The Adventures Continue

If anyone's still reading after a break of more than 2 months--Hola again! I've got news: in just over a month, on July 4th, I'm going back to Peru for a while. Incredibly, it's the right thing for me to do right now, as part of this "in-between" time of my life after volunteering and before I start grad school.

For the past couple months I've been working, working, occasionally stopping to wonder what has happened to me recently, and working some more. I taught an ESL class through the end of April; went to visit my top choice of theology school, the Franciscan School of Theology in Berkeley, CA; and got jobs. I got a job in the office of Notre Dame Mission Volunteers, because hey, they've messed with my life so much at this point that the least they could do is take pity on a poor ex-volunteer in a bad economy. It's actually cool because I get to coordinate some aspects of next year's international program, and the people at the office are mostly young women my age, thinking about their next steps and doing something good in the meantime, like me. I got another job as a server at the Ropewalk Tavern in Federal Hill, Baltimore--only to discover after a month that the guy on the back of my T-shirt was Ronald Regan, and the place's motto, "Old School Conservative!" The people are all so cool, they had me fooled!! ;) I have not told them of my secret inner flaming liberal. And I got another job teaching voice lessons on Sunday afternoons at my local Music & Arts center--SO fun! I'd never taught voice lessons in English before, but I'm really enjoying it. I have a 19-year-old soprano, a 40-year-old beginning singer, a 17-year-old aspiring punk rocker, a 9-year-old who likes musical theater, and a young adult baritone who wants to sing backup in his Christian rock band.

So it's inconvenient that now that I'm just getting a bit comfortable, I'm turning around and going back. But I'm doing it both to check out possibilities of future theological study there, and to pursue a relationship that began while I was there. (Can you really say you've lived if you haven't moved to another country for love? :) ) And of course, to see all my friends again, and to experience the nuttiness that is Peru, the nuttiness that keeps you awake! Also it's just been too long since I was squished into one of those combis, heh heh.

...of course the truth is that I'm not truly comfortable back home yet, and I have to recognize that. Being the foreigner everywhere you go sucks. But it also wakes you up. It makes you live in the present, because you're constantly being surprised by something you're not used to. Living in the present is one thing I learned a little bit in Peru and am trying to maintain... it's much more difficult than it sounds, especially when you've gone from being on a "mission" in a foreign land with a definite purpose, to working for a living in suburban Maryland, where everything's the same as when you were growing up there, quietly scheduled and predictable. I have spent entirely too much time at the mall these past few weeks. At first it's fine, and it's good to have clothes, but then the mindset kind of seeps into your brain, and before you know it you're basing your idea of yourself on whether the shoes match the bag, etc. Lots of my friends in Tupac had about 3 or 4 outfits that they wore ALL THE TIME, and that was it. And life went on. It is SO refreshing to keep that perspective in mind--it allows you to enjoy what you have, and let it be enough--more than enough, delightful! Read Anthony DeMello's Awareness, if you haven't.

Living in the present for me is also about being in contact with reality, or the universe, or Mystery, or God. And so I've applied to an MTS (Master of Theological Studies) program at the Franciscan School I visited. There is so much in my experience of Peru, God, the poor, community, foreignness, being on a journey--that I feel I need a degree program to help me unpack it all and see what I came back with. So that's the long-term plan. In the short term, however, there will be some more Peruvian insanity coming up in just a few weeks. And I promise to try to get my Puno/Lake Titicaca pictures up before then.