back to waitressing

i laughed when i got a waitressing job in provo after getting a BA, and now it seems a bit more tragically hilarious that i should become a waitress yet again after getting a masters. but hey - i take comfort in the fact that my incredibly intelligent and talented professor at oxford did the same thing when she arrived in DC looking for a job after serving in the peace corps. (the peace corps, by the way, is what everyone says is the number one ticket to fast employment.) (then again people say the same thing about a degree from oxford.)

so.

i missed out on a really great job while in switzerland (don't worry, it was still worth it and je ne regrette rien!), and have exhausted a lot of my possibilities. it's a tough tough world out there for finding jobs, and my optimism is waning. i still think i can find something, but it may take awhile longer yet, and i don't want to be waiting around beating my brains out. (i have no patience and doubt likes to attack in such liminal times...) so i will probably most definitely quite certainly begin applying for waitressing jobs next week. i actually don't mind the profession - it is quite fun and exciting (especially on the short term), and it will help fill my time in between fairtrade kenyan tea researching and job hunting.

sigh.

in other news

1. i finished kristen lavransdatter. so now mom can finally accept me as her very own julianne daviddatter. (doesn't have quite the ring to it)

2. i don't have a job in DC yet, BUT the professor i've been working for in oxford just started me on another really great project on fairtrade tea in kenya, so at least i still have a bit of income, and in pounds no less. i think it's a sign that oxford misses me just as much as i miss it.

3. and the best for last: one of my favorite blogs, the transpacific sketch project, run by dear friends of mine, has asked me to join as a full-time contributor! i have rarely felt this honoured, truly. it's simply a collection of pieces of art etc. which move us inextricably. it's a beautiful blog which has always brought me joy.

i love proving hegel wrong

yes i have victoriously returned to washington from the valle verzasca in switzerland.

hegel said at one point that "it is the defects of immediate reality which drive us forward inevitably to the idea of the beauty of art."

i love when "immediate reality" trumps any possible feeling epxressed in art - of course anyone who knows me knows that i worship art in all its forms, and use paintings, sculpture, film, architecture, music, and words to express and relate my lived experiences. but i must say that the beauty of the simple days i spent in toni's aunt's 1806 stone swiss rustico (cabin) were more beautiful than any piece of art i have ever experienced.

and that is saying quite a lot. especially for me.

i mean really. not many words to describe.

i will be away

see you all in september!

tributes 7, 8, 9

this is a long post... i do apologise beforehand, but perhaps it makes up for my complete lack of posting recently? i've been in DC looking for a job, emphasis on the looking - i'll let you know when i find one!

all actual life is encounter.

this is a quote from martin buber, a jewish philosopher who worked in the first half of the 20th century. he is hands down my favourite thinker. what i find so powerful in buber's writing is his belief that true existence, the core of reality and meaning in life is found in the relationships between man and man, and between man and God. the latter relationship is discussed by other philosophers, and is of course in no way unique to buber. kierkegaard's ideology rests on the relationship between the "single one" and God, but he claims that because of the primacy of such a relation, all other relationships between an individual and others around him/her must be sacrificed. buber rightly criticises such a notion, and instead places all meaning and truth upon both our relations to the divine and those around us. that we access the divine through others, through daily life and interaction and dialog and encounter. what a beautiful and unique philosophy, compared to the multitude of others who speak of man as if we are single entities existing without relation (though i imagine many philosophers did live such a life).

in any case, buber receives my 7th tribute, for contributing so much to my notions of religious practice and relations between individuals. if you ever want something stunning and beautiful to read, pick up his books. i and thou and between man and man are his most significant, and each absolutely stellar. here is a quote from between man and man, though i could quote nearly the entire book if i could:

i have given up the ‘religious’ which is nothing but the exception, extraction, exaltation, ecstasy; or it has given me up. i possess nothing but the everyday out of which i am never taken. the mystery is no longer disclosed, it has escaped or it has made its dwelling here where everything happens as it happens. i know no fullness but each mortal hour’s fullness of claim and responsibility. though far from being equal to it, yet i know that in the claim i am claimed and may respond in responsibility, and know who speaks and demands a response. i do not know much more. if that is religion then it is just everything, simply all that is lived in its possibility of dialogue.

now, as i say - i have no original thought, and cannot claim my interest in buber to be a self-discovery. i came upon him after attending a small lecture by brilliant poet li-young lee at byu when i was 18, who receives my 8th tribute. lee mentioned reading buber under a tree when he was young (ok, how much more poetic can you get than that?), and how so much of i and thou informed his own poetry. li-young lee is a brilliant poet who writes beautiful words describing life as he lives it... he adopts much of what buber expresses in the quote above - that religion, meaning, and truth should not be ecstatic escapes from mortal life, but are instead the very stuff and reality of mortal life, that we must embrace the world and the most banal of experiences (lee writes poems about doing laundry, or making a bed with his wife) to see beauty and truth. is there anything more important than this? and more wonderful? i love the idea of embracing daily life in search of beauty rather than escaping to a platonic nether-world. lee is so devoted to the relationships he has with his family, wife, and children, and it is in those which he finds spirituality and beauty. it is wonderful to read. so if you have further time, do read lee's poetry, i have all of his books and couldn't begin to claim my favorite, so look them all up - including his most recent, behind my eyes, ah! beautiful!

and finally, tribute 9 - the reason i went to that li-young lee lecture in the first place is owing entirely to my dear friend julie. li-young lee was speaking the next day in the large university-wide byu forum, which i would have naturally attended. the forum was breathtaking, but it was at that small little-known lecture the night before that lee really interacted with the audience, let his guard down entirely, and just absorbed us all in his wonderful poetry. and if julie had not told me of it, how would i have come to all the wonderful moments in reading lee and buber ever since? i owe julie a great deal in fact, since she was my go-to girl for fabulous conversations on art and philosophy freshman year. i love her dearly for that, and am so happy i was able to see her recently in madrid. :)

so thank you,

julie
li-young lee
and buber.

you have all altered so much of my thinking, in the best sense possible. i can think of few authors who i love more dearly, and whose thoughts have been more influential on my life over the last 5 years than lee and buber.

pictures of the last 7 days.

how i say goodbye to oxford:

stock up on my absolute favourite british chocolate that you cannot find outside the UK.

so my stomach doesn't get too lonely whilst back in the states.


and yes i will spell favorite as "favourite" and use "whilst" for as long as i can...
plus notice my empty desk. sad face for a sad day.

wells cathedral

mom and dad are here! (look how cute they are) they're staying outside bath, so i took the train to see them today. we drove to nearby wells to see the STUNNING, and i repeat

STUNNING cathedral. my goodness! check out the "scissor arches," built in the 1330s. 700 years old. i mean really.

love it, and love mom and dad.

tribute 6

this is another collective tribute, this time to

the fab five.

consisting of

ali
brittany
lindsay
melanie
(and me).

context of why i'm posting this tribute: i spent the day cycling in the gorgeous villages of the neighbouring cotswolds today. it was beautiful to the point of transcendence... it seems the day was more a dream than a reality. and it's hitting me that i have to leave this gorgeous city of oxford, in the fabulous country of england, in the wonderful continent of europe, in two short weeks.

sad face.

BUT! there is hope! there are few people i love more in the world than the people mentioned above who i pay tribute to today. we became friends freshman year at byu, very serendipitously as we all lived on the same end of our hallway in david john hall. what i love about our friendship is that it's not based on any pretension or ulterior motive, we all just love each other for who we are. we are very different in interests and opinions, but that doesn't matter in the end - our care and concern for each other trumps all that. i have more pure, unadulterated fun with one, two, or ideally all of the members of the fab five than i have with anyone else.

so. even though i have to leave oxford and try to be a real person with self-confidence in the never-ending job search (sad face again), at least i'm going home closer to such dear friends. ali may actually live near me on the east coast next year, which would make life basically perfect. i kid not when i say that my thought process on days like this runs in such a circular motion... sadness of leaving dear ones here, but overflowing joy in thinking what adventures could happen in the future with such friends from my past. so in a sense i'm paying tribute to the fab five of the future - i could rattle off stories of our past, but really no one else would think such things are nearly as funny or entertaining, and i think such a tribute would imply that i see some sort of end of our friendship, that it was an epoch lived in provo rather than a living reality.* it's remarkable how no matter what has happened in each others lives, or how we've changed, we remain close. how beautiful a thing is that?

i love you all dearly.

*besides all these photos are from freshman year. haha, how young we all looked then. :)

tribute 5

this is a collective tribute to

andrew/ethan/emma/sophie/audrey/parker/miles/annie/jack/max/sadie/mabel/oliver/stella

i was reinvigorated this week to reflect on the purpose of family, and the glue which supposedly holds that together: love. "well, duh" one says - what a trite phrase! yes, obviously love is at the centre of family. but honestly and truly, how often is this not missing in familial interactions? it's too common that families take each other for granted, because they are always there, always around, and one therefore has free reign to criticise and debase each other at leisure. people take individual stresses out on their children or partner or sibling or parent.

this is a tragedy.

my tribute to all the nieces and nephews has two meanings: because rarely have i seen more love in my life than that displayed by these wonderful children to each other and to us, "the grown-ups," but also i stand in awe so often at the amount of love those grown-ups have freely given right back to the kids. it's a marvel to watch all of them interacting, to see the grandkids laughing themselves silly in the triangle room at sundance, and to see mimi and lincoln wrestling with them for hours, and ginger playing games with andrew and ethan... to see stephanie rocking stella to sleep yet again, and katie teaching annie to sing like ariel, or elliott sledding with his kids, matthew snowboarding with them, mike building a snowman with olibo, neal exploring the ocean with audrey and parker, and leslie kissing miles every two seconds :)

i could go on with a list of moments i've remarked in the interactions between the grandkids and grown-ups, and the absolute outpouring of love on either side. i am touched beyond words by such love, and so glad that we prize patience and kindness with each other over reproaches and cruelty. the home is the scene of too much abuse and destruction, in places i am shocked to discover... what a rare thing it is to find love in the home, and what in the end could be more important?