transformation

this is an anniversary of sorts. a year ago today,  i left for ethiopia.  it was the day i said goodbye to my family- the day i pushed off the self-perceived vines of my children strangling me- the day i snipped zoe out of my brain- and boarded a plane- alone.

i remember landing in DC to meet lisa for the flight to addis ababa.  i had an hour or two to wait for her, so i went to a book store and bought 'cutting for stone' by abraham verghese, and lay down on a stretch of seats. and as i began to read, i began to breath.  i was stepping out of myself completely.  i felt for the first time in a long time- free.  untethered.  light. in a way that until i felt it, i didn't even know that i needed.  but i did.  so. badly.

one of the dangers of parenthood or at least motherhood is becoming so enmeshed in the lives of our children that we forget who we are.  i don't mean that in the 1960's women's lib movement way. and  i don't mean that in a dramatic, panicky, selfish way.  being a mom is the greatest thing, and my identity is appropriately entwined in my children and always will be.  but.  even being a physician and mom, a working mom, a mom with a very equal partner in parenting- i was allowing myself to be swallowed by the needs of my children.  okay.  really, the needs of one of my children. okay, really, my perception of her needs.  in other words, i had become so broken by my interpretation of her brokenness that i was really very sad.  i was feeling hopeless.  i had become so burdened by her needs - by my fears of our future- by the day to day unknowingness of our lives- that i forgot how to laugh, and smile, and heaviness surrounded me.  i was so weighed down, i didn't think i could get on that plane.  i thought i shouldn't go, i couldn't go.  i was afraid to leave my life- because tiring as it was- it was known.  what if i went away and things got worse?  what if zoe missed more days of homeschooling with me gone?  my perspective had become so narrow and i had become carved out and hollow.

but, i had the most amazing experience.  meeting yoyo and watching the transformation of lisa, my dearest friend of 30 years, join her life with this precious little boy.  witnessing her becoming a mama. watching him slowly come out of his shell each day- a little more- like a blooming flower. 

and my days there too were like that.  unfolding.  refreshing. reviving. and as i watched her family come together, and as i spend days not worrying about my family, and as i sat outside in the warm african sun, i began to let go.  to shed the heavy of my life.  to see the humor in it.  and as i watched the beauty come from the brokenness - parents connecting with their children- children uniting with their parents- each fulfilling deep needs for the other- i was reminded of the greater value that is birthed out of the struggle. that when things are hard, or painful or waited for, their arrival is that much more joyous. 

i began to think about expectations and how they can suck away our daily joy.  i began to rethink my interpretation of my life.  was it as weighted as i presumed?  was it dark and devoid of fun?  was it so troubled that it had changed me?  i looked in the metaphorical mirror and didn't understand who i'd become.  i'm not sour and serious and weighty.  at least i never really had been.  lisa knew this.  lisa knew me at 10 and what a goof i was, and how happy and easy and light i was and she helped me find that again.  so did the other people i met, and the kids at the orphanage.  so did the hours of time alone- to sit in the sun- and swim- and read.  and i processed my years with zoe as i read and hung to the words in 'cutting for stone'.

"The key to your happiness is to own your slippers, own who you are, own how you look, own your family, own the talents you have, and own the ones you don't.  If you keep saying your slipper's aren't yours, they you'll die searching, you die bitter, always feeling you were promised more.  Not only our actions, but also our omissions, become our destiny."

those words clung to me and ran around in my mind.  i had become bitter.  i was looking for another pair of slippers.  i was soaking in self-pity- and deflated expectations.

the name of the city where we stayed is- addis ababa- it means 'new flower' in amharic.  those 10 days were that- for me and lisa and yoyo- days of birth and blooming, unfolding and revival. days of owning the slippers i'd been given. days of transformation.  days that will sit with me always.  that i will celebrate each year.

happy anniversary!

waiting

it's cool outside but the backyard is now green. and the green is filling in those spaces emptied by the cold winter air.  spring wraps her arms around us, sheltering and embracing.

i've been waiting for the sun all week and it is here.

i wonder if there are some people who spend their lives waiting- and i wonder if i'm one of them.  i'd love to think i'm not- but i might be. i might be one of those people who remains inactive while expecting something.  someone who embodies the verb-ness of waiting- not the adjective form.  someone stymied by it, consumed by the inactivity of it, someone always expecting something- and missing what presents itself in the now-ness.

waiting is really hard, especially if your spirit animal is the beaver- constantly preparing, building, moving, or a migratory bird, but i bet they enjoy the season before the flight, i bet they don't obsess about the flight, and what it will be like in the air, and whether they'll like where they land, whether they'll miss the place they are now.
 
in those seasons of 'inactive expectation' my mind is active- to a fault- it's overactive. i think of Mary- as in the virgin mary.  i think of her carrying Jesus.  i think of her "pondering all these things in her heart".  i'm no good at pondering things in my heart- especially when i'm also waiting.  i ponder everything out loud. 

i wish i could keep things inside.  i wish i could suck dry the seasons of waiting.  maximize their potential.

my mind has been in ethiopia lately as i re-read 'cutting for stone'- and as i dream about the ending of my waiting season, about landing in east africa- and as i escape to that respite of warm, healing time in october. 

lisa and i were there for our first of her two visits. and it was the first visit after a lot of waiting for yoyo.  the first time to meet him, his family, his country, the first court appearance for her to become his mama.  it was beautiful.  there was much to ponder. and i wanted to give her something special in return for her sharing this experience with me.

when we were in lalibela, i found this really cool necklace. it was made of differently shaped unpolished silver pieces- and it seemed very 'lisacoris' (she really is her own brand).  i asked the man in the shop what it was, what it signified.  "it is a waiting necklace, it is given to someone for waiting."  i couldn't believe it! it was the perfect gift!  here was lisa who was about to enter the second season of waiting for yoyo, because when we left, she'd have to wait until all the remaining paperwork was complete and she could then return to ethiopia and pick up her son.  it was too good to be true!

note necklace, (and beautiful child), and (happy mama)

when we were in the little airport waiting to fly back to addis ababa, another shopkeeper who spoke better english said to lisa, "oh when are you getting married? i see you have a wedding necklace."

doohhhooooo!! it was too good to be true! 
wedding, not waiting!
rats!

but it made for a good story- and for her, it remained the waiting necklace.

there is something important in the waiting times. hard as they are, desperate as they can feel. they are shaping, carving, molding, sculpting who we need to be for the next season, the next landing.

i want to open my eyes wide, and i want to embrace it and be in it. not static but moving- not waiting but living it.

laugh out loud

life is really funny but if we live it too seriously, we miss it. and i want to go back to laughing- i mean laughing a lot.  i'm tired of stressing and fretting and feeling the weight of the world.  things need to be lighter.

tonight i got to go out with the girls after a much too serious day.  it was great.  one girl i've know since i was zoe's age, 11, and the other girl i just met tonight.  it was so fun to r-e-l-a-x and laugh and to remember that for most of my life, i was not so serious.  i might have even, used to have been, funny.

but it's hard to have objectivity on myself and the things that sit close to me.  maybe i never was funny-or maybe i still am.  maybe zoe's doing great- or maybe she's not.

i like saying things are good.  i like feeling that things are good, believing it, holding onto it, looking backwards and saying how thankful i am that we're not there anymore.  but then there are moments when really, we are there again.  i don't want to write bad news.  i don't want to report on my fears of her future, her now, our now, our possible future.

but i will.

this weekend- there was an un-witnessed episode of trouble.  it involved zoe and lily and a store and a sticky thought. there was some public crying and yelling and sliding around a store on hands and knees and some stranger staring and one 11 year old having to drag another 11 year old out of the store- to walk back home- to calm down.  then there was more crying (the appropriate embarrassed type from lily) and some consequences dolled out by a parent and some separate time for the two of them.  

when we heard about what happened, how she'd wanted some american girl doll paraphernalia, how lily had explained they had no money, how she'd melted down and expected lily to deal with her pieces- her pieces which were spread all around the floor of papersource as she crawled around and cried. we felt despondent- deflated- defeated.  a  temple grandin moment. overwhelmed by her need- by her inability to understand another perspective-her inability to make a good choice. her immaturity, and infantile level of understanding reciprocity.

sometimes it feels like she's her own worse enemy.  sometimes i wonder how hard she'll have to fall before she gets it- or if she'll ever get it- or if she'll be so broken by so many falls that she'll just hurt a lot.

and with all of that, it can be hard to find 'funny'.

someone once told me a mother is only as happy as her most unhappy child.  oh, i hope not!  i don't want my happiness entwined.  i mean, i want for all my kids to be happy, but i want my own version too. i want to be able to laugh when they eat earthworms at age 9 and cut their hair off at age 11.

there was a time when i really forgot how to laugh because i was drowning in zoe's drama.  i'd thrown myself so much into her world- cutting way back at work, homeschooling her, obsessing about her outbursts- that i'd lost my world.  i don't think i was depressed, or maybe it was, but i forgot how to laugh.

i'm re-reading 'cutting for stone' for our book club- and it's taking me right back to ethiopia - a trip i almost didn't take because life had become so serious.  but i went and i desperately needed it because i found my smile.  one night it was pretty late and lisa and i were hanging out in our hotel room- i can't even remember what was so funny, but we laughed like we were back in the 7th grade- for hours- the kind of laughing where your stomach muscles hurt.  there is nothing like that feeling- like being worn out by joy.

the seriousness will always be there. bad things are going to keep happening, small and large scale, war and illness and natural disasters - but there are funny things too and i want to find them.  i want to laugh out loud everyday for the rest of my life.

wholeness of being

today the weather can't make up it's mind and neither can i.  rainy, sunny, winding and cold, cloudy, then sunny again.  i so get it.

today lisa returns to ethiopia- and i so desperately wish i could too. but instead, while she's boarding the plane, i'm getting the report from the vikings class teacher that zoe has been distracted, disruptive and that i must now attend the class with her.
one step forward two steps back.
but since that is the dance pattern of our lives- i'm finally getting used to it.  i'm not crumbling to bits.  this is good news.  it means that not only has she grown up this year but i have too. i had the moment of "oh dear God, she can't even handle an hour long class- she'll never get back to school".  but it was a passing thought- not one that clung on. i had a longer moment of, "oh dear God, i really don't want to attend the vikings class with her".  but eventually that one let go too.  because she is my daughter and i love her and i will do what i can to help her and i will let go of what i can't help her with.  there is no right answer. no formula.  no guarantees.

i used to think that there was a moratorium on suffering.  that the universe would only allow so much per person.  that you could pull out the card reminding God that you'd had enough.  after zoe was born, and we realized all her orthopedic problems, and her delays,  i thought i'd reached it. ha ha ha.  then the real trouble began to unfold for her and around the same time i was pregnant with jude and found out he had hydrocephalus and a brain tumor and congenital hypothyroidism (read happy birthday jude from march '10 for that full story) and was convinced that we'd definitely had our share. we were done with bad luck.  we were done with hard times.  then bryn was born and spent the first week of his life in the ICU unable to breath. at that point, i got it- there is no cap on how much one person can take- how much one person can cry- or how many challenges someone can experience. i know that compared to most of history and most people living today- my life is really not that hard- and these challenges are much less than many- but until you personally have many seasons of "oh you've got to be kidding!" i think this magical thinking is not that rare.

the good news is- in all the crap- we're not abandoned.  we're not alone.  we are loved by the God that allow us to experience the sorrow.  it's irony again. as parents we get the microcosm of this- perhaps even more often if you have 'special' kids.  i could avoid the social suffering of zoe by never letting her leave the house- but because i love her- i allow her to go to the vikings class that she wants to take, knowing it could be overwhelming to her and challenging.  i allow her the choice and i try to be there to help her pick up the pieces- i try to not abandon her and to love her through the sorrow.

it's not easy.  but it's still good. 

in ethiopia i found a part of myself that had gone missing. it hadn't gotten lost, it had just been covered up by all the sadnesses of life. but in those weeks i was able to shed some of it- to smile again- to laugh a lot- to be reminded that life is good-despite. i wouldn't trade that time of healing for anything.  i've been put back together. 

Eugene O'Neill said  "man is born broken. he lives by mending. the grace of God is glue." 

half way around the world i felt that grace- and there is wholeness of being again- in the brokeness of life.  for now.......

broken pots and new flowers

i finished the book 'cutting for stone' the other night and i cried like a baby.  i cried because it had many sad parts in the last 100 pages. and just as many beautiful parts.  and i cried because i had a cold so wasn't feeling great anyway.  and i cried because it felt like i'd finally left ethiopia, and this beautiful story was over.  it was symbolically sad. it was a great three weeks of transportation- of being elsewhere- in another time- in another place.  i love all the memories in my head, from that story and from that trip.

a friend once said it's not the place, it's the people in the place. so true, but they're hard to separate.  we met so many amazing people. the other adoptive parents were such an incredible group- so diverse-so interesting.  musicians, writers, designers, explosives analyzers, art teachers, professors, carpenters, social workers- all with different lives and stories and all with a similar love of ethiopia and a love for their new children.  the people we met at the hotel- friends from sweden and saudia arabia and ethiopia via usa- and the people who served breakfast and dinner that we got to know- all of them-lovely. the nurses at the orphanage- and the children- beautiful. all the way to the people who sold things at the market.

on one of the last days we went to the market- the mini merkato- a place to buy traditional ethiopian wears.  i hadn't been feeling great- but really wanted to go and see it.  as soon as we got out of the car and into the first little store- i realised this might not have been a good plan. i think i had that gray look that comes on when you feel cold and clammy and hot all at once.  the store owners let me sit on a little leather stool and asked me what was wrong. i told them my stomach wasn't feeling so well.  immediately they ran off to buy me some 'royal tonic'.  i sat there for an hour- i drank that royal tonic- which they wouldn't let me pay for- and it worked.  i felt much better.  during that hour we had great conversations in english and sign language about ethiopia and HIV and health care and family structure.  i was so amazed at their hospitality. here i was, a stranger, in their little store for an hour, blocking half of their merchandise- literally and they are buying me soda.  it was a beautiful memory. 

the other day my mother-in-law sent me a story about an old woman who carried water from a well in two pots- one on each side of her.  one pot was whole and the other pot was cracked and half the water leaked out each time she returned from the well.  the whole pot was very proud of itself for getting the job done correctly and the broken pot felt badly that it could only get half the water back each trip.  the old woman said to the cracked pot- look at your side of the path- see the flowers there? i planted seeds because i knew you'd be able to water them and now the path and the house are filled with flowers because of your brokenness.

the world is full of broken pots- i am one. we each have a job here to do- sometimes our brokenness changes what our job is- and what we think we are doing is only half of what we're really doing- and it's not even the most beautiful or meaningful part.

in cutting for stone, marion, the protagoinst, has a twin who reminds me of zoe.  he's different, he's a pot that brings flowers. but as the story goes on- we see that marion, who goes about things the right way, who's life is normal- he has cracks too- he doesn't always get the water back either- there are some flowers along his path as well. 

i think we're all like that. the more you see of the world, the more people you meet, the more insight you gain into yourself- the more you see the imperfections and the beauty in them. zoe see's the world differently- it's a more literal version- it's in some ways more pure, and as she learns to carry a bit more water- i hope she'll keep watering the flowers on her path.

ethiopia means new rose, new flower.  ethiopia is full of spectacular flowers- even flowers that grow up through little cracks in the midst of extreme poverty.  i can never help but wonder if all that beauty in the center of such poverty is God's way of reminding us that there is grace in our brokenness.

my book is over, my tan is fading. but each night i sleep under my ethiopian blanket- that i bought from that little store, and in the morning i wear my bracelets and one of three scarves and sometimes a lalibela cross- and i think of the flowers there and the people and the grace.

ethiopia pictures- (just lisa and me)

at the airport in DC

leaving for court!

beautiful lalibela

old man praying

churches carved down into the rock

about to take off our shoes to enter a church

beside the most famous church

family going to the market in lalibela

another chuch

with the priest

no pictures of yoyo yet- not until it's official!

holding the tension of the opposites

i am boring myself with my banter.  so i’m sure i’m boring you as well.  but if i can be quite honest- it’s really hard to be back.  the constancy of our days, the ongoing obsession of zoe not wanting help- with anything, the number of times i have to coach her on behavior, the waste of hours on distractibility.  it’s got me down- low down. 

today i told her that in the 45 minutes we spent with her falling to bits over not knowing how to say the number 464,438 (four hundred and sixty four thousand, four hundred and thirty eight), that i could have held a family meeting and really helped an entire group of people come to terms with their loved ones illness.

that in the 20 minutes it took her to change her shirt and come down stairs again, i could have adjusted someone’s morphine dose and significantly improved their pain.

  i’m pretty sure these are not appropriate comments.  nor is “you know you’re making me crazy” or “why did i have children?” although that one i usually  manage to keep under my breath- notice how i said usually- ie: i've said it more than once.

and while i’m saying these things, i’m envisioning being back in Ethiopia with my morning coffee and pastries and lisa and the kids at the orphanage.  and i’m wondering quite honestly what the heck i’m doing. 

i realize that we find what we need to, when we need it.  that life experiences morph together and people and places take on meaning- assigned by something else.  and being alive and happy with out her- gave me meaning, perhaps too much meaning, perhaps it was a window into what is not. and what won’t be.  because this is where i am.  here.  atlanta. most of the time at home with my daughter who struggles to learn, but less than i struggle with helping her learn.  less than i struggle with my own ideas of what i should be doing on a daily basis.

so as  i watch her contort her body into a pretzel of stress while she exclaims her frustration and the energy becomes palpable, all i can think of is how bad these stress hormones must be for her little body and that i’m surely going to end up with an ulcer from watching her and sympathizing.  and i think  “why can’t she just let it go?”, "why can’t she just stop fighting it all the time?”

what? me? why can’t i do that?

exactly.  because really, this is much more about me than her.  i spin my wheels.  i fight against resistance.  i waste emotional energy.  i try on other peoples lives.

but i'm about to get a lot healthier, because i just found a therapist.

she spoke to me about Jung’s idea of ‘holding the tension of the opposites’.  like learning to live in the gray.  between two worlds. not throwing the baby out with the bathwater.  that there is truth and value in the extremes of life and the challenge is to hold the tension- rather than letting go of one end and clinging to the other.  that we grow and understand and learn from that straddle.

so that is my lesson for the day.
live it.
hold the tension.
love it because it's making you better.
and be still.

finding our 'Gloria'

i'm reading a great book.  Cutting For Stone.  i bought it on the way to ethiopia because i wanted to read something about africa.  and i found so much more.  there is medicine.  there is love.  there is the pursuit of meaning.  now i'm hanging on to it. savoring it. because it takes me back there. i don't want it to end.  i don't want to let go.

many of the characters are finding themselves.  finding their place. understanding their histories, their families.  separating themselves. asking the questions we all ask.  what is it that we were meant to do?  and where? and with whom? and why?

i must quote:

*        *         *            *           *               *                 *             *         
"We come unbidden into this life, and if we are lucky we find a purpose beyond starvation, misery, and early death which , lest we forget, is the common lot.  I grew up and I found my purpose and it was to become a physician.  My intent wasn't to save the world as much as to heal myself.  Few doctors will admit this, certainly not the young ones, but subconsciously, in entering the profession, we must believe that ministering to others will heal our woundedness.  And it can.  But i can also deepen the wound.
    I chose the specialty of surgery because of Matron, that steady presence during my boyhood and adolescence. "What is the hardest thing you can possibly do?"  she said when I went to her for advice on the darkest day of the first half of my life.
    I squirmed.  How easily Matron probed the gap between ambition and expediency. "Why must I do what is hardest?"
    "Because, Marion, you are an instrument of God.  Don't leave the instrument sitting in its case, my son.  Play! Leave no part of your instrument unexplored.  Why settle for 'Three Blind Mice' when you can play the 'Gloria'?"

     "But, Matron, I can't dream of playing Bach, the 'Gloria'...,"

      "No, Marion," she said, her gaze soft, reaching for me, her gnarled hands rough on my cheeks.  "No, not Bach's 'Gloria'.  Yours! Your 'Gloria' lives within you.  The greatest sin is not finding it, ignoring what God made possible in you."

*          *            *           *            *                *            *             *           
that is the search we all face.  finding our Gloria.  and that is the hope we have for our children.  it is what we stop and think about when we are moved by something, shaken up by something. or when we are still.  when we get off the merry-go-round of life and take pause.  when we experience God.  when we get that dose of perspective that shoots us to the moon and we're disconnected instantaneously from our bodies and our little worlds and we remember that there is so much more and that we have so much more to give.

on returning

i'm back. i'm home. life is real again.

while i was away the air cooled and the leaves have begun to let go. the sounds are different, the light is brighter, the haze is gone, and the air is quieter, but more alive. like someone blew the dust off a season that sat too long.

i'm feeling still. i'm feeling rested. i'm reminded of the rest of the world again. i'm especially reminded of me. that i exist outside of my children, especially my child with special needs. that her life goes on with out me- and mine with out her. that there is fun to be had, and other people to value and important things to be done, and talked about. that the world is really as big as it is- not as small as it can feel sometimes. and that i am happy.

before i left for ethiopia, i was badly stuck in my own head- my own world- myopic. i felt panicked about leaving- about my body being so far away from my people- especially the little ones- and also mike. the feeling that we'd grown together so intensely that i couldn't tell if the entanglement was good or bad, if we were the roots of trees or a giant snarl. but i knew i felt stuck in it. and this made leaving really scary. i had to snip things. i had to close my eyes and jump.

and so i did- and i landed in on the other side of the world. in addis ababa i found the parts of me that i'd forgotten. i found the voice that doesn't need to talk about zoe everyday. the heart that doesn't need to worry always about the future- or obsess over the past. that the focus my life should not always be about me and my immediate family- but friends and their lives, the world and it's needs. and in this i was reminded of the vastness of poverty and the extreme discrepancies that exist, and are often only separated by a tin fence - and a lifetime.

life is just plain unfair and compared to the rest of the world- the unfairness of my life is pretty small. but it took a week of being far away to know this again. i played with other peoples children. i held held other peoples babies. i heard about other peoples stories. i watched the beginning of other families lives.

and i took hot baths at night, and lay in the sun in the day, and i let it all go. i read a book that took me out of my head. and i remembered how to swim the breaststroke and the backstroke and play in the water and swim at night. and i was the rider not the driver. i ate and didn't cook. i didn't do a single dish or settle an argument or give a time out. and i remembered that there is much more to it than the spinning top that feels like my life. that there is more to me than i allow myself to be.

so i'm back to busy schedules, dinner and homework, dishes and timeouts. back to balancing acts and work. back to sticky thoughts and sensitive skin and boys that wrestle and accidentally give each other bloody noses. back to the people i love most in the world. back to the one who gets me- the one who's never forgotten who i am even when i have.

hopefully the light will stay crisper, the sounds clearer, the air more alive. and hopefully i can hang on to the parts of me that were dusted off after a season that has stayed much too long.

gift

i am in ethiopia because i was given a gift.

the gift was to come to ethiopia with one of my oldest and bestest friends and be with her as she meets her son for the first time.

her little, adorable, coy, smiley-eyed almost 3 year old son- Yoyo- (short for Yohannes). not only do i get to share in the joy of seeing lisa love on this little one, but i see him slowly start to realize that now, he has a mama. it's truly indescribable.

she is one of 11 amazing families- who are all meeting their kids for the first time. and they are all first time parents. and they have all been waiting, for a long time. what a gift to see this amount of love. to see the giving of people to each other- from worlds apart. the unity. the joy. the wholeness. the completion. the life bonds of family forming. i feel somewhere between a quiet observer and a doula. i do not share their stories- although i get the loss some have had, and i get the joy of seeing your child for the first time. i get the fear we all share for our children's future. the insecurities that come with having someone ultimately depend on you. the awe in that change, of one minute being just you- and then being someones mommy. what a gift- all around.

the one sightseeing thing we've done while here is to fly north to lalibela- a musical word- and a place of religious pilgrimage- home of the beautiful churches of the 12th century- carved down into the red volcanic rock of the ground- carved from the top down. the countryside is amazing- tall mountains and canyons- like the american southwest but green and covered in vegetation, grasses and acacia trees and flowering aloe plants. and there are shepherds draped in white cloth scarves with staffs surrounded by goats and skinny cows. there are no cars in lalibela- everyone walks on hilly cobblestone streets- lined with tin-roofed huts and purple bougainvillea and yellow flowering trees- the poverty of mans earth and the natural beauty of how it was before. the contrast i find humbling.

at night it is so dark- the poverty is covered under the blanket of the most amazing starry sky- with only the few scattered lights on the hillside joining it. things seem fairer at night. lalibela feels ancient and biblical- but for me- not in the churches themselves. they are impressive in their history- their architectural structure and religious symbolism- but my feeling of spiritual connection came not in those thick walls with their worn grottos and old priests- it came from the dirty houses and the flowers and the night sky- it came in the universality of a smile- when you can't speak the language. it came with the gift from adom of a goatskin cross for our gift of 2 dollars so he could eat breakfast. "something to remember me by." he said. and in this same way addis ababa has been a spiritual experience. the sharing of souls- the joining of peoples. the connection found in common experience and the connection formed despite uncommon experience. it elevates- there is hope-there is joy- there is grace.

so we left lalibela with her flowers and stars and histories. and soon we will leave addis ababa too. and lisa will kiss yoyo 1000 times to hold him over until her return when she will bring him home for good. the gift will be complete and two worlds will begin again, now together.