looking intently (or, trying)

I used to write in places where I was anonymous or alone. Coffee shops or my kitchen table. Now I write in a garden where guests and friends interrupt me, even when I wear my headphones. I write less this way, but most of the time I have more fun.

A man today told me God will bless me with a well-paying job after my time in Kenya. The other week, a guest told me God has a gentleman set aside for me. I wonder if these words are from the Spirit of God; I wonder about the spiritual lives of these bearers of blessings, if I can trust the blessings to bring their fruit. Either way, can't I trust that there is something good and full in the words they have spoken -- a wish for a full life?

I was supposed to teach English at a community center today, but instead I took the day off. Which actually led to deeper work than I probably would have done if I'd carried on with my schedule.

Kenyans ask me for things. They see a mzungu and assume I can help. It's not a magic wand they seek, but the advantage of privilege. Money isn't just money; to give is a sign of friendship. I am learning to respect that, and to understand the ways I really am able to help.

Kenyans are also extremely generous. Don't discount the treasure of a smile, a spoken blessing, friendship, English, welcome, tea.

At first, time here seemed long and slow. Just the other day, it turned fast and short. And a lot easier. Now I realize how the struggle of those early days demanded my attention, required intention. I don't want to float through these last few weeks and realize I still wanted to more. (I want to want more now, and go after it.)

I want to see need here the way it is to be seen, not through my own lens of what should be had. I want to see provision and help through the lens of those who will receive it.

abundance is what grows wild and free

I wanted flowers to fill the empty vase on the counter. This felt especially important since my move from a small, updated guest room to the back cottage. The space feels empty and impersonal, furnished with a few old, mismatched pieces. Hooks and nails jut from the wall wear past inhabitants might have hung a painting or a framed photograph -- but I had none of these to add. My first day, I opened all the cabinets to take stock of what was available and what I might need. In one of them was that vase, which I pulled out and set on the counter. I would find flowers.

The green grocer I sometimes visit sells bouquets, and there are stands I've seen with buckets of flowers for sale. But I live in a literal garden. Surely I could cut something from what's already here? Tom is the gardener, and a self-appointed Swahili coach. I approached him as he re-potted a red stalky thing and bumbled through our typical greetings. Then I asked, can I cut flowers to fill my vase? He laughed, not understanding at first why I was asking. I told him I didn't want to ruin any of the plants or cut at something I shouldn't take.

He laughed again. They are all wild, he said. You take what you want. To him, I realized, nobody owns what grows freely. His job is only to cultivate what's here.

I went for my scissors and the vase, looking around for something that would fit. Only a few cuts and it was filled with green leaves and a few purple flowers. I once thought abundance meant knowing I could spend money on things like flowers, and perhaps that lesson is an important one to understanding the concept. You can buy and not be afraid. And yet now, having been invited to find all that I needed from what's around me, for free, and so simply, I realized there's more to abundance than buying. There's also recognizing what you have around you and seeing that it's more than enough.

what it was about

But when the words mean even more than the writer knew they meant, then the writer has been listening. And sometimes when we listen, we are led into places we do not expect, into adventures we do not always understand. 

Mary did not always understand.  But one does not have to understand to be obedient. Instead of understanding -- that intellectual understanding, which we are so fond of -- there is a feeling of rightness, of knowing, knowing things which we are not yet able to understand. 

A young woman said to me, during the question-and-answer period after a lecture, "I read A Wrinkle in Time when I was eight or nine. I didn't understand it, but I knew what it was about." 

As long as we know what it's about, then we can have the courage to go wherever we are asked to go, even if we fear that the road may take us through danger and pain.

-Madeleine L'Engle, Walking on Water

christmas day, a light has come

It  is late afternoon, the time when the winter light is a thin layer of yellow over the trees in the horizon. It has been a long day that started when little ones emerged from their rooms with big, eager smiles. Ready for gifts. Since then, there has been a scavenger hunt to find hidden gifts, pancakes and turkey bacon, a church service. Now, my nephew is sitting next to me on the couch, computer open, video playing. My niece is on the floor in the next room, making a roller coaster out of plastic pieces that snap together, move and light up. She is being helped by her dad and the younger neighbor boy. "It works!" they just exclaimed over the hum of a small motor.

We are together. It has not been a perfect day. Ones of us have been frustrated, disappointed, sick. But it has been a good day. Gifts, wrapped to hide their contents, were opened to the delight of being thought of and known and loved. The sun warmed everything it touched. Ice nearly melted - though not enough for the ducks to swim on the lake that I ran alongside. Instead, they waddled slowly on top of the thin layer between water and sky. This, too, a grace: walking on water.

To those who were in darkness, a light has come. Wonderful, mighty, everlasting, full of peace.

Now, as I finish writing, the light has faded. But it will not leave.

Merry Christmas, friends.

***
(photo: morning light during a run, northern new jersey)

happy hour with coworkers usually goes like this

Happy hour with coworkers usually goes like this: We sip our first drinks, share anecdotes about our co-workers and dating lives, laugh. I stop after one, they keep going, and halfway through the second drink and throughout the third, words become a little more harsh and stories of boyfriends a little more raw.

Here is how it went last night: The coworker sitting next to me shares about her live-in boyfriend. She is considering leaving him, and by her description, for good reasons. She draws a picture for us of what life is like with him with a story about him bailing on a dinner in West Hollywood with friends, and later, with a text he just sent her. Eventually my sadness and shock show on my face, perhaps read as naiveté. And maybe it is true that these women have more experience in certain areas of life. But what I am really wondering about is why women would let men treat them like this, and what is so bad about being alone that these women seem to be avoiding it with a relationship that’s not really a relationship, and (I am trying to resist this one) are all men like this? I think of what to say to her that has more substance than the trite feminist sentiment, girl, you deserve so much more. But that’s what’s true. She is beautiful and smart and funny and engaging and she is a child of the living God.

Happy hour with coworkers usually goes like this: I come away with the headache that whiskey always gives me and feeling overfull from the greasy food and wondering how so many people think this is life.

***

Today my sister will give her blood to understand her genes. Specifically, she will find out whether certain mutations that are believed to have caused disease in our dad’s sisters are present in her, and as a result, put her at risk for the same sickness. This has been a conversation my sisters and I have been having for at least a few years now. Do we get tested? What will we do with the information? Better to live not knowing than to live with the information? Which is better, the fear of the unknown, or the fear of the little-bit-more known? What do we do with the possibility of death?

When I woke up this morning, I texted my sister to let her know that I’m praying for her. We exchanged messages back and forth, and what I began thinking about as we texted and as I prayed is the force of life. I’m not talking about life like, these daily happenings all combined make up my life. I’m talking about the breath of God sort of life, the light that appeared when He spoke into darkness and chaos. I think about what that first man and woman might have experienced of life before things like tiredness and depression and disease and un-forgiveness entered the picture. Did they wake up and need coffee? I’m guessing not.

***

One definition of life: the capacity for growth, reproduction, functional activity, and continual change preceding death. But what kind of change? I want to ask.

***

I drive to work this morning, drinking my coffee. The sun is in my eyes, but I try to be thankful for it all the same. Life is buzzing all around, in the traffic of people heading to work and school, in the sun climbing the sky and the leaves still clinging to trees. I go over our happy hour conversation even as I mean to be praying for my sister. I am a little embarrassed that I showed my shock and disappointment at my coworkers stories. But then I think about how much I want to know what true life is, that kind of change that’s the process of being made new each day, and how I want to be a bearer of it in the lives of others, and I’m no longer ashamed but glad. And I keep driving into the sun, that never-dying bearer of such bright day light.

***

(photo: morning light)

the stories we tell, and the stories we won't tell again

Last week, I ate salad with a friend at my small dining room table and told her a story. The events of the story had taken place a few months prior, but I hadn't told her yet and I needed her to hear it. I had already told it to other friends: several weeks ago to a friend over coffee, to a teammate by the dinner fire one night in Kenya, over text to a few friends after it happened, even to an imaginary audience in a rough draft of some kind of essay I thought it might turn into. Something about it merited re-telling again and again, and now to this friend.

Sometimes we tell stories because they explain our lives to others. This is how I met my best friend when we were five or this is how my daughter came into the world or this the way my mother made lasagna over and over when I was young. We tell ourselves stories in order to live, says Joan Didion, by which she meant that the form of a narrative, and perhaps also the act of telling it, gives shape to our lives.

But other times, I find myself telling the same story over and over precisely because it doesn't make sense. I tell it hoping that the way it comes out this time might flip a switch, or that the particular friend I'm confiding in will help me find the key. This story, the one I found myself telling my friend over salad, was like this. It ended with my being hurt and disappointed, and though it didn't leave me on bad terms with anyone in particular, it did leave me feeling confused. This particular scene didn’t seem to fit into the larger story I thought was forming, and I wanted it to. Maybe the story wasn't over? Maybe the larger story itself needed to change? Maybe not every story has a conclusion?

And then this happened: I was praying (though not about the story) when I heard the Spirit say that I wouldn't tell the story again. It wasn't instruction as much as description: the new way in which I was being arranged inside made it such that I wouldn't feel the need to go back over what had happened. The details have started to fade, their edges are dulled and less provoking. Even now, it’s as if the story is floating out to sea, a message I’ve shoved in a bottle and sent away with no intention of reclaiming. We tell ourselves stories to live, and sometimes we let them go to live more fully.

***
(photo: water and wood at tenaya lake, yosemite national park)

feeding along the way

In my last post I wrote about my love/hate relationship with professional travel. This time it was all love, and I’m so grateful. This particular conference felt like it was a stepping stone along the path of some of the new things that are happening during this season (that transition/transformation I wrote about a little while back). These kinds of experiences are true grace, a breeze at your back, a gentle nudge to continue in the same direction.

So, a list of highlights, if you’re interested…

City of Bridges // Running in new cities is always a highlight, especially when that city has some water running through it. Pittsburgh has lots of it – three rivers, with more than 400 bridges crossing them at various points. (Did you know it’s the American city with the most bridges? I didn’t.) The first morning I left my hotel just as the sky was beginning to brighten and followed a haphazard loop over all three rivers, stopping for lots of photos. The second morning, I crossed the Rachel Carson Bridge (so cool there's a bridge named after this author) and ran along the Three Rivers Heritage Trail, a concrete path bordered by green overgrowth and yellow wild flowers, with a river just beyond. It was pure Pennsylvania and made my heart so happy. (I didn’t realize how much Pittsburgh would feel like home…)

Medicine, mission, mercy // Remember those uninspiring keynotes I referenced? Not at this conference. The second morning was my favorite. Dr. Jim Withers shared his story of providing medical care to Pittsburgh’s homeless folks for decades and helping to create Street Medicine programs at medical schools around the world. The concept of mobile medical care that creates access and cultivates justice has become my heart, especially since traveling to Kenya. It was such an honor to hear him share his stories, and with such humility and passion.

The life of an artist // I made a few friends, one of whom works at the Carnegie Museums in Pittsburgh. Over dinner, I mentioned that I might visit the Andy Warhol Museum after the conference. The next morning, she found me to tell me she’d arranged for my free entry. Later that day (which was also after I’d given my presentation), I wandered the city, found some coffee, and made my way over. Warhol’s art is funky and fun, and observing the trajectory of an artist’s life is incredibly inspiring. My favorite part was the display of contents from his time capsule from the year 1984. His collection of all kinds of random paraphernalia reminded me that inspiration can come from anywhere, and being an avid collector of it can keep creativity fresh.

“Something you said…” // After I presented on the last morning of the conference, several people came up to talk to me afterwards. One woman introduced herself, then started her comments on my presentation with this phrase. It stuck with me because this year has in some ways been one of strengthening my voice. My dream is to hear this over and over – that the things I say have impact, stir something in people, inspire change and vision. Years ago I often found myself afraid to speak, and when I first started this job I wasn’t thinking I’d one day be one who teaches and encourages others, especially by the room-full. It’s one of those dreams I never thought to dream, but the One who knows our truest, deepest desires knows how to bring those about, and how to keep directing our hearts beyond those things to eternity.

I could write more – of really good coffee and chatting with the same barista each day, of great food, of an inspiring session on diversity that was a helpful way to process some of the violence erupting on the streets of cities across our country, of a man who passed me on the street and told me I looked like Taylor Swift (ok, his sanity was questionable but I’m thinking this was one of his lucid moments?). There was just so much. 

There’s a verse in Isaiah that speaks of the people of God feeding along the way and finding provision in places they thought barren -- reminders of God’s goodness and restoration as they make their way to their true home, the City of God. And it’s these seemingly little or mundane things that I think Isaiah might be referring to. They aren’t the thing to shoot for, but they signal to us that God knows our truest desires and has put eternity in our hearts. They bring joy, but what’s better is that they keep us along the path to the One who holds our hearts and is the ultimate thing (relationship/beauty/wonder) we yearn for.

***

(photo: fort duquesne bridge at the beginning of morning run)

an unread library

There's magic in being surrounded by books... Collect books, even if you don't plan on reading them right away. Nothing is more important than an unread library.

- Austin Kleon, Steal Like at Artist

***
(photo: my library and messy bookstacks... only partially read)

friends, here are some books i read

Friends and books: two of my favorite things. I like to read with friends, about friends, talk about reading with friends. Today, as I play catch up on blogging books I've read, I see a theme and I'm going with it. These books reminded me of how good writing will sound to you like a friend's voice, how friendship will inspire our reading choices, how good friends will give good books, and how one of the most enduring stories we will tell is how we found our friends.

This Boy's Life by Tobias Wolff

Well-known memoir by a widely-loved writer. I read it on the way to the writing conference I went to back in April because I knew he'd be speaking, and because I found it for five dollars at a used bookstore a few weeks before. The book was good. Here is my favorite quote: All my life I had recognized almost at a glance those who were meant to be my friends, and they have recognized me. Yes.

Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

About a week after my birthday, I came home to a mystery Amazon package on my doorstep. It looked like books. I got excited. In it was this book and another - both books I'd been wanting to read. They were sent by my sister. The woman gets me, even if she doesn't often understand me (which is probably the case a lot of the time because I can be crazy and text her a string of emojis that I expect her to interpret). That might be my new definition for friendship.

The book sat on my coffee table for two months until I decided I'd pack it for my trip to the east coast and Kenya. I started reading it in a Starbucks with my nephew. He wanted us to close our books and play cards, but I kept telling him to read another chapter so I could keep reading, too. It was good. Then I read it on the plane flying over the Atlantic, and in the van weaving in Nairobi traffic and struggling over the rocky, dusty roads that led to Maasai Mara. I read it while America was arguing with each other about why police were still killing black men and in between long looks out the window traveling around Kenya, trying to understand the country by what I could see.

I don't have the book with me (it is already lent out to a friend). If I did, I might give you a quote. Instead I will say that I loved her writing about Nigeria, and wondered what I could learn about writing about Kenya. I also loved her insights about Africans in America and how they relate to African Americans and to America in general, about what they love and what they find strange, about the ways that language and accent and hair and clothing and weight and food and love and the way air feels on skin all make moving to a different country so disorienting, and coming home, even after so many years, like encountering an old friend.

The Fire This Time edited by Jesmyn Ward

One thing I love about books of compiled stories or essays is that, if they are well-edited, reading them can feel like sitting around a table with some really smart friends. That's how this book felt. The writers invite us readers around their table to learn from them, to start a dialogue, to acknowledge our shared humanity. Each essay highlights the specific voice and experience of the writer, which makes the books feel like a collective, a community - a gathered group that, together, is something more than just the sum of its parts. My favorite themes were writing to remember and the emphasis on the physical experience of being black in America (and, really, our world).

I can't choose just one quote to share with you. Not one thought or sentiment would sum up what the book made me feel or think about. But I am still thinking about it, which is good, and I hope I will be for a while to come. Mostly, I hope what I read will stay with me and help me be a better friend to some very dear people in my life, and to people I have yet to meet.

***
(photo: books! though not the ones i read)

learning their names

I make it a priority to learn about names on this trip. I ask names and look hard at faces to commit them to memory. I listen to names and try to understand how people here understand their names by how they use them, by how they respond when called. But whenever I start to ask questions, I feel as if my words come out in a backwards language. Maybe it is because the people here always return questions with a shy smile, which makes me thing they’re amused by me. They likely are, but I know they are also shy, and probably unaccustomed to my direct inquisitiveness.

Maasai are given both English names and traditional names? I ask, even as I realize that it might be more appropriate to call them Christian names, like James and Jemima and Jonathan. Both of those terms carry tricky connotations and I don't know if one is better than the other. Yes, I learn, they have both. The Christian names are easier for me to learn and remember, but I want to learn the Maasai names, too, or at least allow my ear to become accustomed to them. Where do these names come from and what is their meaning? are questions I still have and will eventually learn at least partial answers to. 

During our introduction session, in which my plan is to get to know the students and, yes, learn their names, I decide to have them write their Christian names on one side of a piece of construction paper, their Maasai names on the other. Settled in the classroom, nearly fifty tall, lean students with dusty feet and ankles cram three to a desk with the colored paper before them, a bright contrast to the mostly monochromatic world they live in during the school week: wood beams, brown floors, dark skin, faded and dusty blue uniforms. (A day later, Saturday, I would see them again in their Western clothing – all yellow and red and blue.) When I give them the instructions, they start to write their names small in one corner of the paper, and I realize I should have made an example for them. Bigger, I tell them. Take up the whole page with your name.

Then I tell them that we’re going to line up outside the classroom in alphabetical order by our Christian names. The teachers lend order to the activity, sending out the As and Bs while I indicate where they should stand and shift the line up when we need more room. Then I see it: the line of students holding up their papers with names written across. It hits me that I have spent a few months thinking about these kids and wondering about their names. Call them out, I tell them. I want to hear you say your name loud, I say, because even though I know this is a people who speaks softly, I have been waiting to hear these names.

Ann. Dickson. Elizabeth. Esther. Isaac. Jacklyn. James. Lillian. Titus. I'm still trying to remember them all...

***

First draft from a longer essay about names and being named.

(photos: learning their names; because I couldn't pick just one) 

what do you do with more

Emotional jet lag is for real. I texted this to two of my Kenya-team-sisters and we commiserated about how hard it’s been to muster up the motivation to get back into our normal routines. Work feels dull, regular schedules are burdensome, and – the worst – making small talk about our trip seems impossible. “So how was it?” is a question without an easy answer.

I’ve been hard on myself about all of this, partly because it’s just made life difficult and I wish I could snap out of it and just get on with things. Instead I find myself moving around my apartment without really getting anything done and sitting in front of my work computer staring at open files, not remembering why I opened them. My journal has been mostly untouched over the past week because I can’t find words to put to anything. I need to make time to sit and stare at a wall, is how I followed up that first text to my friends. Ugh, me too, they both texted back. At least I’m not alone.

More than we ask or imagine is a phrase that, leading up to the trip, repeated as I felt prompted to pray and ask for things, and that now I use to describe the trip. I got to do things I never even thought to ask for: interview a young Maasai girl around her boma (homestead) for our documentary, and shape her story and that of another boy we’re featuring into scripts for a monologue and coach them through reading it for our audio. I looked at photos taken by students I’d met just hours before in a school in an informal settlement and felt such intense pride and honor at the opportunity to know them and watch their creativity at work. I sat at a table with my friend and our mentor who leads our partner nonprofit in Kenya and while at this moment I don’t remember her specific words, I remember what peace and power I sensed in her presence and know that I gained something from just being with her. I received a new name: Nosotwa, which in Maasai means peacemaker, and also means that a people with a strong and isolated tribal culture has welcomed this tall white girl to be part of their community. I learned a deeper love, the kind that trumps all the half-good things I was somehow able to pull off and lasts after I leave a place and a people. Yes, is all I could say in response to each of these things. This is what more feels like.

Now, afterwards, more feels like this: disorienting. The ways I learned to move in Kenya don’t fit the paths I know here. Everything is still getting re-routed. Because more than we imagine is a greater good than sometimes we’re ready for. My friend keeps telling me that all she can do in this phase is give thanks. Yes, I think, although there’s so much I don’t know where to start. So much more than I imagined…

***

(photo: writing monologue script with Benson, Kenya 2016)

literary, lately: Kenya edition

I'm using the term "literary" loosely in the title of this post. Really, it's just an excuse to share some of the things that are helping me gear up for Kenya.

Issues are addressed institutionally, programatically. People are addressed in their story. Watching Poverty, Inc. and was especially moved by the portion about a family helping orphans by helping parents who might have been forced to give up their children. Love this quote about the person to person way of addressing poverty. (Streaming on Netflix!)

The mzungu who is cringing right now, reading this, afraid to be like all these others and yet who fears it might be inevitable. That was me, reading my friend's kick-ass essay on all the shades of foreigners in east Africa.

Remembering how books are a large part of what inspired me to go in the first place.

A Kenyan fav.

A friend posted a photo on facebook from our trip last year that made me look scarily similar to white savior barbie. Imagine a long skirt, Maasai jewelry, one young girl hold each of my hands. Been thinking about how photos are often too flat to convey all of what's true (there is more to what was happening that day then getting photo opps with children), but also how to act and see in a way that embodies true partnership and love.

Edited to add: I love their reading lists. (Fitting, since reading about the founder of PIH is what made me want go to Kenya in the first place.)

Be back in a few weeks with stories from Kenya.

***
(photo: morning safari ride at Lake Nakuru, summer 2015)

like breathing in and out at the same time

If only you could breathe in and out at the same time, she said, followed by mention of someone we all knew who claimed they could do it. A few of us laughed or called her bluff while she experimented with her breath to figure out how it was done. The rest of us joined in, laughter muffled in the breath we held in our puffed-out cheeks, trying to figure out how to use our noses, too.

The context for this experiment was swimming. The weekend before, my friends had been trying to do as many rounds of front-flip-back-flip as they could without coming up for air. Holding your breath longer, or having a renewable source of breath, means you can stay under water longer.

Back in my living room, we all kept trying to perform those two opposing actions (in and out) at the same time. In the end, all we did was hold our breath, then let it out with relief. Impossible, we all agreed.

***

I told my friend this story when we talked on the phone. Sometimes breathing just requires focus, she said, as if she believed it could be possible.

***

Some time before all this, that familiar whisper came as I prayed. Psalm 37, it prompted, and I promptly turned to it, eager to be spoken to. A few verses in, I read that one verse that I avoid because it has always been so problematic. And he will give you the desires of your heart, is how it ends, which makes receiving seem dependent on the action that is mentioned earlier: Delight yourself in the Lord. The desire of my heart - the one I'd been praying about at the very moment the seed of that psalm was dropped into my palms - seemed far off, risky to ask for, unlikely and maybe, in the end, unholy.

That verse kept coming. It popped up everywhere. In a card from my mother, in a text from a friend, on the screen of my Bible app. One could say that the verse is bound to keep coming up because we sentimental Christians love the sweet simplicity of that do this, receive what you want mentality. It is an overused verse.

But it is anything but simple. If delighting in God is knowing Him as one who is just and forever good and eternally good-intentioned, then how do I go on delighting when the desire goes unfulfilled? Do I ignore the desire and assume it wasn't mine to ask for? Did the psalmist even mean give as in fulfill, or is it to signify origination (I will show your heart how to desire). A few weeks later God said to me that he is the giver of the desire, so don't I think he'll fill it? But even now my hands are still holding nothing but the seed of this verse. And what happens if I am being asked to go on desiring but not the specific thing anymore? A desire empty of specifics can feel like a gaping hole, an endless sea.

It feels like breathing in and out at the same time, I told my friend on the phone. Confounding, is what I meant.

***

Sometimes breathing requires focus, I remember, readying my heart for deep dive, wondering how long I can stay under, and if I'll get to the other shore.

never before seen, never before done

My sister and I talk on the phone, a preamble to prayer. I sit on my couch, the light outside swelling slowly into day, while 3,000 miles away she walks around in the full heat of the New Jersey summer mid-morning. Lately, we do this once a month: talk, then pray. Before work (for me), after walking the kids to school (her).

We are talking about my work. I have just finished telling her how my strange tendencies to avoid unknown things had me procrastinating on an important project. I hate doing unfamiliar things, is the subtext of our conversation. Especially publicly, especially high-stakes, especially alone. 

Another story I could have told her is how on Saturday, when I helped set up for my friend’s wedding, the coordinator showed me to two wood planks decorated with words and told me to tie flowers to the top. I looked at the spooled twine and sprays of eucalyptus and dahlias and thought, but I’ve never done this before. As if she should choose a better candidate from the parents and aunts and husbands-of-bridesmaids that had showed up to help and were busily carrying things from one place to another and setting up tables and chairs. For a minute I stood alone, looking from the flowers and back to the planks, unsure how to start. And then I did. I cut stems and twisted twine and held it up to the planks. I prayed while I did this, an act that might seem over-reaching to some, futile to others. But it struck me that the Spirit who searches out the deep things of God might know something about the beauty I sought. Might know something about teaching me to do something I don’t yet know how to do.

And then there are these plans for Kenya, in which I am leading 40 young Maasai people in creative writing, photography, scripture. I have never done this (well, except the scripture part) in America, what makes me think I can do it in rural Kenya, with young people whose experience of the English language and the world around us is so different? This thought arrived in the storm of last week and landed like the heaviest snow of late winter, freezing all that hope that hard started to sprout up. The next thought that came was grace: I won't be alone. The Spirit will be there, will be in me, will do more than I ask or imagine. 

In the middle of encouraging me about work, my sister stops talking suddenly, her thought interrupted by something that catches her vision. I just saw this beautiful yellow bird, she tells me. I never saw one like that around here before. Grace, again. I understand it as a sign.

***

(photo: from wedding, exhibit a)

tell me to come to you

Then Peter called to Him, "Lord, if it's really you, tell me to come to you, walking on the water."

"Yes, come," Jesus said.

So Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water towards Jesus.

-Matthew 14:28-29

***

(photo: surfers in Venice Beach)

i want to give you something

For all sorts of mistakes are possible when you are dealing with Him. Long ago, before we were married, H. was haunted all one morning as she went about her work with the obscure sense of God (so to speak) 'at her elbow,' demanding her attention. And of course not being a perfected saint, she had the feeling that it would be a question, as it usually is, of some unrepented sin or tedious duty. At last she gave in -- I know how one pulls it off -- and faced Him. But the message was, 'I want to give you something,' and instantly she entered into joy.

-C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

I could tell you a few different stories about this book: how I started reading it after looking for a different book but finding this one instead, how the text on the cover intrigued me. How I found the receipt still stuck inside, telling me I bought it in 2012 but not telling me why. How, halfway through reading, I shoved it into a canvas bag to take it with me to read at the pool over Memorial Day Weekend and found the bag minutes later on the counter where I left it, swimming in the pool of water from my water bottle leaking everywhere. Now its pages are crumpled and stained.

But here's what I will tell you instead: you don't have to have experienced the loss of a wife (or a husband or a child or a parent or a friend) to find Lewis asking questions you have at some point wondered about. Lewis's nonfiction writing is decidedly philosophical, apologetic, heady. But this book, taken from a few moleskine journals he wrote in during the weeks or months following his wife's death, is much more reflective and raw.

I found myself reading the first half as a kind of observer. It's much more focused on the experience of losing his wife. At some point, Lewis notes a shift in his experience where the fog of grief lifts and he's able to experience his wife's presence in a much more clear way. It's at this point where he starts asking questions about his experience of God. His idea of God, shattered by the experience of his wife's death, has to be shattered again and again, he says. We cannot understand. The best is perhaps what we understand the least. He writes of being utterly mistaken as to the situation he is really in, and always understands God as being more generous, more loving, more present than the person thinks. The mistake is to think Him absent, inattentive, unwilling.

[On a writerly side note: I have heard so many times how good prose writing is built on the foundation of good sentences. I would always nod my head. Yes, intuitively that made sense. But Lewis's sentences are good. Their length, their feel, their shape lends a kind of subdued intensity.]

***
(photo: book on table, before the water incident)

how much love is involved

last minute gift-labeling with Natalie

"The surprising thing about second grade is how much love is involved."

Natalie said this to me while we walked home from school the day before her Christmas break started. Her backpack was strapped to her shoulders, her winter coat left unzipped in the warm winter air. I had braided her hair the night before, and now strands had strayed to frame her face messily. Beside us, Natalie's mom - my sister - and brother Andrew carried on their own conversation. I had been teasing Natalie about Jamal, her neighbor who I thought was cute and with whom I knew she played often. She replied earnestly with this observation about girls and boys showing affection to each other, then began listing names of classmates she knew liked others: Brandon likes Sophie, Brian likes Lauren. And on and on.

Natalie seemed exasperated by the intrusion of love into her already fairly complicated seven-year-old life. She also seemed a little bit curious. She laughed when I told her about a boy I thought was cute, and agreed with her brother that I should definitely not get married. (Although later, Andrew rolled his eyes while suggesting maybe I should get married because I'm too boy crazy. According to him.) For Natalie, there is so much more than romantic love in second grade. There is reading to be done and dances to make up and friendships to foster and games to play and win.

A few days later, Natalie stood proudly in the middle of my parent's den, the rest of my family sitting in a haphazard circle around her. The Christmas tree sparkled with lights and kept watch over piles of gifts to be opened. At Natalie's side was a small bag with gifts she had prepared for each of her cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents. She handed them out one by one and watched with a big smile on her face as we all opened the gifts she had made or picked out for us. She was the only grandchild to choose gifts for us, and told each person that she had made that in art class or picked that out or paid her own money for that. There was so much love and thoughtfulness in that small silly heart of hers.

Indeed, so much love involved, I thought.

Top Ten Things of 2015

It's that time of year when all the Best Of lists are coming out. It has me feeling simultaneously feverish to fit in all the good stuff that 2105 has to offer (only 16 days left!) and quietly reflective, judging the good, bad and in between, wondering if  I've valued it all right. 

In any case, I decided to make a little list of my own. Here it is, with a plain title and in no specific order: Top Ten Things of 2015.

1. City - Minneapolis

I almost didn't go to Minneapolis because - why would I? That was my thinking. I don't remember now what changed my mind about going to the writing conference there. My first day was rainy, cold and without anything interesting to see or eat. But then I got into the little neighborhood where I stayed in a hostel, and all the sudden I could see myself living there. It felt understated, and like there was a lot of personality if you stuck around and dug for it. I can respect that - I'm the same way.

2. Podcast - Bullseye

I tell everyone I think might be remotely interested about this one. There are many things to love about it: the is host insightful and personable (he seems so comfortable with his guests!) and he curates an eclectic line up of interviewees that revolves mostly around comedy, hip hop and diversity. My favorites were Keegan-Michael Key (of course), the episode shared by Chiwetel Ejiofor and Allison Jones, and Jemaine Clement.

3. Coffee Shop - Found Coffee

Sometime around Easter, I made my first trip to Found Coffee in Eagle Rock. It became my spot for cappuccino, for writing, for journaling. The coffee is great. The vibe is just a little trendy but mostly relaxed. The late afternoon light through the front windows hints at something hopeful. And the music is usually M.I.A. and Lauryn Hill, which gives me a buzz as much as the caffeine.

4. Books - All My Puny Sorrows by Miriam Teows; Brother I'm Dying by Edwidge Danticat; On Immunity by Eula Biss

All three of these books, I devoured. All of them left me wanting more. All of them made me want to write better. Read them.

5. Songs - All You Had to Do Was Stay by Taylor Swift; Leave a Trace by CHVRCHES; Till the End by Waterdeep

Taylor Swift's 1989 rocked my world not because it is great pop music, but because I finally had to admit that I'm a Swiftie (is that what they're called?). It came out in 2014, but this year I had All You Had to Do Was Stay on repeat, especially in the car or when I was in the mood for a solo dance party.

I also discovered CHVRCHES this year (I know, where have I been?) and loved Leave a Trace.

And Waterdeep came out with a double album. Till the End is so beautiful and funky and true.

6. Movies - Far From the Madding Crowd; Selma; Room

For some reason, no one movie jumped out in my memory. I really loved Far From the Madding Crowd, but what woman wouldn't love the idea of being pursued by three men and ending up with (spoiler alert) Gabriel Oak. Though I have to say that if she'd had more sense she could have married him to being with and saved herself a whole lot of trouble. But then there'd be no movie (or book), right?

Selma and Room both stick out in my memory for the writing. I watched Selma on the flight home from Kenya, which seemed to add an extra layer of intensity to it. I remember being so moved by the scenes where MLK speaks publicly, and so passionately. A week or two later, I saw a friend-of-a-friend film critic at a party and we talked about the film. He told me then that those speeches weren't actually MLK's original words - those speeches are copyrighted by the family. Instead, the director (who isn't credited as a writer - that's another story, apparently) wrote the speeches inspired by his originals. Wow. Incredible writing. And in a completely different way, Room took my breath away. Go see it.

7. Bookstore - Letters Bookshop

When I visited my sister in Durham, she suggested some used bookstores. Yes, please. On Saturday, we drove downtown with the kids, stopped for a coffee, and walked over to Letters Bookshop. Most used bookstores stack books in piles beside the crammed bookshelves. There's a certain charm to that. But this store was different. Books are displayed intentionally, and only ones likely to sell (interesting titles, good condition) are bought to then be sold. And, I have a secret: I also had a little crush on the owner. I overheard him talk to a few customers about books and authors and I totally fell for him. A day later, I called to have another book put on hold and had my sister drive me back downtown. I was too shy to start a conversation, but I did try to smile real nice for him.

8. App - Moon

I love the moon, and bought an app to understand more about its phases. When I got this notification from my moon app, my coworker informed me this is usually this opening line for booty calls. Apparently the moon was loving me back, or something like that. But I don't think that's what the moon is after. He just doesn't want to be a reflection of a thing all the time.

9. TV Show - Master of None

Aziz Ansari will always be a favorite of mine. I binged on all ten episodes of his new show in one weekend (which isn't hard to do if you have three hours to kill while you're babysitting your goddaughter after she goes to sleep...). Everyone is talking about the episode called Parents, which was charming. But my favorite was Indians on TV, partly because I have a crush on Ravi Patel.

10. Day -

I could tell you about the day I spent in a cabin in Ojai, The rain came after a morning hike. I started a fire in the woodburning stove and spent the day praying. Or, there was our last day in Nairobi, when we finished all our clinics. The next day we would leave for safari. Our team went to dinner at our hotel together, where another group had hired a dj. Veena and I took on the empty dance floor and soon our team joined us, along with a soccer team from Zanzibar. There was also the day spent at a coffee shop with my friend visiting from Hawaii, both of us doing our work and taking a break every once in a while to laugh about something together (probably she had a verbal hashtag for something). Her companionship that weekend was just what I needed. There are other days, too, that I could tell you about, but I have a feeling that there wasn't just one day of the year, and that it probably couldn't be identified by things I think make it great. The best day might have only held a seed of something new, and I'll only know the full measure of it in years to come. And really, I wouldn't have wanted this year to have only one of those days, I wanted all of them - the ones I cried too many times to count, the days I questioned myself, the days I felt abandoned or useless. They all count.

write for joy

On our flight home from Kenya last year, I found myself seated next to a tall, handsome German man, whom I eventually found the courage to talk to. On hearing I'd been in the country with a medical team, he perked up and asked with increased curiosity, "Are you a doctor?"

I responded with pride, as I always do, "No, I'm a writer."

He seemed let down. The conversation lost its momentum. Eventually, we both put our headphones on and looked for a movie to watch.

I share that story first as an example of a time I've intimated conversation with a tall good looking stranger. But more, because I find not only pride but also identity in my pursuit of writing. Like most pursuits, it's more than a job; it's a vocation. It's how I make sense of the world, live out my desire and hopefully touch the lives of others. 

But I have days. Days when I'm not feeling it, when I am failing, when I hear feedback that convinces me I've chosen wrong. And it's on these days that I remember that writing doesn't define who I am. Whether I succeed to move people or make them laugh or think differently through something I've written isn't the thing that gives me value. If I write or if I don't write, I will still be who I am. I will still be loved.

Over the past few weeks, I've been noticing how much my mood depends on how successful or recognized I feel as a writer. I've been comparing myself to other writers and creatives and professionals to understand how I measure up, but this little game is dubious. This year in Kenya, on a team with some really gifted doctors, nurses, and a videographer, I got myself a little mixed up in this comparison game. The doctors and nurses were so skilled and helpful during clinics. I mean, they had a real, concrete, in-the-moment impact, and as a result, patients expressed their gratitude. Team members congratulated each other. And our videographer - he was shooting and uploading constantly, which meant there were photos to see and videos to watch, along with excited team members watching them. And I - had nothing except for a few ideas born in conversations with people, a few notes scribble down, and some dreams. Writing can feel slow, inefficient, unpractical, ineffective, laborious. In other words, don't go into writing if you're looking to feel good about yourself, kids.

I could tell you other stories from the past few weeks when I have felt like quitting and just living a small, normal life where I come home and watch tv on netflix after dinner every night. But then I come home and open my computer and try to find a few words to piece together, and I remember, I write because I love to do it.

So, my motto this week has been write for joy. Not for identity or value or proving my skill or impact in some grand way. Find the joy in it. And just keep writing.

(Tall, goodlooking German men on airplanes be damned!)