I won't lie; I'm searching.  A friend's line, "I wonder as I wander."  Fire and fear force me forward and face-down, knees-ground.  I'm afraid of Sweden for a year.  I'm afraid of lots, these days.

I drove down to Padre Island to spend the holiday with my pop and it's been nice, but a vow of silence I recently took that necessitates nixing music (crutch and flight of fancy, for me) has burned hard and rendered me sappy and voiceless.   Can't even bring my voice to praise, really; asking God for more.

Found an old Bible we'd given to my dad in '89.  In it, I wrote "PRESENTED TO 'Ray Ramon' ON THIS 'Great Day of Goodness.'"  It's a KJV, but I found something to last me through the night, and to sing about in nights to come.  The second piece is from a collection of Carl Sandberg's - how appropriate, considering my desire to hit the road, to get UP, get OUT, and get GONE.  Here they are, my help and my new song:

Psalm 71

In Thee, O Lord, do I put my trust; let me never be put to confusion

Deliver me in Thy righteousness, and cause me to escape: incline Thine ear unto me, and save me.

Be Thou my strong habitation, whereunto I may continually resort: Thou has given commandment to save me; forThou art my rock and my fortress.

Deliver me, O my God, out of the hand of the wicked, out of the hand of the unrighteous and cruel man.

For Thou art my hope, O Lord GOD: Thou art my trust from my youth.

By Thee have I been holden up from the womb...

For I am as wonder unto many; but Thou art my strong refuge.

Let my mouth be filled with Thy praise and with Thy honor all the day....

O God, be not far from me; O my God, make haste for my help.

But I will hope continually, and will yet praise Thee more and more.

My mouth shall shrew forth Thy righteousness and Thy salvation all the day; for I know not the numbers thereof.

I will GO in the strength of the Lord God; I will make mention of Thy righteousness, even of Thine only.

O God, Thou hast taught me from my youth: and hitherto have I declared Thy wondrous works.

Thy righteousness, also, O God, is very high, Who hast done great things: O God, who is like unto Thee!

Thou, which has shewed me great and sore troubles, shalt quicken me again, and shalt bring me up again from the depths of the earth.

Thou shalt increase my greatness, and comfort me on every side.

I will also praise Thee with the psaltery, even Thy truth, O my God: unto Thee will I sing with the harp, O Thou Holy One of Israel.

My lips shall greatly rejoice when I sing unto thee; and my soul, which Thou hast redeemed."

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

A bag of tricks--is it?

When boy meets girl or girl meets boy--what helps?

They all help: cozy but not too cozy:

be shy, bashful, mysterious, yet only so-so:

then forget everything you ever heard about love

for it's a summer tan and a winter windburn

and it comes as weather comes and you can't change it:

it comes like your face came to you, like your legs came

and the way you walk, talk, hold your head and hands--

and nothing can be done about it--you wait and pray.

Is there any way of measuring love?

Yes but not till long afterward

when the beat of your heart has gone

many miles, far into the big numbers.

Is the key to love in passion, knowledge, affection?

All three--along with moonlight, roses, groceries,

givings and forgivings, gettings and forgettings,

keepsakes and room rent,

pearls of memory with ham and eggs.

Can love be locked away and kept hid?

Yes and it gathers dust and mildew

and shrivels itself in shadows

unless it learns the sun can help,

snow, rain, storms can help--

birds in their one-room family nests

shaken by winds cruel and crazy--

they can all help:

lock not away your love nor keep it hid.

.....

There are sanctuaries

holding honey and salt.

There are those who

spill and spend.

There are those who

search and save.

And love may be a quest

with silence and content.

Can you buy love?

Sure   every day with money, clothes, candy,

with promises, flowers, big-talk,

with laughter, sweet-talk, lies,

every day men and women buy love

and take it away and things happen

and they study about it

and the longer they look at it

the more it isn't love they bought at all:

bought love is a guaranteed imitation.

Can you sell love?

Yes   you can sell it and take the price

and think it over

and look again at the price

and cry and cry to yourself

and wonder who was selling what and why.

Evensong lights floating black night waters,

a lagoon of stars washed in velvet shadows,

a great storm cry from white sea-horses--

these moments cost beyond all prices.

Bidden or unbidden?  how comes love?

Both bidden and unbidden, a sneak and a shadow,

a dawn in a doorway throwing a dazzle

or a sash of light in a blue fog,

a slow blinking of two red lanterns in river mist

or a deep smoke winding one hump of a mountain

and the smoke becomes a smoke known to your own twisted individual garments:

the winding of it gets into your walk, your hands,

your face and eyes.

. . . . . . . . . . . .

I am more than a traveler out of Nowhere.

Sea and land, sky and air, begot me Somewhere.

Amen.  Honey and Salt.

occasionally

my thoughts are brave

and friends are few

occasionally i call out

"LORD, what must i do?"

occasionally, i cry out

"Master, make me new."

'cause You've got the love i need to see me through.!

i think i'm moving to san antonio. 

when i got back from france, i'd lined up several interviews in D.C., all of which i backed out of.  as soon as i set foot in virginia, i remembered how unfit i am for that particular urban landscape.  how, regardless of my dad's idyllic, '50s-'60s experience there, the contemporary version of it s u c k s!  Capitol Climbers can beat the hell out of my 'tranquilo,' simplistic morale with their ruthless elbowing and me-firsting.  i remembered how really, really, if i'm ever going to live in a city, it will be in another country with lots of ethnic flavor and disorienting language and provocative punch to pull me through.  so, there.  not D.C.  not now, probably not ever (again).

when i started toying with the idea of going to europe NOW and forgetting all other detours, i gained a ton of momentum.  i landed au pair and TEFL jobs in milan, the Hague, france, germany, you name it - even china and egypt!  but when an 1800 Euro/month job + all expenses paid offer in milan made me hesitate, i knew something was amiss.  i walked into the corridor of the library and asked God, "is this what you want for me right now?  to be a glorified babysitter - a rich one, but one nonetheless?"  and i felt this itch to explore more...and to put off europe until 08.08.08, like my original plan. 

i started thinking about my blog from france - my "Sunday morning" entry - and how i couldn't resist my dad's situation...how with every moment that passes, i find myself more and more heart-achey that i can't make it all better.  so i applied for a few jobs in san antonio.  despite the fact that i hate san antonio.  depsite the fact that i kind of hate texas.  despite the fact that i love virginia with my whole wide heart and soul.   i told myself that the only way i would know that God was leading me to san antonio was if my 1 job - with www.cityyear.org - invited me to work for them, and i asked God to speak to me, to sing to me, through prayer and to give me guidance.

last week was great.  i stopped sending c.v.s, i stopped fielding phone interviews.  i went to the park.  i played tennis!  i went on a date!  i went running.  i walked around.  i ate indian food.  i took time to take time.  i let my soul breathe. 

at the end of last week, i flew down to san antonio for molly's wedding, and it simply couldn't have been better.  whenever i have an impending visit to texas, i get nervous at all the tex-glam, and how vacuous it can be: how i can fall into the buttery abyss of artifice and silliness, without regard, without care.  that scares me.  it also scares me that i've been away for so long - seven years now - and maybe i'm not really the same girl i was in texas, before, and maybe i'm not the same touch stone for people, maybe i'm not the same friend, maybe maybe maybe...

...but that was not the case.  my time there was rich and glorious.  i was blessed by my friends' company, by their speech, by their stories, the instant i arrived.  the instant.  i found myself marvelling at the newness of what God is doing in their lives, at what He is doing in my life.  as molly and steve said their vows, i felt as though i were getting married - and not to a man, but to God.  i literally felt, heart soul and mind and strength, from the depths of my depths, that God was saying to me, "christina, i love you.  i have loved you with an everlasting love.  marry me, marry me forever."  and i did.  and it was so, so, so good.  so good beyond words. 

i left san antonio on monday, after lunching with my dad and spending some time with my mom.  i was honest with everyone i spoke to; honest about my shame that i'm in this place of Not Knowing; that after so long of trying to assert my independence, i'm once again asking God to direct me.  i should have never stopped asking for His direction. 

on the plane home, i started thinking about how much i long to be the woman He dreamed i would become.  how no one - not anne of green gables or celine from before sunrise - is the woman God imagined when He created me.  not even i.  and i fell into this romance with God, this free-fally kind of dance that will, by faith, take me into His will and keep me there at tempo, leaning on His heart.

i love this.

so on the plane ride, i met the Coolest Man in the World.  seriously.  it was kind of a treat, because while i'm sentimental, i'm not the type to daydream about my own wedding when i'm celebrating other people's love at theirs.  in fact, i was especially averse to that kind of twit-piffle during this last wedding's festivities, because now i'm the "last one of the "Sendero Sisters" (a nick-name molly and becca still use for we 5 who grew up on the same street) to get married.  and i was honestly too busy day-dreaming about the kind of woman God wants me to be (sounds like a lie, but it's the truth!) to get distracted by some Abstract Man Out There Whom I Have Never Met (Or Could Have, Possibly, But Am Not Sure...).  so on the plane ride home, this dude sat next to me.  i thought he was kind of pretentious because of the way he was sitting - his posture said "I'm a hot man.  I cross my long legs and run my fingers through my hair for 1.8 seconds, and I order special drinks on airplanes."  i didn't like the way he draped his jacket on the chair between us.  i didn't like the way he seemed so self-conscious.  i thought he was an introvert because of the way his eyes kept moving around our cabin, like he was afraid i was going to judge him for being uncool or something. as i tried to drift off into sleep, a chirpy stewardess woke me up as she chimed, "Omigosh!  WHAT ARE YOU LEARNIN', HONEY!?  Oh, Chinese?!  THAT IS SOOO COOL!  YOU DESERVE A GOLD STAR, BECAUSE WHEN AH WAS LEARNIN' GRAYK, IT WAS SO HARD MAH AHS NEARLY FAYL OUT!"  when he didn't respond in kind or even so much as change his breathing pattern, i was caught off guard.  i was curious.  he didn't say anything other than, "Well, thanks."  i got kind of jealous that he could be so smooth.  then i tried to go back to sleep. 

drinks were delivered and he turned to me.  "so, what's your story?"  this is HILARIOUS - and i knew it instantly - because that is my classic conversation opener, my classic line, my favorite way to approach someone and get their scoop.  and here was this stranger, doing it to me.  and you know what?  i'm taking up way too much space talking about this strange man i met on a plane, but all i want to say is that indeed, he is perfect - and perfectly married - but that does not matter, because i really haven't any interest in him apart from how provocative he was, apart from how meeting him has made me remember that i am not an old woman, but that my life will keep me on the move to "getting older, getting better"...he is the coolest man in the world, and i'm so glad i met him.  that's all.

(you think i'm lying.  i'm not.  he's a chino-american cultural consultant for think tanks.  he's an acupuncturist.  he's 40 and happily married with two baby boys.  he's a Jew for Jesus who grew up in the ghetto of florida, spent his youth married and in the military and then divorced.  he's multi-langual.  he has a graphics company.  he used to own a strip club and be in a metal band, during his lost years.  and he wasn't lying!  i googled him!! )

and the point of the point is, he knew how to talk to me.  he wasn't dull.  he had a voice.  a clear, strong, evocative voice.  and it was the coolest thing ever - like God was telling me to keep on keepin' on.  i know this is seemingly pointless, but understand that it meant so much, SO MUCH to me:  that at 25, i'm just getting started. 

and when i got home that tuesday, there was a message from city year.  :)

William Tate, AIA, architect, landscape, memory, culture, American identity, Virginia

When you hit the limit, EXPAND.
Look fear straight in the eyes, AND WALK THE FIRE.

When you fail, MAKE ADJUSTMENTS.
When you fall down, GET BACK UP.
When you hit the limit, STEP ACROSS.
When you can't go on, GO ON.
When you want to give up, RESET THE LIMIT.
Friction, uncertainty, fog, and chaos, MAKE INTO ALLIES.
When you think you're all alone, LOOK LEFT, LOOK RIGHT.
When you think everyone is better than you, IT'S AN ILLUSION.
When you do what you never thought you could, ENJOY THE AIRE.
I want to skate on the roof.

in france.

it's great.

got an e-mail today: my school is closing, and i'm jobless.

got three weeks (at least) before i get back to the states.

money is okay...

...but ideas: give me some ideas.

friends, here is a copy of an e-mail i wrote to the board of parole in georgia.  please, please, please...read and consider sending one yourself.  you can copy/paste mine, if you wish.

read about Troy Anthony Davis at the Daily Kos: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/7/5/153347/3246

or you can read about it at www.ncadp.org ...

Dear Members of the Board:

My name is Christina Ramon, a South Texas native who now lives in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia.  I write to ask that you please reconsider the case of Troy Anthony Davis, whose case is so compelling that I, who have never done this before, am writing to beg your pardon.

The severity of this case, and all the sadness it brings to my fellow citizens, is obvious: a man who chose to honor his state as a police officer was brutally murdered in Atlanta, an innocent man has been convicted of that treachery, and even worse--the real killer remains to be captured and duly punished.

I am without doubt that Troy Anthony Davis is innocent.  The murder weapon was never found, and 100% of the prosecution rested on witnesses who have since recanted their stories. 

I love our country and its privileges, but we who live with the right of freedom have to remember that it is sometimes reduced to a privilege, when innocent people are convicted of crimes they most certainlny did not commit.  We need to do our part, no matter what it costs, to give Troy Anthony Davis the freedom he inherited as an American man, the freedom he did not forfeit by committing a crime.

Please reconsider.  I am not in a position to persuade; you are.  Review the facts, please.  Think about Justice, and live up to your positions. 

Thank you, and please remember Troy Anthony Davis--

Christina Ramon

..NYT_INLINE_IMAGE_POSITION1 -->

FORGET the proverbial seven-year itch.

 

  Not to disillusion the half million or so June brides and bridegrooms who were just married, but new research suggests that the spark may fizzle within only three years.

Researchers analyzed responses from two sets of married or cohabitating couples: one group was together for one to three years, the other for four to six years.

While the researchers could not pinpoint a precise turning point — the seven-year itch, as popularized in the play and film about errant husbands, was largely a theory — they found distinct differences between the groups.

"We know the earlier ones are happier," said Prof. Kelly Musick, a University of Southern California sociologist. "The initial boost that marriage seems to provide fades over time."

Research also showed that the median duration of first marriages that end in divorce remains a little more than seven years, which means that those couples will likely spend more than half their married lives less happy than they were when they cut the first slice of wedding cake.

"Some folks start getting less happy at the wedding reception," said Larry Bumpass, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who wrote the study with Professor Musick.

Is there a three-year itch?

"There is not necessarily anything magical about year three," Professor Musick said. "We know that typically when marriages end in divorce, half end before seven or so years and half end after. This is the same idea."

Their analysis, which included unmarried, cohabitating partners but not gay couples, was based on the National Survey of Families and Households, a national

sample of 9,637 racially diverse households conducted by the University of Wisconsin Center for Demography and Ecology. The research, coupled with a survey released today by the Pew Research Center, provides an intriguing look at an ethereal part of marriage. Everyone knows the first blush of love is the strongest, but measuring how long it will last and whether that bliss is unique to marriage has always fallen more into the category of "here's what my mother says" than something quantifiable.

In an academic paper they completed last year that analyzed earlier findings from the national surveys, Professors Musick and Bumpass compared responses to questions about how couples described their relationships, how often they fought and over what, and how they would envision their lives if they separated.

The research doesn't address whether blissful 21st-century relationships are any more or less enduring than they were in the 20th century, so it may be that happy coupledom always came with a three-year expiration date. With nonmarital childbearing more common and women more economically independent, "What's keeping people together is their love and commitment for each other," Professor Musick said, "and that's fragile."

Anecdotal evidence suggests that the findings have some foundation.

Bart Blasengame, a 33-year-old freelance writer from Portland, Ore., was with his former fiancée for three years. "I felt like, by year three, we were both forcing it," he recalled.

"It's the whole cliché of pursuit," he said. "Your dates are planned out like some Drew Barrymore romantic comedy with unicorns and rainbows. By year two, we were cruising along, living together, relatively happy. But from a growth standpoint things had started to atrophy. We were happy, content is a better word, but there was no spark."

But the evolving rules of marriage provide both opportunities and pitfalls, Professor Musick said. "There may be greater potential to find fulfillment in relationships," she said, "but that possibility and the expectations that come from it may lead to greater disappointment for some" if the expectations aren't fulfilled.

Her bleak statistical assessment of the durability of enchantment is one of several new findings about relationships and marriage in America. In a word, the State of the Unions is precarious.

Even with the nation's population increasing, the number of married Americans age 21 to 54 has declined slightly since 2000 — apparently for the first time, as measured by the Census Bureau. In the first decade of the 21st century, the proportion of Americans in every racial and ethnic group who were never married has continued to grow by double digits.

The United States is far from embracing Europe's postmarriage model or its much higher rates of nonmarital births. Most Americans surveyed this year by the Pew center, in fact, still say marriage is an ideal, if a more elusive one.

While roughly 9 in 10 American adults eventually marry, the time they spend married has declined sharply, in part because they are marrying later and living longer as widows. Moreover, the Pew survey found that 79 percent of Americans say a woman can lead a complete and happy life if she remains single. The comparable figure for men was 67 percent.

While married couples generally say they are more satisfied with their lives, younger adults are far less likely to stigmatize alternatives such as living together and having children out of wedlock, according to the Pew telephone survey of 2,020 adults, which is available at www.pewresearch.org.

The Pew survey found that nearly half of Americans in their 30s and 40s have cohabitated. Among all adults, a minority (44 percent) said that living together without getting married was bad for society (only 10 percent said it was a good thing), although the Pew survey concluded that "by providing an alternative to marriage, cohabitation for some appears to diminish rather than strengthen the impulse to legally marry."

In general, married people are presumed to be happier and better off, but Professor Bumpass, who found that most marriages nowadays are preceded by cohabitation, and Professor Musick questioned whether those benefits were unique to marriage and whether they are stable over time.

"We conclude that the boundaries between marriage and cohabitation may become increasingly blurred," Professor Musick said.

As for the three-year itch, Byron Lester, a 49-year-old information technology administrator from Bloomfield, Conn., is well suited to consider it. Married three years and two months ago, he said the secret to success is often in the details. "Little things really do mean a lot," he said.

Mr. Lester said he abandoned his cherished newspaper reading during dinner because that is when his wife most enjoys conversation. "And I think she's adapted to watching more sports," he said.

Marriage rates vary widely by race, ethnicity, education, income (63 percent of white women over 18 who make more than $100,000 are married; 25 percent of poor black women are). Soaring divorce rates have leveled off, most experts agree, but one reason may be that the dissolution of live-in relationships are not taken into account.

Raoul Felder, the celebrity divorce lawyer whose favorite aphorism is that marriage is the first step on the road to divorce, says marital longevity has fallen victim to the velocity of our souped-up society.

"We're all addicted to a television-clicker lifestyle," he said.

But a dissipation of that all-enveloping rapture is no reason to give up on a relationship, many people insist.

"At times, sure, I'm bored," said Sean Meehan, 51, a therapist from West Hartford who has been married for 14 years. "Who isn't? But you talk about it with your spouse and you can switch things up."

"People are so used to everything being disposable," he said. "They throw out diapers, lighters, coffee cups, so they can throw out a marriage."Dr. Ruth Westheimer, the sex adviser, cautioned, too, that the notion of a three-year itch can become self-fulfilling. "How dangerous it is to say something like that," she said. "From now on, everyone who's getting married will say it will last three years and then I will have to look for someone else."

Or, as Paul D. Neuthaler, a divorce mediator in Westchester, said: "The fizzle tends to bubble out within a three- to five-year period when the basis for the marriage was purely physical or related to some attraction not closely associated with each partner's essential character."

Another new study, by Prof. Evelyn Lehrer of the University of Illinois at Chicago, contradicts the chestnut that women who marry later are more likely to divorce. She found that with both men and women marrying later than ever, later marriages seem to last longer.

Stephanie Coontz, director of public education at the Council on Contemporary Families, a research group, said: "We're getting close to a 180-degree turn in many of the rules about what makes marriage work and not work. The marriages of college-educated couples are becoming more stable."

Professor Musick is happily married herself — "mostly," she says — and will celebrate her third anniversary this fall. "My honeymoon," she mused, "is almost over."

Whatever the trends, marriage and relationships are in an unusual state of flux, as they were for baby boomers. With so much room to maneuver, younger couples have fewer firm markers to guide them.

In the film "Knocked Up," Ben beseeches his father for advice after his one-night stand results in a pregnancy.

"I've been divorced three times," his father replies. "Why are you asking me?"