.the littlest birds sing the prettiest songs.

ash and i taped a haiku to every mug in beleza and poems all over everywhichwhereway. it felt pretty great. happy april to each of you!

the snow is going everywhere, resting on the crevices above each brick, hugging half the telephone pole, blowing sideways at the world and banjo is sweeter than i could've dreamed him up to be, curled up on the floor snoring kitten snores. i'm grateful for the parade of friends who sifted through this place over the weekend, for blankets and couches. i'm grateful for masako being here (!) and how it can feel like no time at all has passed. i'm always surprised by how we can adapt to newness, how necessary it is to do so... how much of who i was in DC was environment and how much was me and how much re-figuring goes into all of this, how slowly i have to move in the process, how patient God is with me. i hope each of you are well in the whiteness (or whatever colors are beneath your feet and at your shoulders) today. wishing you clarity and brightness,
love,
mags

91% Mike Gravel
91% Dennis Kucinich
88% John Edwards
84% Barack Obama
81% Hillary Clinton
80% Joe Biden
80% Chris Dodd
74% Bill Richardson
33% Rudy Giuliani
23% John McCain
22% Tom Tancredo
20% Mitt Romney
20% Ron Paul
18% Mike Huckabee
7% Fred Thompson

2008 Presidential Candidate Matching Quiz

i hope you each and all are well. happy new year!

so we have this one-hundred-and-one year old woman, marlys chatel, living at jhouse right now. and she is mostly sharp as a tack and always hilarious and often quite wise. she had four husbands through the course of her life, all of whose photos are on her dresser here and she refers to them as her 'band of irresistibles'. yesterday instead of asking me to salt her egg, she took my hand, looked me in the eyes and said, "i sometimes feel so sorry for the sailors, all those years ago, at sea without any salt. what a bore their lives must've been." at which point i asked, "mrs. chatel, would you like some salt on your egg?" and she exclaims, "darling, you are marvelous! how could you know?" she like sto have the Times headlines read to her so she can mutter, "ahh, yes" or "indignant fools"(this one is more common) or "oh, it used to be so much better". but most of all, she like it when adam or david or any of the other young men feed her yogurt. i feel pretty lucky to have her in my life, however briefly.

everything feels so TENDER these days; i have less than two weeks left in this district city and i love this little life i have here so deeply. brick house and garden and bike routes and residents and friends and art and vegan food and church. i had a solo art show friday (it is up for the rest of today, but is unframed prints on watercolor paper, so we don't trust it to withstand day campers) with portraits i've drawn over the last two years and prints from that socioeconomic injustice book that the art space director offered to make, and so many mor epeople came than i expected and i was just so happy to have so many people i admire in the same room that i kept forgetting it was my art on the walls they were visiting.

and david and i saw 'the swell season' play the 9:30 club thursday and they were so good and it was just gorgeous and felt as ephemeral as everything seems to, these days. so anyway, i'm trying to soak it up, being here and i'm excited for pittsburgh up ahead, too; how many people get to leave one good rich place with friends for another?

i hope you are well and can have some blackberries, if you want 'em, and laugh really hard today.
much love,
mags

ps. the new annie dillard novel, the maytrees, is GORGEOUS.

i have to say thank You to Jesus for holding my little blue bike's back brake cable together until i was not on a hill, because if it had broken on my way down a hill rather than on nice, flat P st like it did, instead, i would've spent the afternoon (and probably more) in the ER rather than at work at the memorial service of two dear, good men who passed this week. but instead i was there, in the jhouse living room with candles and a community that feels like family, remembering how bryant spit sunflower seeds into every corner of the house and how reggie's smile lit up every dark spot with in three miles and, while i appreciate ERs and their necessity, i'm just so glad it was otherwise. the man who fixed my bike cable told me he also fixes the president's bike (oh georgetown), as well as the secret service bikes, which he took a break from fixing because i was crying over how if he didn't fix mine i would miss bryant and reggie's services. ahhh DC.

there's a lot that feels heavy and a lot that feel so light, and i am grateful to be in a place where i can watch it all swirl together and feel tiny amidst it all.

and parsley and rosemary and fennel are all in the new community garden and we got to disribute them after church to folks who wanted them, which felt really good. yeah pentecost! tomatoes, carrots, potatoes, berries up ahead. the air is all humidity already, and downtown the memorials are solid with tourists (fanny-packs, knee-socked sandals, fold out maps and lots of , 'look honey! the white house!' while pointing at the capitol building), but it IS memorial day weekend so i guess it should be. i'm grateful for adam being here a little bit, good company for museums and foreign films and bumming around jhouse and vegan pizza. the innocence mission was s'posed to play but karen is sick, so we'll just hope she feels better. stuff is burning, crashing down and being rebuilt all over this city, in big and little ways. praying for wisdom for all of us, but maybe especially congress and folks on cap hill, shaping and shaking up a lot of futures. that's about it. come over and i'll make you a salad.

i'm pretty sure i'm going to come to holland/GR for anne baker and matt rycenga's wedding celebration june 23, because they are so good and need to be celebrated, and because i want to see people in holland! but i know some of you are traveling to all kinds of wonderful corners of the world those days and also i know people are so busy, but i'm just wondering if there is anyone who would let me (and i think embly cable too!) crash at their home and would maybe want to be at the beach a little and catch up and reminisce or might be able to pick me up or drop me off at the aeropuerto in GR? i'm thinking of coming late thurs evening(the 21st of june) and leaving sunday (24)sometime... is anyone around? i miss you and m!ch!gan too.

love and new leaves on trees,
mags

i haven't written on here for ages, but here i am. things have been busy and good and hard; my resident joyce died today just as i walked into the ICU to see her at GW Hospital, and i feel like someone punched me in the stomach. too soon. people i love a lot are at that place of delicate and heavy decisions about whether they want to live longer and take medicines that make their lives miserable or stop and let us keep them comfortable for the rest of their short lives. i sort of feel like a balloon tied to the foot of their beds: here but not really. helium and string to keep me just far enough away.
there are a lot of good distractions around here, though. art salons, gallery proposals, some affordable shows, good happy hours, books to read, letters to write, taking classes and wandering museums, figuring out grad school thoughts... oooh anyway. it's that same old thing of really bright lights and the shadows beside them looking so much darker. next weekend is a march on the pentagon, and a christian peace witness service and then march/vigil at the national cathedral-> the white house. my stomach feels so sick over it all; i think it will be good to gather in some sort of hope, to garner some sort of voice even if it only adds up to a whisper, which i know is just peanuts in this city with its white marble and power and money, but it is what we have. i miss far-away friends. i hope you are well.
love,
mags

posted by: mihihihi
1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 23.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the next three sentences in your journal along with these instructions.
5. Don't dig for your favorite book, the cool book, or the intellectual one: pick the CLOSEST.
6. You are all tagged.


"I remember the vast sunny lake, calm and treacherous, the weeds and grasses among the sands where the little children played while the older ones stood in awe close to their parents, that long quiet afternoon. When the bodies were found, we did not run to the spot but mother hurried us home and doubtless there was panic in her heart. Mother must have been around thirty-five and there were four of us then."

It is from Dorothy Day's autobiography, even though it sounds a little like a murder mystery or something...

this weekend has been all kinds of hullaballoo, but so good:
i got to visit ms. clarissa gregory for her opening at MICA and see her new stuff and meet her friends and dance around the grad program sculpture studio party w/ her and kent afterwards. then i caught a 6am train back the next morning and went and waited two and a half hours outside the kennedy center for the sufjan ticket giveaway and no dice, i must've been more than 1,200 people back in the line! ah well, i guess i've seen him play more than most people in that line, so it's fair. but it still would've been pretty sweet to see him at the kennedy center. for free. but it'll be simulcast, so i guess well just watch it at kjersten's house. i'll bring my english department polaroid. haha.
the antiwar rally/march down on the national mall(which is a ten minute bike ride form my house these days!)was yesterday, too, and it was sunny and packed and the message from folks speaking (eve ensler and susan sarandon and sean penn and danny glover and jane fonda, which could've been a disaster but wasn't)felt unified in a way that prior recent rallies and protests like this haven't - a lot of military families and college kids and little kids and angry grandmas. less people pushing their personal platforms and more saying THIS IS RIDICULOUS for a litany of reasons. anyway, for whatever it means, i feel lucky to get to be part of these things. now my housemate from LVC, kiri, is in town, so catching up and sipping wine and making many lentil dishes is in order.

good day for innocence mission and letters and lentils.

much love,
mags

so last night had a much more hallmark/it's a wonderful life-y feel to it than i'd expected... i was feeling a little lonely and blue because i'm here in DC with a headcold in my house alone instead of with family and our street all lit up with luminarias. so i biked out to a midnight christmas eve service at the little church in georgetown where i go to poetry reading sometimes, but i had to return a library book on the way, and when i stopped by the library, about 8 homeless guys were sleeping out in front of the drop box, which was taped shut anyway. so i was thinking,' uh oh', becaus ei didn't want to wake them up to find somewhere to put it, and it would be late if i didn't drop it off now, but one man woke up and promised to bring it in to the library when it opens in a couple of days, and was all smiles and didn't want any of the gloves or the hat i had with me because he said he was plenty warm and having a good enough christmas. so i biked away thinking,"shoot, if he can sleep on cold pavement tonight and be grateful, i guess i'm okay in my heated house and with people i love at joseph's house"... this year i've been thinking more about the miracle of it, the hope of tiny and vulnerable things being the most powerful. this past week, my landlord/pastor won equity for low income families in the district when they purchse their homes... a law was going to be passed that would bar them from the same benefits as those in higer incomes and they would end up actually LOSING money while the rich got more, and so anyway, the session was looking like the poor would lose out, and then, unexpectedly, marion barry, DC's former mayor shuffles in and without having read the proposal or anything, keeps asking linda cropp qiuestions til the vote shifts from 2/11 to 10/11! they did it! so there's a christmas story. hope like little babies in mangers.
so there's that. this morning i'm here with my sniffles and headache, some coffee, cranberry coffee cake and the sparrows and cardinals at the birdfeeder. i work the late shift tonight (blossom and i are making a jamaican/vegan christmas dinner) and early shift tomorrow and then i'm on a plane home, and that will be so nice. so, friends, merry christmas!
bright things! hope! light casting out darkness!
amen amen.

here's PBS covering where i work:


http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/index_flash.html

i'm just barely in it, but a lot of people i really love are. i think it's about fiften minutes or so... it airs tomorrow, i think?

i live here:

618 S St. NW
Washington , DC 20001

now, instead of my friends' floor. yeah!!!!
it has rosemary and sage and a rosebush in the garden, and lots of paper lanterns. works fer me. come visit, if you want.
love,
maggie

so hopefully this week, i'm moving out of the dining room (lovely though it is!) which has been my home for the past two months, and into a house my church is buying. it will be really nice if this all works out. a quick bike ride to work, very close to U strett and ben's chili bowl (vegan chili into the wee hours!)and my friends are nearby. i'm hoping.

tonight i worked til 10:45 and went over to the sojourners intern party. the new interns are fun and there's nothin' quite like a beer with jim wallis, i tell you what. i love these things about DC.

halloween was fun; JHouse party and all. giving candy to babies dressed up as princesses and chickens. and PBS religion and ethics in america filmed us at work last week... i'll let folks know if we're gonna be on tv one of these days.

it is back to being damn cold for biking. already.

much love,
maggie

i didn't mean to, but this weekend i:
made my own vegan granola and biked to my pastor's house with my cushion and mat in the back milkcrate and set off for new community's silent yoga and meditation retreat, which was PERFECT- we were watching deer off in the frosty field while doing sun salutations... maybe a little too perfect, but i had worked eleven crazy days in a row before it, and it felt pretty damn good to not talk to anyone for a couple of days and pray yoga prayers and just watch the sun get stuck in the rusty leaves. and today, i took a train back into DC and worked on the "green team" at the green festival at the convention center, meaning i got to wheel around and dump compost for four hours. and that, too, was pretty sweet, though a little stinky, because the goal was to offset all emissions & divert 90% of landfill waste and it felt pretty amazing to be part of something big accomplishing something so rare. so often eco-news is so negative- it was powerful to stand in a convention center full of people who see some sort of light at the end of the tunnel and are at least reaching towards it.

tomorrow i'm meeting a potential intentional faith and justice community who needs a subletter nov-august, which would be pretty perfect. we'll see...

i'm cat-sitting this weekend for our cook(at JH's) cats. i'm trying (unsuccessfully) to coax minute to take her medicine for her kidney, poor kitty. i feel very deceptive sitting peacefully here by the window, with her sleeping beside me when in a moment i need to shove half a pepcid AC down her tiny throat. oh man.

a few more housing possibilities have popped up, so now i'm in that weighing/waiting part of the deal. and i have the backup option now of moving in with our RN's family, which would be lovely- she's an incredible woman and her husband works for human rights watch, and they hve a cool daughter adn this beautiful dog named paintbrush...

i found me a new bike, too- a refurbished 90's roadbike - aluminum (so light! so light!) and sans dying puppy sounds and not shiny enough that it should be bait for thieves, and at a very fair price from the ecovillage coop here. yeah!!!! my schwinn was so good to me, but i think i will donate it to the lutheran house, if one of them might ride it.

quiet windy september morning. kitty's sleeping.

been back in DC for several days, and back at Jhouse, too, and it is lovely to be back. they even built a trader joe's in the district while i was gone. but i am still out a home until someone else decides they want to move in, so i'm not all alone in a 7-10 person house in mt.pleasant. i'm currently camping out on an inflatable mattress in kjersten and sara's (my LVC housemates) dining room, but i would like to have a place. sort of soon. being in a cancelled program isn't so much fun. but i have a roof over my head and if need be, i could always move into work. it's just a little hard to fall asleep in a bed where you've watched people die. but the residents in the house just now are golden- i am so grateful for their quirks and energy. and i'm grateful for DC and the fun little nooks and crannies i'd forgotten about. and i can't wait to visit clarissa in baltimore...

so i'm home in the hoosier state for a few more days, walkin' the dog and spending time with family and accumulating piles of library books and reading all the art magazines in bookstores. i'm thankful for a night in columbus, and another dancin' around pittsburgh(mostly ash & juj) and another in julie's sorority house, and another at my grandparent's lake house at wawasee.

i'm back in the district on friday to hopefully quickly (but probably not) untangle this mess of housing w/o a volunteer program and how to make this next year work. i think it will, and i miss my DC friends and my schwinn and falafel on 18th st. it'll be an adjustment back into joseph's house, as most the residents (really dear ones) who were in the house when i left a couple weeks ago have passed. a lot of shifts in the staff, too. new things, old things, plenty o' gaps in between them.

but it is good to be here with my parents' porch and books and songs and familiarity. balance, balance. basil and mint and tomatos.
much love to you all.

i'm dropping julie off at college today, visiting our beloved em cable tonight and coming to yr doorstep tomorrow. okay? okay. see you then.
love,
magdah

pros:
-now i'm not in a program that doesn't allow me to leave the district of clumbia w/o my hosuemates, meaning i can do things like visit pitt and maybe nina and go to hannah and john's wedding!

- i am not actually qualified for a nursing job outside of joseph's house, so i won't have to handle other people's excrement on a daily basis.

-many places are safer than DC, so less likelyhood (percentage-wise, at leats)of getting shot, mugged, etc.

cons:
-no housing (or at least not as easily)
-no job (" ")
-no intentional community in dc
- i was really excited about the program


but it will all be okay. we'll see what happens.