I am moving to San Antonio from Virginia. I finished my job at JMU last Friday and now have a month to think about this decision, to say goodbye, to travel before I land in Texas in September. My feet have gotten cold as I try to say goodbye. I realize how many special people I have met over the past five years that I have been in the Shenandoah Valley. I realize that I don't know if I will come back here after my 2 years is up. I wonder whether my wanderlust will bring about solidity and wholeness.
I am going to work work for Catholic Social Services doing Refugee Resettlement work which excites me, which matches dreams that I have had for years. The details of my days at work are nebulous and the tasks that I will be doing haven't yet been defined. So, I go with the hope that I will be able to tackle the projects with skill. I hope that I will be able to meet some of the needs that may exist.
Silly things worry me like the fact that I will need to learn to drive a stick shift in a big city, that I don't really have the wardrobe for life in Texas. I wonder if my health insurance will adequately cover my needs. I am curious if I will be able to cook good enough meals for the four other people that I will be living with.
- posted by Mary @ 4:11 PM

 
it does work. and i have 6 minutes until a meeting with my boss so i can write whatever is on my mind very very fast. ummm. i still live in the countryside of virginia and i still work at a big university doing research which is really really hard for my ever forgetful mind. but i am chugging right along. i still have family that lives in far flung places. today is my sister's birthing day and i can't even send her a package because i she lives in a country without a postal system. alas. and my mom and dad, too. so, i await their return or my brief perhaps visits. now i have 3 minutes left since i complained a little bit. so, i better jettison off. so long; fair well. until i return. maybe sooner than later.
- posted by Mary @ 9:59 AM

 
'ello. 'tis mary here.

does my blog still work i wonder? i am so very unfaithful that when i finally return to it i forget how it works. test test one two three. testing testing.
- posted by Mary @ 9:54 AM

 
just jumped over a big hurdle at work~reconciling piles of numbers that date back to 2002.
growing up i never ever balanced my checkbook, much to the chagrin of mom. at each of my past 3 jobs i have been given the job of balancing some sort of budget or dealing with reconciling numbers. it makes my brain go woozey just attempting to do it. alas, i must say that somewhere deep inside of me there is a small piece of me that thinks that my past (and present) unbalanced checkbooks and my mum's naggery thereabouts has comes around to bite me in my workplace.
now i'm sleepy. so ready to think in concepts and words as opposed to in numbers.
- posted by Mary @ 1:03 PM

 
sitting in the waiting room of comprehensive behaviorial health is always interesting. i want to pry into the minds of those who meander in-and-out. some briskly walk by, sun glasses on, not wanting to be seen. others are fragile, escorted, on the verge of breaking and in need of care very fast. some pour their stories out, usually unwanted. these are vulnerable stories. stories of guilt because of 16 hour streches of sleep; because of dishes gathering in sink in kitchen which represent that "i am not a good person because i cannot get it together enough to do the damn dishes...if only i could do the dishes i would have it together but i can't even muster up enough
energy to put soap to sponge to mold-crusted bowl."

these stories are unwanted because i am coming out of mania, not depression. it is so easy to forget those days of dish-guilt. of 5 pm one night to 3 pm the next day guilt laden deep i - can't- get - up sleep. now i have other things on my mind like the hallucinations that sneak out in between the uber-productive packing, gardening, exercising, dish-washing, hiking, walking, socializing, laundering super-human i have been for the past few days. dad-gum the hallucinations. the sleep that evades me. i like being productive. i like wearing lipstick and having the guy at the laundry mat come over to give me his phone number. i like this state of all-American productivity. but it's not the healthy me.

so, with thanksgiving for my doctor, i join the others who share their stories of broken-ness, and sit in the waiting room. chatting, listening, watching, wondering. hoping.
- posted by Mary @ 7:06 PM

 
the one thing that most fascinates me about me are the 2 weeks to 2 months of my life that have gone missing in my memory. (mid-november to december of 2005) a manic spurt of bi:polar-ness landed me in a mess of forget-full-ness.
at the time, in the hospital, i knew that i was forgeting ever other sentence so i wrote copious notes. many of these notes i wrote in permanent marker on my forearms--much to the angst of the nurses who i was up in arms against at the time. (i had my own little marxist revolution going on: the nurses were the bourgeous elite and the janitors and myself were the oppressed ones who needed to rise up for better wages and better visiting hours.)
needless to say, the permanent marker on my arms has washed off, the notes in my notebooks are mostly illegible.
so, tonight as i was packing up my apartment, it was humourous and good to have a friend katie sit and chronicle stories, hallucinations, pranks, and naughtiness from my forgotten month. even as she reminds me of my invisible friend john and hours of visitations, i draw a clear blank from those weeks.
nevertheless, i crave hearing and telling the stories. i also hanker to tell the post/pre mania stories of suffering and healing.
let's just see if i ever have enough continued motivation...................time'll tell.
- posted by Mary @ 6:26 PM

 
on my desire to write...
and there being so much already written:

"Sometimes he will say, " It's been said better before." Of course. It's all been said better before. If I thought I had to say it better than anbody else, I'd never start. Better or worse is immaterial. The thing is that it has to be said; by me; ontologically."

Thus sayeth Madeline L'Engle in A Circle of Quiet
preach it, girl. amen and amen. now i'll go look up ontologically.
(now i haven't anything to say. other than i'm in the depths of packing. up to my armpits in papers and packing.)
- posted by Mary @ 4:51 PM

 
i've got travelin' on my brain these days...just as i'm preparing to move into a quaint house in a new small town in the shenandoah valley. as a sign my first bonafide lease, locking me down for one full year. as i start a new job which requires a vast amount of training, commitment, i see my sister wandering away to kabul, my parents flitting and fluttering around delhi and i want to go go go go now.
i must come up with ways to travel in other ways. travel on the weekends. travel during my vacations. travel via books. travel vicariously. travel over the internet.
one day it may come my time? when i am not chained to health insurance to provide for my 900 dollar medicine each month. one day it may come wherein i am given a clear sign and mission and clear vision and path and direction and destination and i will pack up my backpack and hook together my sandals and i will hop on the train skip onto the airplane...i will go afar and awide and see new places. re-see old spaces.

but for now. i will plant a little wild garden in front of my tiny house in harrisonburg. i will take my expensive pills and i will grin real big at the pretty corn rows and cows in fields and mennonites walking by.
i'll try my hardest to be content.
mno
- posted by Mary @ 9:04 AM