end of march poem

Summer Morning

Heart,
I implore you,
it's time to come back
from the dark,

it's morning,
the hills are pink
and the roses
whatever they felt

in the valley of night
are opening now
their soft dresses,
their leaves

are shining.
Why are you laggard?
Sure you have seen this
a thousand times,

which isn't half enough.
Let the world
have its way with you,
luminous as it is

with mystery
and pain--
graced as it is
with the ordinary.


-mary oliver

heart and soul

this is what happens to me.  i start a million times. i begin. i stop.  i get tired. i leave it. i return. i have so much, and i have nothing.  i am brave, and then i'm scared. i have so many parts and so little that's whole.

i'm studying for the medical boards because believe it or not, it's been 10 years since i first took them and it's time. i'm a really bad student.  i'm distracted and i need noise, but not the kind of noise that comes with my life. i need the noises of strangers lives- like in a coffee shop- lives that don't know my name or need snacks or help with homework or general guidance. and i need music and lots of my own snacks and breaks and time, i need more time, because what happens is that after 10 years, i get called back- back to remembering where i was 10 years ago and what i was doing and feeling and thinking. 

ten years ago, i was pregnant with jude, eating everything i could find especially if it had meat in it, and falling asleep in my books.  ten years ago, i had friends who were studying for the medical boards too and could sit with me in coffee shops and listen to the voices of other peoples lives with me. ten years ago i was living in san francisco and had just finished residency- so i knew medicine well because i'd been doing it 100 hours a week for 3 years. 

now, i'm old and tired and living in africa.  i have no friends who are doctors, instead i have friends who are studying to finish high school and college.  i haven't been practicing real american medicine in 3 years.  and i have 4 kids who need things that usually involve me.

so it's hard.

i began with cardiology. 

the heart.

i began with that thing that we define life with- the beating of our heart.  i have been there when it stops- too many times here.  i have put my head on skinny silent rib cages- too many times here- empty now because of cancer, not AIDS like it used to be.

the heart beats and moves things- but it also aches and it breaks and it's those things that make me wonder about the soul and where that is? that undeniable part of each of us- that part that looks for God and meaning and connection with each other.  that part that likes to hide, or that we like to cover.  that most vulnerable part- most powerful part- most important part. that mushy deep place that catches and holds so much joy and pain.  that place that is so separate from the heart because the heart keeps going on and on even when the soul is broken, but that place that is only allowed in the body while the heart is there.  when the heart stops- life leaves- the soul, it goes.

maybe because it needs movement. maybe the soul can't sit still.  maybe it needs pumping- needs the constancy of it's path - to traverse the body- return for air and go again. 

is it restless?

is it trapped in the body for however many years? running helter-skelter to find something that is only found in stopping? found in quiet. found outside of itself. found in the beginnings and the endings. found in the little moments.  the frozen moments. the pause.

like yesterday- when i caught judes eyes- their blueness- their history- those eyes - how i've looked into them for years and wondered who he'd be, if he'd be, how he'd be. 

or when i read the words of buechner,

"I'm as crippled as the dark world," Gildas said.
"If it comes to that, which one of us isn't, my dear?" Brendan said.

"To lend each other a hand when we're falling," Brendan said. "Perhaps that's the only work that matters in the end."

those times when i'm most humbled, brought low by life, reminded of my lack of control, reminded of my sameness (thank God), my shared brokenness.  those times when i see the unity in it all, the common kite strings. those times when i know i have no answers except to open my hands. those times when i am able to open them. that is when i find and feel the soul.  and that is when i know it sits- stilled- held- warmed- protected- (despite ALL i've done or not done in my chest ticking days)- in those forever everlasting arms.

good bye again

i walked down the steps of my friend zoe's house with a jug of maple syrup in one hand and an even bigger jug of lotion in the other.  it was the 'spa' lotion.  the luxury she'd brought from home to ease being here.  and now that she is going and i am staying, i have inherited it.  but it's a cheap substitute.  i want her company and conversation and her wonderful family and her thoughts on our lives and her delicious food. but it's time.  she leaves in 6 days.

we sat on her porch, as always, except it was anything but 'always' because it was the beginning of goodbye.   again.  another one.  the one i've have known is coming, but now that it's here, i can barely stand it. that one.  we sat on her porch and talked and laughed and cried. whenever that awareness crept back in, whenever i thought about not sitting with her on the porch again, i started to cry.  and whenever i thought about that awful day when i really have to say goodbye- one week from now- i really cried- like right now.

zoe's life and zoe's house are filled with little jems, treasures that she's collected from places and people.  her life and her house are filled with meaning- because that is what she values.  knowing and being known. remembering. savoring.

we sat there and she glued back together a little pottery mug, because it was worth saving, because it was a memory. because these are things we take with us.

and we said things like 'it will be fine' and 'we know we will see each other again' and that we will always be friends. she told me that recently she got a card that sums it all up, "don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened."

because it did happen. our lives happen.  they have these achingly beautiful parts and we meet amazing people and then we have to say goodbye.  we keep people with us- even when they are far away.  we hear them.  we know what they would do.  or say.  or think.  and we will smile a lot because they happened- in our lives. 

but i think it's actually okay to cry too.  i think it's okay to cry when it's over- because it is over. a chapter is over. a season has past.  and when things end it is sad.  when we have to say goodbye it does hurt.

this week will be hard.  it will be full of goodbye and then next week will begin and it will be a new place- a new chapter- a new season.  we will all get up and make coffee or tea and hustle our kids out of bed and start our days. 

some of us will hope we remembered to turn on the hot water heater and hope we have power and that the internet isn't down.  some of us will be remembering to think in dollars not shillings, and that once you purchase a phone plan, you don't need to go buy airtime all the time.

but all of us will hold onto the moments that we lived our lives together- over here in this place most americans don't ever get to call home- with our trees full of monkeys and our feet always stained with the redness of the earth. 

ash wednesday

ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

i don’t think you can ever separate your self from the dust you came from.  we are made from that dust.  the land.  our land. we are made from the lands we were born in.  they are born in us too.  and places are different- vastly different and they shape us  and how we think about the world and ourselves in the world. 

if you come from a place that sits on the ocean, and you can stand at that edge and feel both all your smallness and yet all the possibility- it’s painful to be away from it.  if you come from a place where the seasons change and the plants move and you see growth and birth and death, then you know that when you lie on your back in the grass you will sometimes see no sky but only the green cover of leaves overlapping and light peeping down between; and sometimes you will hear the crunching of dry leaves under you and see orange and yellow and brown above and some will be falling and the light will be lower in the sky and different in the dry air; and sometimes the sky will be broad and white and you will look up at it through the empty scraping bare branches of that same tree, while the ground you lie on is hard and cold.

somehow you will need those differences because you had come to rely on the earth reminding you of time and process.  you need to be moved by the light and the air and ground and whatever was framing the sky.  you can’t get things done when it’s always summer- dry or wet- but still summer.  because that's not what you were made of.  because you’re waiting and waiting for something to change. but it doesn’t.

perhaps that is why I’m clinging to Lent this year. because it’s something.  because it’s giving reference to time and process.  because it names a season when i can't feel one. i can close my eyes and imagine the ground and the sky looking different, but they don't. today i went outside and tried. i lay down under a tree and looked up.  the same. where is the movement? where is the change ? show me..i whispered.

and yet...it was beautiful still.  and turning my head i could see that while the tree was the same, the bougainvillea chopped down near the water tower had completely regrown.  that another tree was full of purple flowers.  another one filled with little white flowers - perfectly shaped like little dairy queen soft-serve ice cream cones. another one full of new red berries, another with pink tufts like flower feathers.  there is change and newness- it's just not what you are  used to. keep your eyes open.  keep your eyes on Me. be here now, where you are, in this season. you want time and process- be in My time and process.  every moment, time and place has choice- that is your part- choose Me.    

i am here. it's not my land. it's not my dust. but it is ash wednesday. let something new begin.

the dry season

where is the rain? i need it in a big way. its so hot and dry and dusty.  i feel puckered and suffocated and thirsty. i am missing things.  things like people.  things like places. things like lifetimes ago.  things that aren't here. sometimes being here feels like i'm shrinking- or that the world has shrunk. it's the sameness.  the constancy.  the endlessness. it's the lack of change or movement. it's the stillness.  the ticking of the clock.  the repetivity.  the always.  and it's the lack.  the lack of options. of stimulus. of exposure.

i know i didn't come here for those things.  i came here to maybe bring those things, or some of them.  i don't know...did i?

there is this cloud right now. this big bright cloud standing alone - holding on to the sun.  the rest of they sky looks tired, bland and dusty.  this one cloud speaks hope and promise and maybe and bigger and expanse.  it speaks remember.  it says hang on. it's emerging.  rising. pulling out of the rest. 

across the street some women are sitting with their babies, surrounded by yellow jerry cans.  the same thing they always do, day in, day out. sit on the stoop, talking, bathing babies, cooking, waiting, resting, washing.  the neighbor pulls clothes off a line in front of his cassava plants.  the guy on the boda is peeing into the bushes. a  family of 4 rides by on one bicycle, all of them.  do they even see the cloud? is anyone looking?

when we don't look, we miss things.  when we don't listen, we don't hear. when there is no rain, things shrivel.  when we are not fed, not watered - we thirst and we long and we go hungry and we miss.

the other day a friend came over and i made him some eggs and toast.  he explained to me that while it was good, it was not food (emere). food is matoke, or posho, or rice and something with sauce. food is something that takes long to prepare, that is made for many and shared. food is eaten in large quantities, food fills you up.  food is enough.

sometimes i feel like my life here is like eggs and toast, or what eggs and toast is to a ugandan.  that what is lacking is the real thing- what i'm used to,  what fills me, what sustains me, what is shared and enjoyed by many. 

we are entering lent this week.  the 40 days before easter.  the time of preparation. the time when we remember what Jesus was even doing here.  what we're even doing here, where ever here maybe. 
today it was my turn to stay home with zoe and do 'home church'.  she's really struggling in sunday school socially and emotionally, and we decided that given a week of facing school and social challenges, sundays for her, right now, could be more one on one time to talk about God with a parent or grown up friend.  today we were talking about how the deep love of God is evident in Jesus.  in His desire to know us, our situation, our challenges, our moments, our fears, our sticky thoughts, our desires and temptations and our pain and our sorrow and our laughter and joy.  that these 40 days of lent, are an example of that knowing- his temptation in the desert- his taking on of all the deep wounds we have- his reaching us, even in our messiness.  and as i spoke i began to cry.  i just cried and told her how loved she is.  how never alone she is.  how cared for she is.  how she can never go to far away from God's love- because no one can.  the love is that big. so big, it's hard to understand.

and when i remember this- it's like that cloud.  it's even bigger. it's all that promise and hope and possibility, it is the food. it's what stands out in the blandness of life, in the dusty and the gray. it's full and real and enough.

that cloud is gone.  it must have merged with the rest of the dusty gray sky, the sun obscured no longer hitting it. the moment gone- like all moments must.  but a family just walked by, down this busy street.  the dad had one kid on his shoulders, the mom with the baby tied on her back.  they walked and looked up at me.  the only white person around, i am noted, i am different, i am given the double take.  but then, they both just smiled. big generous smiles, and walked on.  and like that cloud, it speaks.  it brings the same hope- but more.  it is another example of possibility, another little reminder, a gift.  saying, here is fine.  here is different, but not worse.  here I am.  here I have asked you to be. yes there is lack and sameness and you get tired and miss things.  but look around.  and listen.  and know.....you are loved.  that family walking is loved.  and those on the bike and the stoop and peeing in the bushes and taking down clothes- all loved- the same.  and that is enough.

and it is.