Starbucko's & Slowing Down

So, my apartment has no wi-fi.  And apparently it is wi-fi resistant.  I bought a USB attachment to my computer so that I could hook it up to Verizon's stellar network, but I think maybe the walls of my apartment are made of lead, because even it can't pick up a signal in my place.  Luckily, there is a Starbucks down the street from my place (shocking, I know) and it has this groovy second floor area where everyone goes with their school books, laptops, or novel, so I feel like I'm surrounded by colleagues as I write this to you.

I came here to download a copy of Carmen that I wanted to hear, since I'm learning the role for kicks.  I bought a tea, flirted with the Barrista, and came upstairs.  Place is packed, but I manage to score one of the last tables, plunk down my laptop and begin all the emailing, blogging, downloading and tidying up of my electronic life.  Then I realized, the couple next to me are breaking up.

How painful to overhear.  How I couldn't stop listening.  The girl, by the way, was gorgeous, but she was definitely getting dumped.  Sounded like they were exploring dating other people while still maintaining some sort of meaningfulness to each other, she violated some code of conduct, he felt betrayed, it was over.  Yikes.  I thought of leaning over and suggesting counseling, but thankfully, thought better of it in time.

I write this to you because I have no real news other than I have been happily sleeping, eating, staying warm, reading books, taking naps, cooking and doing practically nothing of note for the past few days.  Blissful boringness.  That's how you know you're in your thirties.

Not a tame lion? Hmm.

Sigh.  The Narnia Clubs is a catholic catechism program for kids in the New York City area.  I really wanted it to be a group of older white men sitting around, smoking pipes and discussing Lewis works, or enacting The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.  There's no romance left in the world...or is there?

Here's a picture from my stoop on 81st street.  It's snowing!  Well, it was snowing.  Now it's raining.  Still, this California girl felt like Christmas had come when she woke up this morning and saw the white fluffy stuff.

Happy day to you, whatever the weather!

Excuse me, are you German?

And so begins a conversation with a very friendly older gentlemen in the Lehman Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  It would have been a fun conversation if he'd let me get a word in, but the gentleman seemed primed to extol the virtues of all things Deutsch, and after a few feeble attempts at participating I gave up,  especially since the man was standing far too close to me (NOT a german trait) and I was worried if I said anything at all, he'd accidentally move and our noses would touch.  At the end of what was a five minute monologue, with me standing perfectly still, he asked if I'd like to keep in touch via email.  My mundane answer, "probably not".  He cheerfully moved on.

I went to the Met this afternoon at the prompting of my sister Dora (thanks, D!) and paid a whopping $1 at the suggestion of my friend Andrea.   I felt cheap when I did it, but it does feel wonderful to walk in, knowing you only need to spend about 15 minutes in the place before you get your money's worth.  I decided to make a close inspection of the Lehman Collection because I hadn't seen it before and it was in a beautiful new wing.  Lehman seemed to be an avid collector of Madonna and Child church art and the Met had several dozen different pieces displayed over the course of several rooms.  I have a general dislike for the genre, since it makes Jesus, and practically everyone else, look like a passive wuss.  But it does intrigue me-- why did a successful business tycoon collect these?

Also on today's agenda was a fulfillment of a promise to my friend Staci to visit a bakery that kept showing up when I pulled up my apartment location on Google Maps, Orwasher's Bakery, which is maybe four blocks away from me (which, I'm starting to realize, is the LA equivalent of the next town over.  I talked to a girl on the cross-town bus on the way to church and she acknowledged this startling fact-- the one block radius around your place is your neighborhood, you know it intimately, but any further out and it gets vague.  I may be overstating this, but I passed five bakeries on my way to Orwasher's.)  Orwasher's lays claim to the title "Oldest Artisan Bakery in New York City" and it certainly was delicious.  I had a not-too-sweet Boston Cream Donut and cup of coffee for a mid-morning snack.  Thanks, Staci.

And I am ready to announce a major achievement-- I actually practiced in the apartment today.  My ex-housemates know what a major accomplishment this is-- I am shy about practicing where people can hear me and can't escape me.  Will I dare tomorrow?  Only the shadow knows.  But it sure beats renting a studio in mid-town.

So, if anyone's reading this and wants to suggest an outing for me, I'm happy to do it and then post it on the blog. I'm already tracking down a statue in the Time Warner Building for Karen.  Any takers?

Finally, this is half a block down from me...curious?  I am.

The Falcon has landed

Hey y'all,  just a note to say I'm here and I'm good.  My parents, bless their hearts, drove me the five plus hours into the city from their house in PA.  We reached the city, found the apartment, pulled into a driveway, and my mom stayed with the car while my dad and I schlepped my two suitcases, four boxes and assorted plastic bags into the apartment building to my new hidey-hole in 2A.  Unpacking took about 10 minutes.  The place is cozy and is decorated in a manner consistent with either my sister Dora or Jess, so it feels homey to me.

Spent yesterday finding the grocery store, finding the post office, shopping for post office boxes, joining a gym, and discovering cheap and good Thai food.  Not bad.  Today was church at All Angels (yep, still love it) and buying a connector to my computer for wireless access in my apartment (since no one has been so obliging as to leave their wireless signal unencrypted.  Meanies.).  So, I'm now wired, and celebrated by watching the latest episode of Burn Notice on my computer while simultaneously keeping track of the Jets/Colts game.  Although I shouldn't bother-- the guy in the next apartment over is a loud enough barometer of how the game is going.  Hoping the bars empty out so I can watch the Vikings/Saints on a stool somewhere.

Lots of opera singers around (even at my gym), lots of good contacts and good initial conversations.  Now to start making a list of what to do this week....

Open?

Last night I connected with Steve and Sherrie G., who basically adopted me as their friend when I was looking for another family during my high school years, my family being too crowded and too intense for me at that time.  The Gould's always had good food and they made me laugh.  And laugh.  It was great to connect with them again, and to tell the long version of the story of the last five years of my life.  And they bought me an amazing prime rib dinner.  Like I said, the Gould's know good food.

We talked about life in Grove City growing up, and Steve asked specifically what I thought were advantages and disadvantages.  They have two kids, now grown and living elsewhere, and we were comparing notes about the unusualness of growing up in such a rural, highly churched area.  We're not the town in Footloose, just to be clear; too many people with advanced degrees from Seminary's talking about reformed theology to be fundamentalists.  All the same, the city is full of churches, and the churches are full.  To be an atheist or agnostic around here is to paint yourself blue, and I'm guessing, to be worried over.  

One of the disadvantages of growing up this way is that the lines of who's in and who's out of God's Kingdom can feel pretty clearly defined, since you can actually sort everybody because you  know everybody! and people get labeled.   I was labeled, and as a result I labeled.  

Such a sadness, too-- many people I didn't get to know because their label and my label didn't match.  And yet, five years after college, the setter on my high school volleyball team, who was sleeping with her college-age boyfriend and partying like crazy, becomes a Christian, gets married and is now a soccer mom, pregnant with her 5th child.  No difference now in the labels, now that they don't matter.   

I think about this today particularly because I just finished reading Andre Agassi's sort-of autobiography entitled Open.  It's a great, page-turning read, and for those of you who like tennis and watched his rise and fall and rise again, it's satisfyingly detailed about what was actually going on behind the crazy hair, acid washed jean shorts, and bravado.  But the thing that sticks out to me most is that one of Andre Agassi's best friends was a pastor, and that his favorite movie is the one about C.S. Lewis entitled Shadowlands.  He's attracted to it because it took suffering seriously and made it make sense.  When I read that, my jaw just dropped, and then I said to myself, Joanna, why not?    Why shouldn't a guy like Andre Agassi like Shadowlands?  Why are you labeling him?  

A good reminder since I'm about to meet about a billion new people.  

Waiting Room

It's 2 a.m.  I'm laying in bed in my old room in my parents house in Grove City, listening to the sound of silence. The trip out of Los Angeles was pretty uneventful except for an hour and half delay due to a mechanical problem. I hardly noticed. I was reading The Devil in the White City, by Erik Larson, which I give a major thumbs up, particularly to all you lovers of narrative nonfiction out there. Fascinating.

Tricia asked me earlier today if I was excited, and I said I wasn't, really. On the plane I decided that the calmness that I'm experiencing is a great gift; steadiness of purpose and an ability to not think ahead too far is an asset, I believe, right now. Incredibly, the only moment of sadness I've had today is a spasm of tears at the thought that I'm now over 2,000 miles away from my dog Cocoa. Funny, odd, and endearing that she's the current placeholder for all the loss. Baby!

It's hard to believe that I'm released from this project of 12 years-- I came to study with Jim, that season is done, a new one is beginning. Years and years of work. And waiting. And anguishing and despair about the waiting. Then finally relenting and relaxing into whatever came, and what came was life abundant.

Was California a waiting room? Is the real show about to start? It's tempting to think this, probably because it appeals to my magical thinking side about what's ahead and recasts me into a central and more successful role in the drama. What was my prayer in leaving LA? Ah yes, that I would keep hold of the truth that I am living in God's story, and not the other way around.

On the other hand, California was a waiting room like all of life is a waiting room-- a good place to learn how to live, how to love, and how to walk with joy into the next big thing.