Feeling Free

Don't worry. I'll get to the song, briefly. But first. TGIW. Thank God It’s Wednesday!

For me, it’s the end of my internship week work. And it’s been a busy one, and a harder one. It’s the first week where I’ve really had to learn from some mistakes at my internship. All is well by the end of it, but it’s hard to know how to take responsibility but not let yourself just be blamed unfairly. Because that just makes you feel so small. A lot of good has also happened this week to make me feel big…well, little, but happily so, in a big, beautiful world. Tonight is just like a sigh of relief.

I feel really grateful this week, mainly because I have a friend now who’s not just somebody I work or live with. Friday night I got off work early (which kind of sucked), so I went home and played guitar and tried to psych myself up to visit a bar. “The Mermaid Inn” is the only local place around that has an open mic on a weeknight, when I’m not working. Since Germantown Avenue also has some of the cute little coffee shops vibe, I was thinking of taking my guitar with me and setting up on the sidewalk for a while, or at least to have the choice to do so.

Well, I didn’t have the guts to bring the guitar, but I did go. Funny thing is, if I’d brought my guitar, I would’ve gotten to play, cuz the bar’s band cancelled. It’s rather shallow comparatively, but it made me think of how when Jesus did his miracles, it required an act of faith on other people’s part first. I think we must’ve talked about that at church or something recently. Anyways, cuz I did make a friend, and that was pretty cool. It was funny, cuz I had kind of hung around the door of the bar, nervous, and when I finally walked in I was like eehhhh this is awkward because there was like nine people in the whole place (since the band cancelled). But I sat down and ordered the drink I had researched beforehand that sounded the least alcohol-y tasting (heh heh), and started talking with Jonathan, since he was the only other person there without a friend.

And actually I’m texting him right now about checking out his Sunday church service, after he went to my church’s cell tonight. It’s amazing how much you miss hanging out with people, in general, when you’re new to a place, and even moreso I think how you miss hanging out and talking with Christians. At work actually there’s the guy that flirts with everyone, who asks me if I have a boyfriend (in Spanish), and Sunday I was like, “No, y no quiero un novio, necesito amigos primero, porque no tengo amigos” (No and I don’t want one, I need friends, I don’t have friends). The girl I work with was surprised, cuz that sounds so sad. But it’s true. When you’re new, you don’t have any. That’s why I’m grateful to have one. Being new, it’s made me think a lot about immigrants and refugees, and the class I took on ministry to them my last semester of college. And it makes me wonder what I’m going to do about it, and it makes me email my supervisor again asking about BuildaBridge’s trip to refugees in Atlanta, Georgia. *Ponder*

It’s been a really full week actually. Hiking along the Wissahicken trail w/ Jonathan and getting to have some good thinking/talking time that way, watching the new Invisible Children film (film quality down, but I think their programming/ministry is increasing, so I’m fine with the trade-off). Plus going back with Jonathan to the Mermaid Inn for their open mic.

Everyone was SO GOOD! And old, mostly. And folksy and hippy. And in some cases quite drunk. But nothing scary, just more like friendly older women singing and dancing along drunk. And, again, they were really good. There was a group of like 12 people, with several guitars and a stand-up base, a harmonica, an ocarina, a banjo, a fiddle, a clarinet, a piano thing with a hose you blow air into, plus like a 17-year-old girl rockin’ some emo-ish hair and some sort of choker necklace, and being really quite shy but friendly. It was cool. Then there was the act of the lady reciting All Along the Watchtower as poetry with musical accompaniment and the reminders of the crowd when she forgot the next line. And the old man with a cute old man voice singing about his love left behind in Venezuela. And shanty songs. And then me, plus the banjo, stand-up base and a few more people volunteering to play along.

That was nice. Then cell tonight, talking about a verse in Micah 7 that says something about, though I sit in the dark, the Lord will be my light. Several of the people in my group, or idk, maybe all of us, are going through some really difficult situations, so…talking about hope in that context…has to be more than just talk. The funny thing is, the group’s mostly agreed that hope isn’t that strong of a thing, that it’s…like, weaker than prayer, more passive, inactive. For me, hope is…something that is strong enough to carry you, it’s something sometimes just plain outside of yourself – not because it depends on your environment, but because…oh, I don’t know. It’s strong.

I have a lot of hope this week. I have three potential music students. I’m talking with Drexel university’s Music Therapy Director about what I need to learn to meet admission requirements. It’s stuff I really want to learn. I feel hopeful because two students in Maryland and North Carolina heard about the BuildaBridge Institute from my marketing emails to faculty, so I’m…actually helping people. I feel hopeful because…heheh…it’s silly, really, but because I’m #163 in the reverbnation philly local folk music charts. And, much more importantly, and I should pause here, because, because there’s a music conference in Atlanta, Georgia called Driven, that I want to enter, and then I think it’s a different one where you have to write a song about revolution to enter. And…I’m trying to do that. I don’t even know if it’ll happen, but I’m hopeful. *Shrug*

And now Atlanta, Georgia has come up again. And I’m hopeful about that, though I REALLY have absolutely no clue about that. And I’m hopeful listening to the video at the top of Amos Lee performing the song Cup of Sorrow in Atlanta. Which is interesting, because the lyrics go “I want to sleep with the promise of tomorrow, although tomorrow may never come." Hope is weird that way.

And this song of his, Jesus, makes me hopeful, too, to have someone put so openly feelings that people rarely share.



“I remember when I was wild and free. But now the world has jaded me, corrupted and defeated me.” I feel very grateful, because I’m feeling very wild and free. Free just to be me, weird as that may be. Free to be here in Philly honestly not knowing exactly what I’m doing, and not trying to pretend like I do. Free to just call out for help. Free to be really happy about seeing a bird and to get my dork on talking about how amazing the revolutions of the earth and planets really are. Free to let those revolutions give me hope, even as violent political revolutions don’t.

So yay for freedom.