Too many homes...

I have been thinking about home lately. It is not that I don´t have a home, it is that I have many homes. I will eventually have an eternal home, but who knows when that will be? Sooo, in the meantime, I am deciding between the two countries I live in, the US and Spain, or maybe somewhere new altogether.

When I am here (Madrid) I am happy, and want to be here. When I am there (states) I am happy and ready to move back. It is frustrating to live overseas, I won´t lie. Everything is 10 times harder than it really needs to be, and I long for familiarity. But, every day has a bit of adventure to it and life is seldom mundane. Ya gotta love that...

I know that if I were to move back stateside, I would miss it here like crazy. I wouldn´t be able to remember how frustrated I used to get and why I ever wanted to come back in the first place. But it sure would be nice to not have to misunderstand and be misunderstood every day. (I am talking more about cultural differences than language at this point, because understanding the language does not = understanding the people and their ways, it really doesn´t)

It sure would be nice to be able to drive and visit my family, or hop on a plane and be there in a couple hours instead of fourteen.

Gosh, I suck at making decisions. Maybe I´ll just move to another country all together. You know, home is here, home is there, maybe I shoulsn´t live at home.

That doesn´t make any sense, but then neither does my life at this time.

Having a fun two weeks showing my cousin Hannah around my Spanish hometown and realizing that I have amazing people that I love and who love me in both of my homes, and for that I am thankful.

I don´t need more than that for the moment.

World Record Transitioner

I am getting to be a professional at this transition stuff. I am setting packing and unpacking records left and right. One hour today to unpack all my stuff and settle into my new flat. Took me only three hours to pack it all up in the States.
Maybe this will be the last major transition for a while, how great would that be?

Walked around to explore the new neighborhood today, starting to get used to the idea of being a "Madrileña" now. This city is exciting and diverse and I could find something new to see and do every night if I wanted.
Jet lag is hitting me a little weird this time. I fought the tiredness this afternoon so that I would be able to sleep tonight, and I now find myself completely wide-awake. Ughh, I hope this tea I have been drinking isn't caffeinated. Is white tea caffeinated?

Pretty much just anxious to jump into things, though…
Here's to diving into the thick excitement of unending possibility...cheers? salud?
Sure.

3 AM

t's 3 AM on my last night in La Coruña. I am too high-strung to sleep right now. In a minute I will go finish my laundry and close up my suitcase, and climb into the bed in this tiny, old spanish apartment that has become home.
It is such a weird mix of sadness, and nervousness and excitement and anxiousness and exhaustion. At this stage of the game, a lot more sadness. Makes me want to never get attached, never grow to love anyplace or anybody.
I am trying to find that independant- follow-God-with-abandon Spirit I once felt like I had. It has gotta be in there somewhere, right?
Gotta get some sleep.
I have a long drive tomorrow.

We'll just wait and see how the next two months go. Keep walking, eyes open, but you can close them sometimes.
I think I will go and force those eyes closed.

Dear childhood Jessica,

Do you ever have those startling moments when you realize you are a grown up?
I had one walking past a window downtown yesterday. Just out of the blue, caught my reflection in a travel agency window, and had the realization that A) I am an adult now and B) I am nothing like I ever imagined I would be when I was a child.
Did you ever try and imagine yourself as a grown up?
I always pictured myself as a mom in the 1980's. Chin length mom-haircut, big shoulderpad sweater, driving around a station wagon with two kids. I would talk on the phone to all my other mom friends and we would get together for potlucks and bible studies.
Kind of a weird picture, but I apparently thought time (and fashion) would stand still and I would turn into my mother. (though we never did have a station wagon...I always wanted one) This is when I was 7 or 8.
At age 15-16, I could not imagine life past college. My whole world revolved around that light at the end of the high-school tunnel...go towards the light...go towards the light...
Graduating from college I was not thinking so far down the road, I believe I was more interested in just FINDING the freaking road and getting on it.
Alright, so I found the road and I am on it, though I am not sure where it is going and the road signs are few and far between, I am traveling on the road.

All this is just to say, that somewhere in the middle of all that, I turned into an adult.
And it really sneaks up on you, grown-uphood.
Because nothing in life is predictable, and you just want to have some warning or some idea of what to expect, I find myself very thankful that there are no shoulder-pad sweaters or station wagons available and that I live in a country with no concept of the "potluck dinner",
because I might be tempted to make my childhood dream come true...beware the chin-length-mom-haircut!!

Dear childhood Jessica:
You will not be like you are picturing. Don't worry, though, it turns out a thousand times better!
Sincerely (no, really)
Adult Jessica

P.S. Stop letting your mother perm your hair, I think all those chemicals will fry your brain just a little and as an adult you will find yourself constantly boarding the wrong bus and wasting hours riding around the city in the wrong direction...

Divinity and the city bus

As I boarded the big blue city bus today to head into town and buy a Christmas tree, Joan Osborn's "If God was one of us" was starting up on the overhead radio.
This past summer I read "The DaVinci Code" (about two years after all the hype died down) and last night out of curiosity, rented the movie. Of course, the movie cut out a ton and changed the rest... One part I don't remember from the book had me thinking as I walked downtown today.
At the end of the movie, after they have deduced that Sofia is actually from the bloodline of Jesus Christ, she is "sangreal"...Tom Hank's character says something along the lines of "Maybe we don't have to deduce whether or not Christ was divine...Maybe there is divinity in humanity"
Well, while I believe that the book is based on...nothing substantial I also believe that Christ was divine. All this is not where I am coming from.
If you want to read an angry defense over this book, go to your local Christian bookstore. A lot of close-minded nuts have written books in contradiction and defense.
(many without having actually read the book they are angry about...when I say read, I don' t mean "scour looking for points to back your argument up")

My point is about divinity and humanity.
The reason I was feeling so strongly as I heard Joan sing her song on the bus this morning is because of Christmas.
"O come, o come Emmanuel" is, to me, what it is all about. Everything.
Remembering how long the world waited for God to come, to save.
Remembering that we are not alone, that God is with us, Emmanuel.
That God has come to us, saved us, and is making us holy. We are redeemed. We are of Christ's lineage, in a way stronger than blood. He chose us and paid the highest price.
Ironically, the song I listened to this morning talks about "the stranger on the bus" (you all know it...) and what I always try to do when I ride the bus is really see the people I am riding with.
There is the image of divinity in humanity.

(and I found a Christmas tree for three euros...it is a sad little tree that I like because it looks like Charlie Brown's)

haha...I am listening to "Come on, let's boogey to the elf dance!" on Sufjan's 42 song Christmas compilation, phenomenal :)

For letting go...

"Knowledge is the season for knowing when and why....balances and reasons keep me from the fire...and every time I'm placed within a perfect role...people come and go, people come and go, people come and go...
Fire can be friendly, raising perfect pain...burning off tomorrow and yesterday the same...to always be so weak, and never want to know...you know we come and go, you know we come and go, you know we come and go..."

Me Died Blue By Steven Delopoulos

My best melancholy.

October 2006
The air tonight was clean, original and exquisite. Autumn means something significant to me, something filled with symbolism and poetry. It’s as though everything becomes increasingly emotional, more intensely felt, and, to me anyways, thoroughly melancholy.

Watching the dusty thick sweep of the sunset this evening as the day slipped below the brooding wisp of midnight black that surrounds me now, I could feel my thoughts and imagination settle into a big, comfy chair with a cup of coffee, hoping to spend the next few months enveloped in their favorite mood.

Because life deserves to feel like this. Deep and cool, everything suddenly changed for good with one crisp wind.

Chilled Irony with a side of apple cider

The kind of day where you have to slide open the office window.

Close your eyes, take a deep breath, lean back in to make a sarcastic comment to your co-workers.

It smells like fall, the kind of afternoon where I could do something or nothing. I suppose, that since I am writing this, I am doing nothing. But I am on the verge of something. I really am.

Buy some chocolate, and some apples. Make those phone calls, step in every dried leaf along the walk back home.Practice the guitar. Study my Spanish. Keep up with my ballet. Never stop learning. It feels humble and good to still be learning.

I haven't made my bed today, and ten o'clock in the morning feels earlier and earlier. But then, so does midnight.

A little bit more..of that apple cider..from yesterday would be deightful,..so would a walk to the beach. Maybe I will give in to both...

I have to recommend this movie: "Everything is Illuminated" I laughed..very hard. But it's beautiful at the same time. It's a good one.