Los Angeles makes me

Today, mom and I took advantage of the sunshine and drove up to Los Angeles. i forgot how pretty the drive up was, with the wide ocean on one side, and rolling green mountains on the other. the rain has stuck close to San Diego recently, so the place is much greener than it has been in years. its almost overwhelming.

so, we drove into downtown LA, to the fabric district, our favorite place. mom had a special mission to buy how ever many yards of this one type of fabric for work, so we parked the car and started walking down the crowded streets.

there is a specific place that mom and i shop at in downtown LA, called "The Alley", a literal alley way that was converted into a series of stalls, run by mexican immigrants. the clothes are interesting, cheap, and its always an adventure. usually, we are the token white people shopping there, so we get a lot of attention and calls from the vendors. other than us, the entire place is a little tiajuana. everything is in spanish.

now, downtown LA streets are very interesting. i dont think there are any others in the world like them. its this massive web of thin crowded alleys, lined with thousands of immigrants, selling clothes, fabrics, freshly sliced fruit, sausages and onions, hot burritos, fantas, and goodness knows what else. the flow of people is like a strong, crowded tide, with everyone moving in a million directions. and everyone and their mother has a baby, so you have to watch out for strollers running over your feet, or little toddlers squealing in your ear.

as we walked down the alley, inquring about prices of shoes or dresses, i couldnt help but take in the specific moments. i noticed there was this old mexican man pushing a cart, selling ice cream. the cart had bells on the handle that rang when he pushed it, and they sounded in an old-century colonial way. the music of the bells permeated the air, and echoed through the streets. i really like those bells.

in the crowd of people, there are the mexican girls, mostly all dressed in the same kind of clothes-what we call "chola", a street tough style consisting of solid colored shirts, tighter jeans, addidas or pumas, gelled hair, thickly penciled eyebrows, shiny lipgloss, dark eyeliner, and lips penciled just on the edges. anybody from southern california knows what i mean. there are also cholOS, the guy version. they were baggy solid colored shirts, baggy jeans, addidas or pumas, have usually shaved or short hair, and look pretty tough too. you know a cholo when you see one.

so, we walked with the cholos, and the cholas, and the babies, and the older women shopping for their children, and the ice cream man, and we shopped, got made fun of by people who thought we couldnt understand spanish, making our way in the hot sun all over "the alley" and the fabric district.

its always interesting, a delight to the senses, and a little like a dangerous mission to go there. i felt on guard, needing to look street wise so i wouldnt get blown over by the people around me. but these are the places i grew up in so i dont mind.

its the little things throughout the day that i realized brought the most love about home back to me. like the humility in the eyes of the man selling the ice cream, or the tough cholos standing on the streets (i dont know why i missed them, but this is the only place you can find people like that, and i cherish them. yeah, its weird). i missed the way the sun fades on the ocean, making everything sparkle and shine right before it dips below the horizon. or the view of Big Bear mountain, covered in snow. or the names of the exits along the freeway that i recognize. i know where they lead.

so, so far, my time at home has been busy and beautiful. like a breath of fresh air, i drink it in and relish every moment. i love being with my family, my friends, my cat (though i still havent given the thing a name), my places. i can see that no matter where i go, this will forever be where my heart is.

graceless green hands, brain freeze, and lack of sleep

you know those nights where you cant sleep.

your body feels all heavy and dead, but you're mind insists on keeping you awake with boring, redundant or absurd ideas that dont go anywhere.

that was last night. a pleasure, really.

lately my life style has gone from bad to worse. too much studying cramps the brain, and leaves my body stiff and useless. i stumble and blunder through meal times, in classes, in any situation, chanting text from my history homework, or drawing the number of ATP yielded from...wait what was it again? i dont know, i left my brain in bed today.

renewed promises to exercise have assembled a slide show in my head of all the times i chose not to go to the gym, deciding to pursue other interests instead, and letting me know how bent out of shape i am now.

and little sleep, from all the nights given up to homework, thought, or sheer awake-ness, leaves one easily startled, along with falling asleep in your cereal, and being pretty much unresponsive.

looks like its time for a good breath of fresh air, and a week long break. in california, no less.

they say home is where the heart is, and i say home is where you can relax and be YOU, with no fear, no guard, no worry, no nothing. a little R&R does a student some good, and gives generous time to refill the empty tires of your soul, and the will to go on. its almost like starting a new year, with new resolutions, to be regenerated, and refreshed before you nose-dive back into the former rhythms of life.

home. with tv, and real meat (actually, that treat is under questionable study right now due to a possible baptism into a veggie-sovereign diet. we'll see), plus soda, coffee, and the kick-back-relax liberal-ness of sunny san diego. my gosh, i've missed it.

these past few days at southern have brought to mind the beautiful weather i was raised in. ah, to be home once more. just four midterms, one groome trip, one long plane ride and then..sha-bang. deposited into the arms of family and loved ones.

yes, spring break is a blessing if i ever heard of one. and these graceless green hands, the consistent brain freeze, and lack of sleep are warning signs of an urgent need to do as the summer time suggests, and just relax.

so far, ive deduced that ideas and emotions transfer from mind to heart to hand to another hand to another heart to another mind

My life is both full and confusing right now.

It is full because of the beautiful opportunities I have in front of me, and because of them, I feel myself growing in countless directions.

And yet, with all of these opportunities, I feel more puzzled than ever.

I am an idealist. A strong one, at that. And as a committed idealist, I am searching for truth. So I look in all things till I can find shreds of enlightenment here or there.

As an adventist, I like to think that I have mostly found all the truth there is, in Jesus. But, I have also found that organized religion can be a bit stifling sometimes. Nothing against my religion, I agree with most of its practices, of course. But I think there are always things that need more looking into, more prodding. Who said we were done discovering all things about God? Did we learn all we could about the Bible back in the nineteenth century when they pioneered the adventist movement? I highly doubt that.

So, I am on, what you would call, a spiritual journey. I am hungering to find truth behind walls of set rules and regulations. I am reading a book by Ed Dobson, called The Year of Living Like Jesus. It’s spectacular. It really opens your eyes to what it would be like to live as a first century disciple, and even more so, like Jesus. Dobson literally lived out the lifestyle and teachings of Jesus, and its amazing to read about. It totally changes the entire way you look at things.

I think I didn’t realize I was on this journey till I actually classified it all in my mind. Once I gave a name to what I've been thinking about and studying, it hit me: Im Searching. whoa. that was weird.

but once you start, you cannot stop. growth never ceases.

so far, I have come to the conclusion that as long as you are following Jesus, you are following truth. and that is a beautiful place to start on a spiritual journey, i think.

But now, my quest is to grab hold those things which Jesus taught, and plant them into my own sphere. Like with a garden, you have to nurture your fragile spiritual nature. In this case, im feeling rather infantile and newly sown. But I like the idea of planting. It deepens your level of understanding, and searching-or being searched you could say (by God).

That’s how we idealists are. We never tire of searching. We are always curious to know more. We search for truth in all measures, in all places, in all things. Art, and kindness, and culture. Science, personality, even math, can be totally revealing of truth. It seems like everything we study or practice is the representative of some truth. So, we have to dig those meanings out, the ones embedded in the grain of life itself, to practice what could be called a veiled reality.

So, as I am becoming more exposed to these truths, and as I decide what I would like to do with my life, and the places I would like to go, I am firstly confronted by the need of including Jesus in all of these things.

I have come to realize that Jesus is my only constant companion, and for that I am eternally grateful. I can never feel altogether lonely on any given day, because His presence is there, even if I cannot see it or feel it.

In my quest for truth, I find that the first step is to open your heart to Jesus. From there, I'm pretty sure you can be lead to wherever it is you need to be.

I’m still learning a lot. Still studying and reading, and praying and thinking thinking thinking. Sometimes I waste the whole day thinking, buried in the recesses of my mind, under the clutter of meanings and information and surgical diagnosis' of what it means to be a true Christ-follower.

And that’s really where I’m at right now. and for some reason, im pretty okay with that. in my objective quest for living a life devoted to Jesus, i know that all these will come in their proper times, and i am content to search and be searched by God. its not even so much searching, but seeking, which is different. searching implies something you cannot see and have no idea where to start looking. seeking is more charted, in my opinion. maybe its just vernacular, but i prefer seeking to searching. i feel like i have more of a set course, not a wild maze of unpredictable options.

but whether it is seeking or searching (mere technicalities of course), i dont plan on stopping any time soon. and even if i find what i think i am looking for, i know that there will always be more to know. again, growth never ceases. so i guess im in for a lifetime of adventure. the very prospect is exciting.