Category Archives: Guest

The Act of Inverting

Posted on by under Guest, Memory & Place

I am in a new town, having finally made the first move of my life: 2,500 miles north to a place very different from what I’ve always called home.

On an old, oiled, well-marked wood floor, I practice a different style of yoga with a new teacher (although she has the same first name as my longtime teacher in the south). The studio is on the second story of a downtown office building that originally housed a hardware store. I position my mat in front of a window onto an alley, through which I can see a brick wall with beautiful patterns in it, a sky that is sometimes  blue and cloud-filled, sometimes gray and spitting, and a church spire. Crows remark upon my practice from the opposite gutter.

Today I lie on my back with my legs above me, against the wall. Now the window is on my right. This is the asana (or pose) called Viparita Karani, upside-down seal or “the action of inverting.” It is supposed to help with stress, headaches, and cramped or tired legs or feet, among other things. Today I am not particularly stricken with any of these maladies; I am simply following my teacher. But I have been here before. I close my eyes.

Five years ago: I am lying in legs-up-the-wall pose on the same yoga mat on a different and much newer wood floor, of lighter-colored wood, also on the second story, but in a newer building on a wide, busy street in Houston, Texas. Two walls of the studio are floor-to-ceiling glass, and earlier in summer and later in winter I watch the sun rise from this room at least one morning a week, in angry rain or transcendent color or pale haze. This class is very full; we are all very close to our neighbors. I brush hands with the woman on my left, turn my head in her direction, and smile. We clasp hands. Kristi now lives in Australia, and has a new baby I have not met. I miss her every time I practice yoga.

Three years ago: I am lying on a bed in a mid-rate hotel in Alexandria, Minnesota, with my legs up the wall. I have removed the pillow so that I can get right up against the bedframe, still not as close to the wall as I’d like, but close enough. I am wearing compression socks up to my knees after having just raced 100 miles on hilly gravel roads on my bicycle. It is my first bike race since knee surgery and I’ve done better than expected: it was a scenic ride, with friendly people, and I am blissful, transcendent. Superlatively drained and equally ecstatic, I hum with happy exhaustion. My husband lies to the left of me, in the same position. Our shoulders are touching. Soon we will get up and break down our bikes and pack them in boxes for the flight home, then go out for more food and celebratory beers. I will take a picture of the process, of the bike boxes open on the hotel bed, and comment that we have done this in more cheap hotels across the country than I can easily count.

Today I am in a new place, and I am lonely. I put my legs up the wall.

*   *   *   *   *

DSC_2393“The Act of Inverting” is by Julia Jenkins. Julia is a book reviewer, librarian, beer drinker, dog lover, mountain biker and native Texan now residing in Bellingham, Washington. She thinks a lot about concepts of place and home. Her favorite color is green.

The sign of windmills

Posted on by under Guest, Memory & Place

There’s a curve in the freeway, just where the old Dutch Windmill waves its cheerful arms at passers by. It is nestled on the eastern slopes of Cape Town’s table top mountain, a gentle arc of land once populated by quaggas but now home to students from every corner of the continent. The freeway snakes away from the city, and I knew each twist: hospital bend, the little plateau as the freeway parts into two, the slight rise before the arms of the windmill break into view on the left. Even my muscle memory knew the camber of the road, knowing just when to brake, just how much to nudge the steering wheel to take the corner gradually, before flicking on the indicators to signal my exit.

It happened one day, driving home just six weeks into a fledgling relationship, that I knew I would marry this man. He was not at all my type: quiet where I’d always dated extroverts, cautious where I’d formerly been drawn to confident certainty. Our first weeks of dating had been rocky, too: an old flame was in town and was causing trouble.

And yet, as I drove home from a stolen lunch of perfectly spiraled sushi rolls and contemplated the unlikeliness of it all, it was then I remembered a prayer I had prayed some years earlier: an uncomplicated prayer, that I would find someone who loved me for who I was, who loved God, and with whom I could talk and laugh. I cheekily added a fourth request: Please God, if it wasn’t too much to ask, could he be tall, too?

7307290624_d6aeb0dc08_zI laughed out loud at the memory, just as the windmill came into sight. No, he wasn’t the life of the party or a teller of jokes, but we certainly did laugh together. He wasn’t a reciter of sonnets or the maker of grand gestures, but his quiet patience in the midst of my ex-boyfriend-tornado spoke volumes of his commitment to me. Yes, he loved God, and—Oh God, you remembered!—he stretched six feet and two inches tall. A man to look up to, in every sense of the word.

The windmill bore witness to it all. I flicked on my turning signal, grinning to myself. I’d been slow to realize it, but this was the one with whom I could be silly and cranky, and who could see my fissures and not run. This was the one with whom I could grow old. I felt the winds of change and sensed a deep shift, a milling in my own soul.

I drove home that same route the next day, and the next, smiling each time I drove past that historic landmark, noting its milestone. Six months later I passed by my windmill in the passenger seat, this time dressed in white. I rested my hand on my new husband’s knee. “Do you see that windmill?” I asked. “This was where I first knew we would get married. Driving home. One day after eating sushi with you. And I just knew.”

He smiled and flicked on the indicator as we passed under the windmill’s shade. Ever as always, it signaled home.

*   *   *   *   *

bronwyn lea umbrella“The Sign of Windmills” is by Bronwyn Lea. Bronwyn and her husband married and moved from Cape Town to California, where they now live with their three littles. Bronwyn writes about the holy and hilarious at bronlea.com, as well as other online places like SheLoves, RELEVANT, the Huffington Post and Christianity Today’s Her.meneutics. She is a member of the Redbud Writers Guild. Occasionally, she gets back to South Africa and always makes sure to drive by the windmill (pictured above, photograph by Ian Barbour). Follow Bronwyn on Facebook and Twitter.

90 Miles

Posted on by under Guest, Memory & Place

I have the full lips of a good Cuban woman, wide hips that twitch at the sound of a Latin beat. I am red hot passionate, with an eyes-flashing, arms-waving temper. The sea is the only place I feel blood-rushing peace.

Yes, Cuba is inside me, whether I like it or not.

We flew through the skies one late July night. Surrounded by lightning and carried by turbulence, our entire California family landed in Miami well past bedtime. It was a journey of cultural homecoming for some in our group, and a first exposure for the rest of us. There in our two-star motel with its questionable swimming pool and a not-great view of the beach, I first understood just how wide are the borders of Cuban familia. We welcomed a parade of relatives, long ago friends, and friends of friends–categories that might as well cease to exist at the table a Cuban abuelita. Familia is familia. Everyone’s in.

Two weeks of all-day swimsuits and every morning breakfasts at IHOP are a blur in my memory now. I was only nine-years-old and not sure what to make of this place so different than my white-bred, dry-heat California hometown.

One half of a morning stands out in importance and recollection, however. After travelling to Key West, we found ourselves staring into the leaves of the southernmost tree. When a black cat darted from behind a bush, my cousin joked, “There goes the southernmost cat.” Just ahead of us stood a chain-linked fence, with the wide waters of the Atlantic splashing on the rocks below.

Attached near the top of the fence, a sign reads: 90 Miles to Cuba90 Miles

This is what we came to see, and so we stood silent for a moment. My dad slung his arm around his sister’s shoulders and she smiled through her tears. Thirty-ish years back and ninety miles south–that’s how far away their minds traveled in those few minutes. As children and with no notice, they left their island home with their parents, abandoning memories, dear friends, all the treasures of their childhood.

While the grown-ups reminisced in choked-up Espanol, my cousins and I, along with my little brother and sister, ran wild in a game of tag, hopping on and off large rocks that topped the cliff we were gathered on. Laughing and running, we blinked our eyes at the Florida sun with our feet pounding the ground of freedom that has always spread beneath us.

When I was sure no one was looking, I strained my eyes out over the forever expanse of water, searching for a piece of driftwood or the black ridges of a tire, signs of a refugee almost to shore. These were the stories I’d grown up with, stories of desperation and hope. Sometimes they made it. Sometimes they were picked up by the Coast Guard. Sometimes they sank.

Standing at the edge of our country, I felt like I was at the edge of something else, but as I was only a little girl, I couldn’t put my finger on what it was exactly.  I was overwhelmed. The gratitude I was supposed to feel, the imaginings of a childhood built with the brick and mortar of communism, language barriers so steep I feared I’d never break them apart, the constant volume and prattle of all these people who shared my blood, or at least a piece of my history, it was just too much.

Frankly, these Cubans of mine were too much.

We shared a gene pool, but we didn’t fit together easily. So when my dad walked out the door a few years after our Florida trip, filing for divorce and affirming all the discord I’d sensed, I erased them, mi familia, and Cuba itself from my very identity. 90 miles was too far to go.

But roots pull and roots dig.

All grown up now, I see it all with gentler eyes. As a wife and mother, I look at my babies and my husband and I see the dark eyes of my Abuelita. I wonder at the cost of her sacrifices, I wonder what it does to a woman to leave the way she did, to gather her children and pray that a far away land will be the answer she’s hoping for. I think of my dad’s childhood memories, and then I dream of sugar cane fields and a baseball soaring high above them, the exultant cries of a passel of Cuban boys.

I wince when I think of guns, suitcases, desperation and my dad as a skinny boy with enormous ears standing with his big sister decked in a white dress, helpless. I lose my breath when I think of my freedom-loving Papi in a cell all those times, his dream of a free Cuba still breathing, but losing color.

My heart edges close to what it all means, and sometimes that’s as far as it can go. But every now and then I stand in that place long enough to see the big picture–the mistakes, the desperate shots in the dark, the guts and the fear, the stubborn hope.

I know now that the edge I felt all those years ago was the edge of loss and anger, language barriers and picking sides. It was the sharp shatter of family, connection. It was me, trying to keep hearts safe and the coming realization that I can’t.

As I turn my gentler eyes on this this cast of characters in a complicated and sometimes devastating tale of a fully Cuban, fully American family, it is so clear that we all have scars of place and relationship. These Cubans of mine, and me. And if they are mine, and they indisputably are, then I am theirs and their Cuba lives inside me too. 90 miles is closer than I ever could have imagined.

Maybe in learning to make peace with a memory, I’ve learned to love a place and a people that I can’t escape. And the truth is, I don’t want to escape it or them anymore. What I want is to  step beyond that chain link fence, to slice through the self-imposed invisible line between here and there. I want my heart to cross the Atlantic and finally say, “Estoy aqui y te amo.”

I’m here and I love you.

* * * * *

profileBio: Sarah Torna Roberts is a writer who lives in California with her husband and four sons. She blogs at www.sarahtornaroberts.com where she digs around her in her memories, records her present, and is constantly holding her faith up to the light. She snacks at 2 AM with great regularity, is highly suspicious of anyone who doesn’t love baseball (Go Giants!), and would happily live in a tent by the sea.

 

90 Miles.jpg is a photo by Kay Gaensler, available for public use.

 

An Inner Place

Posted on by under Guest, Travel & Place

Japan is a particular place, unique unto itself and settled into that particularity. When I am there, I feel completely at home and completely foreign. There are people going about their daily lives, following the predictable patterns that smooth the tasks of everyday living. Yet there are also subtle differences that unsettle a visitor such as myself when I disrupt these easy, orderly patterns.

Just over a year ago, I was fortunate to have work bring me back to this country that alternately fascinates and perplexes me. For eight days in the cold of February, I traveled. I spent the time mostly on my own — Tokyo to Fukuoka to Nagasaki — navigating the obvious that did not seem obvious to me at all, at first.

I did things like standing alone on a cold and windy train platform wondering “Where are the other passengers?” and then realizing that they had stayed inside, not passing through the gates until a moment before the train would arrive. Because, of course, this was Japan. The train would arrive precisely when scheduled. I entered the bus terminal by the wrong door and fumbled about for the tray and tongs so I could choose my items at the bakery. Every day I made mistakes.

However, I recall most clearly the kindnesses of those who nudged me into success.

The gesture of allowing me to go ahead in line that was also guidance about which line I should be in. The hotel staff member who made hot water for me since the instant hot water machines were obviously beyond my experience and thus ability. (He explained that he wanted to be sure the temperature was just right for the specific tea I had selected, silent on the reality that I had not been able to procure any water for myself at all.) The sushi chef who realized I had not ordered what I wanted and gently recommended that perhaps I would be happier with the alternative option offered.

Slowly I relaxed into the flow of the crowds around me, trusting instinct rather than ability to read directions or make logical sense of behaviors I observed. Eventually I found the patterns that guide those who are able to expect and predict rather than bumble and trip. Through this becoming, I reflected on the paradox that, the more foreign my surroundings, the more familiar I become with myself – that self that is always within me but is not always present to me.

Becoming so dependent on others as I did is not easy for someone as driven and self-sufficient as I. My first tendency is to resist – to insist that I can figure it out on my own. To declare that being alone does not mean I am incomplete or incompetent. I have come to realize, however, that if I can quiet that voice; I can hear another. It too is mine but it is the voice that reflects rather than analyzes, appreciates rather than judges, and welcomes the generosity of others — accepting the community that makes me more than I can be on my own. More fully myself. More familiar. More whole.

On my final day walking from shrine to shrine and temple to temple in Nagasaki, one of the vendors insisted that she take my picture with my camera “so that you will always remember this place.” She meant because of the signs below and between which I was standing, tall signs identifying Sofukuji Temple in golden Japanese script. She did not know that she was capturing for me a moment in time to which I had journeyed – to that inner place in which I re-find myself.

* * * * *

photoremember“An Inner Place” was written by Lisa Janicke Hinchliffe. Lisa is a librarian and is many times published, but always scholarly, professional pieces. It is a new venture to write in this genre, and she will have to think about whether she will do it again.

Lisa lives in Urbana, Illinois. When not at home, she lives easily out of a carry-on bag for up to weeks at time. Lisa can be found on Twitter at@lisalibrarian.

Bridge Crossing

Posted on by under Guest, Travel & Place

The sky is spitting at me as I start making my way across the Birmingham to the South Side. Others may take offense at such rudeness from above, but I am not overly worried about it. Black clouds are rolling in from the west and it appears that I am on the brink of an odd February rainstorm.

I continue my brisk stride down the fading bike lane. It was only striped in November, but its disappearing lines assume an older age. It reminds me of a relationship that is exciting while new, but gets neglected after an initial flurry of attention. Does anyone build anything to last anymore?

A car zooms past at an unnecessary speed. Thank goodness for these bike lanes…why do people drive like idiots? I realize that I am moving quite fast myself (for walking of course) and that a small sense of indignation has risen into my chest. I may not be in a vehicle, but I still get caught up in the rush of morning traffic. I slow my pace only a little: part of me wants to get caught in the moment and in the storm, though part of me only wishes to get to work and stay dry.

I cautiously traverse the on-ramp and hurdle the barrier guarding the sidewalk. My feet hit the other side and continue their dutiful march towards the office. I breathe a bit easier having a concrete wall between me and the traffic and lose myself in my thoughts.

BirminghamBridgeWhen crossing a bridge, I am most often merely trying to get from point A to point B. When I take a slower mode of transportation (my feet, for example, or by bike), the line between the destinations, the journey, becomes more important and focused.

In contrast, when I cross a bridge with a car or a bus, am I really bridge crossing, or is it my vehicle transporting me from one point to another? Do I hear my feet hitting the pavement below? Do I feel the raindrops and wind stinging my face? Do I really see my surroundings when a window is framing my view, the world passing by in a blur?

The difference between bridge crossing and bridge crossing is in the experience of the moment. Actually, it is a state of mind:

When I am in a hurry to get to work in the morning, even though I am walking, I am not really crossing the bridge: I am just trying to get to work.

At the midway point of the bridge, the spitting turns into a light sprinkle and breaks my reverie. I look over the railing to the river below. The Mon is usually pretty muddy, but I find that this is even more the case today. It had been calmly flowing in the weeks before: Now it seems to have snapped. It has been holding back for a long time and is just now letting go.

It is a hard process: to let go. The waters seem to dig their heels into the bottom of the riverbed in protest and make everything cloudy. I remind myself that it is a cycle that nature – and a human heart – goes through: The water rises and falls in its own time.

The sprinkle is growing steadier as I descend the stairs from the bridge walkway. My mind turns to schedules and coffee and nine-to-five matters. I check my watch: 8:55. I quicken my pace.

I see other people on their way to our huge renovated warehouse of an office building. They come from all directions, pulled somewhat unwillingly towards the same point as if by some unseen magnetic beacon. Most of their faces have the same blank look of Monday.

The rain is really starting to come down now. I alight the stairs towards the employee entrance and seek cover from the rain. I see a flash light up the sky and hear the subsequent crack of thunder. I pause, hoping to at least watch the storm for a little longer, but someone is behind me, so I enter the building.

I remember so vividly these ten minutes of my day, crossing the bridge, while the rest goes by in a forgotten blur…

“Why can’t my whole life be like crossing a bridge?” I ask myself as I punch the elevator button. I breathe deep, step into the elevator and take note of the strength of my still beating heart. I silently pray gratitude as the doors close in front of me.

*   *   *   *   *

TriciaThickBikes“Bridge Crossing” is by Tricia Chicka. Tricia is a multi-media artist, massage therapist, cycling advocate, outdoors enthusiast and theatre lover from the city of bridges: Pittsburgh, PA. When she is not walking across bridges, she is more often than not cycling, bussing, or (begrudgingly) driving over them. She loves the power of words and sometimes pretends to know how to string them together in meaningful ways. You can find other musings posted on The Chicka Blog (www.pachickster.blogspot.com).

Don’t Get Too Close

Posted on by under Guest, Travel & Place

A story about looking for love when you’re traveling.

“I guess I’m still trying to figure it out,” he says in reply to my question a few minutes earlier.

I put my phone back under my pillow, trying to think about what to say. It was after 2AM in Antigua, Guatemala, a tourist town a few hours away from the city in the mountains where I had been living for the past eight months.

A year ago, I had Don'tGetTooClosenothing to lose. No job, no apartment, no relationship to leave behind. So when I was offered a teaching job in western Guatemala, I said “yes”. I imagined myself being free and independent, ready to take on the world. But when I found myself in a place where my primary dating requirement was “guy who speaks English”, the internet became my connection to the outside world.

So when I woke up one morning to find a message in my inbox, I was intrigued.

It’s funny how quickly a new possibility can begin to consume my thoughts. This is usually the time when I start pushing away, afraid of letting myself be overtaken by someone who I have never even met. I start imposing rules, censoring words, allowing weeks to pass between short conversations.

In this moment, I realize that I’m scared.

I’m scared of never settling, of never figuring it out, of never getting it right. I’m scared of being irresponsible, of wasting my life away. I’m scared of the people who talk about me behind closed doors, saying “she could have been so much more.”

I’m afraid of allowing myself to love someone who doesn’t have it figured out either. Not because I expect perfection, but because when I look at someone else and see my own faults reflected in him, I see a relationship built with toothpicks and glue. I’m looking for someone else to hold it all together. I need him to be stronger than I am.

After all, I have tried that before. I have waded through the months of confusion that come from dating someone who is deeply uncertain about everything. Once I return to the United States, still without a job or a real life of my own, I’m afraid that person will be me.

So I want to tell him the truth, I want to tell him that I don’t have it figured out. I want to tell him:

Don’t get too close, I’m dangerous.
Don’t get too close, because I’m broken.
Don’t get too close, because I don’t have it figured out.
Don’t get too close, because I might leave.

How do people do this, I wonder? How can we allow someone else to hurt us, or to be hurt by us? When we’re all stumbling around blindly, making mistakes and trying to “find ourselves”, everyone is a risky commitment.

I wanted to roll over and ignore the message in my inbox, but as I lay there, staring at the ceiling, I had an idea. “Maybe relationships require us to change,” I said. “Maybe we need to find someone good, and then figure it out together.”

“Maybe so, but I’m still not there yet,” the realist replied.

It was a relief in some way, knowing we both told the truth. But still, we are stuck in the stalemate of I live here and you live there and I want this now, but I might want something else tomorrow. Giving someone else permission to change us doesn’t come easily, but I think it’s the only way out.

The desire to leave is a powerful feeling. That desire to leave brought me to Guatemala, and it became like a thread that stretched for thousands of miles, connecting me to another person with the same desire. Love, however, comes not from a desire to leave, but from a decision to stay.

Maybe this isn’t happily ever after. A leap of faith can’t fix everything, nor can a plane ticket bring two people closer together whose ambitions might be miles apart. But someday, everything will change. Someday I will say let’s figure this out together. We can fix what’s broken. And if you leave, I’m leaving with you.

I don’t know who I will be saying this to, but God, if you’re listening, I have a suggestion.

* * * * *

beccaBecca is a teacher who has discovered writing as a cheaper form of therapy. Originally from Chicago, she spent the past year living and working in the town of Xela, Guatemala, where her hobbies included squeezing onto tiny, overcrowded busses, reading in the park, and smiling and nodding when people spoke Spanish much too quickly. She blogs at beccanelsonwrites.com, where she is passionately spreading the word that it’s okay to fail. You can also follow her on twitter @beccaliz.

Under The Creation of Adam

Posted on by under Guest, Travel & Place

I rocked her, swaying side to side and revolving in place, while she was snug against my chest wrapped in the carrier. Audrey was loud and upset from a missed nap on a day out in Rome, so I quietly sang to her hoping she’d nod off.

I had always hoped to be here, but never imagined it would be with my husband and our two young children. I had envisioned endless time and a schedule that only I would be subject to. But there we stood, all of us, in the Sistine Chapel, under The Creation of Adam. I wanted to sit and stare up at this masterpiece, but instead we were working to hush our children, using quietly-hissed demands. Finally, with an ache in my neck from craning it backward and the weight of the carrier pulling at my shoulders, I made my exit sooner than I’d wanted.

sophia_audrey_romeA few days later, I was picking up my almost-two-year-old off the cold marble tiles at the Galleria dell’Accademia, setting her upright again. Then I asked my four-year-old to stand instead of walk-crawl on her knees which was an obvious distraction in this place. All of these parental musts couldn’t help but overshadow my few brief glances at Michelangelo’s 16-foot statue of the David. I was hoping for an emotionally holy-artistic experience, but there wasn’t time for it. A moment later, we whisked our children outside where they had permission to be as loud and playful as they wanted.

During these angry-annoyed moments with my children, I imagined what it would be like to travel without kids: the simplicity of putting on my own coat without having to bother helping anyone else; the unhurried and uninterrupted time to contemplate and comprehend the artistic and historical; the delicious glass of red wine sitting on the table, unafraid of being spilled, just waiting to be slowly enjoyed, savored.

You get the idea.

Traveling with kids, in a constantly changing environment, is one of the most stressful endeavors I’ve experienced so far—“Just eat the gelato and watch Elmo on the iPad and sit still for one minute, damnit!!”

We are slow travelers. Our pace is interrupted by children trying to get our attention. Our backs get sore from holding children who refuse to walk on their own or who would otherwise get lost in the London foot traffic. They need us over and over again. We are the exhausted ones, trying to enjoy, trying to be thankful for both having the opportunity to travel as well as for parenting these little ones of ours. We live in that dissonance every time we embark on another journey. We hold onto our sanity as tightly as we can while also grasping at the coat sleeves of our children.

We’ve learned about the medical system in five different countries and are pros at locating pharmacies and finding pediatric medicine. Despite multiple attempts to force our daughters to experience the local flavors, we often eat lunch at yet another McDonald’s. We also feel the sting when we’ve paid our child’s entrance fee to see the 1000-year-old castle and they are more interested in the grass surrounding the castle.

And yet, there is a special medal we earn for bravery and for courage when we travel with our children. We receive more smiles and more forgiveness for not speaking the native language when locals see how distracted we are with our littles. On many occasions, we’ve received “ciao bella” from older Italian couples with lovely wrinkled grins as they gently touch our children’s cheeks. Our itineraries always contain a stop by the city park where children don’t care about languages spoken other than the universal language of play. The grinning faces of our children has been enough to earn them a few extra free pieces of Swiss chocolate. Traveling with children means we get to be silly and laugh about the stench of whales exhaling through their blowholes. We get to observe more—such as the differences between ladybugs in Denmark and in Sweden— because we are slowed by our children’s stubby legs and handholding.

They help us care and they soften us.

One day we will love telling them about their travels as young children, and by then I won’t remember all of the hard parts. Instead, I will remember the amazing: daring to take our two young children into a world that has such breathtaking beauty and such magnificent diversity, and telling them about the God-made things and the incredible things people have constructed. All of our experiences in traveling with our children—hurriedness and limitations clipped by slivers of pure amazement, delight, detail, forgiveness and companionship—are woven through the spirit of our family story. That story is our masterpiece.

*   *   *   *   *

bio-pic_small“Under The Creation of Adam” is written by Lisa Collier. Lisa moved from Pittsburgh in 2012 and is currently an expat living in Doha, Qatar as a 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 of all. Read more on her blog, “Once You are {Real}”.

Naked Among Friends

Posted on by under Guest, Travel & Place

The day of the trip was gorgeous, sunny and warm. I arrived at the shoreline nervous and hopeful, wanting to make a good impression. Sarah had invited me to the lake, and Sarah would understand how I felt. She was a female pastor, like I was. We both knew what a struggle it was to feel out of place in a profession that tends to be mostly male and mostly older. I didn’t get invited to golf games or men’s retreats, and so I wanted to make the most of this day–connecting with colleagues while inner tubing and water skiing.

16810235579_4f640d352a_oAfter setting up lawn chairs and drink coolers around a barbeque pit, Sarah asked if I’d like to try jet skiing. I’d never ridden a jet ski before, but watching people zipping around the lake inspired an unusual confidence to try something new.

I watched as Sarah took the jet ski out onto the lake, the handlebars parallel to the footstand as she floated on top of it. Then, as she picked up speed; she came up to her knees. Finally, after going even faster and taking the handlebars up to a perfect 90 degree angle against the footstand, she happily stood tall on the tiny machine cruising along the top of the water.

It looked easy, as hard things often do when done by an expert. When she handed the jet ski over to me, I made my first attempt, revving the engine too soon and losing control before I got the chance to raise to my knees. I tried again, same result. Over and over I held the handlebars, floating on the surface, coming close but always losing my grip and letting go before I could stand up.

Without fail, as soon as the the handlebars slipped out of my fingers, the jet ski would begin to circle, zipping around and around in the cool black water like an eager puppy hoping I would play its favorite game, waiting for me to regain control. Frustrated and embarrassed that everyone on the shore was watching me get schooled by this tiny plastic machine, I tried to keep smiling as I adjusted my swimsuit and climbed back on, sure that I had it in the bag this time, only to feel the jet ski power away from my tired hands again.

On my ninth attempt, I felt it. I was going to get up this time. I had the handles firmly gripped and as the motor began to pick up speed, I was ready. And then – whoosh – the force of the motor blew back into the water and took the bottom of my black tankini with it.

I was naked from the waist down.

I motored forward, trying to slow the machine as I bobbed behind it, holding the handlebars horizontal on the water. Each second put me farther away from my now missing bathing suit. Even if I could have stood up, I didn’t want to show off my exposed lower half to everyone enjoying their afternoon at the lake. As it was, the force of the motor was pushing that most buoyant body part to the surface, effectively mooning every passing boat.

Not knowing what else to do, I decided to cruise into the cove where our group was eating lunch. I thought if I explained the situation while staying a little way out from the shore, I could ask someone to throw me a towel and possibly save myself the humiliation of this new group of friends and fellow ministers seeing my backside.

I held steady in the water at the edge of the cove.

“You guys,” I yelled. “The jet ski blew off my bathing suit bottoms. Can someone throw me a towel?”

After a few moments of confused looks from the shore, I yelled again, hoping someone would take pity on me.

A guy in his lawn chair stood up and yelled back, “Um, we don’t know you.”

I looked again and realized that indeed, this was a different cove and a different group of people than I had come with. I waved and began to motor away, my rear end floating to the surface as the strangers on the shore began to cheer.

I found our friends two coves down. I tried yelling for help but before I could even begin my story, they applauded, laughing, and threw me a towel, telling me that they’d heard me yelling to the strangers down the lake.

The camaraderie the rest of that afternoon was rich, the ice having been clearly broken by my lake-wide display. Instead of being embarrassed or feeling alienated by my escapade, I felt the welcome and affection that comes with shared experience. I lost my bottoms and with them my nerves, finding instead a place among friends.

* * * * *

100_1050“Naked Among Friends” was written by Lindsey Smallwood (far left). Lindsey loves being near the water and usually manages to stay fully clothed. A former pastor and teacher, she now lives in Boulder, Colorado with her husband and two young sons where you’ll often find her chatting at the park, walking by the creek or writing on the couch. You can read more on her blog Songbird and a Nerd or find her on Facebook.

Pelican photo by Lars Plougmann

 

Mi Tierra

Posted on by under Guest, Travel & Place

After nearly 24 hours, we finally landed in Havana. It was May of 1998, the summer after I’d completed my sophomore year in college, when I accompanied my mother back to her homeland, an island she hadn’t seen since 1971 when she boarded a plane as part of the Freedom Flight program. Our multi-stop journey — Los Angeles to Houston to Cancun to Havana — was made with each of us wearing several layers of clothing, all of which we would leave behind. That’s what you did when you visited family in Cuba.

Exhausted, we stood before an inspector who began to pick apart our luggage, item by item, all of which Mom had carefully selected and weighed, because the rule was if you were over the weight allotment, they would require some kind of remittance. Knowing this, Mom slipped our inspector a twenty dollar bill, and just like that, we were allowed to move forward.

Just on the other side of the makeshift cordoned off area for those waiting, was our family—the real people whose names and faces I’d only known through photographs and stories that occasionally worked themselves from my mother’s memory. After a round of hearty hugs, Mom and I were ushered into a relic of a car and off to her cousin’s apartment. With the windows down (the AC had long since stopped working), we drove through the damp Caribbean air under a silken evening sky. I found it hard to believe we were actually here; we were in Cuba, finally. It wasn’t a mythical land about which was sung to me through lyrics from my mother’s albums. This place was in fact real. I let my head lean against the doorframe and listened to the salty waves crashing against the stone walls along the famous stretch of Malecon that held up this crumbling city.

We spent two weeks in Cuba, visiting with family and taking in as much as we could. I got to see the elementary school Mom attended, and the apartment where she had lived with her own mother. Everywhere we went we were treated like royalty—brought to tables bowing under the weight of feasts prepared. Someone had gotten wind that I loved mangoes, so at every stop there was always plenty of fresh mango, the flesh of the bright orange fruit so sweet that it could have only ripened under an island sun. We walked through abandoned sugar factories, gnawing on the raw cane. There were trips to swimming pools, and dinner dances at rooftop bars. Music and laughter was never far from our ears and lips, and someone was always telling me a story of when my mother was a little girl. This woman I had only ever known as my mother, a figure I often worked hard to steer against as a teenager, took on a new light. She had a history that was all her own, one apart from mine. For the first time I saw her as an individual.

My favorite memory rests with the particular leg of the trip that took us to Camaguey, the town from which Mom came. We were sitting in the backyard of someone’s house, most of the women busying themselves with putting the meal together, while the men were planted in a circle, passing around the two bottles of rum we had purchased with our American dollars at the local store. There was the sound of glass clinking as someone poured himself another swig, callused farm-worked hands rubbing scruffy cheeks, and laughter. There was so much laughter. At some point someone arrived with an accordion, and the group broke into a spontaneous rendition of Guantanamera. I know the lyrics because I grew up with them, Mom singing the song at parties, or turning up the stereo if the track came through the speakers. I knew Guantanamera, and I felt part of these people, this island, this place. I sang with them, our arms interlocking with one another, feet tapping in rhythm, the accordion scissoring its soulful notes through the heavy afternoon air.

The toothy smiles, the plumes of dust kicked up by our dancing heels in the backyard of our cousin’s house, the smell of stewing goat meat on the open fire in a makeshift shack of a kitchen. That scene has been stitched into my history and I often wonder what will happen to our connection with Cuba when my mother is gone. She is the last true link to the island, and all the history that lies with those people, the ones with whom we danced and sang.

DSC01229My own daughter, Lucille, was born in October of 2013. Weeks into her new life, my rawness into Motherhood, I discovered that if I wore her strapped to my chest and played music, her screams would calm as she became lulled by the rhythm of my dancing body. Often, the music I played  was Cuban. I recently posted a picture of my daughter wearing a woven fedora. The caption read, Ella no nacio en Cuba, pero la isla vive en su corazon. Translation: She wasn’t born in Cuba, but the island lives in her heart. It’s in her smile — the one I gave her —the food I make, the music we listen to, and the intangible way my mother has taught me to live life. And now this breathes in Lucy, stitched in the fabric of her flesh, in all the ways that can be seen and unseen.

We are always there.

*    *    *    *    *

3_9_14 (25 of 27)“Mi Tierra” was written by Ilene Marshall. Ilene resides in Pittsburgh, PA, with her husband and daughter. When she’s not documenting her life through photography, she attempts to capture some of it in writing. She has been a teacher for 11 years, but finds that often times, the biggest lessons aren’t found in books. Ilene blogs at “These Marmalade Skies,” and her photography can be seen at Ilene Marshall Photography.

In Defense of Wanderlust

Posted on by under Guest, Travel & Place

Standing at the peak, the wind whipping my hair across my cheeks, I close my eyes and tilt my face to the sun. I stretch out my arms and turn up my palms and breathe. I open my eyes and try to absorb the techni-colored panorama of jagged, white mountain peaks, emerald pastures and shimmering diamond lakes reflecting back the exact impossible blue of the New Zealand sky and I think, Heaven looks like this.

I sit on the back of a scooter, hands gripping the waist of the twelve-year-old boy who is my driver as we zip down the jungle roads to a breakfast of green leaf pancakes with palm sugar. We dodge a rooster strutting cockily across the road and I can’t stop smiling from ear to ear because heaven feels like the wind blowing past my face as we bump over potholes, winding our way through the Balinese jungle.

In Canterbury Cathedral I kneel, dappled by colored light from the stained glass windows and thinking about Augustine and about Thomas Becket, crouching on these very stones, heart pounding as he waits, pleading with God to spare his life. I inhale and imagine Becket in heaven, smelling the aroma of this same sweet incense in the throne room of the Most High God.

On a mountain in Peru a whole village of Quechuan people, dressed in layers of wool in all the colors of the rainbow, sing a song about their beloved mountain, Huascaran. They sing in high-pitched nasal tones a song that sounds like some combination of zydeco and a tribal wail. The sound is harsh and grating to my ears and yet I can’t help thinking that this is what heaven sounds like – a great cacophony of sound.

In an old Communist youth camp beside the mighty Volga River hours north of Moscow, I tuck a room full of 9-year-old orphan boys into bed. I hug Dema’s freckly face to my chest and kiss the top of his head and think, The kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these. “Spokie-Nokie,” I say, and turn out the light.

* * * * *

Once, a few years into our marriage, my husband and I had an argument about travel. We had hoped to take a trip, but car problems and taxes and medical bills had strained our very limited resources. It seemed like a trip was out of the question and I was profoundly disappointed. At some point during the conversation Jonathan said to me, “I know you’re disappointed, but there will be other opportunities in the future. I don’t understand why you are so incredibly upset.”

And I said (as dramatically as it sounds), “Because this is the purpose of my life!”

And he said, “You can’t be serious. You basically just told me your life’s purpose is to take vacations.”

What I couldn’t articulate in that moment was that traveling is a deeply spiritual experience for me. Traveling moves me to worship in a way that nothing else does.

What does it mean that the mountains melt like wax in the presence of the Lord until you’ve stood at the top of a great and glorious mountain?

What does it mean that all of man’s accomplishments are like filthy rags beside God’s splendor until you’ve seen the Sistine Chapel or stood on the Great Wall of China?

Why does it matter that God is a father to the fatherless if you’ve never known the orphan?

How can you understand what it means that God holds the whole world in the span of his hand if you’ve never been outside your hometown?

What does it mean that heaven is filled with people from every tribe and tongue and nation if you’ve only known people from your own?

“The whole earth is filled with His glory,” cry the angels. I want my life to be about seeing and spreading that glory, even to the ends of the Earth.

new-zealand

* * * * *

Bio PictureAuthor Bio: “In Defense of Wanderlust” was written by Lily Ellyn Dunn. Lily was born and raised in South Louisiana, went to college in Illinois, started working in North Carolina, and currently lives with her husband in South Korea where she is a teacher by day, a writer by night, and an ice cream connoisseur all the time. Lily blogs about life, faith, and everyday grace at http://lilyellyn.com. Find her on Twitter @lilyellyn

New Zealand photo credit to Jonathan Dunn