Ok, ok.

It seems as though each year I need to take about a month's vacation from my blog. But not to worry, the fall is on it's way and with it comes much inspiration and a follow up on my summer reading. Soon enough.

Today I am Plagued by Babel.

(painting is by Los Angeles artist Alexandra Grant)

Sometimes I wonder if our lack of understanding of one another is the main cause of heartbreak in the world. If our inability to see one another as people with stories and loved ones, with tragedies and triumphs. This morning I was reading about the creation of the tower of Babel and how the people wanted to "make a name for themselves." In my understanding, so often we end up a mess when we try to make a name for ourselves because we forget to notice the people around us, and loneliness can feel like a mental plague. The Old Testament teaches that as a result of the arrogance of his people, that he confused their languages, so that they would have to depend on him to understand one another in their difficulty and suffering. I can see how this, ideally, would make sense.

But then to flash forward thousands of years and the confusion rooted so deeply in the human experience. When I saw the movie Babel last year, my heart broke because it was such a poignant portrait of modern day confusion. The inability to communicate with others (on every kind of level) snowballed from minor misunderstandings and complications into violence and deep disconnection among humanity.

I just wish that we would desire to see humanity in the world; to be aware of the brokenness that sits behind every face. I wish that we would look outside of the name we are trying to make for ourselves and into the eyes of people. Is there a chance that could happen? It is a beautiful thing to imagine. I'm convinced we must look outside of ourselves. How do we begin as a people?

Summer Storms.

My brain isn't feeling poetic per se this summer. If it were, I'd find a much better way to write about this (though, I am realizing that most of my writing stems directly from the weather and the seasons in the city...not sure how I feel about that) but I must take a minute to stop and share my love of being at home with nowhere to go when it is about to storm like mad. It is a gloriously cool 70 degrees outside and I opened all of my bay windows and put on a chunky, button up sweater. Our couch is currently situated between the windows and I have a pile of books, my moleskin and some Irish Breakfast tea sitting next to me. This fourth floor walk-up comes in handy in times like this when I can see all the tops of buildings and the sky is dark and big and ominous. Sigh.

Soundtrack of Life.

I spent a ridiculous time with one of my best friends from high school last weekend laughing about all of our favorite songs from the mid to late nineties. On the way back to our hotel from a wedding, I was in the car with great, great friends and all of us are singing all the words to the Counting Crows with the windows down. Sigh. It never ceases to amaze me how songs that remind me of a specific time and place can just break my heart (in the good way).

So, since this summer has equaled an abundance of time where I've felt like a waste of space, I decided to put my time to good use, rather than continuing my incessant reading nymag.com or watching shows i don't even like on hulu. (Because clearly, being productive is too much to ask...I have read a lot, but all of those thoughts are still sitting in draft form because I can't bring myself to actually *think*. Sorry.)

Back to the point...I organized my ipod playlists! It is beautiful! I made an impulse purchase (smart? no. worth it? yes.) when my nano died. This opened a whole new world of not having to rotate out all of my music. With this newfound musical freedom, I embarked on making a plethora of playlists. So these are some of the highlights of songs I forgot about and what they remind me of...

CHS: Friday night football games. Listening to 101.5 on the way to school. Sitting on driveways til 5 minutes before curfew.
Back to the Earth-Rusted Root
Hook-Blues Traveler
You Learn-Alanis
Interstate Love Song-Stone Temple Pilots
Beauty of Gray-Live

CHS Country Version: cross country meets. Buying Wrangler jeans at the Silver Spur. Country Concert in Ft. Laramie.
Amy's Back in Austin-Little Texas
Goodbye Says it All-Blackhawk
The Beaches of Cheyenne-Garth Brooks
Don't Get Me Started-Rhett Atkins

Miami: Cayo Costa. the House of Mud porch. State route 73. Dancing with Springboro.
Demons-Guster
Don't You Want-Wheat
By My Side-Ben Harper
The General -Dispatch
Escape-Enrique. Ha.

Wade into the Awkward: Broken Communication in Zadie Smith's On Beauty

A passage in a book I recently read broke my heart and left me thinking for days. I found it in On Beauty, by Zadie Smith, a novel about the falling apart of a family made up of a white father, black mother, their three children and drama that ensues as each struggles with what makes up his or her own identity and life. At one point the father, Howard, goes to visit his own father, Harry, whom he hasn't seen in 4 years. Now an intellectual professor at an elite east coast college, he goes back to his old working class neighborhood in England and struggles to communicate:

"Harry on the edge of his seat, pleading, and always pleading with the wrong words. Howard already incensed...They didn't mean for it to be like this. But it was like this. Both had other intentions...Harry just wanted Howard to sit down, start again. There were four more hours of quality viewing lined up before bedtime--all of which he and his son might watch together in silent companionship, occasionally commenting on the presenter's overbite, another's small hands or sexual preference. And this would be another way of saying: It's good to see you. It's been too long. We're family. But Howard couldn't do this when he was sixteen and he couldn't do it now. He just did not believe, as his father did, that time is how you spend your love. And so, to avoid a conversation about an Austrailian soap actress, Howard moved into the kitchen to wash up his cup and a few other things in the sink. Ten minutes later he left. " (page 296, 302)

I suppose that I find myself sympathizing most with Harry. I can picture his face, wrought with the anguish of good intentions, but being deeply misunderstood. My heart falls apart picturing the thick, deep emotions across his face, as if I can see into his very self. When Howard walked in it says: " The older man was already crying. His hands shook with emotion." I want to shake Howard and tell him to grow up, to have patience.

People fall into patterns of behavior that somewhere along the line they begin to believe that they can't break, so they cling to moments of awkwardness rather than trying to see what lies beneath the surface...rather than trying to see through to the person's heart and goodness. Ugh. I can't really find any other words for this, except that it pains me. Sigh. And I think in order to avoid moments like this, and to move forward and heal, we have to wade into awkward.

Chronicle of a Death Foretold

A few weeks ago I finished Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, an author I've been wanting to read for quite some time. I did a little bit of research on him, and among other things, he is known for his very unconventional narrative styles and Chronicle was no exception. My typical favorite kind of book is one that incorporates poetic prose; one that lyrically uses language to convey the parts of life where mere words are not always enough.

However, this book is told in a very straightforward, (though non-linear) matter of fact way, which makes sense because the narrator is a journalist. He is trying, years later, to gather of all the facts about the murder of Santiago Nasar, What stood out to me the most is that Nasar's death really was foretold--the Vicario brothers were under the impression that he slept with his sister, the reason the sister was returned to her family after her wedding night, and were out to defend her honor. They told everyone they ran into that they were going to kill Nasar. So I have two questions:

Why were they telling this to everyone? Was it a crying out for someone to stop them, so that they can still feel they were honoring their sister, but didn't have to go through with it? Was it an intentional boldness, showing that they weren't afraid of the coming consequences? Was it a testing of the townspeople?

One of the most interesting parallels in my experience is that time and time again, students of mine tell me that they want to have consequences and boundaries in their lives. (Of course in the same breath they will tell me that they want to break them!) I have seen parents either afraid to tell their children no, or sadly, parents who do not care enough to say no, which brings me to my next question:

Why didn't the townspeople do something? Nearly the entire town had heard about this impending murder before Nasar, but only a couple of people actually tried to warn him. Did they think that it wasn't their business? That someone else would do something? Did they suffer guilt afterwards for not striving to stop this?

What scares me is how much this parallels humanity in general. What are the things that we know are happening in our neighborhoods, cities, country and world, but we look after with a vague apathy? What kind of walls have we created around ourselves that cause us to sit and watch things happen, but not step in to do something? Not that people can fight for everything, but should we all be fighting for the one thing that really moves us the most? Are we serving-and loving- the people we care the most about as we watch them make destructive decisions?

A death was foretold. Foretold. Ugh.

The Summer Book.

The title captures everything. I really think that this is *the* summer book, literally. I won't say much about it besides recommending it to the following kinds of people:

1. You think summers are best spent on lakes.
2. You enjoy witty, wise grandmothers.
3. You find adventurous little girls endearing.
4. The summer time makes you sigh and you often think about what summer is meant to be.
5. You miss having whole summers that seem to encompass all that summer is meant to be.
6. Well written, poetic vignettes make your heart hurt.

Sigh. This was a lovely, lovely read.