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Physically Alone, Digitally Connected

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I replaced my favorite clock within the first year after the move. The ticking was driving me mad.

Life after college was quiet.

Except for the ticking.

I moved to Alabama four years ago, several states away from all I knew and loved. For the first time in my life, I truly lived alone. I went entire weekends without speaking. I flipped television channels for something, anything, to capture my attention. To take away the gnawing emptiness. The longer I went without a phone call, a chance visit, a video chat hangout, the sicker I felt. As if all the energy in me had been sucked out by the great, hovering loneliness.

This is when I discovered I was an extrovert, thanks to online personality tests.

Physically Alone, Digitally ConnectedA year later, I found bloggers who wrote about their anxiety. It rocked me to the core how well I could relate. How much their advice helped. How it changed everything to know I wasn’t what I thought I was: Alone.

I’m only half-joking when I say the internet saved my sanity.

We can rant about technology all we like, the evils, the privacy violations, the addiction. But I know I owe my ability to live this pioneer girl life to the digital age. It’s true that I’m still often alone, but I’m no longer so lonely. I have learned peace and coping strategies, hope and communication skills, joy in the moment and accepting me. Just me. Without having anyone to entertain or impress. From that freedom, I can connect with an open heart.

Facebook is known for causing comparison and envy, but for me it’s a lifeline. Twitter is more than “what I had for breakfast” and news updates. It’s how I find other bloggers to exchange “me too”s with. Through Pinterest, my fellow bridesmaids and I help plan our friends and families’ weddings. Skype connects me to my friend in China. Through texts, I am with my sister whenever she needs a smile or encouragement. Our family dreams of vacations through our wanderlust-filled emails. Sometimes my friends and I phone in for a minute; some nights it’s three hours. Through Instagram, I have a window into the lives of my mom-friends, busy with the lives of their small ones. Through Tumblr, I find other fangirls, and we share about how much we love characters, how storylines should have gone, how to improve our own writing, how a line of dialog hit home… and how we have survived our own real-life battles.

Four years later, I have my “Alabama family” here around me physically, but I am also surrounded by a digital family – some my blood relations, some friends from past lives, some I will never meet.

When I move on to a new place, a new apartment that is quiet enough to hear the clock tick, I will take these people with me. My digital family grows every day. It makes the fear smaller, the hope bigger and uncertainty exciting.

Perhaps it is ironic that the very technological development the media decries as causing the isolation and loneliness in our society is the very thing that made all the difference for a girl living so very alone in a foreign state, in a quiet apartment, scared in the dark as the clock ticks too loud, but I always know, no matter where I am in the world, my digital family is there for me in one form or another. Everyone moves on with their lives, of course, but that is what is beautiful about it. Far from feeling left out or hurt, I smile to see photos of college friends having new adventures, their weddings and babies, their path pulled further from mine. Because I know, thanks to the digital age, they are only a comment away, an email, a chat or a text.

And I know, here in the digital age, I am not alone.

*****

Jenna“Physically Alone, Digitally Connected” was written by Jenna DeWitt. Jenna is the managing editor of MORF Magazine, a resource for youth ministers, mentors and parents of teenagers. She has a bachelor’s in journalism from Baylor University, where she edited a bunch of student publications, became a fan of C.S. Lewis and drank Dr Pepper floats with Blue Bell ice cream like a true Texan. She currently lives in Birmingham, Alabama, where she has been adopted-in-spirit by a lovely group of folks whom she calls her “Alabama family.” You can find her on Twitter @jenna_dewitt and on her website at http://jennadewitt.com.

Alone in an Unlikely Place

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Driving would be faster. It will be a long walk from the Metro station to the coffee shop in the post-snowstorm cold. But I jump at any chance to take public transportation into a city – alone.

Maybe it is because I grew up in suburban Ohio, where light rails and city buses were a rare sight.  Maybe it is because I have never lived in a city.  But there is something irresistible about being transported to the urban hustle in a train full of…everyone.

And that’s exactly what it is:  everyone.  Light rails, city buses and trains don’t filter out the haves and the have nots, they don’t care if your collar is white or blue or nonexistent, they don’t turn away the underprivileged or celebrate the accomplished.

On the train, we are all the same.  We are all trying to leave something behind.  We are all going somewhere.  We are all looking for the next stop.

It is in this convergence of everyone that I feel free to be alone.  And it is not a lonely, dark alone, but a healthy, inspiring alone.

Steven Pressfield writes, “We know what the clan is; we know how to fit in the band and the tribe.  What we don’t know is how to be alone.  We don’t know how to be free individuals.”

Perhaps it is this tribal wiring that, paradoxically, nurtures healthy solitude in such an unlikely place: a crowded train of strangers.

You Are HereIn the train’s tribe, it is how I am the same that propels me into aloneness, not how I am different. Titles are irrelevant, responsibilities suspended, control of the steering wheel surrendered, and upholding of images put on hold.  I am, simply, going somewhere.  And I am not in control.

Off the train, I try so hard to stand out.   I craft the Facebook posts, go for the promotion, bow down to the gods of children’s sports, and buy the stuff in hopes of attention and achievement.  On the train, I don’t want or need to stand out.  Closer to humanity’s equality, I can stop trying so hard.  There is space to find the things that lie deep within me, the ones that are trying so hard to get my attention and that make me the free individual I was intended to be:  my uncensored dreams and true desires.

It is in the rare moments of glimpsing the equality of humanity that I can learn how to be a “free individual.”

Comforted by our sameness and my anonymity, I look out the windows of the train and see space for my dreams.  I listen to the engine’s hum and to the voice that grants permission for desire.  On the train, I respond, although incompletely and imperfectly, to the question “Who are we?”  And it helps me move on to “Who am I?”

I get off at the Columbia Heights station.  Lifted by the escalator into the morning light, I emerge humbled by who we are, inspired by who I can become.

I see business suits walking swiftly with purpose.  I see faded jeans meandering slowly with regret.   And I see snow hiding in the sidewalk’s shadows, too stubborn to melt.

I see me.

* * * * *

H1Holly Pennington is a writer in the other Washington, but she loves to visit family and friends in D.C.  At home in the Seattle area, she jumps at the chance to take the ferry.  She blogs about vulnerability, faith and freedom at www.dreadlocksandgoldilocks.com and would love to connect with you on Instagram, Facebookand Twitter.

Refuge

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As a nine-year old recent refugee I often felt lonely. The kids at school, taking their queue from ubiquitous images of famine-stricken Ethiopian children with protruding stomachs and flies milling around their eyes, referred to me as Starving Ethy—Ethy being short for Ethiopian. The school often isolated me, with other aliens, in a special class they called English as a Second Language. When not at school, I spent most of my time alone, roaming the neighborhood, scavenging for odds and ends, finding the occasional Garbage Pail Kids trading card or a broken Transformers figurine.

Yet my family and I were not alone. Like many other refugees before them, Eritreans in the U.S. had begun to conform to an old pattern. The first group arrived in a specific city by design. They resettled there as part of a grand scheme cooked up in the mind of civil servants sitting in a conference room somewhere. These special refugee programs preselected some location in the U.S. that they thought made sense for the refugees. And these displaced people didn’t know any better. Des Moines is San Diego. San Diego is Des Moines. It’s all the same to those simply trying to escape calamity.

But once the trauma of transition abates and with the gift of time, these immigrants grow familiar with their new homeland. They also grow restless. They long to be with people like them. They are drawn to DC by an old friend from the refugee camps in Sudan, to Seattle by a neighbor from the village back home, to San Diego by a former fellow rebel-fighter. Mostly though, they are simply glad to cluster their lives around other Eritreans. These people, in their search for more than refuge, shift and move; drawn to each other to dull the bite of loneliness.

It is through this familiar road that a growing number of Eritreans made their way to Atlanta. It is why a room full of Eritreans greeted my mom and me during one of our routine visits to one of these Eritrean families on one sunny and beautiful afternoon. The home, a unit at one of the local public housing properties, was overflowing with strangers, old friends, and cousins of cousins.

After the customary cheek-to-cheek greetings, my mom joined the other adults who were dutifully occupied by a coffee tradition that must date back to the beginning of time. All the guests sat together outside on the porch in a semi-circle with the hostess at the juncture and a brazier at her side.

5543145597_017e65feb6_zLike the old priests and their censers, the hostess filled the air with the scent of roasting coffee, giving each guest the occasion to waft and savor the aroma rising from the roasting pan. She ground the beans and carefully poured them into the jebena, a special kettle made of clay. After adding a cup or so of water, she placed the jebena on the brazier to work its heat as the ancient taste brewed with slow serenity. When it was time, she slowly filled each finjal, small ceramic drinking cups decorated with beautiful patterns in different colors, moving continuously from cup to cup until the circle was complete.

It was a well-choreographed ritual wrapped in a thick blanket of gossip, debate and gloating, each adult trying to outflank the other with their better tales and more exciting news. They moved from topic to topic, sometimes with rambunctious energy and sometimes with solemn prayer depending on the mood of each issue — all of this they consumed with wide open hearts, as they sipped their scrupulously prepared coffee. While the adults sat on the porch consumed by their disputations, I joined the kids playing out in the field an earshot away.

In many ways these interactions are perfectly symbolic of the solitude we all felt in that place. A white American friend once described a moment she’d experienced in Shanghai, China. After living there for years, she ran into a black man, the first speckle of diversity she’d seen in a long time, while strolling along at some shopping district. As soon as she spotted him, she ran over and asked if she could give him a hug, explaining that he reminded her of home. The stranger obliged.

*   *   *   *   *

Biniam“Refuge” was written by Biniam Gebre. Biniam is a former refugee from Eritrea, a beautiful and young country in East Africa. He is also the former acting Commissioner of the the Federal Housing Administration. Both in his professional life and personal struggles, he is in constant search to understand the meaning of place. He currently lives in Washington D.C. Biniam blogs at Choices and Values and can be found on Twitter @biniamgebre.

Photo of the jebena, above, is by Canned Muffins.

Crib Cubby

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We used to play in the nursery at church several years after we were too old to be in the nursery. I don’t remember who “we” were, precisely. “Those kids at church,” I’m sure I called the others. The nursery had one wall devoted to crib cubbies – three rows of big cubby holes, each equipped with a thin mattress and a railed panel that slid like an overhead garage door down a curved track. With the door down, a baby could sleep safely during the service or after church a six-year-old and his unnamed playmates could feel like jailbirds or crewmembers of a pirate ship or puppies in kennels or ninjas hiding in the shadows from unsuspecting parents.

I remember the stillness of lying in my cubby with the door down, eyes closed, feeling cramped but cozy. Sometimes I snuck out of my cubby and stood for far longer than necessary in the nursery’s tiny one-stall bathroom, listening to the muffled sounds of my friends and pondering the distant hum of the air system. Even at that age I treasured the idea of layered privacy. I savored the chance in both the cubby and the bathroom to command my own small realm, my own enclosed space hidden inside the nursery, which was one of many rooms on the first floor of my three-floor church, which was one of many buildings on Meridian Street, which was one of many streets in Anderson, Indiana, in the United States, in North America, on Earth. My conception of the planet at the time derived from the globe my parents gave me in first grade (that globe stands on the filing cabinet behind me as I type this in my office). There are no lines on that globe for Indiana’s borders, no dot for Anderson. I knew I lived somewhere in that green patch south of Lake Michigan where nothing is labelled. And so I knew as sure as a six-year-old can that in the nursery cubby or the nursery bathroom I was layers and layers and layers away from visible to anyone anywhere.

They have long since remodeled that nursery and removed the wall of crib cubbies. The room now serves as a Sunday school classroom and is, from what I hear, devoid of small enclosed spaces. I presume the bathroom is still there, though I haven’t been in that room since my son outgrew the nursery years ago. But I have discovered in many other places the sensation I first photo-1429709535771-15665442d6b1found in that nursery. I feel that same coziness in my walk-in closet in the master bathroom in my house in Anderson; I’ve felt it in the upstairs half-bath of an apartment my wife and I once occupied in Grand Cayman, in several single-bed hotel rooms in London, in my windowless office (which I love) at Taylor University. I have relished the layers of architectural and conventional strata that encased me in those spaces, and more so as my daughter has become adept at operating door knobs. I have come to embrace, too, the lovely notions that our omnipresent God inhabits those spaces and shares them with me, and that at least part of the reason Christ instructed His followers to find a private space for prayer was that solitude is healthy and sacred.

My job as a professor and my standing as a husband and father require me to be in frequent contact with others. These are the roles and the people for which I’ve been made, and for which I am endlessly grateful. But I’m also learning to treasure as gifts my rare moments of seclusion and to accept that I need them. I cherish and protect those nested spaces where, for a few exquisite moments every now and then, I can lie in my crib cubby and lower the door.

*   *   *   *   *

Walking with the kids - #2 - cropped“Crib Cubby” was written by Aaron J. Housholder. Aaron teaches writing and literature at Taylor University in Upland, IN. He lives in Anderson, IN with his wife Suahil and his kids Scottie and Alivia. His fiction and nonfiction have appeared or are forthcoming in Relief Journal, Ruminate, Wyvern Lit, freeze frame fiction, River Teeth, and elsewhere. You can find him on Twitter @ProfAJH.

 

Having Whiteness

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My first clue should have been the way the Assistant Principal immediately recognized me. She turned around from her seat in the first row and smiled, “I just have to tell you about what Juliet said.” My oldest daughter is in pre-k at the local elementary school. We were there for the Christmas extravaganza.

For a split second I was surprised that she knew who I was. I am at work the whole time Juliet is at school. It could have been I was sitting next to my husband, who is around more often. It could have been because my daughter mentioned me recently. Yes, it could have been these things. But more likely it was because my child is the only white kid in  her pre-k class. I’m one of three white moms in the entire school.

The  assistant principal started shaking her head jovially, “That Juliet, I was in her class to observe her teacher and she said to me, ‘I am SO CUTE.’ So I told her, ‘I am so cute too!’ And then she looked at me and said, ‘AND! I am WHITE!’ So I told her, ‘Well I am cute and brown!’”

I chuckled with the woman at the audacity of my oldest. But inside I was cringing a little. My daughter had recently began talking about her whiteness with me. A few weeks earlier, in the kitchen baking cookies Juliet had noticed the flour I had spilled on the counter. “Hey mom, that flour is white.” “Yes, yes it is.” “And us too,” she continued. “Hmm?” I responded, not wanting to lead the conversation.” “Mom, we are white.”

This was not news to me. I know I am white, and I know my kids are white. We live in a predominantly black neighborhood, and for a period of time my husband and I were both teaching at schools that were almost exclusively black. For a white woman, I have spent a lot of time thinking about race. But there, in the kitchen with the spilled flour, I had no idea where we were going with this conversation, so before I handed my four year old a copy of Why Do All the Black Kids Sit Together in the Cafeteria, I thought I would ask her what she already knew.

As casually as possible I asked her, “What do you think that means?” She sighed, exasperated at the question. She pushed her sleeve up and pointed at her arm. “Like this mom” she then pointed at my arm. “You got this too.”

Indeed I did have this, have whiteness. I was still trying to figure out exactly what to tell Juliet about our white skin when it was mentioned in my kitchen. Though I don’t want her to be ashamed of her race, it is a historical fact that white people have often been the oppressor. The basic understanding I tried to give her of Martin Luther King brought that to the forefront pretty quickly. I also did not want to feed her exclusively stories about white people as the freedom giver. I spent my first three years as a teacher unlearning that story myself. I had tried to find some age appropriate books about whiteness and found only books published by the KKK. I couldn’t be the only one dealing with this, could I?

I was pondering all of this again when the lights dimmed and the curtains came up on the elementary school Christmas extravaganza. I sat awestruck and delighted as each group performed. But I was also, often, a little confused. While I recognized the words and music to most of the classic Christmas songs, I was not familiar with any of the versions. My daughter danced to Santa Claus is coming to town sung by The Jackson Five, not Bing Crosby like I am used to. When the beat dropped on the hip hop version of the Sugar Plumb Fairies, the whole audience erupted. I too was delighted, but the explosion of cheers freaked me out a little. I just didn’t know that was a thing you did at a kids’ assembly.

The unfamiliarity of the whole thing, coupled with the conversation I had before the show began, left me feeling alone and confused in an environment I had anticipated being familiar. The cues I knew from my own experiences were missing, and the ones in their place I had difficulty understanding. It was a little lonely, being the only white parents in the room.185965286_38af90fa7b_z (1)

After the show I collected Juliet from behind the stage. I told her what a good job she did, just like every other mom there. She introduced me to all the other kids by name (or just asked them when she forgot). She started each introduction with, “This is my friend….” She hugged her friends goodbye so much I had to bribe her with ice cream to get her out of there. We thanked the teachers and she walked backward out the door, waving and smiling. She loves it at her school, and she really loved that night.

Juliet knows she is white, but she also knows she belongs. I was reminded of the truth that was, even if it didn’t quite feel like it: We weren’t alone; we were welcomed.

* * * * *

AbbyAbby lives and loves in the city of Atlanta. She swears a lot more than you would think for a public school teacher and mother of two under three. She can’t help that she loves all words. She believes in champagne for celebrating everyday life, laughing until her stomach hurts and telling the truth, even when it is hard, maybe especially then. You can find her blogging at accidentaldevotional and tweeting at @accidentaldevo. Abby loves all kinds of Girl Scout cookies and literally burning lies in her backyard fire pit.

Bing Ice Cream photo by Richard Lemarchand.

Thankfully Torn to Leave

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At a mindfulness yoga retreat I attended a while ago, I was instructed to shake my body for fifteen minutes and then dance for fifteen minutes–all to help prepare for breath work that would follow after.

I closed my eyes and found solitude even though I was surrounded by the other women who were doing the same thing. Just a few minutes into this bizarre but radical shaking, I wanted to give into the ridiculousness of it and sit it out, but an inside-of-me voice said, “Just shake.  All you need to do RIGHT NOW is shake!”

And so I shook. I gave myself permission to just be there, shaking my arms, shoulders up and down, legs in motion. I was waking all of the space inside of me, inviting body-mind-spirit to meet in one place. My body was moving in this tremendous, medicinal-healing way, while I noticed its capabilities and boldly declared in my heart, “You are powerful. You are strength. You are beauty.”

Next we breathed deeply, lying on our backs with mouths open and jaws aching all the while. In and out. Heavy. Noisy. Breath became thought and rhythm: Holy Spirit/within me. In and out. Holy Spirit/within me. In and out.  The yogini came over with calming burnt sage, and while resting her hands momentarily in the space above my heart, she whispered, “You are doing a good job.”

As she walked away, I tried to accept her motherly words, tried to take them in with my breath. “I am doing a good job.” But I wasn’t convinced. Months later, with the day quickly approaching that we will once again uproot our little family after three years in Qatar and stick our feet back in American soil, I feel regret. You see, I didn’t do a very good job as an expat at first. I was so eager to wish it all away and kept looking forward to the day we’d move back to our familiar place. But then I learned to notice–the ordinary and the vibrancy of life–and to put down roots and find sources of water.

post picNow I’ve supported other new expats, reassuring them of how they too will fall for this place. I’ve said to those women, “Notice how strong you are and notice those small victories.  Tell yourself regularly, ‘I am doing a good job.’ Notice what is in your everyday that you will never have outside of the Middle East.”

I am also reassuring myself, especially in these last days. When you begin to leave a place, you see these things and capture them to store in that space of your mind labeled, what-I-took-for-granted-when-I-lived-here-day-in-and-day-out. You begin to take great care to notice what you’ve come to love:

Noticing: My everyday contains the soothing hues of Filipino skin, Turkish eyes, Dutch fairness, the fluidity of the black abaya, multilingual children, and normalcy.

Noticing: Tamil on the tongue, labor camps and families who live countries apart.

Noticing: The aroma of turmeric and za’atar, karak and exotic incense.

Noticing: The beauty in the cream, sandy colors in our part of the world, pierced with the brilliant blues of saris, the sacred covers of black, patterned dashiki of rich purple worn on Fridays, the holy day.

Noticing: The most stunning of life’s mysteries witnessed in the form of my two small littles growing out from baby and toddler into thinking, independent children in all of the grace and sweetness that offers those who abide in this mystery.

Noticing: The friendships that were unexpected, healing, and that gave me belonging; and those I’d wish to have known deeper. The regret of depth missed in using this place to draw nearer to God, who shows up, even in the desert.

There is weight and beauty in the noticing.

And I am getting ready for movement again. Not the kind of shaking to prepare for breath work, but the kind of physical tiredness one goes through to move their family halfway around the world. In this move, I go with my packed little heart full of all that I’ve noticed. I go with my, “you are doing a good job” valediction. I go with thankfulness in feeling torn to leave this place.

* * * * *

bio-pic_smallLisa Collier moved from Pittsburgh in 2012 and is currently an expat living in Doha, Qatar as a lucky trailing spouse. Her husband, two girls and dog make this place a home. Lisa took on the challenging but wonderful experience of homeschooling this past year.  Lisa has traveled quite a bit, but the view from inside the train on the way from Milan to Zurich was one of the most breathtaking scenes. Read more at www.onceyouarereal.com.

Colorful incense: Photographed by Lisa Collier at Souq Waqif, Doha, Qatar.

 

Table for One

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Looking back, that empty booth across the table from me was just the next in a long line of red flags and warning signs I rationalized away. This time, the reason for his absence was said to be a co-worker who needed someone to bail him out of jail. He wouldn’t be back in town until late, after dinner. It seems an outlandish story when I think about it today, one of many outlandish stories. Now I know some of these stories were lies.

I have no real frame of reference to know which ones were true, but to call them all lies seems the task of an uncharitable, bitter woman.

Regardless. That spring day I believed, or at least accepted, the story. Over the many years we were together, we always had a long distance relationship. That dinner date was no different. I drove two hours through central, rural, Georgia to get there. So, given the hour and my growling stomach, the best option seemed to be to just go ahead to dinner. Alone.

“Just one,” I said to the hostess. I settled into the booth and perused the menu. After I had ordered I took the ever-present novel out of my purse and began to read, stopping often to check to see if he had called. I was somewhat self-conscious about sitting at a table in a sit-down restaurant alone, but no one seemed to care at all. It dawned on me that my aloneness was awkward and uncomfortable only to me.

Inside my head I was fighting off the doubts and questions about my three-year-old relationship. I didn’t want to be alone, so it had been relatively easy to accept the cancelled plans and the strange stories. As I sat there alone at a restaurant table and no one looked at me in pity or shame, I began to wonder if perhaps alone on purpose would be a better option than alone again one more time because he failed to come through.

4869866579_2e5565c27c_zIn retrospect I can see that, somehow, that dinner made me stronger. It was not the first time that our plans had not worked. It was not the first time he had changed things at the last minute, disappointing me. It was the first time I kept the plans anyway. The first time I still showed up, lived the moment, and went forward instead of letting my world stop. I could have grabbed a quick dinner in a drive-thru, eaten the fries as I navigated the road back home. But, I didn’t. I sat in the restaurant I had planned to go to and had the dinner I had planned to have that evening. I wasn’t trying to “still live life” or “embrace the moment” that night.  It was simple, really: I was hungry and the restaurant was there.

So, I sat at a table alone and ate dinner.

* * * * *

A few months later, I broke up with that boyfriend. Or, at least I tried to. The words “the end” were there but for reasons that exceed the time and space I have here, I cycled back into him in a destructive pattern over and over again. We were never “officially” together again – but the energies of my day and my mind and my heart were frequently still wrapped up in that toxic relationship.

A couple years later, still caught in the cycle of trying to really end that relationship, I moved to a town near Chicago, alone, for a job. I would often walk or take the L train  to the movie theatre one evening a week and then to dinner afterwards. I’d sit in the dark theatre, no one on either side of me, and enjoy the show. Afterwards, I’d use the side exit that led out right by the door to a restaurant where I would walk in and say, “Just one.”

I usually had a book, but not always. Sometimes I would just eat my dinner with only my thoughts to keep me company. Sometimes I lingered: ordering an appetizer or a dessert or a drink. Sometimes I ate quickly before heading home. But I often thought of that first dinner alone and reminded myself it was good to know how to do to this.

Those years of dinner and movie dates with myself were part of the process of trying to get out of the cycle. I would sit there and remind myself:  I can do this. I can eat alone. I can sit at this table and have dinner and have a life and I can be fine. I can move forward.

Eventually the cycle back into the toxic relationship stopped and I was free.  Looking back I can only recall a handful of times in the past few years where I’ve eaten alone at a restaurant. It wasn’t an intentional choice to stop, but I guess that inner part of my soul knew I didn’t need those dates with myself as much anymore.

I rarely have to eat alone, but I know I can. And that has given me strength.

* * * * *

red stripeNicole says her love language is “eat the food that I cook” and is never happier than when there is a crowd gathered around a table eating food that she had fun preparing. She is thankful for all the friends, neighbors, family members, co-workers, and casual acquaintances who have filled the tables of her life. Nicole works as a freelance editor specializing in theology and social ethics and writes about bodies, theology, and community at jnicolemorgan.com. She tweets away @jnicolemorgan

Restaurant photo by Bart Heird

 

Don’t be a Stranger

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The green and yellow bus lurches to a stop, the doors swing open with a whoosh of air. “Good morning!” I beam at my usual driver as I step on the bus, monthly pass in hand. The doors close behind me. “You know, I think you’re the only person on my route who looks like they might actually like mornings,” he says shaking his head in amusement.

As the bus lunges forward I walk down the aisle with one hand over my head as I lightly finger the bar overhead. After several years as a proud strap-hanging public-transit-riding commuter I’ve earned my sea legs; the jerking and swaying doesn’t faze me as I make my way to my usual squeaky leather seat. I always sit where the rows of bus benches face each other because it provides the best view of the entire bus.

A few sleepy heads look up long enough to acknowledge me but not long enough to say anything.

The woman directly across from me is reading a well-highlighted leather Bible. Once, when she wasn’t reading she told me she worked at the Starbucks headquarters; she’ll get off at the transit station in order to transfer to the northbound commuter train. The preteen girl sitting next to her with her earbuds in—the universal bus sign for “No, I do not want to make small talk actually”— is clutching a pink backpack on her lap; she’ll get off at the middle school. Several other students are also lugging around heavy, bulky backpacks on their way to high school or the local community college. Sometimes they read their textbooks or flip through flashcards, always with their earbuds in.

The man next to me is sipping his regular morning coffee, obviously still trying to wake up. Sometimes he’ll nod a “G’mornin'” but that’s about the extent of his 6:30 am socialness. Several riders are slumped up against the windows, likely still dreaming of the pillows they had to leave too hastily. The only sounds are the creaking and whooshing of the bus doors and the occasional contagious line of yawns.

When an older gentleman steps on the regular riders audibly groan. He’s hauling his weekly recycling: a giant neon-orange cloth bag with pictures of jack-o-lanterns all over it. The person next to me mumbles, “Better pull your legs in,” as the man walks down the aisle with his scary Santa sized bag bumping along behind him. It barely squeezes down the aisle and when it gets stuck he gives it a tug, which elicits more moans from his fellow riders as the can-filled bag has a run in with several people’s knees. He sits down, and then the bus is quiet again.

I pull my black Beatle’s tote bag, complete with Bob Marley pins, onto my lap to make room for other passengers. A man in his late thirties slips a CD into my hand as he walks past. “I burned it for you because I saw your bag,” he says shyly before continuing down the aisle. The CD reads in blue hand-written ink: The Moondoggies. I’ll later find out they’re a local Seattle band. The album is entitled “Don’t be a Stranger.” (The title likely isn’t ironic because the next several times I’ll run into him on the bus he’ll ask for a date.)

As I slip my new CD in my tote bag everyone else is still slowly waking up. They read, catch up on podcasts or listen to their favorite songs, drink their coffee, and stare out the windows as the sun is just beginning to yawn and stretch right along with them.

3135087774_f3fa09289f_z (1)They are close enough that I could touch them, but they are always in their own little worlds. So many potential acquaintances, friends, and lovers just within their reach. And they never know. I’m surrounded by people—sometimes uncomfortably close to people—but alone just the same.

As the bus rolls on I continue people watching and when I happen to chance on someone who is awake enough to visit, encourage them to not be a stranger.

* * * * *

Picture of Kelsey“Don’t be a Stranger” was written by Kelsey L. Munger. Kelsey is a sixth generation Pacific Northwest native. Aside from three and a half months spent living in a very tiny town in Hungary among the sunflower fields, she has always lived in or just outside beautiful, rainy (sometimes a little moldy) Seattle, WA. Despite having to give up public transportation due to health issues, her memories of riding the city bus will always be special.    Kelsey blogs at KelseyMunger.com and can be found on Twitter at @KelseyLMunger.

Bus photo by aditya on Creative Commons. 

He’s My Partner 

Posted on by under Guest, Together in Place

When we’re young, labeling relationships is easy. This person is my friend, this person is my best friend, this person is my BEST best friend. When it’s a romantic relationship, it’s the same. You can be dating or going out. Someone is your boyfriend or girlfriend. When you’re young, finding a handy title for the people in your life isn’t that complicated.

But then  I became old and began a new romantic relationship. One day, I was on the phone, adding Rich to my car insurance. I finished updating the information that they already had on file about my vehicle, and then said that I needed to add another driver to the account.

“What’s his relationship to you?” the woman on the line asked.

And I froze.

When you’re nearing forty and you’re in a new romantic relationship, there aren’t any good terms for it. Calling him my boyfriend felt a little bit too infantile and flippant. Even though we knew that we would be married at the earliest possible time, calling him my fiancé felt too formal for the relationship that we were in right at that moment. I figured calling him my lover would probably be a little too much information for an insurance customer service rep, so I just blurted out, “He’s my partner!”

I had no idea how much that title would come to mean to me.

For much of my adult life, I had certain ideas about what marriage meant based on my first marriage, and most of them boiled down to each person having a role in the relationship. I didn’t believe that there were gender roles that only men or women were designed to have, but I did see marriage as a division of labor where each person had their job to do. It was never stated explicitly that anyone was completely bound to their job, but it was very rare that help was offered beyond the scope of our regular roles. There was always a sense of equality, but never one of togetherness.

11044523_10153016493296236_3952428309709335846_nIn this second round of marriage, both my husband and I are making a concerted effort to practice more togetherness. In some regards, this is easy. Rich works from home while I write and work around the house, and when we leave, we both work at the same music store giving private lessons. We attend church together, we eat meals together, we go to the gym together. It is rare that we have more than a few hours apart in a given week. Being physically together is something that happens most of every day.

But beyond that, we have built in the idea of partnership in our marriage. We have tried to eliminate the idea that there are his and her jobs at our house. There may be things that one of us does more often than the other, but we make it a point to make sure that no one feels like they are letting down the other, because we both do all of the chores at least occasionally.

I may prepare most of the meals because of the way our schedule works, but almost no weeks go by when Rich doesn’t order me to sit and relax while he cooks. Rich may be the one to do most of the trash removal, but if the garbage can is full and he’s busy, I take it out. When one of us wants to take a risk, we evaluate it together, and as often as we’re able, we encourage the other to leap.

Sometimes it can be trying, and old thought patterns can creep in. We will not trust that the other can handle our discomfort, so we stuff our feelings away rather than talking through our questions or sadness. Sometimes we’re just selfish and act out of our own self interests rather than striving to put the other first. But when that happens, we try to recognize the negative behaviors and work toward restoring the togetherness that is so important to us.

Some lists telling people how to have happy marriages will include items like, “Surprise your wife with a home cooked meal!” or “Treat your husband like he’s the king of the castle!” Those things can certainly be helpful when your life falls into a rut, when you are living parallel lives. But I’m finding more and more that the idea of having someone partner with you in all of your endeavors allows for greater creativity in the ways that you can exhibit generosity in your marriage. Togetherness can be manufactured, but it’s nice when it doesn’t have to be.

These days I have the nice, neat label of “husband” for Rich. But if you asked me, I’d still tell you that he’s my partner.

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424033_10151308414006236_662319879_n“He’s My Partner” is by Alise Chaffins. Alise is a wife, a mother, an eater of soup, and a lover of Oxford commas. You can generally find her sitting behind a keyboard of some kind: playing or teaching the piano, writing at her laptop, or texting her friends a random movie quote. Alise lives in West Virginia and blogs at knittingsoul.com

 

 

Talking on the Train

Posted on by under Guest, Together in Place

I had lunch with a stranger once in the crowded food court of Union Station in D.C. There were no empty tables and only a few empty seats. When I saw a woman sitting by herself at a table, I asked if I could join her. She readily agreed.

I was in between trains, a Chicago-to-D.C. leg behind me and the rest of the journey home to Philadelphia ahead. Asking to join a stranger at their table is not within my standard mode of operation. Perhaps it was the 17 hours I had just spent on the train that inspired my unusual behavior.

On long-haul trains, if you go to the dining car you sit with people. And if, like me, you enjoy passing the hours of train travel in the observation car watching the country roll by, then you sit with people there too. On a long-haul train, you chat and really listen to the answers because you have all of the time and none of the cell signal. This slow-paced, low-pressure atmosphere makes my people-loving introvert-self bloom.

Between the trip out to Chicago and the ride back East, I spent almost 40 hours there-and-back talking to strangers. I met a man in the midst of his journey home from Thailand. He told me about an ex-wife and a child in Peru—how his world travels introduced him to people, but pulled them away too. He bought me a drink and we talked for hours as the view of the countryside gave way to midnight blackness. Eventually he asked me, “Are you happy?” I told him I was, mostly. He nodded, leaned back in his chair, and stared off into the darkness outside. His eyes had said more: that being happy was something he didn’t quite understand.

One morning after a few bumpy hours of sleep as the train chugged through Ohio and into Pennsylvania, I went to breakfast and was seated at a table with a woman. She asked me about my life. I asked her about hers. We lingered over our coffee as she told me about working with Catholic Social Justice groups in her teens, trying to end capital punishment. The fact that people still fight for the same thing today gave her mixed emotions. I told her about my Christian Social Ethics coursework—what I was learning about inequality and how the church participates. I told her it was encouraging to meet her. She said the same of meeting me.

Amtrak observationSeven-hundred miles of steel track is enough space for strangers to share many years of memories. You can settle in with wine or coffee. You can relax into the seat. The scenery of fields and small towns is buffer enough for the natural pauses. There is no hurry; your stop is likely states away.

After joining fellow travelers for those many miles, to join a woman sitting at a table alone in a crowded food court seemed natural. As she told me about how she spends her days, the realization that she was homeless began to dawn on me. I took a second look at the food she had in front of her—one small order of fries. I told her I was finished eating and asked if she would like any of my leftovers. I think if I had thought about that a bit more, I would not have asked for fear of insulting her. She took my offer though and gladly ate what I did not. I eventually wished her a good day and a safe walk back to her night shelter, thanked her for allowing me to join her table, and went to board my train to Philadelphia.

This second-to-last last part of my journey was on a regional Amtrak train, which means smaller seats and less room to move about. My seat-mate told me about his job in the banking industry, seeming proud of his achievements as a district manager. Before long he had his laptop out, taking advantage of the Wi-Fi.

In Philadelphia, I switched from Amtrak to regional rail for the journey out to the suburbs, choosing a seat next to a woman who had on head-phones. The train car was silent but for the noise of the tracks and the intermittent stop announcements.

The transition was stark. Our day-to-day lives are not built for long chats and shared meals with strangers. Yet, people’s complicated lives exist even when we are just commuting home to the suburbs. Homeless people, lonely people, overlooked people. People who are on a journey to somewhere—people who fight for equality and people who wonder if it’s really possible to be happy—these people are always next to me.

It is of course easier to say that I want to engage than to actually engage. The meeting and eating and talking together requires intentionality on the part of all the participants. When I can remember that the people around me have stories of lives lived full of heartbreak and hope, then I am more willing to keep my eyes open for ways I can give. Even if what I have to give in the moment is only a listening ear or my not-yet-finished lunch.

*    *    *    *    *

fall“Talking on the Train” was written by Nicole Morgan. Nicole’s first long-distance train trip involved Thanksgiving dinner with a dining-car table full of strangers. She booked a sleeper-car once and loved it for all its nostalgic charm, but much prefers coach class where there’s plenty of time and room to meet her traveling neighbors. Nicole writes about bodies, theology, and community at jnicolemorgan.com  and tweets away @jnicolemorgan