I ate this animal

I just got back from visiting Chris, one of my best buddies from college and I had an amazing time. Talk about one of the best ways to get ready to head out of the states - see more than just my hometown bars i mean - i had a full-on introduction to life on the Chassahowitzka river.

We went out fishing, didn't catch much so we took a break to snorkel a bit around the reef, and Chris's buddy ross found a scallop. From then on out, it was on. We grabbed our masks and dive bags and floated for some 4 hours picking of les fruits de la mer. I had no idea what they look like, but they've got the most incredible blue eyes that watch you from the bottom of the flats. All told, we must have nabbed some 100+ scallops, cleaned 'em on the boat ride back and cooked 'em that night. Nothing better in this world than knowing your food.

Other than diving for scallops, we made it out to the chilly spring-fed underwater caves and dove through tunnels that have been carved out of limestone by years of natural flow from aquifer to ocean. Not to mention meeting some of the coolest characters I've ever talked to in person (including Chris's dad... did he have to spit on that teenager?). It was like some sort of Louisiana bayou charicature that you know had to be real because it didn't have the same level of awareness of self that can be found in the big easy.

We spent last night at Chris's new place cooking up all those scallops and some spanish mackarel a neighbor had caught some time before. We were up until 4 in the morning eating, talking and cajoling what sounds we could from Chris's dad's amazing gibson 45.

And here I write from home, packing and preparing to fly out at 5 tomorrow after a great sendoff from Raymond, Julia and all the Woodworth generation prime - ben, andy + anjie. Wish me luck, it's my currency of choice these days.

bottoms of my feet itch

A Community of the Spirit
Rumi

There is a community of the spirit.
Join it, and feel the delight
of walking in the noisy street,
and being the noise.

Drink all your passion,
and be a disgrace.

Close both eyes
to see with the other eye.

Open your hands,
if you want to be held.

Sit down in this circle.

Quit acting like a wolf, and feel
the shepherd's love filling you.

At night, your beloved wanders.
Don't accept consolations.

Close your mouth against food.
Taste the lover's mouth in yours.

You moan, "She left me." "He left me."
Twenty more will come.

Be empty of worrying.
Think of who created thought!

Why do you stay in prison
when the door is so wide open?

Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking.
Live in silence.

Flow down and down in always
widening rings of being.

I'm heading out again tuesday. Things are a bit up in the air, as my friends' parents have been quick to demonstrate with a constant barrage of the standard wrong questions. Do I have a place to stay? not yet. Do I have a job, well no, that's why I picked up trash for two months this summer, to pay for rent, street food and dollar brahmas. Although I will miss the emory recycles folks - John, Claire and the guys made that place a blast. But up in the air or not, I'm gone.

I'd be lying if i said I'm not excited about fiestas, salsa lessons surprises and mountains. I think what feels strange about leaving this time is what i'm leaving. My roots feel a bit like a potted plant's - it's easier these days to pick me up and live elsewhere. But i've gotten a lot worse at connecting to people, and as time gets on i catch these glimpses of a stale and terrifying boredom just over the horizon. I have itches that are polar opposites: on one side "get out! what are you still doing here?! your time is wasting!" on the other, "get your act together! contribute! settle (down)!" They feel more and more urgent as I stick around in limbo, but a wise friend had great words about rushing into the future.

So while I've got the time, i'm looking for some surprises, awe, relief from ambition, huge meals, side-splitting laughter and a few good stories.

Advent in Dakar

Last year, I remember appreciating the weeks of Advent a bit differently than I had before. It could very well have been the changes that come with getting a bit older and new years presenting chances to look at events in new ways. It could have also been my thought pattern last year.

I was feeling a bit stuck in something of a quarter-life crises - a phrase I had used a few times as a joke but I've been hearing it much more often from my generation lately. Not sure of what kind of sails I had, what kinds of winds there were, and how much that would change before I was supposed to start doing things like other grown-ups.

So what I really appreciated in a new way last year was the waiting. More than just the journey itself being the destination, I appreciated a different value being highlighted each week in preparation for good to come. We've got some pretty strong sails in love, peace, joy and hope.

So Advent has come back around again, and i didn't have the foggiest idea this time last year that I'd be spending these four Sundays in Dakar, Senegal. Once again though, I'm finding a chance to think about them in a new way.

I'm waiting to come home, but it's the type of waiting that we have to do for a lot of different types of things a lot of the time. I'm certain, beyond a reasonable doubt as they say, of getting home and what some things will be like. Just as certain as I am that I'll be graduating in May, eating dinner tonight or will have to get a new driver's license in January. I know what I'll have to do to get there and what that will mean when those days come.

But there's another type of waiting too that I enjoy about Advent. I've got a date set, but in going home, I'll be leaving another one that I've made here. And in some way, I'll be waiting to find out when I'll come back to my home in Dakar.

In waiting for Christmas, I know there is a great news of good to come. But what that goodness looks like has morphed over time for me. In waiting for this great good to arrive, the good things that I have already become brighter and clearer. That's what's great about Advent for me - each week, it's articulated "hey, we've got peace," or "you aren't so numb, we hope, that you can't be overcome by the joy from time to time." All of these other goods that we already have present with us gather together in new and stronger ways every year. And without exactly realizing it's happened, a great good is here with us too. Not a milestone, nor anything foreign really, more of an organic culmination. I'm finding this to be a charge of growing older, to seek out these hidden ways.

It's a flavor of uncertainty, chance, and surprise, something I'm thankful and tickled to be able to continue to find in life, and I look forward to waiting for more :)

me going to get me hair cut

So I'm not sure if it was apparent from the pictures on flickr, but my hair was gettin long. I'm talking Garfunkel long, so really maybe more tall and rebellious than long per se.

So I started asking around with different folks on the program to see if anyone had cut a guy's hair before and I had a few possibilities lined up. But while I was waiting for the logistical bits to fall into place - time, place, whether or not to layer - I met a delightful young lady on the street corner where we hang out for tea from time to time.

It just so happens that she's a coiffeuse, or hair stylist, and she's trying to learn english. Hmm, we thought, we both have something the other is looking for. This sounds like a fair trade, my skills for yours. We decided an english lesson was roughly equivalent to one hair cut. Maybe a little too roughly.

So we met up yesterday, Ewan, hair-cut lady, and I - all on the street corner. We exchanged pleasantries and made our way to Ewan's place. We talked a bit more and then she got right to it. Asked how I wanted it done. This is, of course, after Ewan double checked that she knew how to cut white folks' hair and that she had scissors with her.

"Oh, just a little off the top," with the enthusiasm one employs to move along a routine task like brushing teeth. "And shaved in the back and around the sides," she asked sweetly? "Yeah, that sounds perfect." What was that line about talking without listening? I should probably also say that this was in french. We weren't really aiming to gamble my new hair doo against the results of our English class.

Buzzz.... man, this feels great. I can feel my head tingling with freedom and the taste of fresh air. Buzzz... free at last, free at last, thank god almighty, enfin les cheveux sont libre! Buzz... hey, isn't that razor gettin a little high? Buzz... ummm... say, delphine, you do have scissors with you yeah? Buzzz... where are those scissors by the way? Buzzz... oh. you don't have scissors, just a whole new look for mikey holmes.

Yep, buzz is the word. All that's left on my head is the length of hair that a number three guard protects from the buzzing blades of a philips razor. It is awfully refreshing though. And it does go rather nicely with my new prayer beads from our trip to touba, the holy city of the mouride brotherhood.

My family loves it, they were overjoyed to see my new Senegalese look.