take what you can get

i'm quite mixed up at this point with what certain friendships mean here, esp compared to friendships back home, and hten what those friendships back home mean now... but i'm really taking the time to figure all of those things out. friendships at home are still so great and challenging and growth-inducing, i learn so much from my friends and my interactions with them and analyzing how we deal with things.

lately i'm just taking what i can get-- loving any great conversation i have here on campus, eating choc. chip pancakes with kat and whitney for breakfast, drumming on an african drum, strumming my guitar, listening to david wilcox & others, smoking hooka, dancing, crying... okay so all of those aren't really "taking" but they sort of are.. i mean even crying.. most of the time i ended up crying with someone else present either in person or on the phone.. so i'm taking their attention and their concern and their love.

and what goes with that is giving what i can give. which sometimes is a huge amount, and sometimes isn't much more than a quick email or a wave while walking by. i don't know, but i'm really just soaking up all the love i can right now because transitioning is confusing and emotional. lots of that is personal stuff i have to work through, and thats cool too, i'll take all the lessons i can learn right in, and all the hard times, and all the times i have to just cry even before i know all the particular reasons why or have the ability to articulate it well (i guess thats PART of crying sometimes-- not understanding things yet).

alrightt, i wonder if anyone from LC reads this, or if i want ppl to? hopefully you're TAKE-ing something from this blog, whoever you are. maybe you're not, maybe i'm getting all the gain from saying what i feel is worthwhile in my life. who knowss.. take it easy,

jo

a good thing

i was feeling so disconnected as of yesterday... and then i sent an email to a bunch of people i haven't heard from who i love and care about just to ask them to inform me on whats going on in their life, and it has been so rewarding just to read through these emails full of love and encouragement and HONESTY.

it reminds me that the relationships you build don't just disappear... sure you lose touch sometimes, but people you really connect with in your life will always be there to connect with. none of the love or attention you give ever goes to waste. same with the love and attention other people give to you-- it surely doesn't go to waste, or it shouldn't go to waste, and i guess thats what saying thank you is all about. doing all this stuff isn't easy, but its certainly necessary and ultimately is rewarding.

then theres the bigger challenge of not just keeping up with what you already built, but continuing to build relationships where you're at. and that's my big challenge here that is especially hard at times (opening up when not feeling happy), but every step is a good step.. a step towards progress.

i'm in the student center and someones playing the radio and "i'll be missing you" by puff daddy came on... and everytime i hear this song i go back to being in the twins grandmothers attic singing it when it came on the radio.. knowing all the words. so weird how songs can do that. i love it.

a good life is an honest one, a hard one. i'm growing lots right now i can feel it.

where to begin?

i'm on the west coast now, living in platt west, facing north, toward mount hood.... cardinal directions- who needs em! i kind of feel like i'm in a lot of places. or maybe i wish i could be in more places than i am. since the phone and internet are down in my room, i've been super restricted on when and how i can get in touch with people i love! which means people i love certainly can't get in touch with ME very easily. that makes me sad a lot, for both reasons-- i want to talk to people i love, and i want them to be able to talk to me! so i'm now on the search for a new cell phone company, sprint pcs-- you're letting me down on palatine hill.

i keep being amazed at how cool it is to be in college. how there are atleast 10 awesome people to hang out with at any given moment that are within walking distance, and lots of ways to have fun from there. some things to take advantage of at school -- open swim on weeknights, the plattaeu (dance parties?), and the city!

i still need time to wind down, the rainy weather has been fitting. yesterday i had a very relaxing day, i like when studying is sort of progressive and not crammed into 2 hours of stress. so i'm learning all my music theory... slowly but surely, flashcard after flashcard.

i miss people a lot right now. what to do...

i had a dream the other night that i died from a tornado that was right behind the car, it picked us up (my brother and 2 friends.. can't remember who in the backseat). i knew we were probably going to die in the dream, and so i screamed the last words "i love you guys!" and then crash... and then i blurrily woke up to quiet rummaging from people in the hall, and tried to figure out what would happen next in that dream, or if i could re-dream it and somehow survive. that doesn't ever work though (replaying dreams differently). sort of like life doesn't work like that. (oh metaphors...)

i guess if i were to die right now that would be my last words- I LOVE YOU GUYS! that's the most wisdom i have to share, that's where i'm at in my college-student life... learning a lot of things in class, but all that ever seems to stick is the love. it's an amazing feat, to love... i'll always have a lot to learn when it comes to loving. what was the name of my dads first album.. learning how to love? something like that...

oooh, death cab for cutie transatlantacism cd just started playing in the coffee shop i'm in. this cd is alll about missing people! i think i'm going to try to find a phone, get connected, and then get some work done.

in communcation class our professor was saying how the english language is very "action" oriented. like... the fact that our sentences need verbs in order to be sentences, in order to speak you have to be using an ACTION. we've always got to be dooing something. just knowing that not ever culture is like that intrigues me. what is left outside of all the verbs? there's lots... i like my school a lot. adios personas,

jodi

so MUCH

man.. it has been sooo good listening to david wilcox's "live songs and stories" album! i am just empathizing with him talking about song-writing and loving people and working through things, all his ideas and his songs are just hitting home, that CD is worth buying, it's like 11.99 on itunes for 20 tracks, and if it doesn't change SOMEthing if your life or make you think differently about something, well then i'd love to talk about it some more because it's just great! he's like the wise, successful, older, male version of me.

i am so thankful for the friendships i have, it is insane how much i grow from just listening to my friends talk. it's like in wilcox's song "good together" when he says--

"would you please explain it one more time,
i like the wild surprise of seeing through your eyes"

he explains the whole process of thinking your right when you're in an argument.. and then you listen to the other side and it makes SO much sense, you forget what you were even trying to argue. and in that way the relationship is like this line--

"i know you're good for me, you spin me off my tether,
you change me for the better, we're good together."


so i'm really working on things for myself, and my friends, and it's lots of work... and i mess up when i'm trying to help, but then i learn, and it's worth it. it's always worth it to try to do what you think is right, and if you find out its wrong, then well, you learn something. this life isn't about playing it safe, it's about helping people out, and using your talents to do something good in this world. then sometimes you give too much in places that are draining and get let down (me with guy relationships recently), and you have to take some steps back and protect your heart a little more. but once you're better, you always have to love again. i know from the love my friends have given to me that it can change my heart (especially you, rach, and whenever you guys read this-- thank you so much, every word has made an impact on me).

and for everyone else who may be reading, good relationships are very possible, but it starts with what you can give and it takes a lot of work (relationships being great friendships, and/or great relationships). my parents keep saying how i have such good friends, and i know they are the most amazing ppl i know, but the reason the friendships are good is because of the time thats put in and being able to listen. so going to college changes everything about the time aspect of the friendships, and thats why it's hard to get back home after not being around for eachother nearly as much, and just wanting to jump in and figure out whats going on on those deeper levels, and realizing all our deeper things going on are so very different. so any assumptions i make about the friendship usually proves to be false, so i'm constantly having these-

ooooh! moments, THAAT's what you're saying, THAT's whats going on, and it's like YES, i've only said it 20 times in a bunch of different ways! and then something changes.

here i am thinking that this break there's not a lot going on- i don't have a job, i don't have school work, i can stay up late and sleep in, i dont have a curfew. when there's always so much going on when you have a heart like this. my mom was explaining it to me about how NF's are able to feel incredible levels of sadness, but the return is that you can find so much joy in the littlest things in life, so it's a trade off, and most people will say they wouldn't trade the bad times for the good. and i'm right there with it.

my mom and i listened to david wilcox together and she was just blown away by the way he thinks, and she said how it took her til she was 40 to learn that emotions have a purpose, they're actually there for a reason. so in those ways i feel lucky, for being so aware of these things. and sometimes that ability really weighs on me, like with the post secret exhibit where i just started to feel the pain of all those people and all those secrets, but it's alright. i'm just a very sensitive person that picks up on the struggle and the pain, and i know that i'm like that because when i feel that pain i want to DO something, i get the motivation to do anything as long as it has the potential of doing good.

i think this blog is like a friend for me... in the way that my guitar is a friend. i have a lot on my heart, and these are mediums that i can use to feel like these things on my heart are there for a reason, i have emotions for a purpose. i really want to be a songwriter, i want to tour the country, i want to fall in love with someone who's good for me, i want to help people out. i'm always going to care, its just who i am to care about things (or people) that i feel are important-- but it takes learning to accept that about me to be able to turn that caring into positive action. because sometimes i wish i didn't care and its self-defeating to wish for that. so i love when i'm able to do something positive with this caring burden. or when i see other people doing something positive with who they are. it makes all the difference. we're all at different points in our journey of accepting/figuring out who we are, and then doing something good... and we all have the capacity for lots to change inside, so we just have to go forward or go inward or go westward (to school!) or go outward (giving). my life is full because of who i am and my potential and all these chances to interact with great people and learn. i'm thankful for all of it. soo thankful. and conveniently, i need to express those thanks to people in my life. like my parents and my best friends and my new friends and my parents friends in portland. there's always someplace to go in life. you just have to trust your heart sometimes.

read minds

the other day at kathleens we were looking through this book of "If" questions... "if you could have a superpower, what would it be?"

and.. not wanting to give a random answer, i said i think i'd want to read peoples minds... but i don't know because that could mess things up.

the post secret exhibit was like being granted that power... and it knocked me out! i think i have enough of my own thoughts to figure out then to even begin inside someone elses head.



"maybe this weight was a gift
like i had to see what i could lift"

- nada surf "do it again"

a night to myself

after a thought-filled day in DC with friends and cousins of friends, and a visit to the Post Secret Exhibit in Georgetown (www.postsecret.blogspot.com), I came home to an empty clean house. all my siblings are back in their homes/college, dads out of town, mom was at the umd basketball game, therefore no one was in the house to make it a mess, not even my sisters dog, Kito.

I've been seeing people most of my waking moments, so an empty house felt relieving, i sang made up songs that i now have forgotten and learned "wise up" by aimee mann on guitar. i wrote in my journal about my reflections of today. it's good having a journal. it's my way of being honest with myself when i'm not sure how to communicate it to people.

i think something a friend of mine told me before i came back to md has really stuck with me... she said how she loves when life makes you feel stuck or puts something in the way you have no clue how to deal with, because then you're actually feeling something or dealing with something... even though in the moment you might not be so "thankful" for the hard time, without hard times you just kind of coast...

there are some things i could stress about...

i think when i'm around people i feel obligated to talk, even when the most appropriate thing in my mind is to be silent, so instead of being silent, i'll end up bringing up something i'm stressed about-something i barely really care about, just to talk.

so alone in my house i decided not to stress, and to just let it be okay that my head is full of a bunch of stuff thats hard to untangle and make concise. i made mac and cheese... i haven't done that in a while. i ate dark chocolate, and i wrote in my journal. i don't quite feel better yet, or i'm still a little unsettled... (of course i'm unsettled, i know i'm going back to school in a week, but i'm still here for a week... and i have no real obligations, except to read this book i haven't started, maybe the book symbolizes school, and since i'm not THERE, its hard for me to read it here). you try to just be where you are, but the past and the future are constantly blending with right now.

there is hope

this blog title could take me anywhere, but it was inspired by conversations with yash, sam, trev, and kathleen tonight. i was getting upset because it seems like all the big corporations or all the politicians do a lot of dirty work to get where they are and to earn power and lots of money. so sam was able to tell me a little bit about Costco, and the guy who founded costco, and i looked up the article online. pleaase check it out, i've heard a lot of hype in portland about how much wal-mart sucks, and this is a comparison in numbers and business strategy that is really interesting. all it takes is a different approach. here's one example of there being hope-

"Besides the efficiency of its workforce, another reason Costco can afford to pay more is that it cuts the fat from executive paychecks. The overall corporate philosophy is that workers deserve a fair share of the profits they help generate — not just a pat on the back or a new job title like “associate.”

For example, while CEOs at other major corporations average 531 times the pay of their lowest-paid employees, Sinegal takes only 10 times the pay of his typical employee. His annual salary is $350,000, compared to about $5.3 million awarded to Wal-Mart’s Lee Scott."


the guy who founded costco could be taking in a LOT more money than he does... but he distributes it instead.


I also found out by reading this article that sam's club is a division of wal-mart.

i guess we were all being really critical of the way the world works, and then we realized, that we all contribute, and we have some choices, like what companies we support. it's a small way of being able to practice what you preach by following a set of values where humans are appreciated and goodness is perpetuated.

check out the article - http://www.laborresearch.org/print.php?id=391