Dreams. . . Wednesday, Sep 24 2008 

Food Issues and General , coloroutsidethelines 6:29 am

Dear Friends,

I am a dreamer.  I always have been.  I’m much like my father in that regard.  My mother is more of the hard realist.  For some reason I attribute that to her more Germanic heritage, when more than likely, it’s just her.  meh.  lol.  However, I am still a dreamer.  I’m going to dream a little bit this morning.  Just dream.

This morning I’ve been doing a bit of research to get an idea of what i’m going to write my paper for my urban sociology class on.  I am obsessed with urban agriculture.  I dream of living in a city and teaching those who have had a shit life handed to them how to grow vegetables.  There is something amazing and redeeming about growing your own food.  Something cleansing and purifying about getting into the dirt and smelling it’s deep richness.  I don’t know of any time I have felt closer to my creator than when I have planted a seed and cared for it hidden beneath the soil and weeks later it pops out of the ground, and months later, I reap the harvest.  To provide others with the ability to do that would be amazing.  I do not desire to be rich.  I know I won’t ever be wealthy by this worlds standards.  I don’t know if I could be happy if I had money.  I want to be “poor.”  To see those in need around me and give them what they need to make it day by day.  To go without so those around me may continue on.  I desire to live a simple life.  Sometimes I get frustrated being in college because I am surrounded by such a complex world.  A world of technology and just suc ha fast pace.  So often I just want to go back to the farm and slowwww baaackkkkk dowwwwnnnn.  I like to keep things at a slow pace.  I like to be able to think.

Well, dear ones, I need to leave the coffee shop and head home so I can walk to chemistry.  blah.

May you have a blessed day. :)

Angela Pickle.

 

What color is that word? Friday, May 23 2008 

General coloroutsidethelines 11:10 pm

I think, and have thought since about 2005 or so that I might have mild synesthesia. I associate colors to different words very closely, and it’s not always a logical association. I noticed this phenomenon when I was really active on the Third Day boards and when I would think about different friends using only their screen names as a reference, it would always been in the same color. The only person’s color I remember was Sally’s, because it was hot pink, and it baffled her and I, because she is far from a hot pink type person.

I have never put much thought into this event. When I read font, or see words, they are always the color they are “supposed” to be, but when I think of a written word, it is in a certain color. Seeing as I typically think in pictures or spoken word, it is rare that I experience this.

So yes, That is a random insight into Angela’s mind. Yet another quirk! Hooray!

 

A letter to Me 2038 Friday, May 16 2008 

Bipolar and General coloroutsidethelines 7:56 am

My friend Traci posted in her blog the idea to write a letter to your future self.  The idea is for chronic pain sufferers help deal with the frightening prospect of the future.  It sounded like a pretty applicable idea!  I know I get pretty intimidated by what my future might be like, so here goes!

Dear Future Angela,

Here you are, almost 53.  I wonder what your life has been like.  What highs and lows you have seen.  How many times have you seen the psych ward doors yet again.  Maybe none.  That prospect excites me I must admit.  Unfortunatly it’s possible that you have seen them many more times than the five you have now.  Do you have your Bachelors Degree?  Did you ever attain that ultimate goal of your Masters?

How many of those lofty and random goals did you achieve?  Future Angela, I hope that you stay on this positive track I am set on right now.  I hope you don’t run from the amazing friendships you have in Columbia and I hope you don’t run from success.

Future Angela, I haven’t lived as long as I am writing into the future, which makes this kind of difficult to do, but I know that I look back on the past five years and see so much growth and change in our life, and I hope we stay on that track of foward motion and momentum.  Life is kind of hard and scary right now.  School is so difficult and I don’t really know why, but Future Angela, I’m doing this for you.  I’m doing this so maybe you can live in community in an urban area and love on people and teach them how to garden.  Maybe you can help connect people to the healing power of the ground and working with it.  I know how much that has healed us.

When you read this, Future Angela, Daniel, Catherine and Issac will be grown men and women with families and likely children of their own.  What other neices and nephews might you gain in the years to come.  How exciting will it be to see them grow and mature.  Remember when Daniel was born and it almost hurt to see him, and now he’s one of your best friends?  Then Catherine Bear came along and you were hoping she would be born on your birthday?  Then baby Issac this winter and Daniel and Catherine were BOTH convinced they would have a baby sister!  What kind of men and women will they turn into?  Will it hurt when they have children and you don’t?

Where will Jennifer’s life take her?  Right now she is in Chicago in Culinary school.  You are so excited for her, and have big dreams.  She hates the big city life and just wants to be in a smaller town close to home and you dream of being in a big city far from home!  Will she ever open her small town bakery?  How hard will it be when she graduates next spring and you’re still working on your degree?  That will be difficult.  I know you’re proud of her, but the jealousy twinges every now and then.

Where will life take you dreamer?  A smile is bubbling up on your face right now and you are EXCITED and ready to go.  Dear friend, no matter where life takes you, no matter what struggles and emotional hardships you endure, know that there have been moments like this in life where you have been excited and ready for battle.  Times when you have wanted to surge ahead full force and have known that you are in a wonderful place in life.  The pain of the past is being left there, where it belongs.

I can’t wait to get to know you Future Angela.

Love,

Current Angela

 

Let’s get Physical . . . Physical! Wednesday, Apr 9 2008 

General coloroutsidethelines 8:54 am

This past weekend I went home because my younger sister wanted to see me one last time before she went back to school in Chicago (group awwwww), and there were some guys buying, or just getting stuff out of the old farrowing house (the building where the baby piggies would grow into big piggies).  Being back home at this time of year and seeing them there doing that physical labor just kind of struck a note with me.  I really miss physical labor.

Physical labor is something I desire and something I enjoy.  Last year at about this time, I was being a butthead emotionally and not working a “real job”  but that gave me the chance to actually help dad on the farm some, and I LOVED it.  Scrap metal prices were really high, so Dad and I would go out and salvage scrap from the farm that Dad was no longer using and grind the bolts which were worth less off, and use the oxy-acytelyne torch, and other fun stuff like that.  There is just something refreshing about being outside and doing hard physical labor.  Going out in the morning and working with the cattle all day, whether it was building fence, or making the little boy calves not so little boy calves if you know what I mean ;) gave me such a sense of worth and dignity.

As a female so many times I’m not given the opportunity to just go out and do that kind of work that I love.  Just going outside and digging around in the mud and putting a seed in the ground and somehow a plant miraculously grows and because of that food comes.  How amazing is that?  So, Here I am, at college, getting my degree so I can do that blue collar labor I find so fulfilling.  Waking up most every morning and sitting in the geology library with the books and going to class on tuesday and thursday and studying, when all I want to do is to use my body and be outside.

As depressed and as rough of a time last spring was, I really learned a lot about myself.  I started to find my passion, the thing I love more than almost anything.  If you had asked me a year or more ago if I could change anything about my life, I would probably have told you that I wish I had not let myself get depressed to the point I had cut, or even that the last five years just hadn’t happened and I could go back to my junior year.  No, not anymore.  Yeah, these past years have been incredibly painful.  The hospitalizations, the medications, the side effects, the emotional anguish, having to watch how badly I have hurt so many people; I wish I could just control alt delete those things.  However, had I not gone through the pain, and lived what I have lived, I would still be that emo little teenage girl who hated the world and hated herself and had no confidence.  Therefore, I dont’ think I would trade the last five and a quarter years for anything else.

peace, love, and rock n roll.

Angela

 

Coloring Outside the Lines Tuesday, Dec 11 2007 

General and Uncategorized coloroutsidethelines 7:01 am

    Growing up we are all admonished to be sure to color inside the lines.  Yet then, as we grow older, some of us end up being encouraged by teachers or bosses to “think outside the box.”  I have decided therefore, to go ahead and color outside of the lines, to think freely about the problems faced in life.

This blog is going to mainly focus on social issues I come across in my sociology classes and readings.  It will also focus on religious issues and theology.  In other words, I’m going to blog about what is important to me, which is what most blogs are, aren’t they?