Summer Berries

 On my clothes this summer have been blueberries, blackberries,

peanut butter, 

and other marks from the mouth of my baby daughter, 

who likes to blow raspberries.

She thinks putting her tiny baby mouth on my skin or my shirt and making fart noises is a good way to pass an afternoon.

And it is. 

We sit on our blanket in the grass and laugh and laugh. 

So Little Contained in So Little

I haven't been in touch because I haven't been in touch. I have been in so much contact: with car horns and taxis, expectations and fears, airplanes and security lines. I have not touched ground except when I'm with a few—Jesus, Jake, Carmen, my mom... everyone else is so close, clambering... I am afraid I will get nothing done if I spend a night emailing here and there, because an email gets a response, then we pull out our calendars, and meet and connect, and plan to do it all again at the end...

...and it all feels like hemorrhaging.

I have a little to give, I feel, and I am desperately collecting rocks on the edge of this river, in hopes of creating a reservoir of time, place, things. I cannot. Slow it all down.
I cannot

go back and describe each weekend with Jake        seeing herons on a river
swimming in the quarry to escape the heat
churning ice cream          driving through the greenest places the country has to offer
touching those places
letting it rain
and waiting to catch breath on a mountaintop in Morocco          in West Virginia
hitching a ride
watching the sunset spill pink over a silver river before the blankets were pulled down and the heat settled into the stones' accumulated hearts

and we slept there, in a tent on the ground          mosquitoes without,
the only monsters,         and Time,
to be reckoned with if they got inside to us.

Held close. Closer. Each stone.

Driving to you through the worst storm of my life, the clouds a watercolor above, and gathering from below.
At the end of it all—were your arms around me.

Is gratitude ever a product of fear? I wonder if it can go on, and know what I don't know. Love in its wisdom goes on giving what it has today, hoping its hope and loving its love.

Love, can you understand? Does it matter? Since I will be by your side in the morning.

I have fought myself: my pride and my reticence to be known, my jealousy of moments you had without me—no rewriting allowed—things God himself can't change that happened because they happened.

Oh, Love. Our all is so little contained in so little.

Two Months' Recapitulation

I've been recalibrating my sleep schedule,  my eating schedule, my day-to-day life. Here is a small timeline of the summer, starting with my return to the U.S.

June 30: Back in the U.S.
July 2: Acquired a phone. (This is a long story of Sprint and the horror that is all U.S. mobile networks. Not a fan.)
July 1-9:  Borrowed cars, driving to various family gatherings.
July 10: Was officially hired at a private Mennonite school, mere minutes before losing cell phone reception for a week of camping. (Wow. What a great fit. What a great story of God working things out and me circling through frustration, cluelessness, grief, and trust. Maybe I'll write it here someday, but probably not.)
July 10-18: Camped at Wild Goose Festival in North Carolina with Jake; visited his sister in Tennessee.
July 19-31: Drove back and forth from Baltimore in yet more borrowed cars; slept at Plum Street in borrowed beds while my friends rotated in and out on vacation. This was the hardest part of the summer. I had a ton of errands to do to build a sustainable life. Meanwhile, I was searching for a car I could own, and rather uncertain as to where I would find to live for the year.
August 1: Bought a Honda Civic at Carmax. Couldn't sleep.
August 2: Returned the car to Carmax.
August 3: Bought a different Honda Civic from a different place for 1/4 of the Carmax price.
August 1-11: Stayed at Dale and Kendra's house while they were on a cruise; cared for Kendra's rabbits.
August 11-12: Visited my niece and nephew. They're so tall, bright, interesting.
August 13-15: Moved in to Plum Street
August 16-30: Work began. I was so far behind in doing all the putzing around a classroom that it takes to get a schoolyear organized. I'm still doing those things: deciding on how to grade, deciding on early units, deciding on policies, decorating, laminating, buying necessary school supplies. On a weekend in there, I coordinated Krystle's wedding day.

I have been finding footing, figuring out how to do all the normal things in new ways with very little continuity or routine to reward me. There has to be a better word than "busy."

It must be said that almost none of these things was done without help and support. The first draft of this post had each person's name and what they did for me this summer. But I hesitate to post it, because I know you did the things with no expectation of praise in this life. I think you did it because you love God and because you love me, and I will not hear differently. I'm so, so grateful. I will list some of the names, though, because I feel I must for my own sake:

Jake, Dan, Mom, Coley, Bethany, Elizabeth, Sarah, Carmen, Kendra, Dale, Christine, Luke G., Sara G., MJ, Leah, Krystle, Monica, Chadwick, Cathy S. Thank you.

How I Felt a Few Days After Returning From Morocco

I feel like I'm on the outside of the world looking in while I am unemployed.

I focus on the right now question. What is happening right now? The chicken is baking. The piano is silent. The house is full of expensive, cold air that insulates me from the summer I can see and hear out the windows, though it is all muffled by this air conditioning. The air is so conditioned that it conditions me.

The kitchen smells like onions and lime, waiting for the chicken to be finished. I salivate: when did I last eat a meal? Where have I been the last few days and weeks?

I have never traveled this far before, and I feel lost.

Summer Intermission

Right now, this summer is in six or seven drafts I've only begun with a title or a line or an image. The past month has been so full. Since school ended on June 21, I have seen so much of Morocco, Ireland, Northern Ireland, my own heart, my family. I don't have a mechanism to process all of what I've seen. I like to stare at things long, be in a room for a long time, have long conversations. In this deluge of sensation, where the plan is no more than a few nights in any given place for two months, I worry I will forget.

I do not want to forget a single bit of it, not even the stuffy and smelly queue Rachel and I waited in at the Fes train station: not even that memory.

I do not want to forget the smell of the market around the bus stop between Chefchaouen and Casablanca; dry dirt kicked up by vehicles, tanned leather, and bathrooms...

The relief of my friend's listening ear; my cousin's belief in me even when it seemed I had lost my mind; my aunt's joy in picking out dates and saffron in the market...

The sound of the endless ocean on the cliffs of Castlerock...

The translucent jellyfish on that beach, what the ocean must sneeze out when it's sick with jellyfish...

The sweet and sweaty heat of Washington DC when we came out of the airport and I stepped on my homeland's pavement.

Re-Entry

I went through the pains of what I have heard missionaries call "re-entry" when I returned from my first short-term mission trip to Arizona at the age of 12. What was it? Everything was different; home wasn't home. As I re-entered my old world, I recognized that it, too, was new. Those losses had to be mourned.

I didn't experience it to any great degree when I returned from Honduras, nor upon my return from any other foreign country.

But I've found myself experiencing it this summer, those aches of loss, now I have moved out of the life I've known for the past three years. I haven't always phrased my work as a missionary assignment, though my availability to friends and family has been that of an ex-patriot. (Besides, why would I call myself a missionary? Our lives are ours to use how we will, and if you're a Christian, your life is yours to use how God wills. So we live out our mission. All Christians are also missionaries.)

Yet... aside from rarely being available to hang out, I've been surrounded by people of a different culture and language, and I've been a spiritual mentor. And I guess those are what I have always thought of as a missionary's callings.

Now that I'm living outside of the residence hall, here's what's been on my mind:
1. I have to cook. What is "to cook"?
2. I just did a lot of packing and downsizing: my classroom and my apartment were all placed or displaced in the house I now share with three other women. And most importantly, I don't miss any of those items. Maybe possessions are silly.
3. Is it time to move to another country in a few months? No.
4. Aren't all jobs supposed to be full of purpose? Or are some jobs editing copy, making coffee, and praying that God would receive glory in that? Yes.

Productive Day List

On Facebook, I often see lists of things people did on their most productive days. A few of those lists, and I am sure that I am unsuccessful at living. I make to-do lists all the time, and rarely cross off more than two or three items before day's end. BUT, if you make the list AFTER the day is over, it's much more rewarding.

Here's what this morning's to-do list would have consisted of, if it had been accurate.

Drive to Philly and back.

Turn around only three times.

Attend a doctor's appointment with a friend who will get sutures removed, right in front of me. 

Do not throw up.

Have a stimulating conversation.

Leave windows down during a rainstorm.

Eat Vietnamese food with Elizabeth.

Buy two cute shirts at a thrift store.

Read Steinbeck.

Clap loudly to scare off a skunk while Lachelle unlocks the building. 

 Ignore other lists. 

The Horror/Honor of Needing People

After special needs week at my favorite summer camp, we were in the midst of group debriefing when someone began his story with something like: "Despite the fact that these people have been dealt a horrible hand, they are still cheerful..." I don't remember what else he said because I got all hung up on the word "horrible." What was so horrible about needing help with things? Even things like going to the bathroom. Or what was so horrible about smiling all the time? Or what was so horrible about occasionally bursting out in shouts or song? Or what was so horrible about pacing a lot, and needing to be calmed down by other people? These situations are not average, of course. But were they horrible?

We're afraid to need each other. We're afraid to have to bear ourselves in the most vulnerable way, like needing to be helped in the bathroom.

As we told stories at the end of the week, I know several of us were surprised that the sights and smells of the bathroom did not repulse us more. I know we were surprised that we felt incredible accomplishment, and incredible humility after helping to wipe another person. It's a matter for gratitude to the one in need that we were able to be so materially helpful, so intimately trusted.

Each of those most vulnerable people are able to bestow upon their helpers a valuable gift which cannot be repaid. Who is greater in the Kingdom? The person who has no choice but to be vulnerable (like widows and orphans in a patriarchal society, or the meek, poor in spirit, persecuted, Matthew 5), because God says he will personally plead their case, bless them, give them the earth for an inheritance; or the one helping the vulnerable person, like the good Samaritan, who fulfilled the requirements of the Kingdom by loving his neighbor as himself?

We have to become like little children, Jesus said, trusting implicitly. We have to acknowledge how we cannot help ourselves, and smile up at our Father, and say, "thank you for wiping me."

To be honest, just writing that makes me uncomfortable. But... vulnerable ≠ horrible, in fact, it may be the opposite in light of eternity.

Why Summer Makes Me a Better Teacher

Someone told me recently that good teaching takes good content and good delivery. By content, she explained, she meant the life well lived, not just the lesson plan, but the honing of my approach to life. By delivery, she meant being able to explain my approach; because if you're a teacher, that's what you're teaching from beginning to end: how you view life.

That is what the summer is good for:

Perspective
Being quiet
Looking at a sunset, and letting it wash over me for as long as it will.
Not being the first to leave,
Not having something to say,
Not having a plan,
Not eating at 5 pm if I'm not hungry,
Reading for hours,
Talking around the fire,
Setting up a tent and sleeping in it,
Taking a nap midday because I didn't sleep well in the tent.

Summer is good for driving for hours to see my people,
Going to church,
Turning off my phone,
Going the long route on the jogging trail,
Having brunch with small groups of people,
Talking at the kitchen table about the world's problems,
Praying at the kitchen table about our own problems,
Writing letters that help me to sort through the crashing waves of thought,

And later, in August, summer is good for remembering why I love a schedule and a routine and students.

From a Poet I Love

I found this poem by Ken M. M. Ecker from 2009. Go to his poem blog for more: http://poem365.wordpress.com/


Moments on Summer Nights


There are moments on lonely summer nights
When it seems that you can reach up just high enough
to grab hold of a star and pull it down
till you can hold it in your hands and show it off
And squeeze the stardust off into a potion of hope
An elixer in a glass you swirl like red wine
you sip and roll on the tongue to savor.
Damn
If only the stars could last forever.

Summer Weather: water above, water below

 On Saturday, Rachel, Joella and I went whitewater rafting. It was incredible. I felt queasy before we began, but the moment we were on the water, paddling ourselves out of the group of 21 rafts, I felt exhilarated, brand new. And it only got better and better.

After a stop for lunch, we found the clouds gathering and darkening. The rain wasn't a problem, but the lightning would be. Happily, the storm missed us, and we carried on, until the river bent, and we ran straight into it. There was no take-out area anywhere near us. So we took cover under low-hanging trees and the rain fell hard. The storm never centered over us, and it was a beautiful rain, a warm and heavy blanket. When the thunder and lightning moved on, we paddled back out to the main current, and the rain continued to pour.

As we paddled, the rain eased up, and the clouds dispersed. Sunshine instead of rain filled the air ahead of us, and we passed into daylight, thick like honey from the humidity.

After taking out, we loaded into two school buses to return to the outfitter. Soon, the rain began to pour hard and fast. The moment we disembarked, everyone was soaked anew, and this time the rain was sharp and cold, so our teeth chattered as we tried to find a space in the gift shop where we would neither ruin merchandise nor be continually moistened by leaks in the ceiling.

The weather never cleared up entirely on Saturday. We returned to a tent that had collected significant moisture (though no standing water, as I had expected), and had to use Joella's ShamWow to soak things up. Then another thing happened that I didn't expect: I slept deep and long, like a tired child.

Another water story:

Immediately following our camping trip, I joined a friend and her family for their beach trip. After two days of flawless beach weather, it was Wednesday, and we saw the clouds gathering. We knew what was coming. But it was our last day at the beach, and all my companions dearly love being in the water. I encouraged them to get in while they had the chance. I read Animal Farm. Then the drops began. I packed a few things up and read some more. Then I realized how dark it was and how impossible it would be for us to miss the storm. I packed up an umbrella and stood under the remaining umbrella, willing my friends to come join me so we might miss the thunder and lightning. At last, they were the last people in the water. They saw the solitary open umbrella, bolstered by folded chairs and sheltering one pair of legs that paced in a small track, waiting.

We loaded up faster than trained navy SEALS and headed for the street, even braving a small river that had formed where the path from the boardwalk had been. We barely made it past the sand when the thunder and lightning cracked above our heads, and we rushed for the nearest cover: an outdoor staircase at a hotel. There we unburdened ourselves of our metals chairs and metal umbrella poles, and stood under the eaves of the building. After perhaps twenty minutes, the storm seemed to have moved on sufficiently, and we ventured out of our hiding place. Another loud CRACK! Back up we all went for another ten minutes before braving the foot (or more) of water that covered the street corners. Water even covered the yellow line in the middle of the road.

We were sloshing through this foot or so of water when I saw a perfect lightning bolt at the end of the same street, and heard the thunder almost immediately. I almost ran back to the house where we were staying. My, but it's good to be soaked and alive.

Fish, Cats, and Family Vacation

Sometimes, on vacation, a meal out is just another meal. You find nourishment. Maybe you pay too much. And you leave full, but empty. Then there are those special meals out. There's a spark to conversation. The food is better. Commensality.

On our family vacation to Baltimore last weekend, we had a few of those successful, special dinners together. The best was Saturday night. Meg had made the reservations, and she and I had chosen dresses to wear, and Meg and dressed my not-yet-seven-year-old niece Aida in a twirly pink skirt. When Dad saw that Stephen was wearing a collared shirt, he felt under-dressed and returned to the room to change. As we all piled into the shuttle, I wondered why "dressing for dinner" had ever gone out of fashion. It separates the work from the play. I can appreciate people better after I feel I have taken care of myself.

We walked along the piers of Inner Harbor, arriving at the restaurant just before sunset. The inside was inlaid with rich woodwork that reminded one of lavish captain's quarters. Final rays of sunlight peeked through the westward windows, illuminating specks in the air. We all attempted to sit up straight and act as though we always ate in places with multiple forks. I ordered the flounder

We chatted while Aida colored a picture of a shrimp wearing a hat and a hook. (She must have colored ten of these pictures by the end of the weekend.) When we slowed our eating, Dad remarked that we should save the fish that we don't eat so that he could feed it to the starving cat at the hotel. If you don't know my Dad, you'll appreciate that he gave me a little book called 101 Uses for a Dead Cat when I was eight years old. But you should also know that I am an avid cat-lover, and he was less than 50% joking about the book.

So when he issued a proclamation regarding the saving of scraps for a cat, one wondered how much he had had to drink. And one wondered a lot more when the honest answer was that he was not drunk; he was serious. Stephen corroborated the story: a skin-and-bones cat had been wandering about the hotel gates, meowing pathetically, clearly the victim of some tragic human.

When the waiter came by, my father asked for a small box, "So we can give the rest to a starving cat."

No. Joke. I was mortified. So was my Dad.

"The food was excellent, though," I tried to clarify, "It's just... we're all full..."

"--and this cat, it really is starving," Dad helped. The waiter seemed to understand.

Megan laughed, "This is something Princess would love to eat, right Aida?" Princess lives across the street from Meg and Stephen. She often wanders into their yard, and is more a community cat than the property of any one household. Everyone loves her as if she were their own, and my niece and nephew especially so. My brother would often come outside in the morning to find Princess on the top of his car, waiting to say good morning to him. "By the way, where is Princess? It's been a long time since she's been around. Have you seen her, Steve?"

"Yeah, she died a month ago. She got run over," Stephen said matter-of-factly. He immediately realized his mistake.

Aida looked up at him, then put her head down on the table, covering her little face in her little hands. When she looked up again, she was close to sobbing, her face streaked with tears, her nose reddening, "P-Princess," was all she could manage. Megan held her as Stephen tried to mend it.

"I'm sorry, Pickle. I meant to tell you better." Dad and I looked at each other, nearly crying ourselves. I mean, we'll all miss Princess, but my young niece experiencing the first death of a pet (suddenly, over dinner) was almost more than we could bear. She pulled it together after being promised candy from some overpriced, sassy shop in the Harbor.

The night was warm and breezy, and filled with a jazz band. The perfect night for dancing under a crescent moon hanging above the skyscrapers.

Interesting fact: The starving cat rejected everyone else's fish except for the flounder.

June

It's beautiful: being overcome
by simple exhaustion at the end of a school year.

[Breathe.]

It's beautiful.

End Year 23

I sometimes think about how strange it is that agriculture dictates our education system and therefore the rhythm that we use to plan our lives. This means that mid-August is naturally a time of chaotic rearrangement. Kids and young adults shuffle off to school, teachers return to their kitchens and coffee pots to start a new school year after summers which they must relegate to dreamworlds untold. I am, for the first time, in the latter category instead of the former.

But before all of that, comes my birthday. And my birthday this year was incredible...

Let's begin at 10:15 am, when I left LMH in Lachelle and Brian's car, listening exclusively to a very beautiful piece: "The Last Waltz," the perfect blend of beauty and sorrow and change, with other significance attached in other ways. I arrived at Jordan's house to meet Krystle, Shelby, Alyssa, and Jordan. We left for Longwood Gardens together and met Garrett just inside, so we made six.

I've been to Longwood before, but my impressions of this day were something different from ever before. The sun's whole face was laughing. My imagination took over! We marveled at a treehouse; I felt like an elf, finally home. We stood above the Italian water garden; I felt like I was attending a ball, dressed in satin and lace. We stood in the triple fountain, south of the DuPont house; I felt like a duckling, delighted! We ran around the meadow; I felt like the Von Trapp children, set free! We stood under the wrought-iron gazebo above the coy fish; I felt like a goddess on Olympus, everywhere I laid my eyes was mine.

For lunch, we left the gardens and made hamburgers at Garrett's house nearby. Fun. So fun. Summer is cutting tomatoes and watermelon and doing dishes at someone else's house with good friends. The sun went right on laughing. Back to the gardens for the other, more exquisite half. We were walking our legs off by this time.

It's worth mentioning that sometimes when you have a few people together who love the Lord, your fellowship grows. At one point, I counted our group of six and thought, "wait, aren't there seven of us?" It has to be the Holy Spirit who comes and makes seven.

We departed for Jordan's house where we met up with David, pizza, and a fire after sunset. Why not finish with ice cream and conversation? Why not, indeed.

Machetes, Mission Bamboo, Family

Why was my forearm hurting on Tuesday? Why was my hand cramped? Because I was wielding a machete all Monday. At Joella's family's home, affectionately called The Hideaway, some of her family, Becky and I worked at landscaping. We hacked at weeds and poison ivy, growing in large, jungly ropes up the sides of trees thick and tall. Some of the vines were so hefty that they were suitable for Tarzan-style swinging.

After the larger part of the work for the day was finished, it was decided that some of us should go find bamboo to be assembled into an archway at the end of the lane. The only problem was that no bamboo grew on their property. Normally, this is a blessing, for bamboo is invasive, as Asher pointed out, and Joella, and Zachary... "but the old place has bamboo!" "But we can't just go creeping around there. It's too visible. Plus that'd be weird." "There's some bamboo down the road at the neighbors'!" "Yeah!" "I'll go along if we can sing the 'Mission Impossible' theme!"

And so, Becky, Joella, and I took Snickers bars and the family pick-up down route 441 to a stand of bamboo on the shoulder of the road. We clambered out and hacked away, no doubt to the bewilderment of all passersby. But, I ask you, what would you do if you needed bamboo RIGHT NOW? That's what I thought.

We worked quickly, and I sat in the back of the pick-up with the 12 green stalks, my legs and arms around the bases of the stalks, foliage flying. Joella did not go slowly the half mile down 441, and several times the stalks wrenched almost free of my grasp, and out into the wide world. At the end of the lane, we deposited the bamboo and went flying up to the house to "get into our party clothes" for a picnic with Jo's family.

The Garbers are so sweet. The celebration began in a circle of lawn chairs, with Jared and Sarah, in unintentionally matching shirts, introducing the strangers to the family. Then we ate, and I drank up the atmosphere of family. Joshua, the one-year-old, was all the centerpiece anyone could wish for. He played alone in the middle of this circle, with the occasional family member stopping by to help him play his colored xylophone.

In little time, the circle had divided into three groups: the men, the women, and the youth, with Joshua, of course, on the outer edge of all three of these. I remained a member of the youth group for the purposes of this gathering, for even some of the young married folks found themselves still in the youth group. We told jokes and chatted about the silliest things. Haha, running barefoot...

It made me wonder what my family would do on such an occasion (if, say, we were ever to have one). Would there be outsiders? Would there be awkwardness if we were to so align ourselves in time and space as to be together? Would the men find a common interest? Would the women? Would there be pettiness? Probably not much, pettiness takes a certain level of comfort... I don't know. But I want to find out someday. I miss what I know of my extended family.

Reality

is boxes lining my left wall. Time for moving.

I will be spending this summer at Black Rock Retreat as a senior counselor. The first time I saw the place was the day of the interview. As I described it to the camp director, it was my "last-ditch effort at being obedient." I would be glad to see you if you decide to retreat there this summer!

Things I Learned

today:

1. Mulan was a real person

2. I am tired of writing.

3. I may get to be a camp counselor at Black Rock Retreat this summer...