New Rhythm

Today I started my new job... it was nothing fancy; some HR forms, a mildly tragic vacation policy overview, the start of the training webinars and a skype introduction to the people I'll be working with. But you know what *is* fancy? The absence of panic. The body language of ease and a tone of voice that invites you in rather than pushes you forward. I hope that work is productive and meaningful, and that I get to have a positive impact on people who are doing what can feel like a very intimidating thing. I know that I'll get busy and there will be days I'll forget to eat lunch - there always are. But for the first time in a *long* time, I felt hope today with regards to my work. I felt like maybe there is a balance that can be struck, and hard, happy work that can be done. I can't express how foreign that feeling is, and how relieving. 

On Friday I had two friends over who both work in my field, and one of them said to me, "You know God looks after babies and fools!" I laughed out loud, but I do feel that today. God is looking out for this fool, making a way where I had resigned myself to there being none, for no other reason but Their own happiness at having my back. B always says that we just need to follow The Path... we might not know where it will lead, but it's going somewhere good. He has a lot of faith in that, developed over many years of The Path being a hot, terrible mess but then ending up somewhere good. I guess he's a fool, too, being looked after. We are lucky fools together. 

Happy Monday to you, friends. I hope you have a taste of some of the goodness of life today. 

A Refresher

I wrote this in 2015 while going through the citizenship process, but it seems very timely, frankly, and worth saying again.

During that process, I got to thinking  about citizenship, patriotism, community, the world… all the vast ideals... and was reminded of something that happened to me about 7 or 8 years ago, when I was a stay at home mom who spent a good deal of time each afternoon in the carpool line.

5th graders rotated through the responsibility of taking down the flag every day, and from the carpool lane I would laugh to myself as I watched them struggle to fold it and keep it from dragging on the ground. It seemed like a very ponderous process. But when my daughter reached 5th grade, I learned that it’s a big deal (remember, I didn't grow up in America). I didn’t know that the flag wasn’t allowed to touch the ground, out of respect. I didn’t know that the way it was folded was prescribed. During her week of flag duty I watched my daughter’s careful clumsiness, the way she took her responsibility very seriously. Clearly, the way the flag was treated mattered.

I don’t know why, but one day, watching the whole process, I was struck by this thought: We treat this flag with more respect and care than we treat the people who pledge allegiance to it. We are up in arms when the American flag is burned, dragged, disrespected, violated, vandalized or ripped down. It offends our patriotism and makes us angry. Don’t get me wrong, I agree that our symbols and how we treat them matter. But it also matters how we treat the people who share them. The people who live under the Stars and Stripes are all too often treated entirely differently than its flag.

All you have to do is flip through the headlines – racism, classism, abuse, murder, rape, crime, poverty. But it is so much more insidious than even that. We are selfish and inward focused. If we bother to notice people outside of our “inner circle” it’s only to take stock of how they compare to us… they are the measurement of our success or failure. We are casually cruel to the immigrants and the poor. There is very little compassion for anyone who falls outside of our tidy guidelines. We don’t see people. We see “dirty (insert nationality here)” or “white trash” or “rich bitch” … the list goes on and on. As a nation and as individuals, we work very hard to keep outsiders out and insiders in. Everyday someone’s dignity and humanity is violated by our unthinking disregard. But the flag never touches the ground.

It’s interesting – when I say ‘I pledge allegiance to the flag…’ I am giving assent to beautiful ideals – the unity of a nation and justice for all of her people – but they are so lofty and so soaring that they are almost vague … too easily disregarded on a personal level. I’ve been thinking lately, what if we changed the words? What if we pledged allegiance to the people of our country instead of her flag? “I pledge allegiance to the people of the United States of America, and to the Republic in which they stand, one Nation under God, indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all.” Now that is a scarily personal pledge. I give my loyalty to my neighbor, I promise fealty to the landscaper, I will live in unity with the woman in the hijab. I will notice the injustice my fellow American suffers for being black, brown, disabled, poor, uneducated, old or young, and I will stand against it and fight with them for equality. There is nothing vague about those things. Imagine what our country would look like if every child grew up pledging allegiance to each other every morning? What if we treated the people in America with as much respect, dignity and care as we treat the flag?

Well, its only been four years...

It’s pouring rain… like, *pouring*. From where I sit I can see out the front storm door, but I can’t see the road, the rain is so heavy. Despite that, it splatters against the skylights in my living room with the most peaceful cadence - I love it. I have finished my youtube yoga, poured a glass of wine, and here I am. On the couch, with the rain, with the wine, and with you. 

I am trying to start a new rhythm. I took a new job that will hopefully be significantly less stressful, and it is a full-time work from home position. I mean, I’ve been working from home with the pandemic, but in the back of my mind has always been that I will be back in the office eventually, so I never really tried to establish healthy work from home habits. It’s been shower optional, real pants out of the question and hair very questionable. At my lowest point, I hit nearly 3pm before I realized I had not brushed my teeth. But now it’s a real thing, the work from home life, and I’m going to have to figure it out in a way that helps me be not just productive, but also mentally healthy and able to shut the door and be done my day at the end of the day, you know? 

The first thing I did was turn my desk to face the window - what a difference! I see birds and green things and dog walkers and am surprised to find I feel less isolated. The world exists, and it has real beauty. The Huffington Post (read “my husband”) says that establishing a faux commute helps, so this week I started walking the dog around the block before and after work. I am also starting a daily yoga practice - 3 days in! - after the dog walking to clear my head and move my body. If the gym ever opens up again I want to hit the gym at lunch (optimism!) since no one will care if I’m sweaty when I clock back in. (Gosh, do you think the gym will open back up??) And lastly, I want to start writing again. I love writing, and loved blogging when I was a stay at home mom a million years ago. Not because I had a huge following, just because putting words on paper does something inside of me that is so…deeply good. Healing. 

So, here I am, on the couch with the rain and wine and you. I want to figure out my new rhythm. A woman of a certain age, working from home. Showering, walking, working, writing and yoga are my starting point. I’d love to have your company, if you feel like it. Either way, I hope you find your own rhythm, wherever you are and whatever you’re up to.

epiphany or heresay, i will be mecurial

so. there's the whole 'God made man/woman in his image', right? regardless of your beliefs, you must at least know the idea is out there? but when you ask someone - even someone who theoretically believes that - to describe God you get all kinds of descriptors that don't sound like anyone i know.

how can the daughter be like the mother without mother also being like the daughter?

what if God is like me? or like you? what if God is actually pretty funny, sensual, smart, creative and loud? i asked some of my friends a couple of years ago to describe me in one word, and looking at that list, what if those words also described God? expressive, unfiltered, mosaic, open, authentic, brave, loving...

people are always loping off parts of themselves to try to fit into whatever religious or social or cultural mold they happen to be trying to fit in - what a terrible idea. all the parts of us are so, so important - the ones that make us confident and the ones that make us utterly fragile.

instead of loping off more parts of myself to fit, i'm going to start collecting up the pieces of myself lying around and figure out how to reincorporate them. i do not want to live piecemeal anymore - i want to be whole. mercurial as that might be.

picture this

picture this:

elegant women effortlessly carrying 5 gallon buckets of water on their heads, no hands. trailed by 2 or 3 small children, also carrying water (in smaller buckets), usually with one hand to steady. now add me, and a couple friends, *attempting* to carry the water on our own heads. it was joyously disastrous! 

picture this:

the sun is bright pink, setting over the savanna. looming baobab trees are outlined in black against the sky as you stand with your feet in the Zambian dust, sipping a gin and tonic. now add friends and cool evening air and blankets. i wouldn't trade it for the world.

picture this:

girls jumping rope with long grasses tied together, chanting and counting and laughing. they jump in and then as they skip, get lower and lower until they are crouched like little frogs. they jump and jump and jump! now add me, in dirty overalls, years past jump-roping, and laughing as i valiantly make 2 or 3 hops. i want to skip all day.

picture this:

a high riverbank overlooking a river full of hippos and crocodiles. vervet monkeys scamper through the trees and an elephant silently creeps up to pull branches down for lunch. now add chairs and friends and silence and time. stop here and sit for a long time with me.

on isolation (or "the village within the village")

i am lonely, so i have a strong need to reach out. rather than text a thousand people a thousand times, here i am.

i have spent the last two weeks living with a small village of people as we served a larger village. the rhythms of waking and sleeping, meals and feasting and working and resting all happened together. and now i am alone, and i feel the loss of my village. no silent companionship, no toasting to a days work well done, no commiserating over cold showers (or no showers)... it's lonely. so my visceral experience of Malawi can be summed up in this: i need a village.

the power of presence

the last half of our week in the village was so different. there was no jump rope or baka, baka, goose....no soccer and no groups of children running through the street. there was a death in the village over night, an elderly woman. picture this:

there is singing, but you can't see the singers. slowly, shuffling feet and swaying hips, women come into view - a whole village worth. they are singing a lament, increasing in number as they pass homes and porches. it's a long walk but they don't hurry... there is time for sorrow in this place. they arrive in front of a brick and thatch house with a solitary woman on the front porch, bent double. she is the daughter...left behind. the singers stop several feet away, but do not stop singing. i keep expecting them to, but they don't. hour after hour they stand in the sun and sing what our guide tells me are gospel songs. as the morning progresses, i notice that the side and back walls of the house are slowly being surrounded by men sitting on the ground, leaned up against them. when we leave for the day nothing has changed.

it wasn't until the next day that i was struck speechless. in the early morning sun, sitting in the dust and still singing, were the women. sitting vigil along the sides of the home were the men. they had sat, and they had sung, all night. the power and the beauty of that...the safety and protection, the comfort of not being alone through the darkest hours... i was awed and humbled by the power of it.

it's the power of presence. by being totally present to the place and people you are, wholehearted, you are more powerful than you know. there is more comfort in presence than a thousand kind words.

********

... i am working on pictures, i promise. you would not believe the technical difficulties over here...