Chemsha-ed Bongos & Lightning Strikes

New Haven: As Observeded By a Chemsha-ed Bongo. . . If you see my brain on the street somewhere, please scoop it up. It oozed out of my ear.

I'll be honest, this was a pretty rough week. Lots of unnecessary stress & anxiety. As irrational as it may have been, I got swept up (lost?) in the swirling vortex of waiting on grants, daydreaming about a summer in East Africa, financial aid forms, taxes, midterms, travel plans, and housing options for the summer/year. Individually they were no problem, together they were stupidly-imposing. My survival technique was hunkering down into the isolation zone . . . it worked, until lightning struck . . .

White Lightning that is, the beast of a 15 passenger van I got to drive across the great plains to Denver last summer:

An Artist's Rendition of the White Lightning Crew

In the middle of the week I got the following in an E-Mail from Johnny Cake Ridge Rd:

. . .it just happened to be that last night two girls came up to me around 6:30pm (confirmation night) and asked when they'd see Peter again.

"We need to hear the chicken story one more time."

"What about the monkey story?" I asked.

Then they proceeded to start to tell me the story as if they were Peter. Then they paused. "We know that one pretty well. We want to hear the chicken story."

Is there a whole adolescent oral tradition suburban subculture building around those two stories? . .

Getting the e-mail made me feel a bit honored (and kinda weirded out) to realize that some of the most awkward moments of my life have become some sort of south-subUrban Legend. "Did you hear about the 'Monkey Chicken Guy?'" Mostly, the e-mail made me feel well-grounded.

As all encompassing as the Bulldog-Bubble can be . . . As Deafening as the turning and scheming of my own mind may be . . . As comfortable as the Iso-Zone might be . . . They are all illusory.

Hearing about kids I haven't seen in months or even years talking about Filthy and his pals reminds me how interconnected life really is. The threads of mine run through communities . . . family, friends, co-workers, congregations, schools . . . around the globe. The stories, memories, and relationships found in MKE, MSP, HVN, DPS, DAR, CPH, JFK, LAX and countless other ports of call put the stresses of this last week in their place.

While mitihani's are important, exotic possibilities might be around the corner, and there is plenty of 'stuff' to do, none of those things define me, they aren't the main event. In reality, its the people I've met, the places I've gone, and the things that I've done that rightly take center stage. . . Or, as Minnesota's own Cloud Cult sings, "Where I've been, where I am, its the show."