hello faithful readers.

i've moved.  yes, it was time to graduate from xanga to a blog that everyone can comment on, and that can allow me more freedom.  we've all done it.  (blog-hopped, that is.)

you can find me at:

http://rachelhosan.blogspot.com

see you there!

you see, we moved the summer after 8th grade.  it was only 15 minutes away, but it meant changing school districts, and therefore, friends, and well, friends are life for an 8th grader.  it was hard then, but i got through it well enough.  now when i come home, it's to the second neighborhood of my adolescence, and the only one that my younger siblings have known as home.  i don't usually think about it at all, but recent trips to the old 'hood have stirred memories of a life gone by.

we grew up across the street from the family dentist.  doctor gray had 3 kids, the ages of my younger brother and sister and then one more.  we played lots of games, went to lots of parties, painted our faces on the 4th of july, watched movies that our parents didn't watch (i remember being haunted by "the never ending story" for weeks and months).  i remember one time when we were playing down in the basement and chris brought us "soda" that he found in the fridge that turned out to be beer.  i thought it was so gross.  we all did.  it's funny how acquired tastes are... acquired.  later in life, of course.

i went back to see doctor gray yesterday, on my annual visit back to hampden avenue.  there are new tenants in our old house now, and they repaved the sidewalk and have some nice furniture on their front porch.  i am always tempted to knock on their door and ask to see inside, telling them that this was the house of my earliest memories.  but i never do.  i guess i'm a little afraid of seeming an overly sentimental young adult. 

today i drove past my elementary alma matter en route to crossworld ministries headquarters for lunch with lisa.  i followed the route that the school bus followed every day of my younger years.  i looked down side streets and remembered friends who lived there, friends who i visited frequently because their houses were bigger and closer to school and they had swimming pools.  i remembered robin and alyssa, my jewish friends, and eating shabbat meals at their homes before i knew what that meant.  i remembered pamela, who was the only black girl i can remember from my elementary school years; she was strangely out of place in our wasp-y neighborhood and was, of course, adopted.  as i drove home from lunch, i saw a young boy holding a big poster that read "lemonade for sale."  i smiled at memories of the many sales endeavors we made there on hampden avenue, and then looked closer at the boy as i drove by.  he was wearing a little skull cap and had the beginnings of curls coming down in front of his ears.  i pulled over to the side of the road and got out.  how could i resist the little jewish boy's lemonade stand?

i paid a dollar for a small cup of very bad, diluted lemonade, but drove away grinning from ear to ear...

the view from joni’s balcony is still quite green.  but the cloudy, overcast sky, broken through only occasionally by a beam of sunshine; the cool breeze that steadily rustles the leaves of the trees; the smell of the air; the blanket on my lap and mug of tea in my hand; they all tell of the coming change of season.  autumn- the season of dying, of nature folding into itself for a few months to make room for new life to come later, has been my favorite for several years now.  the warm afternoons, bookended by cool mornings and evenings, make for perfectly weathered days.  the death that sweeps through the trees in the black forest happens in such a colorful, picturesque way, that somehow i hear the truth screaming in my soul that death isn’t all bad.  it’s part of god’s perfect plan to keep his creation alive and vibrant for an extended period of time.  death always has to occur so that new life can take its place.  i often try, in vain, to prolong the season of life rather than give in to this inescapable pattern of nature.  i wear tshirts and flip-flops for as long as i can, until my toes start to turn blue.  i wait to pull out my heavy coats, choosing instead to suffer the pangs of cold under my other layers.  but death comes all the same.

a new school year has begun.  it’s funny (and i’m sure not at all coincidental) how this cycle of my life coincides with the cycle of nature: as the landscape outside begins to embrace its inevitable (albeit temporary) doom, i always find myself in the throes of transition and change as well, holding funerals in my heart for the things that must die inside of me to make way for new growth in a new season of my life and work.  last fall, i buried my independence in strasbourg as the autumn leaves fell.  kristi asked me the other day if i needed to repeat that ceremony this fall, after having resurrected much of my independence over the summer months.  i hastily replied that no, my independence was still in the ground in strasbourg as far as i knew.  so, she looked at me skeptically and asked what else needed to die that i might live this school year.

jesus reminded me then that “unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains by itself alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.  he who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world shall keep it to life eternal...”

and so, i know that kristi is right.  it just may be time for another funeral.  probably daily.