throughout the Western Balkans this fall. I leave on September 3, 2007 and will return before December 30, 2007. The program is with the School of International Training (www.sit.edu/studyabroad), based out of Brattleboro, VT. The program is entitled "Gender, Transformation, and Civil Society". I will be taking an intensive Croatian language class, a seminar based on the title of the program, and a research methods class. The last month I have to myself, conducting independent research based on a research question I want to explore throughout the Balkans resulting in a 40+ page paper and creative product. I will be living mostly in Zagreb, Croatia with a host family. I will be traveling to Bosnia and Serbia as well. After the program is done, I want to go to Vienna, Austria; Prague, Czechoslovakia; and possibly Berlin, Germany.

For the summer, I am a tutor-counselor at the University of New Hampshire for their Upward Bound program. Www.upwardbound.unh.edu.

Lila Tov.