"maegen" means...

When I was in college I had a class in old English literature and of course, one of the texts was Beowulf. For the reading I had a bilingual English-Old English side by side version. I noticed a word in the Old-English verison which looked like my name, "maegen" which was translated as "strong."

Here at An Anglo-Saxon Heathon Wedding, "maegen" is described as a spiritual luck or power

However, the description at Northern Tradition Shamanism is much more interesting. "Maegen" is described as a type of honor that you can earn and lose for sticking to your commitments and your word.

"Those with strong maegen will be instinctively trusted more by those who sense it. It's more than just reputation, it's an actual force attached to the soul that can be felt and used."

Now, I'm not trying to get all weird pagan on you. But names are important. I've been in a country for two years where nearly everyone celebrates their "name day" or the day that is the feast of the saint for whom they are named. Some people don't exactly have saint names, but are named after a month, or a flower, which have their own celebration. Names also carry meaning, like "thankful" or "blessed." So I guess I'm just trying to recognize that very important part of who I am. It's my name, my ultimate label.

North of Ithaka

When I pick out books, I generally choose them based on their covers, unless of course I know what I'm looking for. So when I go to the Peace Corps office in Sofia ans shuffle through the stacks of books PCVs did not deem worthy taking home with them. I recently picked up a hard cover (something I generally avoid, since I'm usually burdened with enough meds and paper work and travelling supplies when I hit up our little library) with a bright, ethnic looking frame around the covers. North of Ithaka, by Eleni Gage. It's a decent read about a woman who goes to the village in Northern Greece from which her father escaped and in which her grandmother was executed. She returns to oversee the rebuilding of the family home. In the book she describes her insights into Greek culture, the random chaos that can ensue in remote village life, and the process of her integration into the community, as well as her de-integration.

I'm not finished with it yet, but I've found it while not spell binding, very interesting. I'm sorry if I offend any Bulgarian readers, but there are some distinct similarities between the culture she describes and the Bulgarian culture I have encountered. This part of Greece was also under Turkish rule and then run by the communists, like Bulgaria. What's more striking is the similarity of the process.

A woman goes far away, alone. She lives in a small town, alone. She learns about the culture, habits, and lifestyles. She becomes a part of the place. She completes her mission and return to life.

There are two small bits of the book that struck me deeply.
"To love a place
is to feel for it, to let it wound you so it leaves a scar, a permanent
keepsake."

"I didn't know when I'd be back, and I worried that the
people I know and loved would forget I had ever lived in Lia."

These days, years, tears, experiences have become so deeply apart of who I am and they will always be with me. They have shaped the frame of my soul and have redirected the path of my destiny. I must come to terms with the fact that if I come back to visit in two years time, life will have gone on for my friends. They have meant more to me than I have to them.

My dearest colleague and friend, Yulia, and I are going to be presenting some bits of each other's culture on our 24th of May celebration. The 24th of May is the day celebrating the saints Kiril and Metodi, the founders of the the Cyrilic alphabet. This is the biggest day in the world of Bulgarian education. I will be reciting a Bulgarian poem, "Аз съм Българче" or translated, "I am Bulgarian" but the diminutive form of the word Bulgarian, as if the speaker is a child. I should also prepare a bit of a speech in Bulgarian for the occasion. Where to start. I've started several times, in English and Bulgarian.

Не'м думи.

I have one of these too

Alright, I have a totally cute brother too. He will not be coming to visit me. Sadly. But he's done lots of visiting himself. He's visiting California right now learning how to do something... I'm not sure what exactly, but it has to do with loving the outdoors, being a leader, helping others to be leaders, and loving God. If you've heard of Youth With a Mission, and/or SOAR maybe you know more. If you're on board with him on any of those things, or just want to find out where he is in this amazing pic, I can hook that up.

So yeah.

other news? I was in Stara Zagora for the coolest eighty's party EVER. I'd post a pic but I haven't got any. Jessie. It's spring in my valley which means I'm constantly fighting something. There is at this moment a bug crawling up my wall. Uh, I hate those things. Not a roach though, so I can deal. Anyway, I have a nasty throat thing, of course.

super cute!

this is my super cute kid sister, elayna! she'll be here on June 22. can you believe we haven't seen each other in TWO years?!

i can't wait! eeeeeee (happy sound)

i stress less

Honestly, what will become of me?
Don’t like reality
Its way to clear to me
But really, life is daily
We are what we don’t see,
Missed everything daydreaming.
Flames to dust,
Lovers to friends,
Why do all good things come to an end?
Travelling I only stop at exits
Wondering if I’ll stay
Young and restless
Living this way I stress less
I want to pull away when the dream dies
The pain sets in and I don’t cry
I only feel gravity and I wonder why

-From “All Good Things” by Nelly Furtado


A few of my friends got together last night in Sofia to celebrate… one just returned from the states, one had a birthday, and another is finishing his service this week.

Walking home from the bus station today I felt a deep sense of sadness. Nostalgia for my life as it is now. I know that in fifty years time I will tell my grandchildren, дай Боже, that these were the best days of my life. Of course they haven’t been perfect, but oh they have. This is living. Perfectly alive.

When we parted ways today, it was difficult. Each time I give a goodbye hug, I have to take a mental inventory of my calendar for the next few months and work out if I’ll see him or her again. It will break my heart to leave these friendships.

I’m not so terribly naïve to believe that we’ll all keep in touch online as we do now. We will resume our lives in our respective states. We’ll go back to our friendships, start some new ones, and pursue our careers and academic pursuits. At best, we’ll Myspace each other for a few years. We’ll keep in touch like that – commenting on each other’s spaces – until our lives get too bogged down with life, or until the comments and pictures and information seems too foreign to be that person we remember and we realize we no longer know each other.

But we’ll always have these memories.

I was never a big fan of high school. And college was not a social experience for me. This must be how other people feel when they graduate high school, except I have the very real awareness that I will not always be friends with these people.

My counter part is my best friend here. She has helped me out of more situations than any friend should ever have to. She has given a tremendous piece of her life to me, as many counterparts do. She’s seen me through some of the stupidest, silliest, and most humiliating moments of my life, and she continues to invite me along, help me out, and most importantly trust me. Of all the people in my Peace Corps life, I simply cannot imagine my life with out her. And in just a few months my life will be very much with out her.

I am petrified about returning. I have no concept of how my life will be. There are so many experiences that have changed who I am which may cause difficulties in my fitting into the spaces I used to fit before. I am keenly aware of the deficiency of my friendships at home. Bulgaria has taught me some enormous lessons on friendship. I have had to fight to keep a friendship when it would be easier to let it dissolve. I have swallowed my pride to maintain a friendship. I have been more honest, more reflective, more helped, more involved. I have been less judgmental, less judged, less pretentious, less selfish, and less insecure. I have cried more and danced more. I have shared more and eaten more. I have never had such an abundance of friendship in America and I am afraid beyond belief that I never will again. Peace Corps puts all these random people in very similar situations and for this reason alone, I have met an incredibly diverse group of people. I’ve made friends I never would have made normally and am so glad of it!

How do I reconcile these feelings of happiness about going home and this sadness about leaving this life? I reckon this is an example of the dynamic that makes life worth living. Static is boring and useless. There is no pleasure with out pain.

Something else I just wanted to gripe about: I love Myspace, as you may be able to tell from all the previous references. But I have seen some spaces that make me ill. I see some spaces from people I used to be friends with in whatever previous era of my life and I just feel grrr toward them. It seems as if they are using one idea to fill up all the nothing in their lives. There are a couple of folks' spaces I've happened upon, who aren't actually my "friends," who blab all kinds of God talk all over their space. It's overwhelming. I'm a Christian (whatever that means... christian church, christian music, christian recording label, christian store, christian tee shirt, christian coffee mug, christian door mat), but I just don't understand.

From a psychoanalytical point of view, mine that is, which is the best of all armchair psychologists' points of view, I would have to question if these folks are not compensating for an insecurity. Right, like confident people don't have to tell people they are confident. What would you think of a person who all the time told people he was happy. Why do you have to shout about it all the time? Just be it!

Maybe that is the - a - problem with Christianity. We've lost the meaning of what it is so we run around shouting that we are one. We don't know how to identify ourselves with this idea in any better way than to draw it all over our spaces. But saying I'm a Christian doesn't make me one any more than my saying my hair is red makes me a red head.

I am a brounette, btw.

I'll leave it at that. I will not venture on the very hefty topic of what really is christianity. ... today