I think I may have broken a bone in my foot yesterday, during a particularly clumsy bike dismounting moment. I have a doctor’s appointment this afternoon. I feel like a huge idiot.

Today was Ingathering Sunday at the First Unitarian Church of Philadelphia, and despite it being the first Sunday of the church year, I was five minutes late, which is normal for me. I found my regular seat, on the left side, near the back. The place was full, and our new interim minister was up front. Sitting there, I remembered why I go to church. It’s the feeling of belonging to a community, in which people know me and I know them. It is a space where you don’t have to be careful with your smiles, but instead can grin at all who you see, surrendering to the joy of being. Where we watch kids, who we remember as bumps in their moms’ bellies, old enough now to pour their summer memories into the water communion bowl. Where we sit quietly, with our feet flat on the floor, backs pressed against the pew, breathing deeply, the whole congregation taking and releasing air as one unified body.

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Di Brunos,
originally uploaded by Marusula.

Ingrid and I went over to my friend Cindy’s house at 1 pm today, to collect her and head for the Italian Market. Our mission was to have lunch, take a wander and find something to eat for dinner, all things for which the Italian Market is uniquely suited. The plan had been proposed around 10 am, and had been tweaked and altered about four times in the subsequent hours, and we were finally off. We took Ingrid’s car, because I managed to lose my driver’s license today (very big pain) and I figured that while I don’t have the card, it’s not the greatest idea to do a ton of driving.

We parked on 10th, next to field near Pat’s and Geno’s and headed for 9th Street. I was totally spaced from lack of food, so that was the first goal. We wound up at Di Brunos, and I ate my panini in about five minutes. It was an amazing combination of tomatoes, mozerella, proscutto and pesto. So yummy. We sat at a table for about half an hour after our food was all gone, enjoying the shade we were under and the sun just beyond our chairs. A 12 week old border collie mix was with the people at the next table.

The market was surprisingly empty for a beautiful Saturday afternoon, but it was nice to be there without the crushing crowds and gawking tourists. I was actually able to stop at moments and take some pictures of the produce, something that doesn’t work so well when there are people standing four deep in front the lemons, limes and zucchini.

Dinner ended up being a big mixed green salad with Cajun spiced salmon and roasted onions, tomatoes and red peppers. We felt like we had a very food-magazine worthy meal.

Tonight we had the UU Young Adult happy hour over at the World Cafe Live upstairs restaurant/bar. I scheduled it there because Eric Hutchinson, my very favorite new artist, was playing. I’m all about doubling up on fun stuff when the opportunity presents itself. I got there a little early, and entertained myself with a book and a beer at the bar. Evidently, that bar doubles as the defacto happy hour space for the employees of XPN for a bit, before (the) hoi polloi show up. I sat at the bar, between Kate Gaffney (who has a new cd coming out at the end of the month) and Roger LaMay (general manager of XPN) with a couple of female XPN-ers that I didn’t know. It was interesting to hear Roger talk so openly about the happenings of the station. He mentioned something that made me think that the All About the Music Festival’s move from Penn’s Landing to Wiggins Park wasn’t just about a better location, but also about the difficulties they had working with Penn’s Landing. They left after about fifteen minutes, and my eavesdropping opportunity was over. The happy hour was fun, and the show was terrific (I already wrote about it over at the Philly Metroblog).

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So I was talking to my mom today as I walked across campus to pick up the mail, and she described the dream she had had the night before. She was standing between my dad and my sister, holding our family cat, Dinky. Dinky is gazing upwards, and pipes up with, “Ooo, look at all the angels!” My family is pretty darn shocked that Dinky is talking, and all look up, to see if they can see the angels. They aren’t visible to anyone but the cat, and so my sister leans in and whispers, “I don’t believe him.” Dinky gets huffy and offended, and my mother chimes in with an enthusiastic, “I believe you, Dinky!”

And that was the dream. My sister thinks it means that Dinky is going to die. My mom just thought it was cool, a spiritual cat. I haven’t heard what my dad’s verdict is, and I’m completely befuddled. Anyone care to venture an interpretation on that one?

I was waiting for the light to change at the corner of 34th and Market today, when the guy standing next to me sneezed loudly. I thought about it for half a beat, and decided to go for it. I said, “Bless you” to a total stranger. His thank you carried a decidedly shocked tone. The woman on the other side of him was also a little surprised that I had acknowledged his sneeze.

I don’t like that he was surprised that someone would offer this small kindness and I don’t like that I hesitated to offer it. I feel like in the wake of Katrina, when we’re all hungry to help, maybe the best way to help is to redirect some of that energy towards being kind, show some little bits of love, to the strangers all around us.

Just a thought.

Every September while I was growing up, my mom would sit my sister and me down at the dining room table, hand us pencils and paper and ask us to write a couple of new school year resolutions. I would resolve to be nicer to my sister, to eat less candy, to clean the cat box more regularly or to turn out my reading light at night when my parents asked me to. It always felt fitting to set goals for the year in September at the start of a new grade, when all things felt fresh and full of possibility.

These days, I’m not as much of a yearly resolution maker, because I feel like if you fail at your big yearly resolutions, then there’s this feeling that you can’t start over or try again until the following year. I resolve every day to create a Marisa who is content and able to receive and accomodate all the unexpected things that life uncovers, so normally I don’t feel the need for yearly resolutions.

But when September and the beginning of school rolls around, I still feel a tug to sit myself down at the dining room table, collect my thoughts and declare to the world that I am going to work to be better at something. I do need to be better about taking my vitamins, maybe I’ll start there.

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Grass,
originally uploaded by Marusula.

The rough grassed tickled the back of my hand, as I lay, stretched out on my stomach on an old yoga mat dug out of the back of my car. It was Monday morning, after breakfast. I was determined to squeeze every last moment of relaxing out of the final few hours of camp. A book lay ignored, upside down and open next to my elbow. A slice of my back was exposed to the sun and air, between the waistband of my jeans and the bottom of my tank top. The breeze drifted by and touched this stretch of skin, and in that instance, all my awareness was centralized in that one spot. The rest of my body did still exist, but it was extra, I was ALIVE where the wind had made contact. That sensation lasted another moment, but with my next full breath, I expanded back into my fingers and toes, nose and pores, happy to be in this body, in this light and in that field.

I got home yesterday afternoon, contentedly exhausted, sandy, sunburnt and a little smelly. I threw my dirty clothes into the washing machine and was gifted with one last wafting odor pocket of the brackish waters of the Chesapeake before I closed the lid. I took a long shower, and scrubbed the last of the gritty mud off the bottoms of my feet. With the last of the physical remnants washed down the drain, all I have left of the weekend is a still-in-progress multi-colored lanyard (you’ve got to do at least one art project at camp) and a collection of really terrific memories.

There was swimming and playing in a sun-warmed pool. A bonfire, s’mores, and a two year old having her first experience with a marshmallow. A group of friends sitting around the fire after all the families went to bed; drinking, laughing and telling stories. Six of us laid out on our backs on a dock that stretched far into the bay, looking at impossibly bright stars. Skinny-dipping. A drive into town, on narrow ribbons of road, no other cars in sight. Naps in the grass. Kayaking, sailing and more swimming. Ingrid on the guitar and the rest of us singing in waning light. An impressively tall Jenga tower. Bad food made delicious by hunger and joyful company. Packing up, taking pictures and driving home again.

I’m heading out of town tomorrow morning with a crew of Unitarians to go to church camp. Being Unitarians, we tend to like to say “church camp” to people for the shock value and then qualify it with the Unitarian word, so that people know that we aren’t really going to spend the weekend doing any sort of religious activity (in fact, no religious activity whatsoever), but instead going to worship the sun, the Chesapeake bay and several bottles of cherry rum. I’m looking forward to a weekend spent with a book, friends, cute foreign waterfront staff (who are all 19 years old and completely adorable), marshmallows roasted on sticks and evenings with visible stars.

I’ll be back Monday, hopefully with a good story or two to tell.

I’ve always been a champion cry-er. A girl really (REALLY) easy to tears. As I’ve grown up, I’ve gotten a little better at controlling the waterworks, but there are times when I can’t stop the flow and just have to let my tear ducts run their course. It’s especially inconvenient when I’m walking down the street, dealing with a supervisor or grocery shopping (all situations that have occurred both in the past as well as recently).

I spent a big part of yesterday crying publicly. I’ve been dealing with some disppointments with my new job (the reality of it has been very different from what I hoped and expected it to be. I now have to figure out how to release my expectations and be okay there, because face it, that’s where I am and I have it on good authority [okay, my mother] that it will get better). But before I get to okay, I have to spend some time crying, because that’s how I deal with stuff. Yesterday, the crying couldn’t wait until I got home, so I walked down Market Street, sniffling, tears dropping out of my eyes in heavy drops, behind my sunglasses, my mother trying to be supportive via the cell phone from 3,000 miles away.

When I was a sophomore in college, I was back in Portland for spring break. I had gone to Trader Joe’s to pick up some stuff for my mom and just as I got there, managed to lock my keys and wallet in the car. It was the days before cell phones were ubiquitous and I had no change to make a phone call, because my money was in the wallet, locked in the car (I believe I was able to call using a memorized calling card number, though). So what did I do? I started to cry. I had wanted so much to be productive, to do something helpful for my mom, and instead I had manufactured more work for her by creating a situation where she had to them come and meet me with keys to my car. So, I stood by the front door (come on, it’s Portland, of course it was raining) under the shelter of Trader Joe’s, weeping for a good half hour. People wear a unique expression on their face when confronted with a crying stranger. They don’t know whether to ask you if you’re okay, give you a hug or just turn away and be thankful that at least they aren’t sobbing next to the shopping carts. There was one woman, who did stop to ask if I was okay, and while there was nothing she could do, I appreciated the gesture.

Yesterday I wept while trying to grab a container of ginger peanut noodle salad from the prepared section of Trader Joe’s. I don’t know what’s with me and TJ’s (maybe because the first time I went there I was a couple days old, it must feel like home). But, if you’re in Trader Joe’s and see a girl crying in front of the prepared pizza dough, give her a hug, it might be me.