adpt.

i am increasingly amazed at the human capacity to adapt.

this amazement come from sources of sadness: how women and children cope with forced labor or prostitution, how the human brain quickly adapts and transforms in response to even just one use of a psychoactive drug, how the homeless people in the harbor by me sleep and survive.

it also comes from sources of intrigue: a woman marrying into a home that has no electricity/running water, minus the three hours they run the generator, a friend living in ethiopia for a summer.

and it comes from my own past few months in chicago, particularly in the summer... biking as much as i can, living without air conditioning, living within many tensions.

i am discovering this as my desire/natural tendency to live by "formula" clashes with the reality of the unknown, unexpected and unpleasant.  i have had to adapt.  i have adapted.  i am adapting. 

this is also elicited by reading mark in preparation for a bible study i am leading.  you see jesus' life "immediately" take a new trajectory once he emerges from the waters, you can imagine what a "plunge-into-cold-water" shock simon, andrew, james and john experience as they move from mending and casting out nets into a whirlwind (all very "immediately") of teaching, healing and casting out of demons.  what was that adaptation like for each of them?  as you read chapter 1:1-39 you do not get a breath until the end when jesus wakes up early for coffee with papa.

did they adapt well or did was it more akin to the frustrating struggle i have felt?  or the resigning release of homelessness?  or the skeptical acceptance and following that feeds intrigue?

anyway.  adaptation.  going on what you thought was a 20 mile bike ride and instead being around 40.  having a massive cramp while running and figuring out how to respond.  being moved to tears by every homeless vet becomes glanceless indifference.  reading transcriptions of pimps talking about their "stable" of girls and their methods of subjugation becomes less shocking and more of a dull ache.  becoming used to being incredibly sweaty makes a cool, lake breeze even more delicious.  adapting to the quick meal of pasta and parmesean cheese results in a hamburger seeming like a feast.  absorbing a sad diagnosis and readjusting perception to savor more deeply what experiences you have.

amazing.  more to be said.  few words to capture.

. . .

at night, i put my bike away in our apartment basement.  to get to the door, you go past the dumpsters.  the other day, on a totally different street, i saw a HUGE rat scurry across the street into a yard.  now, i've acquired a fear and fantasy that the same types of HUGE rats will scurry to me and up my leg as i walk past the dumpsters, powerless because i am trying to wedge my bike in the awkward opening that is the door.

adaptation. :)