#those of u who have been with me since I discovered mass effect in 2021 know this

[c-rowlesdraws]

“But, right now... I have this.”

Tali and Shepard catch the sunset on Rannoch. 🌅

[memorylang]

Easter: Redwoods, Light | #52 | April 2021

I write from Vegas, having returned after spending most of this spring in Reno. Life has been well. I feel adjusted to being back in the States a year. Every so often, objects and settings still remind me of last year’s evacuation from Mongolia. I still have the interest I’d had in trying to improve the lives of those around me. I still plan to return to Mongolia as soon as pandemic conditions permit.

This month’s blog story reminds me of cycles. Attending a virtual Open Mic Night at the conclusion to this month's “Culture of Creativity Workshops” featuring overseas alumni, I felt called to tell our folks there about this very blog story that I hadn't yet finished. A fellow participant suggested my theme of cycles. I'd spoken of how events that happen throughout time, how our feelings come and go. So here it is—My Easter 2O2I tales of cycles, light and renewal!

Back to Vegas

I returned to Vegas tasked by my father to continue to sort my belongings, tend to the yard and help my older brother and his girlfriend clean the kitchen since their recent move back to the house. Early in March, I’d visited the house with my siblings, and I’d intended originally to spend Holy Week here, too. But my college parish had many functions, including a friend’s baptism, Knights’ service events and opportunities for me to continue to help with the recordings of Sunday Proclamations of the Word. Palm Sunday’s and Good Friday’s were special highlights. Anyway, I'd opted to stay in Reno for Lent’s remainder into Easter’s first weeks.

Easter in Reno

Being in Reno for most of this April instead of in Vegas like last year, I enjoyed seeing trees blossom. A highlight of this Easter season has been its many serendipitous moments. This is also noteworthy because I'd listened to the "Tao of Pooh,” which noted spontaneity as among the good spiritual life’s fruits. A spiritual director had told me something similar not long before I'd graduated college.

Days before Easter Sunday itself (U.S. Year 2, Week 5; April 2–8, 2O2I), I enjoyed getting the opportunity to lector at that Mass. It was a small Mass, but I felt glad to be in person for the greatest celebration of the Christian year since all had shut down last year. Later this Easter Octave, I’d gotten to both lector and serve at a family's confirmation Mass. That too felt lovely.

Serendipity hadn’t stopped there! I’d caught up with an ol’ friend at Rancho San Rafael Park not far from the Uni and later biked with another friend at North Valleys Regional. My bike itself I’d bought from a rummage sale the day before on an unexpected adventure in a U-Haul truck to help our student coordinators collect furniture in the morning after they’d asked whoever could help. Thus, that Wednesday night they’d requested help, Thursday morning I’d joined them to Gardnerville and the rectory, and Friday night I was biking with a friend. The last time I recall riding in a U-Haul was over a dozen years ago when I was 11, my family moved from Indiana to Vegas.

My youngest sister has also been encouraging me to practice my licensed driving by borrowing her vehicle to and from our parish. I’d visited so often that staff offered me a key to simplify visits to my "home away from home away from home." I’d felt touched because I could go on walks around our pretty campus without worrying about getting locked out when I was alone. The flexibility gave me peace recently on my U.S. Year 2, Week 8 (April 23–29, 2O2I), when midday I’d needed to drop by my Honors College alma mater’s office to help print a letter I’d written to graduating seniors for our Honors Alumni Task Force.

Also at church, I’d gotten to participate in a few of our Alpha sessions hosted by a diaconate candidate whom I’d interviewed back in 2OI8 on my diocesan public relations internship. I'd heard about Alpha first back in Mongolia from a kind Evangelical Mongol. Anyway, the diaconate candidate, student coordinators and Alpha participants have been great conversation partners.

Beyond these, our pastor had driven me to my first Pfizer vaccine dose, lent me films and advised my reading! On one occasion, he even let me bring Holy Communion to a friend of mine. Such activities have kept me from feeling too distressed amid research writing and revisions. Parish support has made my “happy contentment” quest kinder.

Redwoods National and State Parks

This year’s Easter Octave concluded for me with another trip with my national parks friends (U.S. Year 2, Week 6; April 9–I5, 2O2I). This trip, I’d anticipated especially. As a young lad in Indiana, I’d felt mesmerized by the photos of massively tall California trees noted in our science textbooks. Thus, from an early age, Redwoods imprinted themselves in me.

At these national and state parks, epic scenery of old-growth forests, mountainous hills and valleys beside the coast astounded me. I hadn’t seen the Pacific Ocean since January 2O2O when I’d flown back to Mongolia from Vegas via San Francisco. I felt surprised by how many months had passed since my last overseas adventure.

At the loop completing the Tall Trees Grove trail, I found a special place. My peers had gone ahead while I stayed behind to take photos, record videos and capture audio. I hadn’t expected to find at the trail’s end a creek filled with still other trees—vast ones, like those that I’d seen in subtropical Asia but different.

I basked in these trees. While taking photos, I also discovered my phone has a virtual reality setting. I tried it out, remembering undergrad extra credit VR photography projects. I’d wanted to journal at least something.

“Daniel!” my peers called from some distance down the path. I couldn’t see them, but their voices echoed well enough. I called back something to the effect of, “I’m here!” I still wanted to get a good fill of this park. Here’s what I journaled:

[11:45 a.m.] Redwood, National Park, end of Tall Tree Grove along the creek zone is this phenomenal section of mossy trees with winding branches. Here I discovered my VR. [A woman paused, passing me, “You must be Daniel.”] 19IO–I96O, so many of these trees that used to be across Humboldt, Eureka, Arcata were cut down. The smells… the scents, the mosses, the ferns, the light. Beyond.

Mid-journaling, I paused because a mid-aged woman who was passing by smiled and acknowledged that I must be the "Daniel" she'd overheard about. I smiled yes and reveled in the gorgeousness that surrounded us. She affirmed and mused how this park’s name should be changed like, “Redwoods and Other Trees and Lose-Your-Brother-in-the-Forest National Park.” She added how in the early half of last century, these very types of trees once blanketed far more Northern California, across the very counties through which my friends and I traveled to get here.

I later journaled again after sprinting much of the uphill trail back to my friends. We then saw the “Lady Bird” Johnson trail, then a confluence of the Klamath River and Pacific Ocean (where there were seals!) and finally Trillium Falls. I’d written this about the final hike:

So hypnotic. [...] Dodona’s Grove* vibes from the Trillium hike after the Falls. Whispers from God. Endlessness.

*The Grove of Dodona is a prophetic forest from “The Hidden Oracle,” a book to which I’d listened amid the pandemic by an author I used to read in junior high and high school, Rick Riordan. While I wasn’t a huge fan of where he’d taken “The Heroes of Olympus” series’ finale, I'd often admired his picturesque locales.

My peers and I left the park by 6:45 p.m. The view from the road on which we departed reminded me of the bamboo forest in 安吉 Ānjí near 杭州 Hángzhōu. I’d seen it in 2OI7 during my first summer overseas and have rarely found comparable places.

Of Redwoods, I journaled too of how gleeful I’d felt to have hugged so many trees. A friend had complimented my writing when he mentioned that I don’t need to take so many photos. I added how photos help me remember what to write. I'll probably share my Redwoods photoset in May.

A carpet of moist, fallen leaves along the paved trails had reminded me of a Sunday morning path that my dad would take my siblings and me through for years at Spring Mill State Park in Mitchell, Ind.

Spring Retreat: Recognizing God’s Light

Beyond Redwoods, I'd stayed behind in Reno chiefly to participate in my college parish's Spring Retreat. This spring the student coordinators held it in Gardnerville, the same location where I'd enjoyed it my senior spring. However, I'd had to leave early from it that year. It was my first and only of the eight semesterly retreats from which I'd left early.

That year, I'd left in order to co-emcee the Diocesan Youth Rally 2OI9. To my surprise, the youngest member on this year’s student coordinator team was likely at that same event when she was a high school student. Similarities like these gladdened me.

I felt renewed. This year’s theme, "Light in the Darkness" (Spring 2O2I), reminded me of "Ignite the Light," (Spring 2OI8), the year after my mother died. This time, however, I’d had more years to reflect and feel greater peace. Similarly, I've felt more peace being back in the States even though I'd prefer to be abroad. God’s light shines every day, in every moment of every person. I can see it.

Writing of seeing things, I’d also seen "WandaVision" and "The Falcon and the Winter Soldier" while up in Reno. I’d reconnected too with a Disney-loving college friend to get more Disney+ watchlist ideas. I’d seriously enjoyed the “Into the Unknown: Making Frozen II” docuseries. Both she and my college pastor led me to witness iconic performances by Julie Andrews in both "The Sound of Music" and "Mary Poppins."

Justice

April felt refreshing for a more challenging reason as well. Much of the month had featured on many channels coverage from the trial over the killing of George Floyd. I imagined that this would be a trial that my generation remembers for years.

I’d watched live various testimonies and even the closing arguments. Then, on that Tuesday, April 2O, 2O2I, afternoon, our nation heard the verdict—My pastor called it among the fastest traveling news.

I've been on the Social Justice Task Force of the American Psychological Association’s Society for the Psychology of Religion and Spirituality since last summer. Our Task Force had come together in response to the killing of George Floyd and subsequent renewed pushes across our nation for social justice.

Our task force has been meeting every other Tuesday night, after weekly fed Zoom fatigue. Our meeting that Tuesday fell on the night of the guilty verdict. But, this justice felt cathartic only somewhat. More shootings filled the media. Our task was far from over.

Still, I’d another reason to celebrate. That Tuesday marked my last advocacy meeting on behalf of the National Peace Corps Association to offices of Nevada’s lawmakers this March–April. All told, I’d coordinated and met virtually with offices of the U.S. Congresspeople Horsford, Titus and Lee as well as Senator Rosen. And Representative Titus herself attended our meeting! She was very kind. So, I felt relieved to have finished those duties for now.

Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month

Next month (May) begins Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. I've decided to tell a #StopAsianHate story. Given America's centuries of racism toward Asians, I don't enjoy the subject. But, I’d had an experience on my Week 5I (Feb. 19–25, 2O2I). It reminded me the importance of continuing to tell stories so that we can promote diversity and inclusion.

I was on one of my Reno walks that cold winter. As usual, I'd pass by the local elementary school. I'd paused to check my phone. The time was while children were at recess. They played opposite a chain-link fence a few yards down a hill from where I stood.

At first, I didn't think that the kids were talking to me. So, I paid them little attention. Then their voices sounded closer, in greater numbers.

I hadn't decided whether to acknowledge the children but decided to finish my walk. My walk brought me along the fence. From my right periphery, I saw a clump of children gathering, following. They certainly addressed me.

I heard what sounded like slurs against Asians that I won't repeat here but also questions that I will repeat here.

The kids asked if I was homeless, whether I'm an orphan, whether I speak English. I reflected on these. I was wearing a big scarf from Mongolia, a hefty hand-me-down winter coat and wide, secondhand jeans, frayed at my ankles. But I hadn't spoken a word to the kids.

Their questions themselves weren't offensive. Yet, the children’s tones reminded me of the mocking ones I'd heard in middle school when boys made fun of me for caring more about good grades than getting girlfriends. (Little did the boys know, girls I liked tended toward good grades.)

Anyway, these kids seemed to have negative implications behind positive responses to their questions. This upset me. After all, homelessness, being an orphan and not knowing English are not inherently bad things. For, often, people do not choose to go without a home, parents or American English. So why might these children ask these degradingly?

I felt perturbed by the realization that these children would find pleasure in mocking people who they suspect are without homes, parents or English skills. Yet, from this, I felt a glimmer of solidarity. I'd heard directed toward me what seemed unkind speech. This may help me relate to Asians who hear slurs, to those without homes, to those without parents and to those perhaps struggling with English.

My parents tend to insist too that I buy new clothes, though. Given our world's rampant consumerism, I find second-hand ones quite fine. "Form follows function." I wish that more folks would appreciate hand-me-downs and thrifting.

Nuance

Curiously, as I continued past this chain-link fence, a somewhat pudgy boy of color asked with a wide grin for money for Taco Bell. Truthfully, I didn't have money on me. I calmly answered the questions, not pausing from my walk. I guessed the kids dismissed the homeless guess/joke. I noticed thankfully that they wore face masks. We’re still in a pandemic, after all.

The boy's questions made me wonder about his family life. True, he could have been joking. But I remembered, many of the boys who'd picked on me in middle school had been living in a neighborhood that many people called not a “good” part of town.

In light of the visibility that Black Lives Matter has had in the past year, I've tried to grow more aware of how cruel predominantly White societies can be toward Black, indigenous and other peoples of color. I recalled learning when I was little that, often those who bully had been bullied themselves. Sociology interests me.

Thus, when these playground children said potentially questionable things to me, I wasn't sure whether to intervene about the slurs or micro-aggressions or what I'd say.

As I neared the fence’s edge to complete my pass by the school, I overheard a girl's or maybe a woman's voice call the kids to stop wasting their free time. I'm glad that someone spoke up. Compassion is the answer, especially in light of hurtful things.

I’m still unsure whether my general silence was helpful or problematic. But the experience caused me to think. For, children learn fast. Innocence is invaluable. My generation's problems and those of that above ours replicate in youths the longer we fail to act.

I’m glad that folks are speaking up these days in hopes to #StopAsianHate. Social justice mustn't sleep.

Language Six

On April 2O2I’s last day, I hit my 365-day streak on Duolingo!

Over the past year, I’d focused on Latin, Spanish and Chinese. Having finished every lesson and level Duolingo had for Latin, I started dabbling in German. While I’ve no intention to extensively pursue German (yet, at least), I’ve enjoyed how its lessons help me see from where many non-Latin roots reach English.

I’ve been dipping into my Germanic heritage on Dad’s side again lately. This began about when I’d seen “The Sound of Music” then reconnected with my distant relative who’s researched more of our shared Austrian and Volga German forefathers and mothers. Turns out that my relative had personally written to and received a postcard from the real Maria von Trapp!

I've grown to like more German language. "The Sound of Music" and how Spotify has Disney soundtracks in German help. Besides listening to vocalists like Namika, I’ve also gotten into LEA, Manuel Straube, Julia Scheeser and even Willemijn Verkaik! This is probably just a phase, but it’s certainly fun.

Every language I’ve sought to learn has at least one Spotify playlist. For recent films I’ve seen, like "Mary Poppins" and "Mary Poppins Returns," I’ve cherry-picked tracks in German, Spanish and English. Though I don’t catch most words, I like to consider translators’ decision-making.

Summer Fun

I get my second Pfizer dose on Cinco de Mayo. By then, I hope to have channeled my Julie Andrews-inspired service of making things better than how I've found them. Later that vaccine week, on Mother’s Day, I’ll return to Reno with Tita and Papa.

May 14 will celebrate the Baccalaureate Mass of lovely student coordinators and friends from undergrad. Then comes the 2Ist birthday of my youngest sister and will also mark when I’m fully inoculated, May 19! Pentecost comes May 23. Then will be May 3O, the wedding of two of my undergrad coworkers, including a fraternity brother. We'll have a mini staff and fraternal reunion!

After that, I look forward most to a Seattle trip at my 24th birthday. National parks friends and I are flying up to see Olympic National Park. It’ll be my first time to see further into the Pacific Northwest than Ashland, Ore. My younger (not youngest) sister got a job in Seattle, so I’ll be surfing her couch for part of my visit. Super stoked to reconnect with friends from high school, college and Peace Corps in the city! Even my married friends with whom I'd spent New Year's Eve the past couple years plan to visit me there.

This April my siblings and I reviewed our first scholarship applications for a Foundation that we’d founded to honor our late mother, who was Chinese. So, with next month and the fourth anniversary of her passing, I’ll share Foundation experiences, I think. Along with those, graduations and celebrations await!

You can read more from me here at DanielLang.me :)