Resurrection!

I want to write, but I don't know what to write. So I will write what comes to mind.

I'm joining the Peace Corps. I think you both know that, even though I don't think I told you personally. This blog should have been the first to know, officially, considering it was made with the thought of keeping in touch for major movements/life occurrences & whatnot. I found out in June that my official destination is the Federated States of Micronesia & Palau. I leave for LA on September 2; the flight is the morning of the 3rd, but we have orientation stuff the day before. I'm nervous. I wasn't nervous really this whole time, but now it's getting closer, you know? I want to see you both before I go, and I think that will happen. I think my location will overlap with each of you for at least a few days this month, right?

I've been home since early July, and the time has gone slowly & without a lot of fuss. I'm not doing much more than reading occasionally and vegging out often. There's been lots of time for reflection, but very few revelations have occurred. I'd like to talk to you both. Because I miss you, and because hearing from what's new in your lives oftentimes lends me such perspective on my own. Family is wonderful for support & love & going over the details, but they're not the best for perspective. I guess it depends.

Anyway, I miss you both & I've been thinking about you. Hope you're well & that the world is a better place where you are.

Lots of love,
Mollie

A homeless man walked me home this morning

A homeless man walked me home this morning

“Can I recite you a poem?”

“Well I’m kinda in a hurry… (I’m sweaty. it’s hot outside. too bright. I smell like sex. And all I want is a shower.)

…But... you can walk with me if you want” (I don’t have money for you
because some scumbag stole my wallet. I probably wouldn’t give it to
you anyway)

We walk. (I glance at my cleavage wishing I was covered)

He recites -about politicians and media and something about a golden egg.

Are you finished? Will you leave me now?

He asks about me. He doesn’t stutter. He’s engaged. Almost like a
friend. Almost more like a friend than my friends.

I’m graduating. He wants to know more. He doesn’t have to ask. He
doesn’t have an obligation. Doesn’t need to pretend to care.

He asks and I’m thankful.

At the corner we shake hands. I think his name was Paul. (But I can’t
be sure because I was making a mental note to wash my hands)

He left. I felt good.

I wanted to call you and tell you. To let you know

I’m like you – a good person. The kind of good person that lets a
homeless man walk her home.

But I didn’t. Because I’m not. A good person. Well not for that reason.

It would have been a lie. I didn’t let a homeless man walk me home.

In fact that’s not what happened at all.

A poet just happened to save me from the worst part of myself.

No longer unemployed!

I GOT THE JOB!! a real, big kid job! :] 

Musings from the unemployed.

Ah, I'm so close to finishing up my season of unemployment. So close that if I lose now, I'll be devastated. Without hope. Without drive. This is my fourth week of unemployment and I'm nearly at the end of my rope. I've read and caught up with friends. I helped my brother moved to Seattle and successfully went to the OBGYN. I've walked and ran miles on end and started a Bible study through my church. I've been to meetings about loan repayment and sent out my resume to at least 30 potential employers. 

To be honest, I don't know how much more of this unemployment business I can handle. And God-willing... I'll only have another week of it. 

I applied for a AmeriCorps VISTA position, which is a sanction of AmeriCorps towards ending poverty. I would be working in a non-profit called Girls on the Run, which empowers 3rd through 5th graders to run their first 5k with a holistic approach of body image and positive thinking. I would be doing research on how to better outreach to high-risk girls in need. I would be going out into the community and asking questions. I would be a running mentor. And I would create a system to recruit these 'underprivileged' girls of Seattle. Hopefully giving them a better view of themselves and their own decision making. 

My compensation would be health care, a gym membership, a $4,700 stipend at the end of the year for my loans, and a meager living allowance (which is at the poverty-line for Seattle). Living at the poverty-line is something that I've always wanted to do. I want to experience living on food stamps and really working for a living. So many people in our country live at or below the poverty line. Is is really possible? Can you really live on $900 a month? 

I have my third interview next week, and then hopefully my unemployment will end. Cross your fingers, ladies! 

On a side note, being a graduate is wonderful, but weird at first. It's like seeing the world through a whole new set of eyes. Sure unemployment isn't great, but it's so empowering to do things for myself... not just because some professor told me that I must in order to pass his class for a degree. I'm starting to feel human again--connected to the world in a whole new different way. 

I, Chelsea Elizabeth Hodgson, am a twenty-one year old college graduate living in Seattle. Sounds kinda nice, huh? I am my own person. No longer do I fall under the broad category of student. I now fall under the even more broad category of human. 

RABBITS!

Ok, so I'm East Coast cheating right now, but it's April Fool's Day anyway, so I guess that works.

I owe both of you a phone call, which I can hopefully redeem after this weekend ... the CityStep show makes it a hectic one for me.

Either way, happy new month! Happy Springtime! Lots of love!

~Mollie

Collaboration!

http://thru-you.com/

Very cool project.

Blue Dot.

"I'm blue" she said.
you look green to me
it isn't something you can see
...silly
well how do you know? he asked.
i feel it. right behind where my sternum normally is
What's a sternum?
The thing that protects your heart...
from your blue spot of course.
mines on vacation and left me all alone
it was quiet unexpected i must say
no leave of absence or two week notice
What's it like?
not having a sternum?
Will you die?
It's like sinking. or a weight. more like
a heaviness in your soul
but no i wont die
will it go away? Will your sternum come back?
Yes. i think. most of the time. so far.
When?
i don't know. soon. i hope

A Dot of Love.

Bloggers, 

Here comes an important American holiday: Valentine's Day. And I, as someone who is in love, feel slightly obliged to be enthused for such a day of love, and stuffed animals, and chocolates, and surprises, and jewelry, etc.  But somehow, I am not. I used to be a woman of intense excitement towards this holiday; it meant that a boy would have to express his true feelings for me; he would tell me how important I am to him. There is a whole holiday devoted to an expression of love... how romantic... I guess? 

I, as someone with a significant other, find this holiday to be a scapegoat. How can a person invest so much time and energy into one stinkin' day because our culture claims it a day of love? My first valentine's day with Trevor, I expected the whole nine yards: stuffed animal, chocolates, romantic dinner, and of course... a mushy card. I was let down. Immensely. He got me all those things that a man was supposed to get a woman for Valentine's Day, but somehow it still felt unfulfilling. How can so much expectation be wrapped up in one little day? 

Romance has been defined and redefined over the many years of my relationships. I now believe that it is an ever evolving emotion that takes on different characteristics as life progresses. In the beginning, romance was a storybook fairy tale. Candles, dinner, dress up dates, etc. Now, romance is found in the smallest gestures. For example, Neal hid a card in my bookbag and I found it this morning on my way out the door; his terrible penmanship all over this card telling me how much he appreciated the weekend adventure that I planned for his birthday. Or when we went for a solid run together and he picked me up and twirled me around even though I was super sweaty. Or offering to help clean my room because I was super stressed. 

To me, these are romantic gestures of love. Perhaps they are not universal definitions of love, but these are the ways that I feel cared for. And I think that as I get older (and more removed from the storybook fairy tale), that it will be easier to fall more in love because my definition of romance will be so simple and organic. 

All this to say that Valentine's Day is great and all... But I'd rather have a life filled with small romantic gestures than one day a year with big, extravagant romantic gestures. 

BIG love from Seattle, Che

a single, simple verse

"For the next hour, the women took turns telling their stories, singing their song. They sang about lost time and discarded fantasies and what might have been. They sang of the men who loved them, betrayed them, raped them, embraced them; they sang of the hurt inside these men, hurt that was understood and sometimes forgiven. They showed each other their stretch marks ad the calluses on their feet; they revealed their voice, the flutter of a hand, beauty warning, ascendant, elusive. they wept over the aborted children, the murdered children, the children they once were. And through all of their songs, violent, angry, sweet, unflinching, the women danced, each of them, double-dutch, and rumba and bump and solitary waltz; sweat-breaking, heart-breaking dances. They danced until they all seemed one spirit. At the end of the play that spirit began to sing a single, simple verse:

I found god in myself
and I loved her/ I loved her fiercely"

~ Barack Obama, Dreams For My Father

Ah, Contrarian

Today, my utterly contrary nature has been brought to my attention. I was told both how much and how little I've changed in the last few years, which causes some amount of self-reflection, especially when it happens within the span of an hour.

At work, one of the volunteers at the library who has known me since freshman fall commented on my college journey, saying: "And you haven't changed a bit! You don't look any different, or older. You're still, just, you!" I will take this as a compliment paid to my undiminished self and my powerful sense of identity, not as a veiled suggestion to go get a makeover. She is a very sweet southern woman with impeccable poise, so I would probably love whatever she says to me.

Then I had the opportunity to do some memory lane-ing with a friend from WorldTeach Costa Rica, who also happens to be writing her dissertation on international volunteerism. She also interviewed me during orientation and mid-service that summer, so her transcripts literally trace the first steps of my ideological journey through international development. As I spoke with her today, I found myself sharing all sorts of contrasting details and opinions from my time abroad and its effects on the organization, my host community, broader international development, and myself. Where I thought I was feeding her an incomprehensible load of mush, she listened to me very seriously, asked insightful follow-up questions, and--after the interview was over--told me how much I've changed and how much more nuanced my answers have gotten.

This one-two punch of self-awareness made me realize something I already sort of knew about myself: that I am a complicated person. While my brother was the child to garner the Little Big Man label of contrary, I am probably the child with more gray area, wiggle room, and general indecision that creates contradictions. I simultaneously have no idea and every idea about what I want, think, feel, believe in life. This paradox keeps cropping up, in matters of religion, profession, & sexuality, especially. Up until now this wasn't a palpable problem/issue, because I have been on a pretty straight path towards 'success' (whatever that is) since birth. But now I'm soul-searching, and coming up with a lot of difficult-to-organize material.

For example: boys.

For the last week I've been seeing somebody, which is in itself an unusual thing for me. I tend to stay in the "friend zone" with guys, which is a state of affairs I've often lamented. However, with the way things are going, I realize why being friends is my handleable status quo. [sidenote: how public is this blog? how many people are reading it?] To sum up for the public-ish readership, he's a really great guy, but we're having tension over what I'll call "boundary disputes." Dates are great, he's a wonderful conversationalist and has really impressive career goals (Miekes, he spent the summer doing political research in Ghana!), but when it comes to intimacies we have pretty incompatible views. Which I'm going to blame on my virgin-whore complex (title (c) my fabulous roommate, Emma) where I'm internalizing all the mixed messages I receive at the axis of society-religion-myself...and then passing them along to this poor guy, who obviously has his own ish to deal with. Easier to stay friends and avoid the drama, right? Especially during theisi season/senior spring.

Then there's the second second example: the future/changing the world.

I am nearly 3/4 of the way through the Peace Corps process -- just at the point between nomination and invitation where I want to tell everyone about it, but the news I have to tell is not yet a sure thing. I have accepted a nomination from my recruiter to be an English Teacher leaving in October to the Pacific Islands. What that means is that I have agreed to be passed along to the placement officer, who will decide from the range of positions in the 6 PC Pacific Island countries whether or not there is a spot for me. If there is room and I am fully qualified, I might be expecting an offer anytime between now and October. As advised, I'm practicing my PC skills of patience and flexibility. (but wouldn't it be nice to know for sure, now?)

I am anticipating this possible life change by reading books on the Pacific Islands by J. Maaren Troost and by trying to stay more current with world news. As I'm doing this, I'm developing into quite the cynic-idealist. Perhaps my dissertation friend would just call that "nuanced", but I am questioning and arguing almost everything. For instance, Miekes, if I had read that really stirring quotation from Nehru in your last post a couple of years ago, I would want to copy it down in a notebook as unquestionable wisdom. But reading it just after my South Asian history midterm actually just made me think about Nehru's words in the context of the catastrophic power-struggle and royal screw-up that was the 1947 Partition ... Nehru was a key player there, and probably spoke these words after the fact as Prime Minister.

Maybe that's the other side of seeking adventures "with our eyes wide open"; that is, taking everything in the good with the bad and learning from it. The world is beautiful. The world is a disaster. The world is the world.

A great example of this is winter in Boston. It's long and cold and can get you down. But look at the sunsets! Look at the snow! It's really a very lovely place, too. (Also, both of these photos are from my cameraphone ... sick!)


Either way, there is lots of love from this East Coast dot eminating towards you Westies! You are uncomplicatedly dear to me. All I have for you is LOVE!

See? I'm a cynic-sap!

...
Mox

and the beat goes on...

Hello my beloved friends, family, patrons, and perplexed observers,

So, i am finally graduating from college and this is what i know for sure ...

i want to see the world. i want to understand other cultures and people. i want to live and feel free. And for me, right now, that means i want to keep moving. I'm almost 22 years old and the last thing i want to be right now is "settled" - stationary.

It's when my dot is moving that i feel most alive... sneaking across the Togo/ Ghana border, repelling waterfalls in Costa Rica, sitting in the back of a trotro eating plantain chips, hiking mount Cameroon, riding on the back of motorbikes in Benin.

And there are those beautiful moments when my dot is still... listening... to thunder at the top of Machu Picchu, to the gentle whispers of the palms in the Cape Coast Castle, to the prayers of the people at the Ganges River, to the stories of friends, acquaintances, and strangers.

This is what i love. These are the times i'm going to look back on and think "Those where the good old days." The stories i will tell my kids - about when their mother was a "badass"

So, if all goes as planned, my dot will be in India and Bali in the summer and then Vietnam and Cambodia in August. And then, well, we shall see. Maybe grad school in London, or waitressing in some skeezy bar in downtown Amsterdam. I don't know what the future holds. And to be honest, that's kinda scary... and exciting. At this point, anything is possible.

As ChelsBeth very well knows, Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of independent India, said...

“We live in a wonderful world that is full of beauty, charm and adventure. There is no end to the adventures that we can have if only we seek them with our eyes open.”

So for now, with my eyes open and adventures ahead, the beat goes on, yes the beat goes on...

Love from Berkeley

Seattle Dot

My fellow dots, 

I will write a quick response to Mox because I know Miekes will be anxiously awaiting to write away. (Proper English?) 

Current dot: Seattle, WA where I currently attend Seattle Pacific University. My dot tends to go to cool places in the area like U-District, Downtown, and Ballard.

Past dots: Orange County, CA; Nizhnii Novgorod, Russia; Paris, France; London, England; Saint Petersburg, Russia; Regensburg, Germany; Luxembourg, Luxembourg; Prague, Czech Republic; Dresden, Germany; Den Haague, Netherlands; Moscow, Russia; Amsterdam, Netherlands; Edinburgh, Scotland. 

Future dots: Uncertain. Possibly as far away as Croatia or as close as John Island off the Washington Coast. The possibilities are endless.

Really, truly, fellow dotters... The possibilities are endless. And I believe that is why I'm so overwhelmed with all the possibilities. The world is at our fingertips. We can travel anywhere. Do anything. The choices we make now will forever mold and shape our lives. This is a terrifying thought. We are quickly approaching a time in which decisions shape the life we will laugh (or cry) about when we're old.  We must not have regrets. We must live life to the fullest. We must soak up the beauty all around us, or we're sure to miss it. Once we graduate University, we will be bombarded with choices that we can never change. We will never have this time back in our lives. This is our last measurement of time in University. Starting in March or May or whenever we graduate... we will forever be reminiscent of this time in our lives. There is no going back; no time can ever be retrieved or returned. Only memories can be retrieved from the past. And now, the present will quickly be the past. And then what do we have left but an abundant of possibilities? Oh how overwhelming the possibilities are. And yet how gloriously wonderful that we have such an opportunity to live such a free life filled with these possibilities. We are free to live life as we please. We have choices. And as overwhelming as these choices as, we must be thankful for the abundance of blessings in our lives. Food in the tummies, shelters over our heads, a warm place to sleep at night. Thank you. How will I ever be able to express my gratitude for all the blessings in my life? I want to give back. I want to help. I want to live my life in a way that benefits others. I want my life to matter. I want a life that I can look back on with a smile on my face when I'm one hundred and two. How to live my life in such a way? I'm not quite sure, but I hope that this blogging will help me discover my place in life... Or perhaps the small speck of dust on this plant; my small dot in this world. 

Love from Seattle.

Blog initiation!

This blog page looks lonely!

But, really, that's just because I was supposed to be the first to write on it. And I've put it off ... which is one of the many bad habits I'm trying to nix in the new year.

The point of this blog: to stay in touch/in sync with each others' lives, even as we inhabit vastly different spaces in the world. We are, respectively, three small dots on the map, like the pushpins you use to mark where you live or where you've been on a wall atlas. This fun metaphor also works for the act of marking one's progress through life (the map of living, if you will).

And now, onto my dot:
Currently, my dot inhabits a small liberal arts college outside of Boston, MA. It would like to wander into Boston proper more often, but it's continually thwarted by lack of time and/or abundance of inertia.
Past dots include: Orange County, CA; Guanacaste, CR; and some vacations (Hawaii, London, Philippines, Canada, Mexico, various northwest and northeast States of the United variety)
Future -- ??? (which is, perhaps, part of the motivation for starting a blog)

Because my school has a backward way of doing things, I just got flew back in early January to finish off my semester. So that means I have a paper to write and finals to study for, not to mention a senior thesis (with which to get passionately involved before its due date in March) and a future to plan. So--although I have already watched one movie for this paper and I have found out that I can apply to teach English in Bangladesh or be a tour guide in Madrid--there is much left to do.

So, my dear friends, have at it.

...
MollieMox