breakfast, coffee, walks, and tragedy.

There are a few things that I especially love to do with my close friends: going out for breakfast, going out for coffee and quality conversation and taking long walks, especially semi-late at night, even if it is really cold. I have a few friends that I share breakfast with on a semi-regular basis and its splendid. I've gotten to do all three things in the last few days and it warms my heart. I had breakfast with some amazing women this morning, for example, at 3rd coast which is quickly becoming a favorite place (I've been there 3 times in the last week and a half). I also had an early thanksgiving dinner today and Maureen and Abbie's. I always come away from their house amazingly blessed, I can't even explain it except to say that within the walls of that apartment the love of Jesus is experienced in a way that I have yet to experience elsewhere. Tonight I got the double blessing of riding home with new friends, Jeremy and Julia, precious people. I hope I get to spend time with them again sometime at least semi-soon.

I just got some hard news from my mom about people who are, in many ways, closer than family to me in Portugal: my "aunts" and "uncles" during my five years there with relational threads that run deep and will continue through the rest of my life. I won't go into detail but I feel as though my world has been shaken. Its a strange sensation because I'm now so far removed from it all being here in college but at the same time still feel so deeply, intimately connected to it. I feel as though the roots I put down there, the roots I still, to some degree, feel like I have there are in completely different soil now than when I left. I'm not sure what to do with that reality. Part of me mourns the loss of it all and part of me just wants to shrug and say that's life and I have a hard time reconciling the two. I guess that this is just the beginning. The whole process is only going to continue and get more complicated as I get older. Times and realizations like these make me all the more glad that there is more to life than what my eyes can see or my heart can feel.

its that time of year...

Its that time of year when people pull out their hats and scarves and wool coats.

Its that time of year when I officially can't wear flip flops anymore because my feet will freeze.

Its the time of year when its so cold that it makes your eyes water and then your eyelashes freeze shut, a truly absurd feeling.

Its that time of year when my hair freezes because its usually still wet when I go outside.

Its that time of year when it gets dark outside at 4:30pm here in Chicago.

Its that time of year when the only things left on most of the trees are little red berries.

Its that time of year when my glasses fog up when I step inside.

Its that time of year when almost every warm drink has peppermint in it.

Its that time of year with magical evenings of snow flurries.

Its that time of the year when Christmas lights and decorations are strewn across the city trees and lamp posts.

Its that time of year that big, fake, evergreens are placed in front of huge windows and decorated beautifully.

Its that time of year when 93.9 has Christmas music playing non-stop.

Its that time of year that I pull my boots out.

Its that time of year when people seem to become warm inside, I think I've been getting a lot more hugs lately. :)

Its that time of year that I especially think of my family and fun traditions (Chris, mom, It snowed here for the first time a few days ago and I so badly wanted to eat dinner by candle light! :)

Its that time of year when Ange and I do our 1000 + piece Christmas puzzle. (I guess its been a few years...)

Its that time of year that my mom makes her amazing cereal/M&M mix, russian tea cakes and chocolate covered pretzels.

Its that time of year that I remember all the festivities in Lisbon and realize that they're still going on without me and I'm missing them...

Its the time of year when everyone gives each other ferrer rocher chocolates, bolo rei, and those amazing chocolates in the shapes of sea creatures, I'm somewhat sad that I can't remember what they are called.

Its that time of year when I eat way too much chocolate and five bolo reis sit on top of our fridge untouched because no one likes them.

Its that time of year that the castanha venders are lining the streets.

Its that time of year when Lisbon's Christmas light displays beautifully illumine the city.

Its that time of year when the malls are PACKED and not quite worth going to unless its before noon.

Its that time of year when the biggest Christmas Tree I have ever seen is put up in Belem.

Its that time of the year when I miss Portugal the most.

Its that time of year when I would willingly eat an entire bolo rei (fruit cake) if it meant I could be back there again.

Maybe next year. For now, I get to enjoy the winter beauty of Chicago: carraige rides, snow, leafless trees, and my amazing and beautiful friends.

one week from today

I'm thrilled! One week from today I will be in Iowa having a mom day. It will be the first one in a long while and probably the last for a while too. We're going to spend the day together, probably doing a little bit of Christmas shopping and just talking, having "cokes" like old times. I can't wait.

good morning, winter.

Its been snowing, (more like flurrying, I guess) around here. Its beautiful but the cold, grey skies are settling in. This kind of weather always makes me pensive and nostalgic. I keep thinking of Portugal and longing to be living in my sweet memories. Cobblestone streets, ancient churches, castanhas, cafe, two-hour long lunch breaks. It seems further way each day...

A large part of my extended family was together for my cousin's wedding this weekend and I wished so badly that I could have been there. I guess the bright side is that I will see them in almost two weeks for Thanksgiving. I'm looking forward to that. It will probably be the last time for a while. I never know. But its coming, and for today, that is enough.

Disturbed

Her face will be forever etched in my memory. I see her whenever a homeless person asks me for money or a beggar pleads with me for food. I don’t know her name but I will never forget her sunken face, gray wiry hair, horrid odor and dingy, red coat. The stale stench of the urine-stained subway tunnels and platforms takes me back to the moment I first saw her.

I was eating dinner with my two sisters, their husbands and my boyfriend when she approached us. Moments earlier we had been arguing about the plates of food we had left on our table and who was going to eat them. My brother-in-law had cringed as he sipped his green, organic juice. “I don’t know who would ever want to drink this,” he had said. He sipped my sister’s water and left his neglected juice to the side of the table. We continued bantering about the left over food, all but forcing my boyfriend to eat it.

She had shuffled by a few times, and had hesitantly glanced our direction each time she had passed. I was pretty sure I had seen her on the building steps as we left the subway station. Now she was walking toward our table sheepishly. Her frame was fragile and her eyes were hollow, her posture humiliating, her odor overwhelming.

“Can we give her the food?” my boyfriend asked. None of us really spoke but shifted the plates from in front of us, setting them on the edge of the table where she stood. Her eyes fluttered as she courageously asked my brother-in-law for the remaining sips of his juice. He looked at me for a translation and handed her his cup, compassionately silent as she removed the straw from the cup and gulped down the liquid we had all been too disgusted to consume.

While we exchanged minimal conversation with her, sharing our scraps, the manager of the restaurant stormed outside to the patio where we were dining on the cobblestone and yelled at her in Portuguese. My sisters and brothers-in-law looked to me and Brad as we tried to speak above his yelling in this woman’s defense. She wasn’t begging, we had offered her the food and she wasn’t disturbing our dinner. The only thing disturbed was the concept of compassion and love in my heart. As we watched the woman limp away at the urging of the manager, I held back the anger and tears and translated the conversation for my family. We said very little as we walked around the city the rest of the night; it looked vastly different.

learning who i am... or maybe who i wish i was?

This was my response to a friend's post, a poem about who she is. She ended with the question, "Who are you?"

I'm a citizen of heaven alone,
no other home has left me completely satisfied.

I'm a jeans, t-shirt, hoodie, and pony-tail kinda girl, most of the time. Every now and then I go back to my European cultural experiences, minus the heals.

I like blueberry muffins and espressos con pana sitting at the window of an upstairs coffee shop with a good, intellectually stimulating book, watching you walk by on the street below as I turn the pages. Oh, I can't forget the fireplace in the corner.

I want to see you succeed, but I'll love you even if you don't. In fact, I'll love you about an hour after I meet you, maybe less if it's an especially great day.

I'm an optimist but like to keep realistic expectations. I love to laugh and smile but still take life a little more on the serious side. I've been told I'm witty and feisty and in certain contexts I think I'm ok with that.

I like talking with intellectuals, sipping black coffee, dark plastic framed glasses, and i like to leave a conversation mulling over what has just been said. I like to sit down three hours after the conversation and journal my new thoughts on the topic.

I care deeply and once you're in my heart, you better get comfortable because you won't be going anywhere for a while. Its pretty tough to shake me (whether that is good or bad is up for interpretation.)

I feel your pain and confusion, sometimes even if you haven't told me about it. I wish I could take your pain away for you but I've learned that I can't and trying won't do either of us much good. But I will certainly hurt with you because hurting alone is one of the most painful things in the world.

I love people but I love Jesus more. and if the two conflict, it's hard but most of the time I'll choose Jesus.

I like DARK chocolate, and peanut M&M's but you get more regular peanut M&Ms for your money than dark chocolate ones. (unfortunately, cuz the dark chocolate ones are AMAZING!)

I like maps and globes and languages and would like to visit every country before I die.

I hate eating meals by myself. I'm under the conviction that meals are an experience to be shared with someone.

I have a high regard for integrity and living above reproach even if it means you don't like me very much.

I have a strange obsession with the word and concept of HOPE. my Hope in the Creator and Sustainer of the Universe is the only reason I'm still alive today.

fresh laundry, change and hope

I can't believe it has been a year since I have written here. Oh well. As the semester comes to a close, I find myself torn between the excitement of the promises of summer with all that lies ahead and the inevitable sadness that comes at such a time when one thinks about everyone leaving for the summer and the changes that will take place; things will never be quite the same. The changes I'm anticipating seem even greater this summer because I won't be coming back to the same floor and essentially the same life that I have had the last two years. I'll be moving to a different floor and assuming the life of an RA. Don't get me wrong, I'm really really really excited about it, but it definitely will be an adjustment.
For now, I'm just trying to make the most of the rest of the semester and look forward to the amazing women that I get the privilege of living with on Smith 7! In the midst of everything that is changing, there are still some things that remain the same, not in boring way but in a consistent, comforting way. Things like friends, (the friendships will change, I'm sure but the ones that matter most will always be there in some shape or form), SDR food, the community here, the fresh laundry smell from the W Chestnut apartment laundry room that I pass on my way home from work, my job, really unpredictable bus schedules of the CTA, construction on the brown line, and, on a more serious note, the love and grace of a Father without whom I'd fall apart.
So, the changes aren't bad, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't at least a little apprehensive about embracing all of them. Hope is still alive, though ,and that is an amazingly beautiful and priceless gift. Through hope, I'm moving forward.