longing

"advent is for the ones who know longing." i know longing. i know longings. i'm living there. in places of yearning for.

Christmas is in 2 days. advent is ending. the longing over. but is it?
i'm so ready for that. i'm ready for endings. i'm ready for beginnings.

today in church, under the round wood ceiling, in the glow of stained glass, looking at the creche, on my knees, God knew. He knew about the longing, all my longings and i was reminded again of abundance. of promises and histories. That God isn't either/ or. God is both/ and. God isn't asking me to chose between what's best for zoe or what's best for my other kids. He doesn't ask that. He asks me to hold the longing longer. to wait more. to trust even though.

He doesn't just lead out of deserts. He leads into green pastures. lands of milk and honey.
He doesn't just lead out of darkness. He leads into light.
He doesn't just lead out of the valley. He leads to the mountain top. 

i have been lead from the parched desert; and the dark darkness; and deep lonely valleys. and i have been guided to lush high places of stillness and dancing.

i am somewhere between- and that's what longing is. i can see back to last year. my girl was 8,000 miles away on Christmas, i could only see either/ or. moving pieces everywhere. fear. valleys. we have come so far. there is a both/ and. there are options.  i can see that now.  i can embrace this. i can remember.

i can hold the longing longer. but

“Let not our longing slay the appetite of our living.”
― Jim Elliot

thanks

tomorrow is thanksgiving. mike is making pie. there is still some snow on the ground. grounding me here. where i spent my first thanksgivings.

new england.

where i spent last thanksgiving. alone (kind of) most of my family in uganda. zoe in new hampshire in a hospital.
long lonely nights, cold drives home in the dark,
short visits in plastic chaired windowless pastel waiting rooms that locked.
illusions of safety for when the mind is playing tricks. unavoidable fear hanging on peoples faces- the people who didn't think their life would end up like this- or their child's.
people who remember days that looked nothing like this. days that smelled of fennel and summer grass and long light that hung on for hours. who didn't think thanksgiving would ever be so lonely and so blurry. 

last november time divided up like coffee spoons. one thing trailing on another. and the waiting. endless waiting. for a bed. for a space. for the medicine to work. for the dose to be right. for things to settle. for just, time.

it's better now. she is better. but we are here again. together thankfully on thanksgiving. and there is still that question of time in what can feel like coffee spoons and there is still waiting. but there is thanks.

and there is hope. because there has to be. because i'm choosing that. because i believe God doesn't abandon us half way and leave us there. it might take a really long time in a really dark place, but eventually light and life crack there way in and change comes. i've seen it again and again, heard it, felt it and i have known it.

these days zoe does her own shower completely independenly-start to finish. she makes her own oatmeal. and she makes her own packed lunch and she gets herself out the door independently. sometimes i forget that this is big deal. i forget that last year she really couldn't get her own cold cereal. i forget that she couldn't really be left alone. ever. i forget how many coffee spoons of time we have measured out in this past year.

it often seems like baby steps- when you get to places that you feel like you should have been years ago. but it's really important to stop and mark them. to remember where you were last year.
driving away in the dark across the state line with her words echoing over and over, "there must have been a terrible mistake. this is not where i'm supposed to be."

contrast

the first snow is here. my kids ran outside barefoot.  contrast.
into the white. the cold. is this real? is this really where we are?

a day full of patients. it's busy. there are schedules. everything is pale. everyone is pale. life feels devoid of color. but there is contrast everywhere.
it's between what i see and what i feel.
what i live and what i remember.

we had a meeting today about office protocols. about the seconds lost in our current system when an ambulance needs to get called and transport a patient from our medical office to the emergency room. i had to do this a few weeks ago for a patient of mine who was having a heart attack. i thought it went well. she'd had her EKG, an aspirin, oxygen and the ambulance came in under 5 minutes and she was on her way and in the cath lab in 30 minutes having her coronary arteries investigated. they were talking about the fastest way to get the ambulance to the right room. we are talking seconds.

*    *   *    *   *    *
he had HIV/AIDS and TB at least i'm pretty sure it was TB. he was panting for air, wasting away, vital signs were not good. he needed to get admitted from our little clinic in uganda to the big referral hospital. there was no oxygen. there was no ambulance. i wrote a note and asked if someone could organize a ride for him- that he needed to go quickly to the hospital. yes- they could- yes he would. i went on to the next patient. a few hours later i saw him still in the clinic looking worse. i found the nurse and asked what was happening. the man with the key to petty cash is gone she said. she couldn't get money to get fuel for the car to take him to the hospital. she hadn't wanted to bother me with the details.

these are the contrasts i live with. that we hold.

i was listening to someone today. to their lungs. the air going in and out. i was thinking about how many times a day i listen now and how most of the time they sound fine. and of how many doctors each of my patients here have. i am one of so many. a piece in a giant machine. standing beside those lungs today i almost started to cry. i thought what if i do ? what if i just started to cry right here in this exam room in the middle of danvers massachusetts?

and the patient would look perplexed and horrified and ask what on earth i had heard in her lungs that was so awful that i had begun to cry? and i would say it's nothing at all. that's just it. it is nothing at all.

saying 'yes' to seasons you'd rather run from

i read something recently about saying yes to God, again.

about saying 'yes' to God when the season has changed and when 'yes' might feel like the hardest three letters to put together and speak out loud. the writer talks about Jesus asking peter to follow him after foreshadowing peter's death.  asking peter to follow him, again, knowing he'll be going into dark places. that it will be hard, but an unknown hard. those are the worse 'yes's'.  those blurry dark yes's are the hardest.

returning has been one of those yes's.

yes it's the right thing to do. yes there pretty much weren't any other options. yes God showed up and opened doors- like jobs and adoption completions and things like that but it doesn't make the 'yes' any easier. it just doesn't.

these are the seasons that really test me. i just got back from having one of my 'come to Jesus' talks with Jesus. when i get in the car and drive and talk out loud to Him loudly about how unhappy i am with the way things are going down in my life. i tell Him that i'm going to skip over the 'thank yous' and the niceties because while that's in there too, i need to speak the ugly stuff and i don't have that much time alone in the car. i'm always tempted to think that God is like, 'oh great here she goes again' and wants to reach for the world's smallest fiddle - but i know that actually He is so big and has so much room to love that He puts out His hand, pulls me close and really listens even though He already knows. it's like when i'm just waiting for my kids to tell me what's going on inside when i can see it all over their face but i know they need to speak it.

so i spoke all the suckiness of this season. i told Jesus how i feel like a gerbil in an exposed glass cage with nothing but a bunch of woodchips trying to make a life for herself. sort of frantic and undone. needing to nest and vulnerable but with no supplies, wishing someone would just drop an empty toilet paper roll tube in so i could hide. i told Him that i am bored and exhausted at the same time. that everything looks both familiar and foreign. that i'm lonely but want to be alone. i told him that i really just want to go home. and then i did that dangerous thing, i let myself remember what home feels like. i remembered the feeling of being in my own house, of normal, of edith, of going to the store, of red dust and bare feet and chickens, of loud music and the call to prayer echoing through the neighborhood. of our car, our dogs, long conversations with friends. peoples porches, the colors of the sky and the trees, and people being everywhere all the time. and my heart literally ached. and God did that thing that i do with my kids when they are really sad and i know they just need to feel it, hard and awful as it is, keep quiet. be present. and be quiet. because feeling pain is important and real and avoiding it doesn't work. i know because i've tried that before.

when i got home i climbed in mikes lap and cried. i told him i the same things i had told God but with out any of the blame for the way things are. he said, 'i know, me too'. because he does know and it is the same for him thankfully.

sometimes God asks us to do things and say things before we are ready to do them. before we believe them and long before we can see them. it's called faith. as this day ends, while i've sat with God who has been mostly silent but present, i heard Him asking my 'yes' to be even more than a 'yes'.

can you trust me enough to say 'thank you'? 'thank you' for this season that you didn't ask for? can you say 'thank you' for a season that you don't want? do you trust me that much?

it broke me again when i heard Him ask that. because just like remembering home, i remembered all the reasons i have to trust Him. the other dark seasons i didn't want, their sparks of light. the many times i couldn't see a way, a way came. they are similar feelings: home and love.

'yes. i do. i trust you.' so through my tears i said,

'Thank You for this season that is hard.'

 i've seen before and know that beautiful things come from hard places. today i can say 'yes'. today i will again say 'thank you'.

when normal doesn't feel normal

the sun has set blue over the mountains. the crickets have a blanket of song. the fireflies are out, their bellies glowing yellow in the darkness. the top of the sky is still light but the mountain edge is being swallowed by the horizon now. the house lights are warm but it’s cold inside the way southern houses are here. i miss the warmth of africa.

i miss so many things.

it’s hard to be back here. it’s lonely in a way that's confusing. lonely when being with people who’ve known you forever in places you’ve known forever but you feel partly like a stranger- like you have a sliver of yourself that people don't know you have and don't think to ask about. sometimes it feels like you're standing bare as a tree in winter with your leaves all blown off, full of loss, but to everyone else you look normal.

i think to most people, when you come back from living overseas, they think you've come home. they think you've arrived back to 'normal'. that you've landed in the place you most obviously missed and longed for. that this is the easy part.

it's not.

home became somewhere else. especially for our kids. normal doesn't look like this anymore and guess what? we haven't been longing for this place or missing it horribly. we now miss our home across the world. we now miss our other normal and we long for that. for those relationships. for that work. for those potholed streets. for the night sounds and skies and warm air , the smell of diesel fumes and burning.

and guess what?  we want to talk about it. we want to tell you about our friendships and our life there. about the last trip to the hairy lemon when the snake fell out of the roof and ate the lizard. we want to tell you about how hard it was to say goodbye to edith. we want to tell you about the last day of school and about going to the refugee camps. i want to talk about keni's mom dying and her funeral. and naming the baby and
about our walks on campus, about my clinic and the village and the buildings mike is working on. 

so it's very strange returning to a parallel universe. all these things are part of us but no one here knows them. no one here has done life with us there and there is just something lonely in that. i think i need or want to find a way to share it. even if slowly. even if only to a very few.

homing call

this morning i was awoken from my dream by the urgent call of the homing pigeon.

"5 more days! 5 more days!" she shouted from the tree. " 5 more days and you thought it was forever."

i had been dreaming that the floor was falling out from under me.

5 more days. i'm not ready. i'm not ready to go.

last night bryn told me that he doesn't want to go. he doesn't want to go to another school. he doesn't want to leave here and he doesn't want to go there. he asked if we really have to. can't we stay. it's heart breaking this thing really. ripping up the roots of 5 for 1. 5 well planted ones with good root systems growing strong for the one who isn't growing, the one who struggles to grow everywhere, but here her stunting is choking our growth. we are trying to find better soil for her. a garden that supports her kind of seed, a greenhouse because her fragility is great. we hope that with a lot of bracing and underpinning and careful tending and balancing of ecosystems, zoe can heal old wounds and then begin to thrive and then bloom into her own unique spectacular self.

but what of the rest of us? what of the 3 other little plants who's young-ling selves are in the throws of transition? who are being asked more of than most their age, who don't get to say 'no, we are staying, thanks but no thanks.' what of them?

this is where it all began. these walls. this cement floor. the monkeys on the roof. the call of that homing pigeon. looking out this window through this net from this bed. all this familiar will be achingly missed. at least by 5 of us.

the garden analogy is hard for me because almost every plant i've had has died. i can't grow things well. i'm bad at it. a few years ago here we bought a christmas tree with its roots in a pot and after Christmas i replanted it in the yard. it died. then our guard took some sticks, literal sticks no roots, no leaves, sticks, and stuck them in the ground and they grew into a flowering tree. so digging up and re-planting and expecting things to survive, let alone flourish, is scary for me.

thankfully, i am better with people than plants. i can help people walk in dark places because i've been in dark places myself and i know that God goes there with us. i know that life is hard and can be painful and that that is just part of it. this move will be sad and feel miserable at times and we will all cry at least once but probably more and feel mad about it and then find and sit with the truth of the loss in it. it's okay that it will hurt. pain is okay. we can look to each other and to God and we can open our hands and learn about being real as a family with our feelings. well, that is my hope and the direction i will try to point us toward. but i could end up with a bunch of angry teens and pre-teens who choose very differently.

and then what about the other side? our return? in a year (or two) i'll have three teenagers and a tween who will likely have re-rooted, grown leaves and fruit, had seasons. what if uprooting again feels like too much? what if there's anarchy? what if it becomes uprooting 4 for 2 and the 2 are mike and me?

this.

this is the hardest part. this is the third culture bit. the blessing and the curse. we belong in 2 places. we long for 2 places. 2 places feel (in)completely like home. that is the truth that we hold now and can't escape from. what i have gifted and forced upon my children. it is both magical and isolating and as i write this, i'm seeing that it is what we as a family will hold up. in listening to the promptings of God 8 years ago we were being handed a gift. the whispers that mike and i had heard through our childhoods, the leanings that lead us to east africa, the choice we made to follow that invitation - embracing that, acting on that, listening to the threads that have tracked with us both and still run strong in us - this is who we are.

the homing pigeon is right. this is forever. this life of back and forth. this life that will never go back to what was for any of us. this can no longer be 'either or' but has become 'both and', like it or not and so maybe that is the key: to love it as it is. not to resist it, not to figure it out. not to plan way ahead. not to second guess. not to fear or assume. not to overthink. not to resent, bemoan, glorify or be self-pitying about. to love it as it is- in the hard and root-ripping pain of it and the broad adventurous joy of it. in the lonely and the excitement and the shallow and the deep of it. love it as it is.

and there is real peace in that.

so that is what i will hold in these 5 days. i am going to embrace this. 
this homing call.
i am going to hear it as my invitation as i first heard it way back.
my invitation to love my life here and there, 5 days and forever, as it is.

back to where it began

home. that is how it feels.

i'm sitting back on my old mukono porch. same couch. same table. same view. same cement slab my kids played on and posts they climbed. same clean air and breeze and calling birds and monkeys. the trees are bigger and the shade is more.  it's strange and new and old and normal all at once. it's forward and backward combined. it's opening and closure. it's right. it feels like a gift, a welcome and well timed gift- to return before our going. to leave from our beginnings.

i've missed this space. this place where i could write from. where somehow even from brokenness, i could find pieces of myself that in their speaking kept some of me afloat during seasons when i would i have drowned. in that way this porch is magical.

the brokenness is still here. the unfair. yesterday it broke me again. trying to get care for a young woman whose kidneys have failed. knowing that in my home country it would be a trip to the emergency room, an admission, emergent dialysis. but here, it's an attempt to find a place that can do dialysis, that will do dialysis, and the money to pay for it because it won't happen unless the money is there first and it costs what most people make in a year. broken. and then what? what will happen to her then? she will spend the rest of her days trying to scrape together the money for intermittent dialysis unless someone can sponsor her for a transplant overseas.

life is hard. it's hard in different ways everywhere. we each hold our struggles. we hold our joys.

the kids are now off on their bikes in the rain. mike is down at a meeting. i'm thankful for this moment. this space. the green. the sound of rain. thankful to be back. to be home.

"Give me a candle of the Spirit, O God, as I go down into the deeps of my being. Show me the hidden things, the creatures of my dreams, the storehouse of forgotten memories and hurts. Take me down to the spring of my life, and tell me my nature and my name. Give me freedom to grow, so that I may become that self, the seed of which You planted in me at my making.
Out of the depths I cry to You…"
George Appleton

deep gladness

when did life grow so big? when did days get so full? and time move so fast?
i'll be lucky to write 12 posts this year, and that used to be a bad month for me. there is so much left unsaid.

last night the garden was filled with fairy lights and friends and i wanted to freeze it and never leave or take it with me. it was a beautiful goodbye.

seven years ago i was packing up a house of little children, filling suitcases with things i thought were necessary, having no idea what life would look like here other than foreign. and now i'm sitting in the dark surrounded by boxes after a day of sorting through piles of my years here. saved pieces of their growing up. turning time as my children's letters steady and words change from phonetic to proper spellings and sentences bloom. crayons to markers, pencil to pen. collections of valentines. a box of baby teeth. treasures. this is why packing is tiring, you go through so much time.

the wind blew in.
it's perfect here. really. it's green and bright and eden-like.

i will miss this place in a deep and aching way. just like i will miss those people underneath the fairy lights last night. just like i will miss so many things. you miss your life when you are away from it- this has become our life. this is the place, strange as it may seem, where i have felt the most internally settled, the most where i am meant to be. this is the only place i've lived where i haven't continually wondered where we would move next. 

when i am at the university clinic, or going down a dirt path on a boda to a house call in the village, or teaching at the refugee health center - i am in my place, doing what i always wanted to do. and that is amazing.

but there are other things tugging at us that need attention. as parents we will do what we must for our kids and zoe's needs are calling us back. for now.

we find ourselves knowing that it's right, but sitting in loss. we find ourselves making our plans forward with many tears as we look at what we are leaving. sometimes doing the right thing is really hard. sometimes it really hurts and nothing about it feels good- but you know that it's still right.  so you do it and you feel it and grieve it and celebrate what you have had and what you will have. and you know that God knows and has you, and that this whole thing (life) is really about knowing and serving Him anyway where ever that is. that peace comes from being in the center of His will which is found in doing the right thing and wisdom, She will come and guide the way. so remembering that helps.

but we imagine it will feel really lonely when people don't understand why we are homesick for africa. why would anyone choose it over the US? and why would you call it home? maybe all i will say in response is what buechner says, "the place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet."

maybe i will just tell them, this is my place of deep gladness, for that is the truth.

dear zoe,

i write a lot about you. i talk a lot about you and i think a lot about you. i pray a lot for you- but i don’t write to you. so here goes. there are some things you should know. i love you. like crazy. and i believe in you more than you can imagine and way more than you believe in you. i believe in you not in the way that i need you to do things, but that i know there are things you want to do but are afraid to try- and i know that with time and some effort and maybe dare i say help, you can do.

you are so much more than the numbers and names that are assigned to you. you are more than labels- those things you wear that give you the services that you need now. i don’t think it’s a coincidence that you hate labels - that you cut them out of your clothes. you know that you can’t be labeled - they have never been able to really pin you down-. nothing has ever fit you. either too big or too small. i don’t think it’s a mistake that you turn you clothes inside out to wear them so they feel comfortable- it’s a metaphor for your life. things feel inside out- i know that- i have come to know that.

right now i see you standing behind something large that is blocking you. in some ways you like it. it’s a wall that blocks things like the wind, so it’s warm. it blocks your view so you feel safe. it blocks your path, so you don’t get tired. the problem is- you alone there behind your wall. the rest of the world is going on- moving into the wind and looking at the horizon and running toward it- stopping to catch a breath- leaning on each other- bundling up sometimes, resting and heading out. the world is calling you too.

the world is calling to you zoe.
the world is calling you too.

will it be harder?
yes.
will it feel colder? windier?
probably.
will it be scary?
i’m sure.

but you will find things that i know you are looking for.
you will find You in a bigger way. you will see farther than you knew you could. you will stand taller. you will be proud of yourself. you will find people cheering you on. people to lean on. people who believe in you. and you will begin to believe in you too. and i’m very sure that once you get out from behind what is blocking you, your clothes will be less scratchy, your thoughts will be less sticky, your brain will have much more room to breathe.

you see, you’ve done this before. not this exactly, but you have moved past other boulders. and once you’ve climbed out from their darkness - you have shone zoe.

so after 18 years of watching you. of listening to you. of knowing you and thinking about you and praying for you, i get to keep believing in you because i’m your mom and that is what we do.

but in this next season you are the only one who can climb over or around or push it out of the way. i can't do it for you. believe me if i could i would, but that is not how it works. i’m here. you’re not alone. but it's now for you to choose and that is why i'm writing. so you know i'm your biggest fan. and i know in a really deep way that big things await you girl. you have gifts and skills untapped. you love surprises so surprise yourself. get up and go. remember your name means Life.

i love you,
mom

seven years

the rain has finally come. You are in it.  always in the wind. in the rain. in the things that move and grow. the things that speak and cry and feel. no matter where, You are here. water oaks or mango trees. i have so much inside. i'm full and silenced by it. what do you say before a big shift? before things turn around again? when there are so many questions. questions strung between strong permanent truths. (You are enough).

will you be there in the pines?  i hear my smallest voice whisper.
what of the dry scraping leafless lonely branches of november in the north? when i will be missing the greenness and the red dirt and the now familiar sound of 'what of'? when what has become home will be so very far?

will you be in that? in those rains? in those winds that bite with cold? i feel so deeply sad.

am i ready? are we ever ready? do i have a choice?

seven years ago i was preparing to come here. i had little blonde children who played under my feet while i drank cold white wine and wrote about it from our porch in the water oaks. and i began to imagine leaving that place for this one. i was afraid of things: like black mambas and ruptured appendix and no OT or PT and the making of giant mistakes like moving little children to the middle of africa. there were so many questions- but those pillars of truth held up. and even though, and what if, and all the buts and maybe's were quieted beneath as You moved through the leaves of those water oaks and spoke to me of those promises. I am enough. Do not be afraid. I am with you.

seven years. and You were and You have been. and i know You still are. but tonight i'm just filled with the but's and the maybe's and the what if's and the even though's. tonight i'm filled with the full on, "i don't want to go". 

she is here in the hall with her fleece pants and her loud demanding voice and her shirt that says "today is my birthday"when it's not. she reminds me of why we must go, for now. i read her IEP today, emailed from massachusetts. i've been reading IEPs for 13 years and the ones that follow the testing are especially tough. it's hard to see numbers attached to your child's challenges. like she's on the discount rack. marked down. it somehow makes reality realer. looking up at you in black and white. the "facts".

it was zoe who freed us up to come here in the first place really. if she hadn't needed to be home-schooled we would never have dreamed of pulling her out of a special education and leaving good jobs. and now it's zoe who is leading us back, so if i am to cast any blame now it must be matched with thanks for then.

seven years.

seven years changes things. i'm here. here looking out over banana trees. things are burning down in the street as they always are. the sky is bright and i know when i look at it exactly what time it is by the light.  i no longer worry about mambas and appendix. i no longer fear i made a mistake in bringing my small children to africa. no, now i worry about pulling them from her red soil prematurely. now i find myself deeply thankful for our life here. all of it.

so i need You. i will need You to be with me in this.  i will need to hear You in the pines and the full summer maples and the dry crispy fall and the bare bones of winter. in the cold hard truth of the frozen ground. the frost and the thawing and the rains of april that take forever to bring even a bud. there will be days. long dark days of longing. i know that. i see them. i remember them from before. days when i could close my eyes and squint with the memory of sun and heat and diesel fumes and hear the sound of a thousand voices.  coming here was hard. leaving feels nearly impossible. yet i know You are enough. i will stand beside that pillar of truth and trust that again, You have us.

coming home

6 more days
i've missed her
and i'm a bit scared

see i remember
years
back.
that little blonde head, fennel and the ocean.
crayons and wood chips, your cold little starfish hands
eucalyptus shaded playgrounds and laundry mats
the # 6 bus

singing switchfoot, the doggy-paddle, making collages, reading, piano, clover, trader joes
crying under my sunglasses hoping you wouldn't notice
praying for no sticky thoughts,
wishing i could climb inside your brain to understand you.
letting go of college

the sine curve of you, up and down and down and up
the seasons of you
barely able to do homeschool, then year 6 student council,
little miracles, inconsistent but 
always and consistently
a mystery

you only see half of yourself
but all of you is here

we left 3 months ago,
on a flight held up by prayer
landed in the emergency room
of the hospital where i used to work,
where my father used to work,
where my mother had cancer.
i know the colored floor stripes to follow to find my way.
i remembered how to find my way.
there was no question of your admission.

there was no question of your not wearing those brown pajamas
(that marked your mental state)
you couldn't stand the feeling of your own skin.
how you could put those on?
the room was yellow and had one knobless door with a window into the hall.
six nights.
do you remember?
no cords or hot coffee. suicide watch.
that's what they were looking for - those secret service men in the hall.
i tried to distract you when they held down the screaming boyman next door.
had there been a mistake? where were the wood chips? and the smell of playdough? what happened to those cold starfish hands?
how did the great spinning world spin us here?

that's why. that's why.
the next week when you went to the inpatient locked ward.
that's why
i still can't type this with out a flood of tears.
because you spoke it all out loud.
in your rudolf fleece pants pacing back and forth
like a trapped animal in a place you had never been, surrounded by people you had never  met,
you kept saying,
"there has been a terrible mistake,
a terrible mistake-
this must be a terrible mistake."

because yes zoe. it felt like a terrible mistake.

this whole thing felt like a terrible mistake.
it was the week of thanksgiving. thanksgiving.
i was in the house of my husbands parents.
where i had spent thanksgiving when i was 18 and totally in love with the man it thought i might marry and did.
18 and in college.
18 and on my own.
and here nearly 30 years later i was back with my 18 year old daughter
but she wasn't with me,
she wasn't with her boyfriend, 
she wasn't on her own,
i had just left her
locked
on an autism crisis unit.
it felt like there had been a terrible mistake.

hardest day of my life.
but i'm sure there will be harder ones (please God i hope not).
but this is my life.
and it is not a terrible mistake.
really hard things happen.
and really beautiful things happen too.
so we have to be sure to pay attention to the really good parts.
and we have to really laugh.
as in until  our stomachs hurt.
and zoe- that girl can laugh!

she's coming home
i am still a bit scared of the transition 
i have missed her a lot
6 more days

the bird

the wind is strong and wild and holding. it's full and thick and reminding.
Life is vibrant.
God doesn't forget.
the Spirit calls me.
the wind is talking in the leaves even in the grass. i wish you could hear it too.
even the light it speaking.
 you have a voice. you have a voice. so do I. listen and speak.

yesterday a bird flew into my house through an open door. it just entered the door frame and turned into the barred window trying to get out. i quickly opened the door and let the bird free. it was small and colorful, blue and green and brown. it wasn't frantic but seemed glad to fly back out to the yard.

some people think a bird flying into your house means someone will die. it's bad luck. a bad omen. only once before had a bird flown into my house. it was in san francisco on fell street when i had a little lemon tree on my porch and had been trying desperately to get pregnant. it was the day i found out i was. i was in the kitchen and i was so happy. i had the windows open looking out into the garden and my life giving lemon tree planted in the blue pot on our small porch. the little brown bird flew in through the window and darted around in a frenzy and finally i got it outside again. that night i had a miscarriage.

so yesterday i was a bit unsettled by the bird.

there has been a lot happening lately. there has even been a lot of desperation and attempts at birthing things. not babies, but adoption and people into adulthood (ish), and plans. there has been a lot of wonderings and worries and the bird and it's potential ominous sign was not welcome.

a few hours later i was reading in the the living room with the porch doors wide open. in flew the bird. the same bird. she flew in wildly and circled the room several times and flew out again. but this bird was not frantic. she wasn't lost or accidentally trapped or terrified or helpless. this bird seemed to know what she was doing. she seemed to choose to come back. to enter in. to bring herself to me. a messenger to call me out. to call me back. to remind me of things. of seasons. of histories. of lemon trees and birthings and losses. of time going on. of other places. of goodness. of things so much bigger than me. of the great wind. of God who speaks to me still in the wind. who says- I am here. I am wherever you are.

she swooped in with a knowing. to call me back to myself. to my voice. and to say:
 you too have choice. 
to enter. 
to go. 
to return. 
to fly.