coming home

I think it was good for me to come home this Christmas - good to see my parents again, good to be reunited as a family. I tried to come with few expectations so I would not be disappointed and yet, I think in my heart I still had certain hopes that I am slowly letting go of. I still have several weeks left here, so it's not all over yet, but I am trying not to have false expectations. My parents, since I graduated from high school have been house-sitting for people, so each year they have lived in a new house. The house, thus, that I came "home" to I had never actually been to before, and the dog I came home to was not ours. I found out that our dog, Telly, actually passed away last year. We gave her away before I left for college, but I assumed all was still well. Although I have tried not to have any expectations about seeing all my dear friends from high school again - since we all dispersed across the globe following graduation, a part of me has still hoped. Since being back I have seen several adults I know and was delighted to see them, but though I have heard rumor of friends being back to visit, I have yet to see anyone. I plan to see a good friend next Saturday for her one day in the city, but other than that I have no expectations of seeing anyone. I think I'm getting to the point where outwardly I am choosing not to care, though inwardly it sucks. I think, though, that it will give me new perspective on being in college... it will help me to remember where I am and where my friendship priorities should lie - in the now, not attempting to live in the past or unite my past and present. As it is, college has changed me so much - I even wonder if things could pick up again where they left off were I to see some old friends again.

On another note, I decided to join Hart in the reading of the Bible in a year. If anyone wants to join us, I would be delighted to give you a list of the readings for the days and discuss. :)

Jen

grief?

I haven't seen my mom and dad in about a year and four months.
This evening I saw The End of the Spear again as credit for my Acts class. Our professor had us all over for dinner and a movie. My mom knows her, somehow, from way back when, but I don't remember how, and I haven't asked. Watching The End of the Spear triggered so many childhood memories for me: life in a village, being a little white kid with blonde hair playing arm in arm with dark skinned, dark haired village children... being away from any kind of modern conveniences. It was a novelty when one of Aytas became barangay captain, bought a generator for the village, and put one light in every house. Of course he controlled when all the lights were on or off; I don't think anyone had their own personal light switch. I remember mosquito nets hanging from the ceiling of a two bedroom house -- a mansion! -- tucked under the four-inch foam mattresses we used for our beds. We didn't have bed frames, we just had mattresses on the floor. In the left hand corner across from the door to the room where we all slept was a big metal barrel. I think, now, it must have been some kind of water drum that we were using for storage. On top of that barrel was our radio. It was on that radio that we would hear about any outside world communication. It was on that radio that my mom found out about her best friend who had the same name as her. She didn't make it. At that house we planted flowers, marigolds... in yellows, oranges, pinks. Down the hill near our house was a little place in the rocks that water flowed. Behind our house were sometimes caribous, which we would call dumwags. I got to ride in a caribou cart once there. I also got to ride a caribou itself once! But that wasn't in that village. Our house was kind of at the edge of the village. If you traveled beyond it, however, you would eventually reach a river. This was where people and animals bathed, washed clothes, and I think they got drinking water from there, too -- boiled first, I'm sure. I remember when there wasn't a road to Calumpang yet, so we had to park at Clark airbase and walk/wade across the lahar river and hike up the mountain to get into the village. That was such a fun time, though I remember hating the idea of going there for the weekend... but I was always very happy to be there once I was there.
So many memories, so many tears flooding my face.
I'll be going home soon, but just visiting, and I doubt we will visit this particular home of my memories. Even if we did, I heard that a lot has changed since I was 8, the last time I really spent any time there.

Bring in the Holidays with Tea!

At the moment I am drinking tea and listening to my vast (or not so vast, depending on whose music libraries mine is compared to) collection of Christmas music. It feels like the perfect way to spend a slightly chilly -- Yes, I'm a wimp, I'm in Southern California so 59 is a bit on the cold side -- afternoon on the Sunday before classes resume on Monday after a lovely Thanksgiving few days. I find myself wanting more and more to pursue awesome things like grad school and traveling to far off exotic places. Yes, I understand I grew up someplace that to here is far off and potentially exotic, but this new desire is not so much a wish to run away from here but to embrace life and living and to learn as much as I can about people. Also I've just noticed my extended family slowly dispersing and feel less and less of a need to stay in California in order to be near family. Most of the cousins closest in age to me have moved on to other places - Alaska, Pennsylvania, Maryland - and so why should I limit myself to someplace that I have family connections? I have friend connections everywhere.
Speaking of travel, I will be traveling soon! I have flown once since being in college, to Texas to visit one of my closest friends from high school. I get to fly for a second time in about three weeks to return to the Philippines to see my parents and my old haunts for about a month. I'm really excited about that. I haven't been back since I graduated high school... and being away from home -- or at least one version of home -- for two and a half years surely makes the trip long over due. :)

recycled tears

There is a show in the art gallery right now that I can't think of the name of at the moment, but I have thought a lot about it lately. Last Tuesday I went to a panel discussion about the art by various Biola faculty. Of the people that spoke, what professor Dorothy Calley and Dr. Joanne Jung said stuck out to me the most. Calley spoke of a piece that I didn't even want to see that dealt with emptying and re-filling, and Dr. Jung spoke about a sculpture that fascinated me that was about "recycled" tears. Calley mentioned how she hated the piece yet she had to stare at it and came back several times to contemplate it. Sometimes those things that repulse us most are those things that we most need to confront. Dr. Jung mentioned in recycled tears the returning again and again to the same tears, to remembering and re-processing the same hurts and the same memories again and again. I feel like I definitely have been recycling tears lately. I continuously return to my past and make steps backwards trying to return to it rather than being willing to let go and see where my future takes me. Today I was reading through Acts and spent some time in prayer and felt myself flooded with the need to give my recycled tears to God to allow him to take my past and to mold me and create me into the person who will move forward and not look back. This then goes to the piece with the carcasses that was so disturbing and that I didn't enjoy at all. I need to be filled with God and his desires for me, but how can I be filled with those things if I don't allow him to empty me of things that I shouldn't be focusing on? Yes, parts of my past are glorious, but to continuously focus on them doesn't allow for growth or forward movement. Then, tonight at singspo I again felt like God was asking me for my past... and for all of me, to let him empty me and refill me with himself.