that time i went to china

i had such a terrific time. here are some highlights.

tried new food (enjoyed it not so much.)

 loved the people, especially our guides. seriously wonderful people.

yoyo. guided us by bicycle through the hutong.

oliver. best. guide. ever.

woman at silk factory. she kept calling us, 'my dear friends.'

may. best. style. ever. and yes, i was part of one of those tours with the flag.

thoroughly enjoyed the english translations on signs.

marveled at the architecture.

channeled Mulan at the great wall in honor of chuch.

felt a strange human kinship with the terra cotta warriors; over and over, wanting to know each story, and over and over, remembering they weren't real.

was captivated by the traffic (and grateful to come home alive. right after i took this picture our guide had to get out and stop all oncoming traffic so we could make it down this street.)

was entertained and enriched by the deep and totally different culture.

i hope everyone gets a chance to go to china. knowledge is love.

passion

i've spent the day in jammies, in bed, in contagious quarantine, in and out of aches, in a quiet snowy world where everything is muffled. even i have hardly said a word.

hello.

it's been mostly delightful in spite of the sick because i'm right in between too sick to do a stinkin thing and not sick enough to feel justified lounging in bed all day. that's a nice place to be, if you have to pick a point on the sick spectrum.

today i did things i never do. i read for hours. i researched phd programs. i responded to emails (at least some, the long involved kind.) i made doctor's appointments. i updated my facebook picture. i took notes about an essay i might write if i get the guts. i ate a whole carton of sorbet. IN BED. i paid money for apps like radiolab and this american life, and i slipped into a forgotten dream of writing for the radio.

 all of this--especially the sorbet--led me here, to one frightening towering question:

do i have passion?


i'm tempted to watch pride and prejudice and put the question away for a louder, more arrogant day, but i don't know if i have control over those kinds of things, especially since the day sort of led me here. i think i misunderstand passion, just as i misunderstand creativity, feminine sweetness, genius (of smarts or skill)--my default brain setting is that you're either born with these traits or you're not. and if you're blessed enough to be born into such traits, your will to choose is compromised. you wake up in the morning and you can't do anything but write! you encounter an unpleasant situation and your voice just comes out in honey tones and forgiving smiles! you sit down to the piano and masterpieces ensue!

clearly, it's selfish to think of passion this way because it absolves me from any responsibility to choose it, to create it, to fuel it, to constantly adapt it for survival inside an apathetic-trending world. however, i'd settle for a compromise (heaven, are you listening?) where passion would be demanding enough to determine its object but submissive enough to put the burden of pursuing that object on me. i feel like i know some people for whom this is the case. chuch and brains. kingfish and fish. ben and life. jan and recycling. why not me?

still thinking about lincoln

Gettysburg Address from Adam Gault on Vimeo.

when enough is enough

it's something about my time of life, maybe, but i keep wanting God to reach down and touch my life with a lightening bolt, a shout, a parting of the red sea days with a path to my promised land. have you noticed that when you are listening for something really loud, it's hard to hear something really soft? lazy ears. tonight i heard a song with these words as lyrics:

BE LIKE THE BIRD  

Be like the bird that, pausing in her flight awhile on boughs too slight, feels them give way beneath her -- and sings -- knowing she hath wings. 

from Victor Hugo

isn't that lovely? somehow it penetrated and was my whisper, my enough.  

 

so this is christmas

i'm sitting in front of my half-lit christmas tree, which, of course, means i'm overly nostalgic and sentimental. which, of course, means it's time to blog! i don't have much to say tonight. just this: i never thought i'd be here, hesitantly buying a few throwaway christmas ornaments, using a blanket as a tree skirt (where is that dirty ol blanket i used last year?), making transience my tradition. someday someday someday i'll settle. christmas is christmas though. it's really hard to mess it up with the Son of God, love's pure light shining so bright. i'm thinking about why this moment matters to me, and i don't think it needs to mean any more than a celebration of the things that never change and the things that always do.

if these songs come on, i might not change the radio station

remembering i still have my momma's love

(thanks jan for the song)