Last night of my official holiday....

since tomorrow i am going back to the big city -
with some fear and trepidation.

i've been here for 9 days. 9 relatively quiet lazy hazy days. it's been swell. other than the mack truck cold and phlegm. I have way too much crap to load onto the greyhound. it won't be pretty. i really wish i hadnt brought my guitar.

it's really hard to believe that we're headed into 2006. in, like, a DAY. yikes. 2006 - i feel like we should be using those jetson type cars now or something. :) You know the ones...they kindof hover above the sidewalk, and you just zoom along.
man - if only life were like that.

i finally bought myself a rosary today. my very own gorgeous rosary. I bought at St. Patricks. it is very beautiful. i feel like i've waited my whole life to buy this thing. too bad i don't know how to say it. that will be one of my new things to learn in 2006 - how to pray the rosary....or maybe i'll just make up my own prayers per bead....(my apologies to any catholics who may be reading this right now). Anyway - I am especially looking forward to Epiphany this year...maybe because I feel I may be on the verge of a few of my own.

actually now that I think of it - the trip home won't be that bad...what with the new cd's (Johnny Cash, Coltrane and thelonius Monk live at carnegie Hall, Sinead O'connors reggae - throw down your arms, Joni mitchell - politically charged tunes), and all that yummy new yarn for fresh knitting....and all the new books....yes - life is good.

{OTTAWA JUST SCORED - YAY!!!}

good-bye fair Ottawa. Until next time.
over and out
-Julia

Props to the Carpenters...

So After looking over my last few blogs I was like - wow - how deeeepressing!

So - in the kitchy spirit of the season....here's a little ditty. God, i love Karen Carpenters Christmas album...enjoy:

Come hear those sliegh bells jingleing
Ring-ting-tingleing too
Come on, it's lovely weather for a sleigh ride together with you
Let's hit the snow before us and sing a chorus or two
Come on it's lovely weather for a sleigh ride together with you

Giddy up, giddy up, giddy up - let's go
Get on with the show
We're riding in a wonderland of snow

Giddy up, giddy up, giddy up - it's grand
just holding your hand...
We're riding around in the scene of a wintery fairy land.

Come hear those sleigh bells jingleing
Ring-ting-tingleing too
Come on it's lovely weather
for a sleigh ride
together
with you.

Merry Christmas to one and all.
Peace on Earth,
-julia

parties and sorrow and other things....

I'm in the parkdale library. taking a breather before the big Catholic Worker Christams party. It's ironic in a way...as I am so not in the mood to "party". Get drunk - yes. Sing carols - no.

The tinsel is on the tree. the deserts are ready. Everyone has probably been scampering around getting ready..the presents are wrapped. I havnt been around much for the pre-festivities. I am hiding in the library. I think H bought me some plates to break.... yipeeee.

It's Christmas and the bad parts of me are surfaceing as life is consumed with others. we all have this utopian vision of what it means to be living in authentic community - doing hospitality - living for and with others - living out our ideals of a more just and whole society. Then theres the part where you wake up and realize that it is not all idealistic. It is mostly the hard realities of life slapping you in the face...the day in day out living with each other...having to smile when all you feel like doing is crying - and sometimes doing that too.

I was thinking about all these things last night as we sat down around the table to eat our meal. I noticed the 'Gollum' in me come out as M was asking me for the fifth time to get her something - a glass of milk - more beans - 3 more peices of chicken - etc. and I hadnt starting eatign yet...I was grumpy and tired and emotionally spent...and I was stuffing the urge to literally FREAk out. And then I thought about what M said about what it is we really do here...more than the activism and talk and work and idealism etc:
What we do is attend to each other.
And sometimes very badly. We attend to all our sometimes cleverly hidden disfunction...and wierdness...and tempers..and exhaustion...and need. so much need.

I keep having to remind myself to try and be easy on myself...what with the hostage taking, the vigiling, the decapitated head at the end of the street. Nerves are frazzled way beyond the normal frazzles...and lately i've been forgetting about that. We are being daily confronted with the hard nugget of human pain and suffering. It is a hard thing to keep facing sorrow at it's most vulnerable and raw.

Party time.

peace,
-Julia

I should be in bed.

When i got here I had so much stuff I wanted to get out...and now...it's all escaped. Poof - gone.

Hmmm...

I feel there are so many fundamental questions that are needing answers. God - I hate the word "fundamental". And yet...

What is my place here? What am i called to do here? What are we called to do here? Why am I here in this place at this time? Why do I feel do angry all the time lately? How do i stay true to who I am right now without flipping out? Where is peace?

I need to understand my own limits and boundaries...but am so exhausted...that I have no idea how to even start to do that. I need nourishment....deep nourishment of the soul...in order to be present - and some kind of source of nourishment for others in this community...in this house... but am i even called to be that right now?

I guess i just think that I should be or feel so much stronger than i do. I want to do the best job I can. But I am so burdened with a sense of all prevadeing resentment...and I barely know where it's coming from...or what to make of it.

i just don't want to feel this way anymore. I want to reconnect with the reasons I came here in the first place. i know there is so much pressure on all of us right now....and things are difficult...I'm so afraid of getting swallowed up in these bad feelings.

A prayer to the God of my life:

When tender was the night...
You came with Joy.
And this is what I am asking of you this night:
Joy
And maybe patience and maybe trust and maybe safety.
And maybe so many more maybe's
Help me. Help us.
Help.

Amen.

If you can't take the heat.....

than stop reading.


It's amazing how difficult it is to have a blog when you live in community.

I'm realizing as I write this that
a) I'm paranoid that someone may walk in here at any moment and see what I'm doing
b) any sense of being anonomous (i have no clue how to spell that word) is now gone like the wind - I can even feel it as I write this. which is really kindof sad. for me. It's killed the fun...of just expressing...but it is on the "world wide web" so it is my own fault. I awknowledge that.

that being said I will try my best to pretend that people I live with have not read this thing....and try to vent as much as i am able.
A note to those reading this who live with me: and if you live with me and you are reading this....if you must....one request... please try and pretend that you are not reading about me....like - this is someone else....let's call her...."Beulah"....beacsue i want to still maintain some freedom in this. Some sanctity.
oh ya - one more thing - I dont want to know if your reading this. So please don't tell me if you are.
thanks. ;)

So - all of the sudden I feel very uninspired.

Anyone who may be reading this - who doesnt live with me - this is a little window into what it is like to be living very closely with many people...in intentional community. Welcome to the jungle.
It's not conducive to blogging.
because for some reason - even though we are surrounded with each other 24-7....we STILL want to read each others blogs!? And to think - that we barely have any privacy to begin with!!!!!!!!!!
when one really stops to think on this...it's pretty warped. Sometimes I wonder if maybe we could use a little less "intention".
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is exactly how I feel right now:
COuld you intentionally intentionally intentionally. keep your dirty little wiggly fingers to yourself. leave me alone alone alone because the earth is ablaze and spinning and reeling and how how how is it that all anyone can think about is body and sweat and the lust of the eyes and fading fading fading beauty that never lasts longer than that...never longer than the evaporation .....please please I am not a bulwark I am a tottering fence and I need space to breath...deeply...and I am not so strong. Fuck.
because the earth is on fire and me along with it. I am not a wellspring. I am not something to be trampled. i have no resources left. none. I am empty. There is nothing here. There is nothing to draw. So get what you need somewhere else.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"I will make all things well. I can make all things well. I shall make all things well. And all shall be well".