Amy in Brazil

There are times when I am heartily ashamed of myself for my lack of proficiency in Brazilian Portuguese. I have lived in Brazil for nearly two years, and, though I am quite able to catch buses and buy groceries, I run out of things sensible things to say to adults within the first twenty minutes of conversation (that’s the time it takes for me to go through the basic introductory questions that they teach in Lesson 1–What’s your name? Where are you from? etc.).

In general, I have viewed the situation philosophically and with good humor, happy enough with the idea that, given enough time, the language will come organically, seeping into my brain like syrup into a pancake. However, since becoming engaged to a Brazilian, I have regretted my slovenly approach to language study with an increasing sense of frustration.

The truth is that I have been lazy, and now I am feeling the consequences. I have a wedding to plan–calls to make, appointments to schedule, prices to haggle over–yet I can not speak the necessary words. I feel impotent, and I now find my laizze-fair attitude about language acquisition highly reproachable.

When I was in my first year at North Park, I tore my ACL playing intramural football. For the month following the surgery, I couldn’t go to the cafeteria on my own. I had to get a friend to come with me in order to carry my tray while I tried to negotiate my way through the food line. I hated it. I hated being so completely dependent on other people to do something that I felt I should be able to do myself. At the time and in my reflections since, I was convinced that God used that time in my life to teach me something about the value of community…

Apparently, I didn’t quite learn the lesson well enough, and it is time for me to be fully dependent on others again. Fortunately, Antonio’s family is so kind. His mother and sisters are eager to be of assistance by making phone calls and scheduling appointments and his dad has even helped by translating for me. Such goodness is a blessing in a time that I understand is generally stressful but, for me, dauntingly frustration because of my language issues.

More soon.

 By faith he stayed for a time in the land he had been promised, as in a foreign land… Hebrews 11: 9a

It has been months. I know. I didn’t update even once during my crazy summer journey nor have I been posting since my return to Brazil at the end of July. I haven’t had internet at home since arriving back–a fact that I’ve been conveniently laying blame on–but it’s October 1st. I truly have no good excuse (though, it must be said, I’m still waiting for that internet).

Hmmm. Let’s see. What could you possibly want to hear about after all this time?

Let’s start with location: I’ve moved. I no longer live in an apartment complex right next to the school, but now live a complex a bit further inland. It takes about 20 minutes by bus to get to work in the mornings and 30-40 minutes to get home in the afternoons. The apartment is nice, but it is much farther from the beach and from downtown Rio. And so it was initially quite a big adjustment. Now though, there are socks on the floor very-next-too-but-not-quite-in the hamper and some dishes in the sink–it feels like home.

School: I’m only teaching English classes this year: sixth – twelfth grades (minues 9th). The 6th and 7th graders are definitely a challenge for me, never having taught children so young before. School-wide, we are short many teachers (7) due to visa complications similar to the ones I experienced 2 years ago, and so those of us who are here are a bit over-loaded. Still, we continue to pray that God will somehow bring them here.

Additionally, we have quite a few new students in our upper school this year with very little exposure to Christianity. It is exciting to see our school meeting the academic needs of those students while really challenging them in the formation of their world-views. I’ll keep you posted on this as the weeks go by.

Other news: I’ve invited my father to spend Christmas down in Rio de Janeiro this year, and he is trying to work something out. Please be praying that God will somehow make a way for this to become a reality–I am so excited about the possibility.

Okay. I need to go. The bus that takes me home will be leaving soon, and I’ve got Bible study with my boyfriend later this evening. BUT, I really will try to be diligent about regular updates in the future. After all, my home internet should be up and functioning in 5 – 15 days (so they said about 5 & 30 days ago).

Tchau and God bless, Amy

Be very careful, then, how you live–not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolisth, but understand what the Lord’s will is.    -Ephesians 5: 15-17

I always feel just like the kids do at the end of the year… I want to stamp my feet and shout, “I want out too!” But then, when the end does finally come, it’s always bittersweet. Many, many good-byes.

…traveling to the States soon. I’m excited.

May the Lord bless you and keep you, Amy

This is the day that the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.  Psalm 118: 24

As the school year wraps up, you can find various post-it notes and scraps of paper around my desk. If I were to put them together in some organized, comprehensible way, they would make up quite a to-do list; but I can’t ever actually seem to get them all together. This time of year is haphazard under the very best of conditions, and my philosophy is just to take a deep breath and ride it in… Of course, I might try to combine the items onto one complete list in a pinch–you know, as a way to procrastinate actually doing any of the items on it.

It has been a difficult year for me, but, even with all that’s happened, I wouldn’t call it a bad one. I want to finish well, and I want to leave everything in order for next year… I have decided to return for next year, a decision that I made just before Christmas as some of you probably recall, and I have felt peace about my choice. And that is saying something considering how many things have happened and how many people have tried to influence my decision differently, but I know that I am still where God wants me to be. He is performing a work in me and, hopefully, one through me as well at the Rio International School. I am committed to my students and to the school’s mission, and that’s official until June 2010 when everything will be up in the air again–keep praying please!

I am sad that so many of my colleagues who I have come to love and respect will be returning to the states this summer. Even though, I knew the transient nature of the job when I signed on, I still feel unprepared for these good-byes… I am used to being the person who leaves, not the person who is left behind. And I will miss my friends. One prayer that God answered definitively when I came to Brazil was for a strong network of Christian friends. I was blessed beyond measure and beyond expectation–I have been thankful for them this year and will continue to be thankful for them (I hope) in the years to come. So, thank you Megan, Nicole, Mel, Kelli, Tim, Lorraine, and Elaine for your friendship and best wishes in the weeks/months/years ahead.

I have a rough summer itinerary. Please note that it may still be changed, but such as it is is here posted.

June 18 – 20           Graham, TX

Jun 21 – Jul 3         Southaven, MS

Jul 4 – Jul 9            Virginia Beach,VA

Jul 10 – 12              Chicago, IL

Jul 13 – 17              Minneapolis, MN

Jul 18 – 20              Belen, NM

Jul 21 – 23              Graham, TX

Jul 24                      Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

I will be driving my father’s car and sleeping on friend’s couches along the way. Please pray that I will have safe travels. And, if you are in or around one of these destinations and you want to get together, email me and let me know… As a side note, I am a little bummed that with my current globe-trekking schedule I get two summers and no winters (not even a Rio winter which isn’t really that comparable to a “real” winter). I realize that some of you envy this, but, like I said, I’m bummed.

Hope that you are all well.  And I do hope to see a lot of you very soon!

With love and prayers, Amy

PS–I did finally get my Vonage phone set up and working. My number is 77E-7EE-O85O. Just replace the Es with 3s and the Os with zeroes, and we’re in business. Of course, it will stay in Rio while I travel in the states this summer. I’ll get a to-go phone as soon as I get to Texas and will share that number ASAP.

PPS–Every time I try to post on here, I have technical problems of some sort. It’s my internet connection’s fault, I know, and completely beyond my control, but it is so annoying!

God’s blessings!!!

Look among the nations, and see; wonder and be astounded. For I am doing a work in your days that you would not believe if told.  Habakkuk 1: 5

I haven’t posted in a while. Most of you will let me off for having a good reason, but we all know that a key part of being in community together is sharing our lives with one another. So let’s consider this my attempt to get back on the bicycle…

It’s been a difficult few months, and, if anything, my foreign home has been both balm and solace. In the first and most obvious way, it has given me meaningful work to do. On the day my father told me that my mother had died, the only thing that kept me together, feeling like a semblance of a person, was a mighty to-d0 list. I derived great comfort from my work and my students during her illness, when I was preparing to travel for the memorials, and when I returned to Rio… I can’t really explain the blessing of hearing your students pray for you out loud.

The second way that Rio has helped in my healing is through its beauty… When mom died, I was so angry at God–it wasn’t unexpected, but it still felt so unfair–and I told Him that I just needed a little bit of space. Space from personal prayer, from meditation, and from His word–I wasn’t trying to sever ties (I continued to attend church, morning staff devotionals, and Bible study)–but I was being selfish. I wanted to wallow in my grief, and I didn’t want to listen to God or to provide God an opportunity to comfort me in anyway…  And here’s what a lot of people don’t understand about God: He’s omnipotent and omnipresent and unfathomable, but He’s also completely personal. I basically told Him to back off for a bit, and He didn’t push me. He knows me. He waited patiently for my heart to be ready to reconcile, and He reminded me daily through the beauty of this world of His faithfulness–a blue sky, a bandana-eyed bird, the fragrance of flowers, magenta dragonflies. Every bit of it feeling like a gift to me. To continue the relationship metaphor, He wasn’t calling me incessantly and cluttering my voice mail, but He was leaving love notes all over my life and my days, all saying “Come to me. When you’re ready, come to me, and I will give you rest.” God is so good.

Tomorrow is Easter–my favorite holiday of the year. And while I won’t be having my mother’s ham, I will be sharing the day with good friends in good fellowship. All the time remembering that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and though we needed Him, we did not receive Him. And yet at the hour of our greatest betrayal, our most most prodigious failure, God taught us our truest lesson–His grace is sufficient. Hallelujah!

So have a happy Easter! Enjoy your friends and your families, and, if you’re very, very lucky, your honey-ed ham. And I will try to renew my habit of posting on here.

Love, Amy

Now when Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet, saying to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled. And he said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” Jesus wept. So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!”  John 11: 32 – 36

And she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had lain, one at the head and one at the feet. They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, nd I do not know where they have laid him.” Having said this she turned around and saw Jesus standing, but she did not not that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?…” 

Part II–The Blog Continues

The above blog was written last Saturday morning, but, when I attempted to post it, I discovered that my computer’s internet had cut out,  a frequent inconvenience for me here in Brazil… I can’t begin to try to express to you how upset I was. There were true and violent tears. And, here today, I discover that Word Press saved a draft without my knowledge–a blessing, clearly, but I think maybe a lesson too. A lesson about living with inconvenience, no matter how upsetting or frustrating it may seem in the moment.

And so the question now is whether or not I can transfer that lesson to a current situation of inconvenience, one involving a package FedExed over a month ago, held hostage by the Brazilian government, and now (I discovered today) unceremoniously on it’s way back to the United States…  Making it unlikely that I will receive it until the middle of next month. Within the package is not only my Vonage phone package–the one that is supposed to make it easy for me to stay in touch with my friends and family in the States–but also the Vonage phone package of one of my work colleagues. ARGH!

Tonight, I am headed to a fundraiser for 5 teenagers who have been selected by a group of organizations (lead and organized by the house church that I attend) for scholarships for a selective summer art program at Cal Arts (a prestigious art school in California). They will go in July after months of hard work and preparation. It has been a privilege to watch the project since its inception, and I look forward to the seeing how this opportunity with impact the lives of these kids and their families. More information about this project–Art & Social Transformation–is available at the Project Brazil (http://projectbrazil.com/).

And, I actually need to run out the door now so as not to be late.

Much love & prayers– Amy

I visited my second Brazilian hospital today. My first trip to a Brazilian hospital was in August when they were giving away free Rubella vaccinations to everyone 12-39. In that instance, I walked a mile up the road to a public hospital, waved my passport, and got a needle stuck in my arm.

 Today I actually needed to see a doctor, and I had no idea what to really expect. I’ve had a sore throat since the middle-of-the night on Friday, and it’s been getting progressively worse. I stayed home from work yesterday, sleeping and dosing myself with over-the-counter flu meds. However, when I woke up this morning and saw that the swelling of my glands might continue indefinitely and that my face might actually explode, I decided that drastic measures indeed must be taken.

So I went to the hospital. Someone from the school drove me there, and our director’s wife who’s in charge of member care came with me. Lucky for me, I’ve been practicing my Portuguese because I had no one to translate for me as I got myself signed in. Then, as my doctor spoke some English and I spoke some Portuguese, we were able to communicate fairly well.

The whole visit took less than an hour, including travel time and the stop at the pharmacy for my drugs. It was pretty amazing, and do you want to know their secret? Apparently, it matters to them neither how much you weigh nor what your heartrate is. If you come in saying you have the swelling-sore-throat-of-death, they hold down your tongue with a depressor and take a look.

My doctor was quite funny, she looked for about two seconds and then said (in Portuguese, but I understood beautifully) your throat is swollen, very red, and there are pustules. She diagnosed a bacterial infection, asked if I had any drug allegies, wrote me a prescription for three different drugs which I must duly take for the next five days, and sent me on my way. I stopped at the desk and paid the equivelent of $125 US Dollars, and that was that.

I’m home again and doing very much what I did yesterday: nap, eat, drink water, take drugs, nap, etc. But I am hopeful about getting back to work tommorow–nice thing about bacteria is that it is not as easy to pass about as other forms of infection. And I am definitely looking forward to my jawline and neck resuming their normal non-recent-root-canal-patient look.

 Hope that you’re all well in both body and spirit. I’m off to finish my orange/pineapple juice–how I love Brazilian juices.

 -Amy

When he went ashore he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion on them and healed their sick.   Matthew 14:14

We had no school today as it was a holiday in Rio de Janeiro. It was Black Awareness Day–something similar to Martin Luther King Day in the states. So, I spent much of the day believing that it was Saturday. Holidays in the middle of the week always seem to have that effect on me… But, I’ve got work tomorrow with the real Saturday to look forward too after that.

Next week, I will celebrate Thanksgiving with many of my work colleagues on Thursday night. There is a woman in the English-speaking church where I attend that invites all of the school staff over for a traditional turkey dinner every year. Hospitality is definitely one of her gifts, and I am really looking forward to a fantastic night of food and fellowship. Then, I’ve been invited to another feast on that Friday which we, thankfully, do have off from school–we don’t have Thursday off (so it’s only a 3-day weekend, not a 4). It truly is a blessing to have good friends here to help soothe the absence of family for the holiday season.

And, of course, looming in the distace (but not really far off now) is Christmas. I have never spent a Christmas away from my family, and, with my mom’s health being poor, it is hard to imagine spending this one away. However, God has been faithful in so many ways since I’ve come to Brazil, and one of those ways has been to put people in my life who bless me through relationship. I will have company from out-of-town for both Christmas and New Year’s. Plus, I’ve been invited to share so many days/evenings with friends here that I will rarely have time to rest. I will not be lonely; though I know that I will still have some homesick moments. In fact, I may have to make time to hide myself away from everyone who wishes me well.

God specifically answered some financial prayers this month in an amazing way. Specifically, a short-term job opportunity became available just at a time when I needed some ready cash. Also, our school administrator was able to partially subsidize our rent this month; something that should continue for the rest of the school year. These two things is addition to some generous gifts from friends and family enabled me to get my accounts back in order after last month’s payment fiasco (Short story–only half of the money I was supposed to receive last month was deposited into my account. Two weeks later the error was corrected, but not until after bills were due and fees were charged). I know that many of you have been praying specifically for my financial stability here in Brazil, and I want to thank you for that. God provided manna for each and every day, and his faithfulness endures forever!

I am nearly finished reading a book that I’d like to recommend to everyone–it’s not a quick read. I’ve been working my way through it bit by bit for over a month; it is so rich in theology and so thought-provoking that I doubt that I could go any faster nor have I wanted to. It is called Naked Before God and is by Bill Williams. The author is dying of cystic fibrosis and spends much of the book arguing with God about the nature of pain and the inevitability of his death, but the hope for the reader lies in the conversation and the truth that a man with a genuine, active faith is also a man of heart-wrenching doubt (this is hopeful because we see our own mirror reflection therein). Unfortunately, I believe that it’s out of print, but I imagine that you could track it down through an online bookseller or a used bookstore.

Good night, and happy holiday to all of you!

With my love & prayers, Amy

I have seen the business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. He has made everything beautiful in its time.  Ecclesiates 3: 10 -11a

“Faith and works are both dead without clear vision. Clear vision produces good faith, life-giving work and sturdy love–as naturally as the sun gives off light, life and warmth. It is what is fused in the core that shines.”  Bill Williams, Naked Before God

It is starting to warm up here in Rio. I never actually know the temperature because that would require learning the Celsius Scale, but, when I went running tonight after 9pm, it was hot and sticky. I live in a large, gated condominium which makes running at night safe and easy, and I wave at the porteiros (the guards) each time I lap the guardhouse… I noticed a dead bat lying on the road tonight as I was running. It was smaller than the ones that I normally see flying over the street, so I think it must have been a young one. Very sad; I like bats.

I emailed my October update letter today, finally. There were several pictures in this one, so it at least looks pretty. The prayer request section has a paragraph dedicated to my mom, but, thankfully, she’s doing so much better than she was even a week ago. Also, things at work are going a bit more smoothly as well. I’ve been praying for my boss and for the staff quite a lot, and, over these past few days, I have really felt God’s peace and the acknowledgement that He’s working on it. I just need to do my job as well as I can and to God’s glory, and let the rest be. Special thanks to all of you who’ve been praying with me–I know that there are many of you.

Tomorrow night, I’m going to be getting together with some people from my Mosaico church group to work on some crafts for a bizarre the proceeds of which will be sending 7 youths from favelas here in Rio to a special summer art program at Cal Arts in Southern, CA. This is a long-term project that we’ve committed to, and it will be a tremendous opportunity for the kids. The bizarre will be on Nov. 8th–I won’t actually be able to attend it because I have a school function that day, but I’m hopeful that we will raise a lot of money towards their trip. I’ll keep you posted.

My Portugeuse is coming along very slowly. I need to dedicate more time to it in the evenings–I am still pretty much only using it on the weekends… I need to make more effort in this area.

Hope that everyone is well.

Amy

Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will take joy in the God of my salvation.  Habakkuk 3: 17 - 18

I’m sorry that I’ve been so bad about updates lately. Things have been difficult for me here. Things big and small, coming at me from every direction. And what do I do when the going gets rough? I lock down–I go into survival mode trying to preserve a facade that speaks confidently, “She’s got it all together…” I keep my head down and my emotions in check and try to work everything out on my own which is, of course, a pretty ridiculous way of going about anything. And it’s certainly not at all what God has in mind for his children.

No, God’s pretty adament that one of the purposes of Christian community is that we’re supposed to share one another’s burdens. But, of course that means that a body has to ask for help occassionally, and that is always something that I am loathe to do. Still, I’ll do the best I can at the moment, and if I’m not forthcoming enough or just a little too vague, I ask your forgiveness. I’m processing, and I don’t always have the best words.

First of all, please pray for my mother. She had a doctor’s appointment on this past Thursday, and we now have a much better idea about some of the health complications that she’s facing. She is not only preparing for dialysis and waiting for another kidney transplant, but her doctors have now diagnosed sclerosis of the liver. So, she’ll be needing one of those as well… The good news is that she’s been bumped up the transplant list (apparently multpile-organ failure is a totally legitimate way to do that), but the bad news is that while a bum kidney can be replaced indefinitely (if a bit uncomfortably) by regular dialysis, a liver cannot.  Please pray for my mother and my father and all of us kids as we deal with this news.

Additionally (and this is harder to clarify), things haven’t been going well at work. I am still enjoying my students immensely, and I still definitely feel that this is where God intends me to be. But some recent changes at work have made me seriously question my future in Brazil, and I don’t know if I was either mentally or emotionally prepared for that. Please pray that I would have both wisdom and discernment in my present circumstances, that I would have courage to be a voice of integrity if called upon, and that I would seek God’s will in all things.

I really do hope and pray that you are all well.

-Amy

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.   2 Corinthians 12: 9 – 10

It ’s been several weeks now since my last post, and, for those of you who I particularly told that I’d try to update more regularly, I apologize. I can only blame clutter–I’ve been caught in it and among it, created it and thrived upon it. So, here is an update on the clutter in my life.

Work. Work is good, but it is definitely work. With six different classes to prepare for daily, I feel like I am always planning and that I am always just a little behind somehow. And the paperwork has been piling up bit by bit–no matter how much I try to stay on top of the grading, it always seems to get the better of me. I have a stack of papers home with me this weekend (something I generally avoid as I often carry back on Monday an identical stack to the one I carried home on Friday–identical meaning sans marks be they red or blue or aquamarine), but progress reports will be printed this Monday. So says my lead teacher and the school’s new director. There is no more time for procrastination; I simply must grade.

In addition to planning for my classes and grading, I am on the school’s Week Without Walls Committee. Week Without Walls is a big event each spring–students have the opportunity to go on field trips and take learning outside of the classroom (hence the cool and catchy name). As part of the committee this year, I am helping to organize/coordinate three trips for the 6 – 12th graders. One is a trip to London & Paris (this one is my baby, and I am the ringleader of my own little dream-trip-circus in the planning), another is a trip to Goiania & Caldas Novas which are in central Brazil, and the third is a series of day-trips around Rio. The goal is to prepare three student options at appropriately differentiated levels of affordability that will all be interesting & beneficial for the students who take part. And they need to be planned, approved, and presented to the parents before October so that families can budget as necessary. Quite a lot of work, but fun because, well, because field trips and travel are fun.

I attended my first Brazilian soccer (aka football) game this Wednesday night. It started at 9:45 PM, and it was in the biggest stadium that I think I’ve ever been inside in my life (80,000 maybe). Unfortunately, it was a tie game, and, since it wasn’t a final, there wasn’t even a shoot-out (is that what they call it? I am so ignorant about soccer–it’s the one sport that I really feel that I don’t understand). The Brazilian fans grew quite disgusted with their own team because, according to them, the game should have been an easy victory. By the end of the match, they were booing their own coach and players and cheering whenever Bolivia was moving the ball offensively. It was an educational experience into the Brazilian psyche, to be sure, and it was a great time. At the end of which I bought a cheap jersey imitation from a sidewalk vendor, caught a bus home with my friends, and called it a good night.

Speaking of the buses, I don’t know if I’ve really praised them enough here in my blog or elsewhere. Most of you (or at least some of you) probably already know how much I love the idea of public transportation–I missed it hugely after moving from Chicago to New Mexico–and that adoration hasn’t faded now that I’m back to using mass transit as my primary means of transport after walking. And Rio has a pretty reliable network of buses and two fine (though sadly unextensive) underground metro lines. Granted, you’ll never see a map or a schedule–I’m told that they are available online, but (1) where’s the adventure in that? and (2) I don’t read enough Portuguese to navigate their website. Generally, I just ask the bus driver in baby Portuguese whether or not he’s stopping where I want to go. I’ve only gotten on the wrong bus a handful of times, and that, in and of itself, is just an added adventure….

Is public transit safe in Rio? You’d be surprised how many natives of Rio (Cariocas) would warn against it. But over 70% of them us it daily. Don’t worry, Mom; I’m always as safe as I possibly can be. But, you know me, I’ve just got to get out and be a part of the city that is my current hometown. (This is where I might include the anecdote of getting on a bus two weekends ago on the way to a book club meeting with some girlfriends right after the bus driver on it had intimidated a would be robber to into exiting it (rare because usually the bus drivers don’t interfere), but that might really make my parents nervous.

 The book club meets again this Wednesday night to discuss Amy Tan’s Saving Fish from Drowning. I’m only on page 119, and I have to make it to page 801 (not quite as bad as it sounds as my copy is a large print edition that I found on sale in a bargain bin in the States this summer–seriously, there are maybe 100 words per page). So in addition to grading tomorrow, there will be reading. Much, much reading. Hopefully, I’ll find the time to finish by Wednesday night…. Normally, our book group doesn’t meet quite so often, but one of the women that comes is moving back to the US to get married in a couple of weeks. And we wanted to include her… I’ll let you know if the book is any good when I finish it.

I’ve joined the worship team at my English-speaking church. I think I might actually be on the rotation for this Sunday morning; need to check that when I’m done updating. And the Mosaico church plant where I’ve been attending continues to be a family to me, though it has been a bit hectic lately with people doing lots of traveling and illnesses and what-not. It could use your prayers.

Ok. I think that is all I’ve got energy for at the moment. I did warn you at the beginning of all of this that it was clutter… But, I think, if you’ll indulge me, I’ll finish off with a little stream-of-conciousness writing piece that I penned down during one of my classes the other day. I gave all of my English classes 5 minutes of continuous stream-of-conciousness writing as their in-class writing assignment–I told them to write and to listen, to listen and to write, to follow their thoughts wherever they led, and, heaven forbid, not to premeditate anything–and finally, during my last class of the day I joined them. Now, before I post it, let me confess that I’ve been writing far less frequently than I used to since before my failed MFA applications–rejections have a funny way of humbling even the most pretentious of scribblers–but suddenly the time feels right to brush off my artistic confidence and try again. So here it is in it’s un-revised glory; five minutes of thoughts from my classroom:

Lots of laughter. A snarl. Is this really so difficult? The AC is rattling again. I should close the window. Is that a heliocopter? I wonder where he’s headed in the middle of the day, and I wonder what Wolfgang’s laughing at. A slamming door. The distant murmur of voices. Are any of those voices posing real questions, or are their words as indistinct to them as they are to me? Something fell. Another heliocopter. Disaster? Rescue? Or maybe the news? Another beautiful day in Rio but not for everyone. A child is shouting, “Ernesto,” and a third heliocopter passes by. Will the child witness it in wonder? Or will it be ignored? Background noise? Just part of the ho-hum of everyday life?

Gosh, that looks silly just sitting there. But, like I said, it felt good to write anything. Natural, even. Who knows, I might even try poetry again. I’ll keep you posted. But now, it is definitely time for bed. Well, teethbrushing first, and then bed. My thoughts and prayers go out for you all tonight (especially to those of you in literal or metaphorical hurricanes–you know who you are).

From the joyfilled chaos of clutter,

Amy

And he called the twelve together and gave them power and authority over all the demons and to cure diseases, and he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal.   Luke 9: 1 – 2