eat pray love

this is our first family picture with rose- note she is refusing to look at the camera.  but it kind of sums it all up. the randomness of it- some smiling, some squinting, some looking at the camera, others looking at each other- being at the pool- unprepared for a picture- but somehow i love it.

the other night mike and i watched the movie 'eat, pray, love' based on the book with the same name.   it's a memoir about a woman finding herself and her future husband- by up and leaving her life and her first husband.  she goes to italy to eat, and find passion in the food and language and friendship, she goes to india to pray and find her soul at an ashram, she goes to bali where she finds love. i read the book a few years ago, but i never finished it-  i never made it out of india. i got bored and thought she was self-absorbed. 

but when i watched the movie, there was something appealing about the indulgence.  because it is so far removed from where i am right now.  i'm kind of living the opposite (except for the title- because i'm doing a lot of eating, praying and loving- just right here at home).  i had a moment of imagining myself doing this.  taking a massive life time-out. using my 'get out of jail free' card (except i think i've already used it at some point) -up and moving to italy to eat napoleons and fresh pasta, to drink cappuccino and red wine, and listen to the sweet roll of the italian language.  to be alone and free and untethered.

which i might like for all of about, a day. 

i remember when we were young and first married (and i mean young- like 22)  i felt badly that i'd never traveled anywhere alone. i felt like i was missing out on something, i wondered if there was something wrong with me.  we were living in boston with no money- but had a family friend who had a house on nantucket.  so we decided i should go for the weekend-alone- to be alone- to "travel" for me- to experience this. so i took a train, to a bus, to a ferry boat, to nantucket.  i felt grown up and mature and independent and curious for about four hours- and half way through the ferry ride, i was bored and wanted someone to talk with.  i arrived and walked to the house, found the key, had some dinner and went to bed. the next day i walked to town, had coffee and cinnamon buns and looked at art galleries and walked the wharf. i had never gone so long without talking.  sometimes when no one next to me on the street i would say something out loud just to hear my voice and make sure it was still in there. 

by the afternoon i was on the ferry back home.  i came home early because i like sharing my life with the people i love.  i wanted to hear what mike thought about the paintings i was looking at- i wanted him to tell me stories of being on his boat as a kid- i wanted to dream with him about someday running away together to live as artists in a run down nantucket beach house where we'd wear wool sweaters that we'd made on our loom and eat food from our garden and dig for clams and ride in our dingy.

i know that when most people travel alone- they are doing it for the experience of knowing themselves better- knowing a place- meeting new people and connecting with people from that place- or other travelers, and that my nantucket trip was not about that.  but it reminded me that i liked my life.  i loved my guy.  and that i enjoy my life more with him.

so even though there is something enticing about wandering the streets of foreign cities alone with a gelato, especially when i've added another child who still occasionally forgets to go to the potty,  i couldn't, i really couldn't get up and leave my life.  because i like my messy life.  and i think we can find ourselves right where we are and with who we are already with- if we're looking.  because i like eating where ever i am- when i'm with people who i enjoy.  and because i find God in most places.  and because love, for love, i really don't need to go to bali.  just look at the picture.

owning the slippers

i love to travel, but i hate airports.  they stress me out.  people seem annoyed- things are delayed (like my flight yesterday) the food isn't good and it's expensive, and there is elevator music. but with a coffee, a biscotti and an assigned seat-  i can sit and write-alone.  ahhh.

yesterday i woke up early and sat out on my porch watching the sun light up one side of this super tall water oak in the woods behind my house.  it's the same every day- that light- on that spot.  and i thought, 'i will miss that when i'm gone'.  that is where my head is- it's on 'going'.  so i wasn't very excited for my airport trip that morning to head up to my family reunion in grand rapids.

i love my family- all of them- really.  this was an extended family reunion- some of my cousins and all of my aunts and uncles from my mom's side of the family- but many more people that i barely know or haven't even met- my cousins cousins.  and, given the pace of life these days, what needs to get done in the next few weeks- i almost didn't go.  i was dreading flying, packing, being away another weekend, losing that time to "do" stuff- to "get done".  but mike was great.  he gently reminded me that people are way more important than getting "stuff done".  that relationships matter most. that you don't get another chance to see people all together like this.  he is right, so off i went.

and i am so glad.   it was a day of reconnecting with really good people who i haven't seen in years but know me- people who've prayed for me- prayed through the seasons of my life.  people who know the value and importance of family and of relationships.  people who've had brokenness, people who are going through hard times right now.  people just like me, and just like you, because we all know broken and we all know hard.  but what do we do with it?  our brokenness?  other peoples hard times?

on friday, at work, i had one of those days where the system gets in the way of the people.  that really gets to me because there are so many times when we do things in medicine because the patient said the 'right words' even when we know it's unlikely to be  the medical entity that classically goes with those words.  but then sometimes- you know what the right thing to do is- you know this guy needs serious IV pain control to be able to sit still for the radiation to his bone metastasis- which will then bring him relief- you know he's failed it as an outpatient - but the system balks at his admission diagnosis- at the hassle of how to categorize him.  and this gets to me.  the right thing to do is get him comfortable enough that we can radiate him and help his pain - even if it means an admission.

i know soon in uganda i will have many struggles between systems and people's needs.  very different struggles.  the medicine is too expensive, the person is too sick to come into clinic, there is no MRI machine.  and like my friday situation- you do what you can- you think outside the box- and you always give the treatment you administer by ear, "words of comfort".  (another gem from cutting for stone- abraham verghese)

and that is what we do with our own brokenness- ours and our families- you ask- you listen- you give words of comfort- even when it might be easier not to.  because it is right.  because we are made of the same stuff.  because we want that when we are in the hard times.

today i was back at the Gerald Ford International Airport in grand rapids michigan.  sometimes in the airport you can look around at other peoples lives and wonder.  you can easily and quickly make assumptions about them- what might be easy- what might be hard about their life.  you can even try it on your imagination- what if i'd made 'that' choice or what if i wore 'those' kind of clothes.  usually from my eyes- somehow most peoples lives in the airport seem simpler- easier and i romanticize them because of this.  i'm looking at this tan guy, wearing a polo shirt with his wife and baby- they look like they're going on vacation- they don't seem stressed out by their lives- by there one, young healthy child.  i see the guitarist from a popular band who i'd sat with the day before when i accidentally got first class with a frequent flyer ticket- he seems to breeze around- no luggage- first class- no kids- no major ties.  i see some business guys - calling home- telling someone about the convention- kind of bland- it's a job- can't wait to get home.  i see a dad with his daughter.  she's about 12, carrying two crimp haired dolls and a bedazzled backpack,  she's asking where her brother is- she's reminding me of zoe, she's smiling- she has downs syndrome.

nothing is easy.  it's just life.  tan and polo-ed, rich rocker, business guy, dad of a child with a chromosomal anomaly, girl with her dolls and pack.  all beautiful and all broken.  just like me.  just like zoe.  just life.  the secret is knowing your life- owning your life- not wanting to be the rocker- or the business guy.  we are who we are.  what we do with it, or don't do with it- that is what further shapes us.

"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 slippers aren't yours, then you'll die searching, you'll die bitter, always feeling you were promised more. Not only our actions, but also our omissions, become our destiny."
abraham verghese - cutting for stone.

now i'm home.  on the porch but it's evening.  the light comes from the other side now - from the west.  and instead of lighting the bark- it lights the leaves- all of them- each of them.