I was thinking about the incredible feelings of discovery awaiting me everyday while I was studying in Barcelona. I miss waking up in my small, little-cubicle-of-a-room; no natural light source, grabbing my café con leche, and feeling like there was the greatest possibility for happiness in the new day. The opportunity for adventure, being ever-present in the most mundane of actions pervaded my every moment. Walking down Las Ramblas after classes and watching sunlight dance across the face of a stranger; dodging and weaving in a sea of people of all shapes, and all colors; running to the beach; or just walking around the neighborhood; these things provided me a sense of living life to its depth, and fullness. I really felt connected.

In contrast, I am here. Bremen, IN USA. The snow falls outside my window right now, and I wonder how I can possibly drudge through another holiday season. Perhaps, the antithesis of everything I loved about Barcelona is represented in this Christmas season. Everyone is preoccupied with huddling around formality and tradition... contrived and stale mockeries of what goodwill and openness are supposed to be are ever present. These principals are often only ever spoken with words, and as a whole, hardly ever worked out by hands. Even when goodwill and openness are totemized in candlelight services, after those services, when the burning wicks of the nativity candles are snuffed out, middle class families go home to warm houses and open presents they worked all year to save up money for... When Christmas is over, and all the presents have been unwrapped, we go back to our daily, and for the most part unfulfilled lives. We abandon goodwill, and settle for survival, and normalcy. I don't blame anyone but our system... Of course. We live in a culture saturated with the idea of material happiness and security, it is our true totem. Our happiness is the happiness we see, broadcast from boxes lighting homes with pale blue light. Maybe I'm being too cynical. Maybe I'm just angry. Maybe I can't find meaning in this holiday, because I feel isolated in this little town. I have lots of time on my hands to think about why I'm sitting in a house alone, while those around me are working hard to give their families the "perfect" Christmas. There has to be something redemptive and gratifying about this time and place, right? If Christmas is as meaningful to everyone as it is supposed to be, I'm sure I can come across something for myself...
... I think if anything, the season is supposed to be about spending time with family and friends, and cherrishing each other... I think? At least, that's what it should be about. I think that's why there are so many advertizements for things families will need to make "the perfect christmas"...


Maybe I should budge a little; eat a cookie, drink some eggnog, sing a carol, light a candle. I'll do these things with intention, in the spirit of goodwill and openness. Be the change, right?

... in Barcelona, children huddle around a piece of cloth, covering their wrapped gifts (which is supposed to be Santa Claus), hitting him with a stick, chanting something about scaring him enough so that he defecates their presents...
Maybe I should hit Christmas over the head with a good-vibe stick until it poops me some presents... (figuratively speaking, of course). ... wish me luck... being blissfully optimistic in Bremen, IN has not been easy.