Today I went to Hyattsville Mennonite Church with Emily and Jess. This is the church that one of our professors in DC attends--Kim. We arrived early, and I didn't meet very many people. There was one person that we connected with while in the state of fellowship--her name is Annabeth. She was very kind, was a bit older than me, but had some good interests and a great attitude about what she was doing in DC. She was working in a garden, and the group was branching out to a women's crisis group, and were working to plant a garden in connection with that.
But it seemed that she was the only person that I connected with at that church. It seems that I am tired of visiting churches. It seems it's been a continuous thing I've been doing since my family moved last summer. I'm just getting used to the new church that we are currently attending (at home), and I'm good with the church my boyfriend's family attends, but I'm not really comfortable any church that I attended in Virginia--or in Pennsylvania (when I went to the Epps). The issue with this is that we have an assignment with our Faith and Urban Community part of the seminar class that we have to visit some churches and then compare them. I'm just churched out. I want to go back to a group that I know. I know everything changes. But I'm tired of being out of the loop. It's hard to go from a church that really knows you and you have one thousand inside jokes and know everybody's names, to a new church for three or four weeks before you have to go back to school and try again.
We were at the metro waiting for the train to arrive--weekends are so lame when it comes to waiting for trains--and so Jess and I decided to sing while waiting. It was fun, and then there was a guy listening and you could tell he really liked it, or he really liked us. Anyway, he interrupted us, and then asked us some questions, and talked to us through to his stop on the Metro, which was just one stop, so it was fine. His name was Nathaniel, and he asked us to get ahold of him if we ever wanted to find some good clubs, he said he'd be a good tour guide. He was interesting. He said he mixed music sometimes, and went to a studio. But both Jess and I decided that the only reason that either of us would go to a club was if it was with a big group, the club was free, and we would have to be in the mood.
Anyway, after church, I was planning to go to this brunch at the intentional community on Newton Street, and Jess came, though I know she did a bit more reluctantly than I would have hoped. It all changed when we actually arrived there. We stepped into this beautiful house, with great reused decorations like bike tires and the walls absolutely covered in postcards, letters, posters, art, inspirational EVERYTHING. I loved it! It was like a huge bedroom, so personalized.
We walked into a small table surrounded by a large amount of people, but they made room for more. Someone started saying Jess' name, and Jess soon realized that her friend from high school was in this intentional community. It was great. I sat in a yellow armchair that we had to rotate around to make room for anyone who wanted to escape out of that side of the table. I enjoyed some delicious eggs with broccoli and cheese, and a couple pieces of vegan french toast. There was also grapefruits, and cans of anchovies.
They went around the table several times with names (while eating), and then proceeded to do the wave a couple times, and one more time with Juliet's camera on the burst setting, capturing it.
Mike, the member of this intentional community that invited me, decided to try something weird. He combined the grapefruit with the anchovy and some hot sauce. Then ate it. It was entertaining.
I tried it later. It was an interesting mixture of flavors--the anchovy saltiness and the hot sauce hotness soon took over the entire tasting abilities of my mouth, but it was fine. I don't recommend it to those of the faint heart, though.
For a little while, there wasn't much going on, people were coming and going, and we were done eating, it was around then that Jess left, and I decided to hang around for a little while. Soon more people came, and more food was getting consumed. Then one of the two people there decided we should play the "Question-Answer" game--where one person writes a question, then the next answers it (without looking) and writes another question. Then all the papers were read after it was over. It was so funny, and great. I was sitting next to Anika, and was handing out utensils to write with, and handed what I thought was a normal #2 pencil to Mike, found out it was a pink erasable colored pencil, and giggled out loud, and Anika called me out on it. She said, "It's in your twenties that you start laughing at the things that you laughed at when you were seven."
When we were almost finished with that game, their Couch Surfers showed up. I still don't know the actual definition of a Couch Surfer, but it's basically someone who's in the city for the time being, and needs a place to stay, they look it up online, and get a couch. It's pretty simple and harmless--their guests were two young men--Yan and darnit-I-forget-the-other-guys-name--two German guys with backpacks who were attending a Physics conference with specifics on Magnetism. (LOL)
We played the "If-then" game after that, (same concept), then Mike had to walk his dog Christy, and several people headed out. At first it was just Anika, Mike, Christy, and myself, but we stopped at 14th and Monroe and waited for Juliet, who was coming with her camera. While waiting, Nadia and Drey passed on their bikes (also from the intentional community), and then we all walked Christy and went exploring through the neighborhood and alleys and taking pictures of interesting things. We ended up in this park near the Franciscan Monastery that had an ampitheater that hadn't been used since the seventies, so after an unsuccessful attempt to carve Anika's name into the tree, we went down to this leaf covered stage, with wood bleachers placed into the hill, and started doing improv. Nadia introduced the first act, as a scene of Siamese twins who become bunny rabbits. So Anika and I performed a comedic routine for the them, attached at the hip, getting surgery with the newest plastic surgeon techniques (a large stick separater), and then proceeded to jump around the stage. Other highlights--Nadia interpretively dancing to the Act of "What falls from the treetops", with me doing a vocal accompaniment. Then Mike's interpretation of the growth of an oak tree---he went from acorn falling off the tree (climbing a tree--the second time it was successful--, and "falling off" and rolling around like an acorn), to growing, and then being a full tree and losing another acorn (his hat). It was a great evening. Then we closed with the Sound of Music's "Goodbye" song, which no one actually knew. Then a father, his daughter, and two dogs of opposite nature came down the path from one direction, and tow park police from the other. We were all like, they did NOT call the cops on us for being in the park. And they didn't. The cops were just doing their rounds. But the little girl was completely adorable--she was carrying a plastic sword, and was a tiger hunter for the day. So priceless.
Then we walked back to my house. On the way, we walked down an alley and saw this car with a bashed out windshield that had been there awhile, so Anika and I decided to model on the broken car--"we're car saleswomen-models. We are working up to actual working cars."
We made it back to my house without more police (although we passed a police car and thought about modeling on it), and I went inside and realized that I needed to get going to the Peace Potluck after I had already made myself a brie sandwich (I may have to cut back on that Brie...). So then I headed out the door with a newly knit hat, a hand scarf, and a purple coat, and headed to Takoma Park, via Emily's directions, and I rode the Metro and then trekked to Mai Tri's house, which was a little further up the road than I thought, but I made it fine nonetheless.
I came in, sat right down, and immediately started a conversation with Jerica, who was a lively wonderful person to talk to. I knitted while we talked, and then she occupied some attention of a three year old with a Dr. Seuss book. They served the food, and there was pasta with eggplant (favorite of the night), veggie pizza, more cheese (hallelujah, I'm addicted to cheese), and a brownie with some attitude (aka Peanut Butter). I started talking to this girl names Elena because I had heard her name earlier (her friends were talking about her while we were in line) and I started to talk to her, and then three other girls joined us, and they all knew Emily Derstine, who they were MVSing with. I personally don't actually know Emily Derstine, but Jess does, we ran into her on the street when we were biking yesterday, and so it was really funny. Those girls were really nice, they said they'd met Ryan and Chris the same way I did--through Contra Dancing, and so it was nice to meet them. We are supposed to have a potluck with them at some point. I can't wait. It's not so intimidating now.
The actual Peace discussion was a little bit intense, as there were some people who turned a part of it into a debate and less of a discussion. I listened attentively at the beginning, but from where I was standing, toddlers were the main focus, so I enjoyed them, and I entertained one with my tongue stud. :P.
After the discussion, I helped with dishes, which was a lot of fun. I could tell that a lot of the people were very new to the intentional community, and they kept asking me where things went because they thought I was part of the intentional community. It was a lot of fun. I would love to live in an intentional community at some point in my life. They have two open rooms in their house right now, but the timing isn't right. I need to finish school before I head off to big cities and do crazy things. But their newest member, named Brett, was a rather nice guy, and knew about Mennonites (there aren't a whole bunch of people that know who Mennonites are in DC, but I now know where to look).
I'm looking forward to getting to know them more.
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