Hi everyone,

I don't have a transcendent topic for today so I'll just update you.  

1.  I think I won my bout with insomnia.  Two days in a row I've been able to sleep! Hurray.  It might be too soon to call it, but I'm pretty sure it's school/stress related.

2.  I'm going to Abu Dhabi for studio next semester.  Yep I'm pretty psyched.

3.  I don't know what I'm doing with my life. 

4.  I have a gay husband via common law.

5.  My family is getting together in Florida for Christmas and my bro is coming sans gf.  Word.

6. The future, and how my present choices are impacting that future, and how the future does or doesn't influence my present choices, scare me.

Making lists is illuminating.

Sorry for being euphemistic. 

<3 

krayon

Dear World,

If you haven't noticed, things are going pretty badly.  Crime is up in the U.S., terrorism is breaking out all over the world.  I'm writing to you to plead with you.  I'm writing to say we can do better than this.  We have to do better than this.  If we've learned anything from these past eight years, it's that we can't fight terrorism with guns and soldiers.  We can't fight terrorism with strategies or threats.  Terrorism is a tactic and what's defined as "terrorism" is subject to whoever is defining it.  Terrorism comes from hate.  And a lot of the time that hate is understandable.  People have been repressed, abused, and their basic humanity trampled. These injustices breed hate.  And hate leads to violence.  So far our strategy to fight this hate has been more hate.  More violence.  Apparently violence only leads to more violence.  Who knew?

We are very much like animals really.  Dogs bite when they've been abused and they're scared.  We do the same thing. We lash out when we feel this is our only chance to fight back and the world has hurt us enough that we think our cowardly way is justified.

So what I propose is pretty simple and cliche.  I propose peace and I propose love.  I think at our most basic level every human being prefers peace to war, and safety to fear.  We would rather be hugged than punched and we would rather laugh than cry.  Every mother would rather raise her child in a place where he is safe than a war zone where bullets are flying.  We are not such complex creatures really.  

Hate makes us forget what we are, or rather, what others are. Hate makes us forget the humanity in others.  Hate convinces us that they are less human or less deserving of life.  Hate makes us forget that they laugh and cry and have families and memories and souls.  Hate is a powerful, terrible thing.  Hate is the only thing that could convince terrorists to kill at least 125 people in India, or cause such civil unrest in Somalia.  

But we were not born creatures of hate.  Undoubtedly love has been and can continue to be more powerful than hate.  What if we could pause this mess and look each of these gunmen in the eye, ask them what they want, ask why they're doing what they're doing, tell them there's a better way, and that God loves them, and that they don't have to do this.  Maybe they'd keep shooting, maybe not.  I hope that if we could separate these killers from their group mentality they'd come to their senses.  I still believe the humanity in their eyes is the same as that in mine.  

Life isn't so black and white unfortunately.  I can't comprehend what could drive people to kill, but I'm sure there's some twisted logic and a chain of events behind it.  But I'd say any time hate drives us to do anything, it's wrong.  The result of injustice need not always be hate - instead we could strive for justice.  There's a difference between revenge and a longing to make things right.  Revenge is reactionary, forgiveness is revolutionary.

So what I propose is this and it starts with each of us.  What if every time someone pissed us off, cut us off, wronged, hurt, teased, or cheated us - what if we put ourselves in their shoes.  What if we said "Yeah that sucks, but they're just doing this because they've had a bad day or because their mom is in the hospital or they lost their job."  What if we began with forgiveness instead of hate.  What if we really put their predicaments over our own hurt pride?  I think Jesus was the only person who really pulled this off.  What's crazy is that before Jesus there was no forgiveness.  There was no getting something for nothing.  Every wrong had to be righted through penance and sacrifice.  But since he showed up, there's no need for revenge or reciprocation.  He's got it covered.  Now we're free to forgive.  And forgiveness can only come from love.  

So there we have it.  If we forgive and love others we're free to live our lives and work for peace.  All the good things are connected, and so are the bad things.  If we don't forgive then we can hate.  Hate makes us want revenge.  Hate convinces us that others aren't human so violence is ok.  But revenge never rights anything.  It just makes things more wrong.

This isn't really a solution for terrorism now.  I don't know how to stop that.  I don't know how to stop things on a global scale.  All I know is change starts with each of us, and love never fails.  So...what do you think world?  You want to do better?  Because I know I do.  I love you.

-k

Favorite things

Fat squirrels

Smiles to/from strangers

Artists with angelic voices (Alison Krauss, The Wailin' Jennys, Sarah MacLaughlin) 

Staying in bed too long when it's cold

Slow, quiet, late breakfast with coffee and the paper

Finding lost things

Losing found things?

Flannel pajamas

Phillies Win.

So for those of you who've been living under a rock for the last weekend, the Phillies won the World Series!  I'm still a loyal Cubs fan of course, but it was never-the-less exciting to be here for this historic victory.  My post may be trite but as it speaks to both city planning and Philadelphia issues, I'll continue.

Sports bring people together.  At first it sounds like a shallow connection: I like the Phillies and so do you, what's your point?  However, this weekend's post-victory events revealed some of sports' deeper virtues.  

The love of a team transcends demographics.  On Wednesday night after the Phillies win, my two friends and I sprinted from a bar in West Phila. to catch the first cab or bus that would take us downtown.  Plenty of others had the same idea, and as we stood at the corner every single car that passed honked its horn.  People hung out of car windows to slap hands with those outside.  We jumped up and down and yelled and cheered with each other "Go Phils!"  White kids, black kids, young kids, old kids, women, men, everyone, all of us, the whole city was so excited that nothing else mattered.  James and Matt and I couldn't wait any longer so we just started running down the street.  We ran about 6 blocks before we caught a bus to take us to Broad street.  The street was filled.  Packed.  Everyone was chanting and laughing and giving each other five.  Nothing mattered except for a mutual victory.  It wasn't just for a team, but for a city, and for everyone rooting for the Phillies everywhere. 

Now economic planning often shows that building a new stadium isn't worth the city's investment.  I'm inclined to agree.  But I think the value of having a professional sports team runs deeper than mere economic analysis.  Economically speaking, sports bring people into the city and therefore people spend money in the city on dinner and drinks and on transit (where transit exists).  Culturally speaking, sports create a realm of inclusion in which everyone can participate.  They give us something to cheer for together.  

The beauty is this: it doesn't take much to be a sports fan.  Sure, there are people who know everything about every game and every player and every rule; but just by virtue of living in a place you can call yourself a fan of their teams.  My grandmother's first question to my dad after he told her about meeting my mother was "Is she a Cubs fan?"  Grandma Vi didn't know that much about baseball but she knew it was a family value.  You don't have to have money or education to appreciate a walk-off home run or a full count, two outs, bottom of the ninth strike out.  When your team loses you're devasted.  When they lose for a season (or 28 seasons in the Phillies' case, or 100 seasons in the Cubs case) it hurts.  The whole city mourns.  But when you win the whole city rejoices.  A collection of people is united in devotion to a game.  How simple.  How elegant.  The stakes feel so high at the moment, but even if they lose it's not like losing a war.  Sports offer a break from daily life.  They create a melange of sensory experiences - peanut shells underfoot, hot summer day, sitting still, drinking a beer.  They also bridge gaps between generations.  I love that I cheer for the same teams as my father and grandfather.  I love that all I know of baseball I learned from them, incrementally, over the course of 23 years' worth of baseball games.  

I could keep espousing the personal value of sport but I'll let the events speak for themselves.  The Phillies' victory parade on Friday brought over 2 million people to downtown Philadelphia on Friday.  That's about 500,000 more people than the city's official population.  Even if you think sports are trite, the ability of a game to bring so many people together to celebrate a single event is undeniably astonishing.

Precis: Netherlands

Hi friends,

It's been about a month and I don't know where to begin updating you. The most obviously exciting part was my trip to the Netherlands. Our studio project is to make a plan for the Delaware River Basin about how climate change, especially regarding sea level rise, will impact the area. So we went to the Netherlands and met with all sorts of different officials and spatial planners and professors in different cities to ask questions and compare our problem to theirs. What did we learn? Our problem is nothing like theirs. The Netherlands is entirely planned and engineered down to the smallest acre. All of their trees are evenly spaced. There's no truly "natural" land in the country. Interestingly, Hurricane Katrina's effect on New Orleans was an important event for nearly every one we spoke with. I guess it was a wake-up call and a worst-case scenario if the Dutch dykes ever failed. Don't worry tho - they won't. Their levees are built to a 1/10,000 probability of failure. The New Orleans levees are currently being rebuilt to a 1/100 level. The Dutch think this is stupid. I think so too.

But it was definitely interesting to see our country from another perspective. They think that the states should take more control of things like levees. Because their country is so small and water is their only problem, they can master it and apply that everywhere. Our country is large with a multitude of natural threats - hurricanes, earthquakes, forest fires, tornadoes, etc. Here, people in the Midwest don't really care to spend tons of money fixing levees down in the South, because that's not a relatable Midwest problem. We regionalize these things rather than accepting them as national problems.

In general, the Dutch are very kind. They're just as smart as Germans but they have a sense of humor. They were genuine and excellent hosts. Every meeting had frequent coffee breaks - "We Dutch never start a meeting without a cup of coffee." They also were interested in our problem, interested in collaborating, and interested in whether we liked the Netherlands. There was certainly less anti-American sentiment than I've experienced in visiting other countries. In my opinion, Mary is the only Dutch person I've met in America who reminds me of the Dutch in Holland. The rest of the Calvin College Dutch are poor representations of their ethnic motherland (haha, i'm mostly kidding). The difference is being genuine and open versus conservative and closed? I'm grossly generalizing but I hope you get my drift. I suppose that's why those families emigrated from Holland to Holland MI in the first place?

Besides the people, the country itself is rather beautiful. For those of you who've been to PEI, they're pretty similar, except PEI is way more hilly. The weather is cloudy and chilly but very dynamic. The sun frequently peaks out throughout the day although it's rarely static. Canals roll through all of the brick city blocks. And everyone bikes on those old-school granny bikes. Everyone bikes. Bikes everywhere. When you cross the street you cross a bike lane, a pedestrian lane, a car lane, a tramway, and repeat. It's crazy. So many modes! Planner paradise!

One of the most beautiful sites I witnessed was this: around 4:30 in the afternoon, an 18-year old bikes up to a shop. A girl walks out and sits side-saddle on the rack on back and they ride away. That's how you pick up your girlfriend from work in the Netherlands. That's life.

Of course I have more to tell, but writing it down is harder than saying it. So if you've got more questions we'll just talk on the phone. My class definitely bonded and it was nice to get to know some people better. There were some Phila. city officials on the trip with us and they rented bikes one day and then didn't want them. So a friend and I tried our hand at the biking-someone-else-around thing. It was super fun although a bit scary. I'll throw some pictures in here later.

Just wanted to update you, back to the grind.

<3
k

Believing in things

When P and I were in Chicago we went to the Jeff Koons exhibit at the Museum of Contemporary Art.  I definitely liked some of his stuff (see picture).  His statement talked about reintroducing a feeling of childlike wonderment.  These sculptures are huge and the force you to see all the little wrinkles and such as if it was a real balloon.  You also see yourself in the reflection.  The scale makes you feel small again.  The material makes you curious - what is that stuff?  How does it work?  How did he make this?  All of those questions are things kids ask all the time but we informed adults usually glaze over.  

Some of his other stuff was less cool and less effective.  We saw a little group getting lectured by the docent and talked b/tw ourselves about whether the artist intended everything the docent was saying or whether art critics just read into it all, whether post-conceptualization and serendipity and process make the product just as much as the initial concept does.  I said without thinking: "Art is something you have to believe in."  And it is.  It requires faith like believing in God or religion.  You have to make a jump because if you never buy into it then you'll never benefit from it.  

I think love is the same way.  You have to believe in it.  You have to believe it's true or that it can be true.  The world you live in is the one you choose to see.  If you don't believe love can be real then it will never be.  If you don't believe it's worth the investment of time and effort and emotion then it won't be.  

Sometimes I scoff at people with more faith than mine.  They believe in things I once did and I think they're foolish for doing so.  That's pretty arrogant and lame on my part.  I just realized that I also scoff at people in love sometimes.  And that's even worse.  I think they can't possibly be that happy, they're way too young to know what they're doing, or they just don't know what they're in for.  Above all things I want to believe in love.  I mean, I've seen it work and it looks like a good deal: my grandparents were married for 64 years.  That's the most beautiful thing I can think of in the whole world.  And my parents have been married 33 years.  They all got married really young and they made it.  

I think my generation's fears about marriage are permeating my idealistic Christian culture picture.  But if it comes down to believing in something hopefully and being in love idealistically, or fearing something and never believing in it enough to let it happen, I'm gonna go with the former.  It's not a question of believing in a happy lie or facing a sad truth.  The difference is that the belief creates the reality.  If you believe it can be good and special and real it will be, and if you believe it will be crappy and terrible and disappointing it'll be that.  In reality, love is both the good and the bad but the picture one paints determines which side triumphs.

My hungover thoughts on a Saturday "morning".

<3

K

Back to the city of brotherly love

Hi friends,

It's been awhile. Sorry about that. I kind of took a break from the computer if I wasn't at work. I read a lot of books and watched the Olympics this summer instead of surfing the web. Twas good times.

I'm back from New Orleans safe and sound. I feel bad that the storms hit right when I left. Fay came literally the day of my departure, and Gustav, that bastard, reared his ugly head a week later. I can't say how glad I am that Gustav wasn't as bad as he could've been. It was also good to see that evacuations went smoothly (relatively speaking). Hopefully this whole incident will restore everyone's faith in the city's ability to manage disaster, both New Orleanians and general Americans alike. I've been in contact with some friends but have yet to get a full report about re-populating the city. Hopefully that part goes well.

After a (too)brief jump back to Detroit and a few dreamlike days in Chicago, I'm back in Philly. I must admit I was more than a little anxious to come back. Who knows why? I guess my life feels hyper-compartmentalized sometimes so transitioning between worlds is disconcerting. Despite my fears, it was an easier adjustment than expected.

I've been moving into my new place these last few days, which is amazing. I'm sharing a rowhouse with three boys (scary right?) My room is big and beautiful as is the kitchen. The boys are great. Moving stuff in was a breeze with so many hands. I came downstairs two nights ago to find them sorting through everything in the kitchen, organizing and cleaning. They're clean! It's wonderful. I'm psyched. I whipped up these margarita-inspired sables au citron as my inaugural batch of cookies. They liked them. We're a happy little family.

I also caught up with most of my city planning friends at a party last night. I didn't realize how much I missed this great group of crazy kids. I can't say I'm ready to start school tomorrow (eek!) but I am glad to be back with friends.

I missed some things about this city. I like that I can easily walk everywhere I need to. Groceries, cafes, bars and restaurants are just around the corner. And like New Orleans, my neighbors here are friendly and say hello. I have yet to walkabout and fully reacquaint myself with the city as I've been busy unpacking and all that jazz. Hopefully this afternoon I can go for a long run around town.

School starts tomorrow. Did I mention that? Yikes. I'm definitely doing some class shopping. But I'm also excited for the semester. My studio class is doing a long-term plan for the water levels of the Delaware river, so we're traveling to Holland to interview officials there on how they do what they do so well. After living in New Orleans I think I'll be even more interested in the studio. Hurrah.

Well my loves, I should probably get back to work. I hope all is well and we talk (for real) sometime soon.

If you're reading this, I love you.

-k