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.