november.

finally. the best month of the year has arrived: november. sweet sweet november. but not like that lame keanu reeves movie. more like, my birthday month. yeah, I'm not biased towards this month at all...

I haven't written on here in awhile. I've been "paper blogging"... i.e. writing letters to my friends.

Lord Byron once said, "Letter writing is the only device for combining solitude with good company."

this is so true for me. in my loneliest of moments here, I've picked up a pen and just written. it really does change things. it makes familiar things and people feel not so far away.
this evening I went and did one of my favorite things. I went and got a cup of coffee from my favorite little shop (today they were serving pumpkin spice blended coffee, amazing.) and went and sat down by the potomac and read. I read my bible for a bit and then picked up where I had last left off reading g.k.chesterton's "the everlasting man." so, I had no idea that he would be so funny. I caught myself laughing out loud more than once. sometimes I feel like the authors that I read could have been my very dear friends. sometimes what I read jumps off the pages and resonates completely with my whole being. I often feel understood... I feel less complicated and more as if there are people out there that must be at least a bit similar to me. I want to be understood but I always want to be me, too. understood yet still unique. it's an odd balance. not to say that in order to be understood, someone must be identical to you, but there must be an element of sameness.

I keep going back to what sheldon vanauken said in "a severe mercy" :
"It is, I think, that we are all so alone in what lies deepest in our souls, so unable to find the words and perhaps the courage to speak with unlocked hearts, that we do not know at all that is the same with others."

and that is a constant resolution of mine. and I fail miserably everyday, but I want to find the courage to speak with an unlocked heart.

edit:

this is not my first post about being understood and probably not my last. I'm glad I have this written account of my feelings on the topic because I'm hoping this means I'm reaching some sort of conclusion. it seems as though God is making sure that this gets worked out in my brain as I produce similar thoughts from different angles. I'm not gonna lie, I'm more intrigued by... me, apparently.

no una buena idea.

this is probably the last place I should be expressing my thoughts given the past two days. I'm reminded of the "four Hs" that I learned about in the Czech last summer that one undergoes while experiencing culture shock:
1. Honeymoon
2. Hostile
3. Humor [at least, I think this is the third one...I'm having doubts...]
4. Home

I'm not gonna lie, my honeymoon period is always very short lived. I'm a reality sort of gal. I would definitely say that I spend a lot of time in the hostile zone. My feelings are easily crushed and yet my good moments are incredibly good.
I also keep thinking of Frances in "Under the Tuscan Sun" after she made a rash decision to buy a house in Italy.

"The trick to overcoming buyer's remorse is to have a plan.

Pick one room and make it yours.

Go slowly through the house. Be polite, introduce yourself, so it can introduce itself to you."

that's how I'm feeling about d.c.
I need to pick one or two places and make them my own. I did it, too, in "my" basement... as I've put things on the walls in the "living room" but even though I am most at home in this space, I am also most alone here.

I think I glamorize the idea of "home." what does that mean? when I was little, I knew home. I knew it so well. but now, I don't know.

stop this train, I wanna get off and go home again...

Last night I had a really strange dream. And upon waking up, I realized it might have been one of my funniest too. Not only were Pam and Jim from The Office there, but the world was also possibly ending.

Basically, I've been watching the news a lot and I saw the hurricanes on the weather channel last night. Well, in my dream there were at least four hurricanes all coming towards me (I'm not sure exactly where I was). But then, it was like this underground world was exposed and everyone was preparing to evacuate to the underground place.

I kid you not, in the dream I had less than an hour to get what I needed before I went underground and all I kept saying was, "I need a really big cup of coffee from Starbucks." ha ha. Gosh. So it's nice to know that if I am ever faced with the earth's demise, I'll be fine as long as I have my coffee. Wow.

I'm not sure exactly where Jim and Pam were in all that... they were having relationship problems but I don't know.... really weird.