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Day’s Verse:
I will sing of the lovingkindness of the Lord forever;
To all generations I will make known Your faithfulness with my mouth.
Psalm 89:1
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I have a big picture blog in the works, covering about four major events I’ve photographed lately, but it’s taking a long time. That’s why I haven’t posted for a bit. I thought I would just drop a line to say that work at Commonside is going well; we’re starting to implement my work thus far. Today we made T-shirts based on my design, and people will wear them on Saturday! It’s quite exciting to see the fruit of my labor this way, since I’m used to putting in lots of work for classes and having it sink into oblivion after I complete it. This project is just the opposite, in that this stuff will last them a long time; my work here isn’t the majority of its value, but only starts the ball rolling. I cannot say how great it is to know that I’m doing something that makes a positive difference for this group. Hopefully my future career will allow me to feel the same sense of purpose and meaningfulness as I do at Commonside.

Last night the fire alarm went off at 1:50 am. I had gone to bed early, feeling dizzy, and when that woke me I still felt busy. Trooping down the stairs, trying not to tip into people, I vaguely thought that if this was a real fire, we people on the 10th floor would probably have burned to death. It’s a long, slow shuffle down the stairs. When I woke up in morning for good I still felt horribly dizzy and out of sorts, so I took my time: did laundry, made pancakes for breakfast, bought shampoo and conditioner (53p for both. Oh yeah). Eventually I felt a little better and left for Commonside, where I arrived at 12:30 after the usual hour-and-a-half commute. I’m getting very tired of the Northern line between Stockwell and Morden/Colliers Wood. I worked hard all day, serving as an American curiosity for two small girls who appeared in the office for a while, and left at 5:30. I had intended to go to Morden and search out a particular person called Sara to talk to about the historical aspect of the project, as well as visit the Pollards Hill Library on the same mission, but somehow it just didn’t happen today. The research part just falls by the wayside if there’s anything tangible for me to do for the ladies there. And before she left for two weeks, Selena left me with a hefty list of things she wanted me to complete for them. All those took immediate precedence, of course. On the way home I bought some books at the bookstore out of desperation for something to read. I hope they’re good, because they were expensive.

I saw a sad thing on the bus to Colliers Wood from Pollards Hill today. It was a girl/woman, rather overweight, heavily made-up. She had slashes on her left forearm that looked quite deliberate, and she drank heavily from a screw-top bottle of exceedingly cheap wine. At the bus stop she smoked quickly. On her cell phone she talked, loudly, brashly?, about somebody pushing her down a flight of stairs — I think her dad. It broke my heart to see her and hear her. Yet directly in front of us a small boy sat grinning broadly the whole time, showing his gap teeth and face all aglow. If we so much as tweaked our lips towards a return smile his eyes scrunched and his own smile grew even broader. These two people on one bus, what different lives and different possibilities. My heart aches for the one and joys for the other.