international travel and coming home

I love traveling, but I also love coming home.

I love feeling the energy of another place, another country. It helped that on my most recent trip, I didn't get sick, and it was safe enough for me to walk around by myself. The country was beautiful, and there was enough infrastructure that we could get ourselves from the airport to the hotel. I read a lot on the way there, and had a lot of really good discussions with my co-travelers about everything you can imagine. I laughed until I cried twice.

The days were long - sometimes we were out working for 12 or 13 hours. We'd come back, grab a late dinner, and tumble into bed exhausted, but usually not before checking emails. One day, my mom had sent me a long email. I read it all and responded something like, "I read this. I loved it. Too tired to write more." (But really, isn't it better to respond this than to not respond at all?) On days where we were out and about less, we'd meet and plan the next day, figure out what things we needed to prioritize.

We made ourselves slow down a couple of times - a few hours on a Sunday, for Saturday night dinner, before we caught our bus to the airport on Tuesday afternoon. Those are the moments that you see photos of on social media. Like most social media, it paints an incomplete picture. I didn't photograph the time I stayed up till almost 1 am answering work emails, or the time I chose to go to bed instead of staying up to answer them (balance!). I didn't photograph our late night meetings. I did photograph myself when I found out my flight home was delayed yet another hour; but I won't be sharing that one. You can just imagine it.

I met some amazing people - international coworkers, hotel staff, sponsored families. I heard painful stories and stories of determination to get to where they are now. I had to write them down late at night because I want to remember them and I want them to shape me.

I believe that the amount to which we can experience and hold pain is also the extent to which we can experience joy. For me, traveling is a mixture of both. It's not just the wear and tear of travel - it's seeing the lack of opportunities or the corrupt power systems. But it's also seeing the spark that families carry inside them. To focus on only the positive things is easier - but just like in art, the negative space brings perspective, clarity.

I love traveling, but I also love coming home. Coming home gives me space to process the trip. And when I travel, I miss parts of being home, especially Caleb. But leaving makes it sweeter. I came home to a clean house, homemade lentil soup (per my request), flowers and a welcome sign, a fire in the fireplace, and taps on the maple tree to make homemade syrup. I spent a few days remembering what it means to slow down, rediscovering my own rhythms and waves.

I love traveling, but I also love coming home. 

Why I'm not a great client for hair salons

Today, I got my first non-spontaneous haircut in 5 years. I cut my own hair for most of that time, but was not brave enough to give myself a bob last fall, and called places until there was one that could get me in IMMEDIATELY. I told no one, not even Caleb, and then happily paid them to lop a lot of my hair off and it was awesome.

I made an appointment at that same place a few weeks ago for today, to get the exact same haircut. And I did, and it was awesome. I'd be happy to refer you, then we both get $10 off our next visit. I'm great at referring. This is not why I am not a great client for hair salons.

Here is what I have realized - when I had long hair, I had split ends all the time. All the time. And most of the time, it wasn't really that noticeable*. When it got noticeable, I would cut them off. When I got short hair five months ago, it was the best. I stopped using conditioner. Some days I would forget to brush it before leaving the house. I really enjoyed how it looked all the time. Once I even went to bed with wet hair, and woke up, and it still looked awesome*.

So, when I got my hair cut today, they commented about how I hadn't been in for a while, and wouldn't I like to schedule for a trim in 8-10 weeks? Nope. 

Well then, surely I would like to buy the product** that keeps my ends from splitting as they do when one prefers to wait a minimum 5 months between appointments? Nope. Wait, I had split ends? Oh yeah.

But here is what I realized. Split ends do not cause any serious damage. They are not giving me arthritis down the road, and they are not causing indigestion, and they are not making my hair fall out or my skin turn purple. And suddenly, I felt liberated. Like I will never again buy the argument that finding a split end means you urgently need to get a haircut. FREEDOM!

What a good day. Sorry to the hair salon people. But thanks to them for still always treating me as if I were a great client who faithfully came in every 8 weeks and bought all the products.

*Ahem. To me anyway. And that's all that matters.

** I know they have to do this, cause of their deals with the product companies, etc. etc. 

On terror and grace found in the library

There was another shooting today. I found out about it during a meeting that was covering a difficult topic. I found out that there were mentally disabled people involved and that there was an "active shooter".

Mass shootings have become all too common - so much so that many of us don't react anymore, except to acknowledge that it's tragic and then explain why this confirms or is generally unrelated to our politics. But today it was different for me. Today when I heard the news, I got nauseous and closed my eyes. I swallowed a lump in my throat. I prayed desperately and constantly - for the people involved, for the shooter to stop, for the softening of American hearts towards some kind of gun control.

I asked those around me to not hear the details, explaining that I just couldn't handle it right now, that I would look it up when I got home and could process and cry. And I thought about how it is prudent for every school, business, and family to have a plan and practice for these things, just like we practice for natural disasters like fires and tornados. I became scared.

In the wake of other recent events, I read a post about three reactions we have to terrorism: denial, transmission, and transformation. Allow me to pause here and say that there is SO much transmission on Facebook. It's hard to know what to do with our fears, and spreading them is sometimes the only way we know how to relieve the pressure. [Read here about being an anxious or non-anxious presence.] I thought today about being a non-anxious presence, about ways to react to the shooting with "creative non-violent courage". But mostly, I just felt scared to go out into the world, scared of how fragile life is.

Caleb asked me if I would be willing to go get him a library book while he changed the oil in the car. I wanted to stay blockaded into my house, where I had the illusion of control, but I went. I was afraid, but I went. I couldn't find the book he wanted and was going to give up, but decided to ask a librarian. [Bless the librarians.] After I reached out to this stranger, my fear started to dissipate. I needed her help, and she offered it. Something shifted inside me and fear started to drain away.

You guys. We NEED each other. And we need to examine our fears and prejudices and the scary things and face them. It is the only way forward. It's a step we all need to take together, because we cannot do it alone. 

The gluten-free piecaken

Sometime this week, I heard about the piecaken. I also immediately disagreed with the name. It should just be the piecake or the pake. But it seems the internet has dubbed it the piecaken, and I will respect that. 

I wasn't feeling great on Thanksgiving, so I didn't eat very much... which meant that today was a great day to do some catching up. We made waffles, baked mac & cheese, and .... a piecaken. (All gluten free, cause that's how we do it around here.) 

Here are my learnings and photos:

What made this project manageable is that I made the pie crust last week in preparation for Thanksgiving. However, I had initially planned on just baking it without filling, so I pricked holes in the crust. More on why that was a problem later.

This morning, I made the pecan pie filling, using maple syrup instead of corn syrup. Then I put it in our garage to cool. This afternoon, I made the cake batter - chocolate cake with chocolate chips. The cake called for two cups of sugar, and I cut it in half.

Now. Imagine the pie crust - with holes in bottom - filled with delicious, but now cold, maple syrup. Whoops. I spread a layer of cake batter in the parchment lined spring-form pan and flipped the pie plate and... nothing. 

I tried to take a fork around the edges of the pie, but it was pretty much a goner. But I did not worry, because pecans + chocolate = amazing. 

Sticky, syrupy pie crust

Completed cake ready to go in the oven for... about 90 minutes

Finally done! I covered it with foil for the majority of the baking process.

You can see the pie chunks... An alternative cake flavor considered was fresh peach

The first piece! Caleb didn't want icing on his.

The inside, pre-frosting

Post frosting - a maple chocolate frosting topped with pecans

And there you have it! I was really amazed when I transferred the cake - erm, piecaken - to the cake plate that it was extremely stable. Now we just need to find some helpers to eat it! 

Land and Houses

“How does it feel to be a homeowner?” is a question I’ve been asked a lot lately. 

Caleb asked me last night, after we got back to our new place. We’d just spent some time crying at our old place, the sunny rental house with soft, clean carpet and rooms empty of furniture, but full of memories.

I gave him my most honest answer yet, “Meh.” 

“Oh good,” he responded. “You’re feeling the same way I am.”

You can read more about our conflicting feelings about moving here. 

Today, as I wander the yard tending my plants who also endured the move, I look at and try to listen to the land. I pay my tax to the mosquitos who live here, only two bites this time. It sinks in that I am also a landowner. As soon as it sinks in, it makes me laugh. 

Owning land is a strange idea. I think a lot about the history of this slice of the planet I call home. It used to be prairie, part of the plains. It was (and is) near a river. It had softly rolling hills. Animals roamed it, wildflowers and innumerable edible plants grew abundantly. 

The land has been here for hundreds of thousands of years. Our house is close to 70 years old. While we may be the owner on paper, we are really just the dwellers. We inhabit the house and care for the land. This carries a sense of responsibility. We are going to ask our little slice of land to help us do some things, like collect rain water and help us turn our food scraps back into earth. We’ll put up a clothesline and plant food. But the land is also asking something of us. And so, we also listen and try to hear what it’s asking us to do. 

On concerts

I attended my first [popular music] concert at the age of 22.

And ever since then, I have disliked concerts.

If you love concerts, hear me out.

The concert I attended when I was 22 was outside. It was loud and there was lots of cigarette smoke. I hate loud music and cigarette smoke. People throw so many things you can recycle in the trash. You can't bring your own reusable water bottle, thanks to a few people who smuggled in alcohol and ruined it for the people who want to stay hydrated.

If you buy the kind of tickets I have to buy to concerts (the cheapest ones, which are still super expensive), there is usually nowhere that is not gross to sit.

I recently attended a concert inside. It was a small-ish concert, inside a dark bar (dislike) with posters for all the bands who would be coming next. Most bands had grotesque graphics and dark names. The artist I was seeing sang songs about peace, nature, harmony, unity. I watched the bartenders and concert-goers throw away huge amounts of recycling, while an opening act sang about the evils of Monsanto and received loud cheers. I felt confused. There was no cigarette smoke, but there was a different kind of smoke. I learned, from my concert-experienced husband, that you do not mention that it smells like that kind of smoke. Oops. Sorry about that, fellow concert-goers. I also learned from him that you should not wear the shirt of the band or artist you are going to see; and I learned (too late) that you should not spend the whole day listening to that artist in preparation for the show.

We sat (sat!) through an opening act that was fine, a second opening act, which required ear plugs (dislike). Then it was time. Earplugs in place, we got up and pushed our way into the sea of sweaty, swaying bodies. It was about 15 degrees warmer in that part of the room. We found our spot. It was like ten pm. My bedtime.

And then it happened. The artist we had come to see came on the stage. He looked different from the last two times we'd seen him. He started playing. And, despite disliking almost everything else about the whole concert experience, I knew why I had come. The energy that lights up the room, when you are all standing there, swaying and sweating on each other, singing, is beautiful. It lights up the dark place. Maybe that's why bars are so dark... it helps you to see the colors of the music. And so we stayed, dancing as much as you can in a tiny space, singing, cheering, laughing, trying not to be too grossed out when the people around us brushed their sweaty arms against ours. Most importantly, we felt. We felt the magic of the music, the presence of the humans around us, the connection with the songwriter. And I began to feel that I might like concerts. Just a little bit. 

thoughts on the eve before purchasing our first house

I really love this house. Not the one we're buying, though I do like it, and believe that I will grow to love it over time. But I really love the house where we're living now. 

Where we live now is just the right size for us - small enough to deep clean top to bottom in 5 hours by yourself. Small enough that we can hear each other in any part of it. Big enough that when we each need space behind a closed door, we can have it. Big enough to host a friend and they can have their own bedroom. Big enough to host a New Year's Eve party, but small enough that it still feels intimate. I love the way we bump elbows in the bathroom and circulate for mirror space. I love that the kitchen is big enough for dancing, and the living room is big enough for handstands, but neither room is too big. You don't get lost in them when you're there alone. 

Our new house is big. It has an upstairs and a downstairs and a basement. I am glad for the basement, but I loved (in some peculiar way) the way it felt to slide down the ramp to the root cellar during a tornado last month. It was strange and scary and fun somehow. In our new house, there is a living room and a dining room and a family room and two bedrooms all downstairs. Plus more rooms upstairs. What are we going to do with so much space? It feels scary and not cozy. It feels too big, too much. I don't want there to be a whole room just for one couch. It's important to me to have free space, but not too much. 

I've been avoiding packing. Sure, I packed a few things, here and there, things we could live without. But I just like how our things fit so neatly in this space. How, after a few times rearranging, we achieved the perfect flow from our front door to every room in the house. (It's easier when there are only five rooms in the whole place.) But now we are going to be two people swimming in a big house. I don't like it. The real reason I want to put in a door to the garage is because I like being able to stick my head out and see Caleb when he is doing things. I like that this whole house (the current house) is on one level. 

It's hard to make decisions about things like paint and furniture arrangements, and to be honest, I don't want to arrange furniture. I like how it is where I live now. I don't want to think about paint. I like the color of my walls now.

But we can't stay here. We have to move, our landlord told us. 

So I cry just like I cry in conjunction with all the major life events, out of respect for the beauty that has come before them, and recognizing that a time has come to an ending. I cried before I finished 8th grade. I cried on the way to my high school graduation. I cried before I graduated from college. I cried before I got married, also connected to a move. And I cry now, before we buy a house. I accept that this is my way of processing things, of mourning seasons of life. I let myself cry.

And I try to remind myself that after all those other times when I cried, beautiful things happened afterwards. There's a rhythm that's been established.  I will try to let it carry me while bidding farewell to a place I love.