there i am free

It's difficult to put this week into words. Though I've wanted to. Every evening I have opened my computer, but my fingers lay still against the keys. The words are stuck somewhere between my throat and my heart. Or somewhere deeper still, where they are the unformed substance that makes blood flow through veins, where they blow on the delicate wings of butterflies in bellies.

Now, I write from the room I've been staying in this week. Across the hall, a college student. Downstairs, a family with two young children, one of whom knows my name and keeps asking how long I'll stay. Outside, about a mile to the south, the university I attended more than a decade ago, and further on, miles of farms and trees and open land. The bed in this room has borrowed sheets and an unzipped green nylon sleeping bag for a comforter, which keeps me warm enough. I have a key to the house, and a living room and kitchen at my disposal at the big house next door, which houses international students. No car, and a half mile walk to a grocery store if I need anything.

After our first day, I watched out the window as one of our trainers -- a woman my age -- drove away. Done with work, headed home to her husband and her normal evening routine. I started crying because I wanted my car and my apartment and my normal evening routine. I did not want the dinner of chicken thighs and peas and salad that had been prepared for me to eat with the international college students. I did not want to feel so lost and limited to this room and the company of the students in the big house.

The next morning, I walked over to the big house at 7am. Inside, a young man was playing piano loudly (I had been hoping for some quiet), and I drank Folger's coffee and ate a banana. It is moments like these that I am not too sure what I've gotten myself into.

We drove twenty minutes in an old van with the interior falling apart to a small office building to start our second day of training. As Christians do, we started with worship. I held a second cup of coffee in one hand and closed my eyes and opened my heart. Where you are, there I am free, we sang. Free -- I wanted that. I paid more attention.

That's what I needed, that freedom that comes wherever I am. Or, wherever Jesus is. At a house in the middle of farmland with no car and a bed covered in a green nylon sleeping bag. In Nairobi, where it will take me some time to learn how to get around and who my friends will be. At my sisters', where I will be tomorrow when this training ends, and where kids are waiting for me to play Star Wars with them. In Pasadena, where my car and apartment are waiting for me to establish normal evening routines again (though who knows...).

arrival

I step toward the door and it slides open, as if to invite me into the night. The cold is a kiss, and then it is something deeper, digging past my skin to muscle and bone. Cars shine and blink and breathe at the curb, people cart and shove. Behind me, two men smoke until all that's left is ash. I look into darkened car windows as they approach, willing the people that appear faintly behind them to be someone I know.

I am here. They soon find me and scoop me into their car. He takes my suitcase, I open the door. My niece and nephew, their hair still impossibly golden, their smiles gold to me after six long months of seeing them only on a screen and in the faint memories I can conjure. They ask me if I'm hungry and hold up a golden bag of red gummy fish: that sweet, familiar string that connects each visit with the last and, inevitably, with the next to come. I pull my own out of my bag. I remembered, too, I tell them. My niece holds out her hand for the one I am ready to give her. The entire ride she is laughing too loud, is told over and over to calm down. My nephew makes a joke about bathroom habits and we all laugh too loud. He is pleased.

My smaller bag is heavy in my lap until my niece offers to take it onto her own, a show of strength and care. She rests her head against my shoulder for just a second before popping up again to make a joke and laugh again. On the other side of me, darkness lies still outside of the window as we drive fast on the highway towards home.

***
(photo: dtla... not where i have arrived this time)

feasting with kids during children's church

"Thank you God for giving us houses to live in so that we can have lots of toys to play with and lots of food to eat. Amen." - Joshua, age 4

They feast on the abundance of your house, and you give them drink from the river of your delights. - Psalm 36:8 

Amen.

the perfect weekend

The best weekends are that perfect balance between getting stuff done and doing nothing in particular. They are sort of magical and elusive, but come just when you need one. I'm in the middle of one right now, complete with blueberry pancakes, peaches from a friend, coffee (of course) and a freshly washed table cloth. And that light - from the overcast morning that's brought a break in the heat of the past few days.

Hope a magical weekend finds you, if not now, then soon.

Happy Sunday.

sabbathing

Sabbathing:
Running
Praying
Churching
Eating
Napping
Reading
Talking
Board-game playing
Readying

Happy Sunday!

sundays are for things like this

Sundays are good days for taking a day off and doing things that on the surface my not seem to directly improve or inspire your writing, but that you know keep those creative juices churning.

Like wandering downtown. Like laughing with a friend. Like eating ice cream.

Happy Sunday, friends.