Well, first, let me fast forward through my morning, which I spent at home, mostly in bed, but also on the computer and playing guitar.
I took the bus and walked to the new house I'll be moving into next month to sign the lease. The first thing I noticed walking in was that Charla - the 32-year-old who owns the house and paints on the patio, makes lamps in the basement, who had applied to BuildaBridge and who goes to the FitLife Gym with her and soon to be my roommates - was wearing those interesting Barefoot running shoes, that are like toe socks and just entirely very unique. Very fitting since later that day I'd be watching the music video that goes to Brett Dennen's Make You Crazy song:
While I was waiting for Charla to get the lease, I sat and looked out the window. There was a beautiful, large monarch butterfly perched on the aptly-named butterfly bush in the front yard.
It made me be still for a moment with it. Every once in a while I see a butterfly or a speck of dandelion fluff, and whenever I do, it reminds me of things good and true and beautiful.Then, as I walked to work along Washington Lane, I passed a house that had a small kiddie pool on its front lawn, complete with 7 adorable kids stuffed inside like sardines. As I walked away, one little girl kept yelling to her older brothers, "Somebody dunk me." They complied. :)
At work I started making the first few phone calls to connect with past alumni and donors. I got to talk with a friend from the Institute, Stevie Neale, and learned about her work doing choreography for a k-2 theatre group. Imagine that age group learning about the Circle of Life through Lion King, and then playing a dance game where one little girl yells out, "Let me see your omnivore!" to get all the kids to pretend to eat grass. Yeah, it was adorable when I imagined it, too.
After work, I was walking along Germantown Avenue, and decided to check out the BuildaBridge Artology summer camp art installation on the front lawn of Cliveden House. As I looked, a boy walked by and asked if I liked it. I said I did, and began talking with him. Josh attended his third year of Artology this summer. He's in 5th or 6th grade. His favorite part of the camp was the water fight. His second favorite part was going to a glass-blowing studio. We walked on together half a block before he was stopped by an older woman who greeted him by name.
I continued walking to the Wired Bean Cafe, for the open mic night. The sign-up list was empty for the first 15 minutes, and so the host, a middle-aged white guy, continued playing renditions of the likes of Adele and the Eagles - using the same chords! As I was waiting for my drink, a woman in line turns to me and says, "I'm Katie." I give a double-take, and I realize it's a lady from the Circle of Hope church, for whom I've babysat. Their cell group had decided to meet at the cafe that night. I smile, because I was a bad little Sarah and ditched my cell group that night for the open mic night, reasoning that a discussion about if we need an inner life might be one-upped by a night of music as inner life.
I was right. Great music. Eda James "At Last," Ingrid Michaelson's "Keep Breathing," and Sam Cooke's version of "Summertime," to name a few. There was also an old man with some fun rhyming jokes, as well as a man who had found bongo drums in the trash and taught himself how to play. The first hour was mostly older men and women. Later, a group of 3-4 girls, all black, came with this white guy who played guitar, and they just brought the house down. But EVERYBODY got cheered for, everyone felt appreciated. I sure did!
It was fun to look out the wall-length windows across the street, where a black man with a Muslim white robe and hat stood outside of a Hong Kong Chinese restaurant, next to a Mermaid Bar, with a younger black guy in a tank top stood. A couple ran by with the guy pushing the girl's back to get her to go faster. The mostly white Circle of Hope cell group met on the patio.
Today was nice.
