Christmas/New Year update

Hello all!
I have been horribly remiss in keeping in touch.  Let me remedy this now.

I'm sitting in the dining/living room area of my own little appartment, the smell of freshly baked, gluten-free cookies (courtesy of Irene Pruitt) is filling my house and the internet is finally working again. So, before the New Year drags me under again with all it's busy-ness, let me sit a while with you and my cup of coffee and catch up.

Last you heard of me I was off on a wild dash through the States and Europe, nervous about the summer, nervous about all the people I would be meeting. 

Weddings:
The two Laura's in my life got married.  It was beautiful, it was crazy, it was all things weddings should be, the pictures are on facebook.  There just wasn't enough time. I finally have decided that I am not going to be in any more weddings. I've been in 8, but only attended 2.  The rush and the bustle meant I had little time to actually catch up with people I care about, to learn about their lives, to sit next to them and just watch them talk. That's the cost of living far away, and I hate paying it.  Being at the weddings also challenged me to think through my own life. I found a lot of bitterness there for still being single - that's just not going to be acceptable. Some of it is motivated by fear. The what-if's of living alone (especially when there are gun shots next door) are always going to be there.  My new mantras are  'eh, no one's getting out of this alive anyways' and, 'being single,  I always get the last word.'

Family:
It was such a blessing to be able to spend a week with my sister and her family. She has a nice grown-up house in Georgia and I got to sit and play with my nephews and niece.  They are the sweetest kids (yes, Ria, I can hear your eyes roll from here) and I thoroughly enjoyed hyping them up on fun and sugar before handing them back to their parents.  Her family settles me and gives me a place I feel I can return to.

Belgium:
The big update from the summer is of course that I went home for an extended period. I'd been back to Belgium twice since my parents left. Both were short trips and I didn't have a list of things I wanted to do or see. This time I was going back with a purpose, to find home. I stayed with friends who still had the same toys out that I used to play with. They still owned things that had my family's name and history on it. They still lived in the same house they have always lived.  I spent a month visiting, biking, eating, living in the country to remind myself that it still is my home. Friends took me on exploration trips, and I got to do things the 'normal' way. For those of you who've lived in different places, you know what I mean. Doing things the way you were trained to do them first. One of my highlights was staying with old church friends in Ieper. They kindly let me spend the night and borrow a bike, and I was able to bike through some of the WWI trench lines.  The area still turns up a surprising amount of explosives (300 tons according to this link). If you are killed by one of them, you're added to the list of the war dead... if I'm 90 and cancerous, I will make my way to the Westhoek and find a bomb.  (Last known casualty of WWI was this year... weird to think of)  One of the most moving moments was when I was biking down a farm path, and my map didn't show anything 'memorable' so I was just coasting. I decided to stop and take a break because the area was so peaceful. There were fields of corn and a typical Flemish farmhouse and tall trees and the country kind of silence. Then my eyes hit the sign. I was standing on the outskirts of Pashendaele.  It was one of the worst areas of trench warfare. Mud so deep it would drown men and horses. No trees, no life, just rats and waterlogged trenches. (If you need a visual). Studying the war in history and literature, Pashendaels is the nadir of the human race. This is where PTSD was first documented (they called it Shellshock. It destroyed men). Yet after so much destruction, the land healed, the farms returned. That image is still something I think of when I look at Haiti, or Syria, or my own life.  Destruction is real, but so is restoration. And there is restoration so total that I could rest and be restored in a place that 100 years ago was synonymous with hell. 

Fall Semester

This year started rough. I came in fairly burned out from the summer and visiting Belgium had opened up some huge areas of personal growth for me. I came to Haiti very discombobulated and flustered and of course, we'd replaced half of our high school staff so I had lost a big part of my social group.  I then signed up to teach an online college course and that was a mistake. It's been a semester of silence and darkness and processing and groping around.  We all have seasons like that, I think , and they are as needed as the happier ones. There are things in my life that mustn't be in there for my own health and safety. There were a few illuminating moments (which I share here in case anyone else also needs those moments, otherwise, embarrasement would have me keep them to myself) in which I realized many of my physical symptoms were misplaced emotional symptoms. One of the dangerous side effects of ministry is that emotions are often neglected or are actively destroyed. I don't think I've ever had a clear idea of what to do with them. Of course I have them. I just don't know that I do.  I had a few scary nights in which I began throwing up every time I tried to talk about a memory in my past. Not a terrible memory, but my body was reacting as if it was. I had to call in friends to sit through it with me. It was messy and embarrasing, but ultimately freeing.  My prayer for the new year is that I can cry without it turning into a migraine or vomiting.  That's enough gory details for the blog. Enough to say that I am putting a lot of work into becoming stronger and healthier and it's beginning to pay off.

Christmas break:

I chose not to travel over Christmas. Haiti is my home, and although I deeply miss family, I love the traditions this country has allowed me to be a part of. Christmas and New Years both remind me of Belgium and so I stayed.  It's hard to be away from family, but it's good to be in my own home with my own little decorations around me. Also, Haiti has mountains and a beach. I cannot resist exploring here. I've had some hiking adventures and I've pickled Okra (so proud of myself) I've watched a lot of movies and have hand-stiched two rows on my quilt. I've had time to quietly think about faith and prayer and life and how they all intersect.  The Christmas story is so familiar yet so surprising every year.

Next Semester:

This coming semester will be quieter, I hope. Oh wait! I get to go to France and Spain on a school trip! I am so excited about this.  I'm still teaching American Lit and British Lit, and I also will be teaching a sewing class. I'm excited to take the students on some field trips to local artists who are recycling and sewing trash into handbags. 

Students:

My students this year are more challenging than the last few years. They are tired of being in school and they are stressed. I need wisdom and patience as I teach them and a good ear to hear what they are really saying. Getting them to turn in work has been like pulling teeth, but with the result that I feel a sense of accomplishment when they do turn around and get a good grade! I am too often swayed by their negativity. (why do we even have to read this stuff?? oh man.. they have a point. Why am I making them read this?? What am I doing to them??) It's been a semester of learning to not cater to their wants but to their needs. We're also working on curriculum and that has been such a huge challenge for me. I do not do well with structure, and repetition and I am learning now how to break the old habits of not having habits (yes.. that sounds contradictory, but it makes sense)

Anyways. I could go on and on, but if I do you guys won't read it all anyways, and I won't remember what I typed. Besides, my coffee is long gone, and I need to get ready for my New Years Eve party.
I'm currently debating whether to take a taptap or a moto and how to cross that much of town in one go. 

Last minute thoughts before my mad dash

I went snorkeling on Saturday and fell into a deep depression. No. that's not a sea joke, but an odd state of affairs non the less.  I've been gasping like a fish on land for two days trying to understand what was wrong with me.

I mean, seriously, swimming over what seemed like a mile of coral reef, criss-crossing over fan coral, brain coral, zebra fish, sea anemones, surfacing to the green trees of southern Haiti, eating a surprisingly delicious, thoroughly french meal, getting free samples of flavored rum, reading a new Asterix comic... How does this lead to me stretched out on the sofa, sick to my stomach, almost catatonic? ( I don't even remember what meals I ate)

And it hit me last night that I had truly enjoyed a day at the beach in my new home. Yes, I've lived here for almost two years, but this last week I've truly felt that I've finally settled here. I care about this place. I care about these people. My students are important and as they leave they take a part of me with them. My co-workers and friends are now my new normal and a large chunk of them are leaving as well.

And this is a very public place to be exposing all of this. But honestly, I need my community to understand. I need to let this be said in a public space.

I have too many homes.

This summer, I leave my home (Haiti) to go home to my sister's wedding (Florida) and after that I go home for a few days (New York) so I can travel home (Belgium) and then back home (NY) for wedding before I go home again (Haiti) There is only a brief week where I will be at my sister's house in Georgia, which isn't home, but it IS family and doesn't that also count as home?

I cannot even wrap my head around how many worlds I will be traveling through. And each world is so different.  I feel fatigued and I haven't even started to travel yet.

And I feel embarrassed and guilty for being depressed. Look at me, world traveler! living the dream! This is the life I know I choose. This is the life that makes sense and is vibrantly alive, though not always positively.  This is the life that makes me the ghost on the periphery, always gliding in for big events, but never around for babysitting, or a weekly coffee date, or a shopping trip.

So in the following weeks, pray for joy in the moment that ISN'T tinged with pain and a little panic at leaving it all. Pray for this hyper alive life to be toned down for a moment. And maybe send me a note or a comment to let me know there are safety nets waiting for me at each of my homes.

Lent 2015

I love the period of Lent.
Starting off with a bang, a party, a big carnival, then Ash wednesday and it's sacred pessimism ushering us into a time of simplicity and introspection. I've given up things over the years, but it hasn't been about giving up. It's been about anticipation. Easter needs that kind of build-up.

I've done something strange for Lent this year.
I've decided to add something, rather than give something up.
I have, for most of my life, noticed that my own particular demons tend to be exactly those things that others are striving towards as goals in Christian or Moral living.  I used to think that made me 'more advanced' or 'more pious' than others. It took a long time to see that really, it just made me very isolated. I know I'm not alone in this, and I'm guessing others like me also feel isolated in this.

Essentially, I used altruism, selfless sacrificing, Christian ethics as others use other sophorific crutches. If I give enough, love enough, become self-effacing enough, I do not have to listen to my own hurt, my own fears. I do not have to BE. I do not have to recognize myself as an emotional creature that can be let down, disappointed or hurt.

So for Lent, rather than giving up something (because I give up everything, just so I don't have to feel the hurt of having it taken away. Seriously. Look at how many countries I've lived in) I'm choosing to BE in an area of life I have stopped BE-ing.

I stopped writing poetry a while ago, because poetry can be brutally honest. I did not like how my writing reflected actual struggles I had. I did not like having that much of myself on display.
So my Lenten challenge is to write poetry.  I haven't set myself a goal other than to write at least once a week and to post it as soon as I've spell-checked it.

It's an exercise in being, without asking for a response, but without denying there will be one either.

What will you be doing for Lent?