a chapter

it's early morning. most of the house is asleep and the fog is lying low covering those blue mountains. it is quiet and still.

today we leave here. this first little part of my trip home will be over and now i'm feeling it.  when will we be back? and what will have changed in those years? these visits, these breaks, mark our time, our days.  our lives move and grow but there is also loss and difference and the constancy of our unknowing.  this is a chapter, where will the book go? who will have been sick or married, or birthed, or buried, or broken or found? will my kids be two years older the next time i see these pink clouds rising with the sun? will they still run shirtless and barefoot chasing each other with light sabers? catching toads and crying with splinters?  things will change. we will.

this morning, as i pack up, and watch the shifting mist lift and the hills slowly unveil, i wonder what will the next years hold? and am i awake? am i active in my days? am i intentional? how am i living my time, where ever it is?

and these are good things to sit with as the sun begins her day.

where

this is what i wanted. 

this place.  this quiet. these blue mountains with the light behind them on the clouds.  this space. to be with out the need.  to return to what was. what is. what is no longer my reality.  to sit on this porch, surrounded by these people, my people, those who have known me always.  those who look like me, sound like me, laugh at the same things as me.  those who returning to them after two years, feels no different then returning from a day.  this is home.  this is what i dreamed about.  what i longed for, especially when i was so tired.

i wanted to run here so that i could look back and see where i was.  so i could see my life again with new eyes.  so i could put it back in perspective.  i wanted to sit right here as the sun sets and feel it all.  i wanted to know that i am both places.  that i can love the smoke rising and drifting across this lake, these foothills, and the cool air in these mountains, and the steak i just ate.  and i can miss and long for that red dirt, all the sounds of those birds, my beautiful dark daughter and loved ones at home. my new home.

it has only been 5 days since i left uganda, but it feels like forever.  i am split and maybe always will be. part of me there, part of me here.

for a while now, i wondered how this would feel.  the returning.  the re-entering.  the stuff.  the mall.  the market.  the abundance. i had visions of breakdown and overwhelm and fears that i would be lost between places.  that i would cry in the soap aisle unable to choose between all the choices.  but it's been easy and normal and interesting and very convenient.  what's surprising isn't how hard or easy it is to be back, but that it's hard to be away from uganda.

for a while i wondered how hard it would be to leave the US, to return to africa, whether i'd have had enough time away, enough time here to regroup, to re-energize, to be ready to return.  but i'm now wondering how hard it will be to stay here when my family goes back next week. 

bryn said it so well about this life we live in two worlds.  he was crying, wanting to go home to uganda, missing his dog, his friends, his life.  then he stopped and said, "but mommy, i know when i get back home, then i'll miss all the things and the people that are here."  a wise soul.  he knows.  he's right.  we straddle these places.  we are split and torn, but so very blessed to know the different sides of a world that share one sun, one moon, one set of stars.

the mountains are quiet and deep blue now. the sky is growing dark, the air is cool.  that sun has gone from us, she is working her way around to the other side. in a few hours she'll wake up rosie and warm her day, while i am still under the night. a part of me here asleep, but dreaming of the other parts far far away.

home

well here i am. i'm home.

i'm outside on the porch of my parents condo in atlanta. i've been up long before the sun because i went to bed when it was still out, but now the day is starting. the air is full, it's humid.  the birds are waking up, their voices are different, the trees are tall and green and different, the machine sounds are different. it's funny, but it doesn't sound like home anymore.

yesterday mike picked me and my dad from the airport. it was so so good to see him, to feel him, to be in his arms again, the arms of home. and to see my zoe, and my mom - all pieces of me that have been scattered for long. today we will drive to north carolina and see my boys and my brother and my sister and her boys and it will almost be complete. except that it won't be, because part of me is across the world.

which makes me wonder about "home"- what and where it is.  because it think it's lots of places.  i think it's made up of lots of people.  this moving across the world and returning, confirms all my suspicions that 'home' really is many places and many people all at once. that home is movable and multifaceted and exists in different dimensions at once.

on the plane it felt like time travel. like i'd left one time and place for another time and place- not just place.  and the time travel piece felt extra strange because it was like going backward and forward at once. back to a time i'd been at before that was ahead of where i've been living.  back to the future. 

i know it hasn't even been a day since i've landed. i know that i woke up confused in the night, wondering where i was, having been dreaming of uganda, but it doesn't feel as strange as i'd expected, it doesn't feel that different.  even the market and the roads and the mall.  even being back to eat at one of my favorite restaurants.  after 2 years of wondering and longings and missings, it just feels a lot like my other home.  leon's or the camel club- not that different.  lenox mall or awino- very different, but it's still just people buying stuff.  well paved roads or potholes, it's still a lot of traffic. 

i'm sure as this month goes on and i see more people and more places, i will have other moments and other reactions.  i'm sure things will feel more different but maybe more the same too.  i'm sure things will be surprisingly hard and other things surprisingly easy.

either way, it's good to be in this home for now!

what the days are really like when you have time

it's 2:17 pm.  i had a horrid migrainous night, and i'm in that post migraine fog, which is waaaay better than having a headache, but because of that fog, i am sitting on this couch with my arms feeling like lead, wondering what i've accomplished today and why i can't seem to get off the couch.  i've accomplished two, no three things.

i managed to get rose up, fed and of to school.
i helped a friend get to the dentist for a bad toothache.
and i finally cleaned out the boys closet....one of them.

that's actually pretty good.  i'll allow myself this rest, and then i'm cooking chicken, and that will be enough. because really, when you are alone, all those things you thought you'd do, all those lists you made and figured if you could only have one week with out the kids...they don't happen.  well, at least not for me. instead, the time morphs and changes and i end up doing a whole lot of nothing and then wondering who i've become. i end up, napping.  or i start off cleaning something and end up reading something.  or i start off reading something, but then i think about how much i'd rather be talking to mike, but i can't because he's too far away and it's the middle of the night were he is, or i'm out of airtime, and now that book has completely lost it's appeal in comparison to a conversation that i can't have.  yes. this is how my days go when i'm alone. when i'm with out my other half. my better half. the more sane half.  or maybe it's not that he's more sane, but that you can't really be sane when you are only half of yourself. 

and i don't really know how to be myself with out him, with out them.  i am in large part mother of 4, and wife, and with out those roles i'm not sure what to do or how to do it. how do you cook dinner for only two people instead of 6? i'll tell you how we've been doing it.....we've been eating a lot of eggs. and what do you do with your nights?

well lately i've been creating these slideshows from my computer. they are full of pictures and music from my past- my kids as babies, my life in other cities, my life with other people, my life in other seasons, maybe lifetimes ago.  i think it's my attempt at reflection and connection. my attempt to process the lifetime-ness of life.  but maybe i'm also subconsciously preparing for re-entry.  i'm going back to my seasons and my places and my people.  i'm re-visiting what i'm about to re-visit.  maybe i'm softening the blow, easing the transition, readying the system. 

because it's time.  it's time to go back to cities and people and other lives.  it's time to reconnect with old parts and places and friends.  it's time to be back with my limbs and heart and lungs and nerves- those i've lived daily life with for so many years.  it's time to be complete again. it's time to put the pieces back together and see things in new light. it's time to hold on to all the goodness.

it's 10:31 pm.  i'm back on this couch, about to go off to bed. and now i've done two more things,

i made some delicious chicken.
and i showed up here.

good night.

on beginning left behind

i can write again! i have had all this time on my hands and thoughts and need to process and this blogger has been down! praise God it's back. i'm back. i have a voice again.  sometimes i think i need to write it out for things to become real. for my life to have shape and form, to not just be motion.  to be still.  to even....just be.   this week has been hard and while i so wanted to be here, in this space, i felt God knew what was needed.  i felt like She was saying 'no'. saying, 'wait'.  saying just breathe and be quiet and be in the space you are in. right. now. here. alone.

this week has been hard because exactly a week ago, i said goodbye to the 4 members of my family that started this journey with me.  the family that has been my world, more than ever before, for the past two years.  i knew it would be sad to have them go, but i had no idea how sad. 

-->and it was awful. it was way more painful than i'd imagined.  i stood there in the cool of that delicious ugandan night air, holding, no clutching rose, my beautiful little brown child who is made of this land and keeps me anchored here,  and watched as my limbs detached from my body and walked away.

that is what it was like.  mike holding me and that cart full of bags, jude and zoe hugging me and telling me it's okay to cry, and bryn and i weeping.  and when that little boy turned crying and walked away up that ramp, i just lost it.  then my heart and my lungs and my entire nervous system ran away with them, leaving me with what bones and skin were left. like a broken shell. i stood there feeling abandoned. left. a deep deep sense of alone.

-->
in the car, sweet rose told me that it would be okay. she said that she would pray to Jesus that daddy would come back soon.  then she told me funny stories from school until she fell asleep while i drove on, praying that they would make it to land again.

i hate flying.  i didn't used to, but i've grown to be terrified of being 35,000 feet in the air. especially when over water, especially when the water is an ocean.  as i drove and thought about most of what i love in the world, what i would die for, being all together in a small metal thing, so high up, so far far away, and moving farther and farther away from me, i felt sort of sick.
  -->
it was strange and painful and heavy- none of which i'd expected. suddenly the world that feels generally pretty small, felt gigantic. suddenly sharing the same moon didn't count for much, and i wanted to run to my babies- all 4 of them.  the space between me and them seemed insurmountable and unbearable. it was almost hard to breathe.

what is it about being left? that is so different from being the one doing the leaving? i don't know, but there is something.

this week has happened as all weeks do.  and we've survived, as we usually do.  rose and i have had some great times together, swimming and laughing and eating dinner and drawing and practicing counting.  (the girl is brilliant, but she can't count.)  i've learned that after almost 20 years of marriage and 13 years with at least one child, being alone is hard and unnatural and not something i want to do again.  i've learned that after about one day of enjoying a clean house, i would LOVE  to step on a lego, and that i miss hearing the fights over which movie to watch or who needs to set the table.  i miss zoe's cackling laugh.  i even miss saying. "SHUT THE DOOR!"

what i miss more, is what i'm missing.  the first impressions.  the reuniting with friends after having lived in africa for 1/3 or 1/4 of their young lives.  the trip to dunkin' donuts.  their reaction to being back at the beach

but we are okay.  in two weeks i'll be back to visit the US too, and it will rip my heart out again when i need to leave rose. 

but soon the summer will be over and we'll all be together again. and next time, please God, we will all be together here or there or elsewhere or where ever- just together.