musings

i'm updating my blog. really, i should update more often. :-) but... then i realize how little clarity i actually have these days in matters of life and health and understanding God and His church and love and life and friends and change. but, despite it all i feel almost compelled to write even though i don't really have much to say. always a whole bunch of thoughts, but not always a whole lot i can clearly articulate.

i've been thinking that i should be an expert on some things by now. like making friends and then saying good-bye. i keep thinking that moving on and embracing life changes should come more easily the more i do it. but, i still cry. i still want to kick and scream. "NO! i don't want to leave! i don't want to change! i don't want to go through anothing stinking transition!" the only progress i've made is to recognize that i know to expect the tears. to expect the gut-wrenching good-byes. i expect the weird transitory feelings that i just can't place. i expect wanting to take in everything i can experience about the last days, but it never being enough.

why? because the people don't come with me. sure, they come in my heart and i can email them or talk on the phone, but it's not the same community. and it won't ever be. for me, when i've enjoyed a time in my life, a part of me wants to hold onto it forever -- the smells, the trees, (the chocolate), the style, the colors, the sounds or the special spots along the river or in town. and part of me knows that i really don't want to hold on, that there are even better things to come.

Still, each change is hard to get used to. God knows I'm slow. But what happens when i think about the new people i have yet to meet? the next step He has for me? the promises of "infinitely more than you can ask or even imagine"? i have found too much value in the past with how life-change has and can absolutely transform my life. and not even the gut-wrenching moments can keep me from moving forward. and from that vantage point, i have hope.

what will this be? this change? "it's inevitable, you know," i tell myself. "you can't be a volunteer forever." and it's time, i know it is.

but europe is a part of me now. the people here are dear to me. the face of God, although He often seemed hidden, has been here in front of me. He has walked beside me. and now i add these friends to my corresponding-long-distance-with list: these friends who will slowly slip out of my everyday life. i will miss my German family, Jillian in the office next to mine, tasting dark-chocolate-with-chili flavored ice cream, combating British spelling, singing my heart out to Chris Tomlin on the RCC second floor and listening to Nikolaj speak Russian on the phone and throwing in random English words with no translation. i'll miss driving over the rise of the highway and neuhausen/schaffhausen spread out with beautiful swiss-architecture along the rhine valley and cafe vordegasse. i'll miss spending 2 hours in fellowship over a coffee or tea and no one even blinking an eye at it.

i'll miss it. good. but, i won't miss not understanding the language. i won't miss my boyfriend or my family. i won't miss not making money. there are good things coming. better than i can imagine. God is good. this i believe and this i trust.i

plant update: day 40+

update on Parsley and Basil. they're getting bigger and i'm waiting to start cooking! but i also found out that Jill, my neighbor two apts down, has offered her rosemary, chives, oregano (and something else I've never heard of) for fresh herbs to cook with whenever i need! so, i'm set.

sleep

i love to sleep. especially lately. especially after india. for some reason, sleep has been my goal after the red-eye flight from mumbai. so my bed is my place to be.



the night we got into Mumbai and stepped off the bus for a roadside stop at the district office (for a tiny bit of food, a liter of water and a poddy break before we rode for 4 more hours), i went inside the house. the bus stopped outside of the house in the street about 3 or 4 yards behind another vehicle. the yellow street light buzzed and endless indian street chatter hummed. several busloads of people passed us at 1 in the morning, and i know that a busload of sweaty white girls wasn't unnoticed.

i walked back several times between the bus and the yellow gate to the house, but once, while i was stopping to wait for Simone, i stumbled upon something. i didn't disturb him, but realized when my eyes adjusted to the light (or lack of) i realized there was a man curled up on his side, fast asleep on his cot. in the middle of the street.

um, whoa. we were trodding in his bedroom.

this was probably one of the most surprising things to me -- something third-world that i hadn't seen before. and this man was not alone. as we drove through the rest of mumbai i realized that we were passing probably hundreds of people sleeping on the streets. a thin sheet separated some from the dirty ground and even without, groups of people slept side-by-side. this was their resting place.

i wondered outloud this morning how people could sleep with all of the noise. sib replied that they get used to it. tune it out. i don't know how they do it, but need rules out a lot of logistics.

and i slept in a bed all week. with clean sheets and a pillow. in a room with screens and an amazing ceiling fan. it's humbling, yet, i can't be who i am not. i can only look upon the world with openness, awareness and an ever-widening view of humanity, need, who i am, what i have and how i have what i have. i hardly know how -- but these moments are where i express my need to act and my inability without community and the inspiration of God.

- sarees -

the door buzzer rudely interrupted our peaceful sleep. it was monday morning in India. our last day; it started early and ended late.

a quarter to seven in the morning, sib is ringing our doorbell, handing us our sarees (custom fitted) and letting us know that sarah will be over to help us with our sarees. one long piece of cloth takes a truly experienced woman to make it look beautiful and sarah was our helper!

we scrambled out of our beds and got ready. when sarah arrived, her long indian hair coiffed into a bun with a do-rag, she wrapped me up first. simone and i had our tops on backwards (big surprise ... aren't the clasps supposed to go in the back? at least that's what i've known since i was able to dress myself. i had to re-learn a very basic indian thing! haha!) so we switched those, tighted our petticoats to hold up the folds of fabric, and sarah started expertly wrapping and folding.

for the first time, getting dressed was actually a community experience. there was no way you could get into a saree alone and still be sane. simone commented that it was like getting dressed in the old days -- when dressing took lacing up and layering and more people that one.

but sarah was satisfied with her work when we fninshed, we felt beautiful and it was truly a unique South Asian experience. (not to mention the stares we got walking in...)