5. Amy: "Just go."

When I (ahem) left my job last fall, I knew I didn't want to go back into the same type of work. It was time for a change - long past time for a change.

One chilly night, I biked over to Amy's. After getting lost in Peter Cooper Village (duh), I found her building, and we had an uncharacteristically quiet dinner together. I had been just a few days unemployed, and was in a fog about what was next. Amy, on the other hand, was giddy. I've never seen someone so pleased about another person's joblessness. Her eyes were sparkling. Take a trip! she exclaims. She can hardly contain her excitement. Just go! Anywhere. Just go. If she was in my position - no kids, nothing holding her - Amy would be on the next ride out of town looking for the next adventure.

She recounted her cross country trip with our friend Sue, just after we graduated college. Amy had just invested $1000 with a friend's broker brother when Sue suggested the trip. She immediately called brother broker and got the money back before he could even buy anything with it; they lived off this for six weeks, funding fuel and Taco Bell. They drove their trip into the ground. On their return, they reached the final bridge toll without enough money left to even pay the toll - Amy wrote a check to the New York State highway authority for something like $4.

I have heard this story several times, and always listen with deep envy and marked regret at not having done anything like this myself. Some may be familiar in fact with my unrealized plan to make a cross-country venture this past summer - a vain attempt to recapture something I missed, I guess.

But back to last fall, Amy couldn't stop reveling on my behalf at this time in my life - you may never get the chance again, she emphasized. Over and over: "Just go!" And thus inspired Africa.

I remember getting on the plane at JFK with a deep-seated nausea. What I am doing? I was uncertain and nervous and sick to my stomach. Fast forward, I can't imagine not having gone. The worry seems foreign. I can't wait for the next adventure.

Amy was here tonight, and we revisited that conversation. I said to her, "Africa was all you, you know," to which she raised her hand in a high-five and proudly owned it. Damn right it was.

Amy's love for adventure and disinterest in the practical aspects that might hold her back inspired me to take off for a few months, have a life-changing adventure, and look forward to the next. We live once, so why not really live? Just go, her words in my head remind me. Just go.

4. My Dad: the importance of encouragement and always asking

My dad.  I adore him.  He is the most encouraging person in my life.  He sends me these little notes telling me how proud he is of me when he sees something I've done, reads something I've written, hears about some (small) accomplishment or another.  He's very thoughtful in these comments and clearly has a genuine interest and concern for the details of my life.

When I return from a trip, even if he's gotten regular updates, he still wants me to sit down and tell him everything ... the small details, how it felt, what it was like, my thoughts about it all.  He's interested, thoughtful, and soaks it all in.  

No matter how often I see him or talk to him, he never stops telling me:  "I miss your cute face."  It sets firmly, deeply in my soul.  When I do see him, he often stops me from walking by, takes my shoulders and hugs me, asking me quietly in my ear how my life is, am I happy, if I'm ok.  He worries about me. It's really incredibly sweet and never ceases to really touch my heart.    

I, on the other hand, can be an emotional iceberg, so sometimes shake it off, tell him I'm fine and not to worry.  He doesn't really need to worry - I am fine. But I also don't tell him how much I appreciate his asking and his care. 

My friend Joey, upon my telling her of this recently, said to something to the effect of:  "yeah, good luck finding a guy if that's what he's up against."  It's true.  My dad's gift for this kind concern and genuine interest in my life is not easy to find elsewhere, but it's become so important to me.  

While I don't always tell him, I think often about how much my dad loves me, and appreciate so much that he always asks.  Even when I shirk it off and assure him, with simplicity, that I'm just fine, he reminds me that, no matter the reaction, always encouraging and always asking are foundational components to a relationship that matters.  It would be easy to feel unappreciated and simply stop.  But his persistence teaches me that regardless of the icy reaction, the lesson is to keep encouraging and keep asking those we love, as we never know how our care and concern affects those on the receiving end.

3. Tim: "Come, come! We're hanging!"

I'm kind of a lunatic.  About some things.  When I make a social decision, I weigh travel time against activity in question, I weigh amount of time needed for said activity against other things I need to with the rest of my day, I weigh the next time I'll see that person against the potential gain from our time together.  Like I said, lunatic.

My friend Tim, on the other hand, doesn't ever do any of these things.  "Come, come!  We're hanging!"  He says this frequently.  If he wants to see you, he wants to see you - that's it.  Let's hang.  And it's okay to just hang.  He doesn't care if he saw you yesterday or will see you tomorrow.  He doesn't care if hanging furthers his goals for the day or the week or whatever, if the activity is productive. Hanging means talking and talking means growing and that's what you do with people you love.  The rest of the details are just incidental.

What is wrong with me?  Okay, I've exaggerated my neuroses here just a bit, but the lesson for me is that it doesn't need to be productive or efficient, or fit into a grand plan to be worth my time.  I've gone through some life changes recently and it's taken some adjusting, like being forced to chill the eff out.  And in this transition, I'm grateful to Tim for the reminder that just hanging with people I care about - even the most simple of hangs - is simply good for the soul.

2. Josie: always keep writing

Josie and I have been friends for years, through the course of many life events:  the loss of jobs, the loss of a parent and grandparents, divorce, wedding, interstate moves, career changes, life changes.

Josie and I have never lived in the same state.  So through these trials and triumphs, much of our encouragement to one another has manifested in writing.  Every once in a while, she busts out something that I had written to her, something from the past, something I don't even recognize.  I think, where'd you get that?  The answer is, from me.  Really? That was really good! Ha.  The insight and emotion in these will often surprise me.  I think, shoot, I can't write like that anymore.  Where'd that go??

When you don't use the silver, it tarnishes.  When you stop exercising, you fall out of shape.  When you don't speak or hear a language for years, you lose it.  Reminders that in order to stay in synch with something, one must keep doing it.

Josie's gift of glimpses into things written but long forgotten, and her constant commitment to her own writing, encourage me to write.  The more I write, the more I learn about myself.  That's the key.  Once I start, it just keeps coming.  And in that, I learn about who I am, and discover things I might never have gotten to otherwise.

A blog is so cliche and self-important; how presumptuous to expect that anyone is interested in what I have to say.  Yet, it gives me the opportunity to write, no matter who reads it, even if no one at all.  So thank you to the interwebs for a platform, and thank you to Josie for being in my head, reminding me to always keep writing.

1. Tomer: the importance of doing something new

I'm starting 2014 with another 30-day project.  

This has been inspired by my dear friend Tomer, who is obsessed with Ted Talks.  He may marry Ted.  This past fall, he watched a three and half minute talk about trying something new for 30 days.  I went vegan, he took a photo of a different friend every day, forcing him to make intentional dates with people and deepen his relationships.  Another friend did something she had never done before, every day for 30 days; one of those things was getting married.  

Tomer pretty consistently reminds me to always be exploring ways to do something new, something challenging, something that stretches you a bit. 

He's now onto his next project, one second a day - this one is going to be cool (check it out), and I do believe he'll stick with it.

I'm sticking with the 30-day project for just now.  I'm starting 2014 with 30 Days of Life Lessons (or as many as I have ...), imparted to me from the wisdom and insight of those closest to me.  This is not an exercise of me going through a list of my friends and trying find some soundbite to attach to each. Rather, these are the lessons that affect my everyday life - things that I think about often, that help me make better decisions, that challenge my perspective, that are always with me, and the recognition that these insights and bits of wisdom have come to me through the blessing of those who love me and care about me, and help me see things in a new way.

Today is Tomer, and his irrepressible vigor for new things, new people, new experiences.  It's easy for life to become routine, but Tomer reminds me - often - to do something new, and love life while doing it.  

Joseph Conrad: We live, as we dream - alone...

**The following post has been written over several months' time, beginning in August.
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“It seems to me I am trying to tell you a dream - making a vain attempt, because no relation of a dream can convey the dream-sensation, that commingling of absurdity, surprise, and bewilderment in a tremor of struggling revolt, that notion of being captured by the incredible which is of the very essence of dreams. No, it is impossible; it is impossible to convey the life-sensation of any given epoch of one's existence - that which makes its truth, its meaning - its subtle and penetrating essence. It is impossible. We live, as we dream - alone...”
― Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

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Just before I left Africa, I noticed a divot in the base of the nail on my left ring finger, origin unknown. As my nails grew over the summer, I had this one funny deformed nail, all ridgey and bumpy. The bump’s creeping along up my fingernail was a reminder of how long I’d been back. It finally reached the end of its race; today I clipped my nails, and along with it, the funny little reminder bump.

It was just a dumb deformed nail, but it seemed to represent to me all those things about Africa that were slowly growing out and would soon get clipped off.

“Oh my God how was your trip?!”, “I can't wait to hear all about it!”, “Tell me everything!” Sure, I'd love to. But I can’t. Not really. I can give you facts, and events, and details.  But I can't tell you how it changed me.  How does one describe a being, a feeling, a knowing? Like trying to describe that inescapable feeling imparted by a dream, it's simply impossible for words to incarnate the inner experience of one to another. We try, but in the end, we fail.

Three months isn’t so long – it’s shorter than a semester, it’s that summer that goes by so fast, it’s less than the mild panic about income tax deadline after new year’s. But it still managed to change me. I want to write about all that inner change here, but it all sounds contrived and dramatic, and in the end, would fail. I think every day about going back.

Sure, some of it was escape. And in some ways it probably will be when I go again. But then, is it escape if it’s in some ways a life that you prefer? If escaping the pandemic materialism and amassing of riches and image solely for the sake of riches and images is less appealing than living a simpler life and learning new things about myself every day, staying in touch with how most of the rest of the world lives, is that escapism? I had drinks on Sunday with Deo, the founder of Village Health Works, the reason I went to Burundi. Every time I am with him, he utters these profound little nuggets that turn my head upside down a little. On Sunday he just drops: “my escape is another person’s misery.” I have had this thought before.

Upon my return, little things throw me. I scald myself repeatedly at the sink. The heat and intensity of my shower’s water and its pressure actually make me anxious. Every hug concludes with my reaching to shake the person's hand, met with puzzling looks. A gas station attendant reaches through my passenger side car window for my credit card – without thinking, I extend my hand to shake his and greet him.

I don't turn on the tv for days. I don't carry an umbrella when it’s supposed to rain. I don't dry my hands after washing them. I don’t dry my hair anymore, ever. The over-air conditioned stores and restaurants irritate me. I don't care whether I have a towel at the pool. I heartily greet everyone I encounter and ask how they are, reaching for a handshake. I don't care that I've worn that dress the last three times I've seen the same people. I haven’t bought one new thing in four months. Somehow, none of that matters. Sawa sawa.

I miss the clink clink clink that was the soundtrack of my mornings in Kigutu ... the spoons rapidly making rounds in mugs of tea, in an effort to dissolve way too much sugar. I miss the faces that line the triage porch, first with suspicious eyes, followed by bursting smiles when I greet people in Kirundi or Swahili and reach my hand to shake theirs. I miss the bustling market and the chaos of the bus station. I miss being able to hold up my hand and hail a motorcycle to my destination for a $1, my hair blowing behind me in the warm African sun. I miss the ladies selling pineapples, avocados, tomatoes, mangoes, green clementines, and passion fruits by the roadside. I miss the tiny feet protruding from the hips of women carrying babies on their backs. I miss the stunning and vibrant African textiles that envelope and adorn the lovely women of Burundi; I love how those selling goods at market tuck a corner of the fabric wrapped around their waists, and skillfully tie up their earnings. It’s summer here in NYC, and there are many bright colors. But soon enough, we’ll all be in black again.

Fast forward to December. Have I really been back six months? Hard to believe. And none of those things is weird anymore. Like the bump on my nail, it all just sort of grew out. I don’t reach to shake everyone’s hand, I cherish my long hot showers, I wore all black today. I do, however, continue to scald myself at the sink.

The holidays are here. Call me Scrooge but it’s the time of year I like the least. I so dislike what the celebration of the birth of Christ has turned into … the Black Friday stampedes, the stores now open on Thanksgiving, the buying of masses of unneeded things just to have to something to give to someone who needs nothing. The gag gifts that will end up being tossed. The pressure, the expense, the clock ticking down. I have come to dread it.

There is something so tragically ironic to me about the wasted money – money that could be redirected to so many in need, maybe in east Africa – spent on throw-away gifts, that will soon end up in a landfill … maybe in east Africa.

How do I spend holidays with family and friends without silent judgment, make changes without being extreme, recognize the tragic irony without picking fights? How do I use my frustration and criticism (and hypocrisy) to make things better, not worse? I continue to feel like I’m living with one foot in two worlds.

Everything is changing. This summer, a neighborhood friend died – he was the personality of the street, and his passing has left a huge community hole. Friends and fellow community-garden members are stepping down from the board on which we sit, selling their places in the neighborhood, moving out of state. My favorite Singaporean restaurant on the next block was suddenly a Mexican restaurant one day. The block behind mine, to which mine backs up, has been bought by developers – the pre-construction noises wake me some mornings, and the workmen I occasionally see with my groggy waking eyes walking around on the neighboring rooftop just outside my window makes me feel exposed; my quiet private nook in alphabet city will very soon no longer be those things.

I’m not great with such change. It makes me want to escape. It doesn't stop the change, but it maybe removes me from it for a while.  I do plan to go back to Africa, maybe sooner than I thought.  Maybe it will be an escape.  Maybe it will just be a new adventure. Maybe it will be a little of both.  But whatever it is, I do know it will be a blessing - a blessing that will change me, resistance and all, once again.

Maya Bester: Tell me about your world.

In my last post I mentioned the warm and lovely Bester family.  The twins are dynamic, smart, creative, funny, and sweet.  Max got up silly early to ride with Michael and me to the airport the day of my departure, just to hang out.  He starts stories with, "once, this happened ..."  I find this a hilarious counterpoint to the ubiquitous and simply annoying “yeah, that happened” spouted by the current edition of purveyors of pop culture. 

These two started out so shy – like, in-the-folds-of-mommy’s-skirt shy.  By the end of my week’s visit, they were warm and demonstrative, and proudly sported their dynamic personalities and hilarious little attitudes.

The day before I left, Maya, alone with me for a few minutes while waiting for the others, turned and looked at me thoughtfully, and with hand motions that reminded me of my own, said “tell me about your world.”

Tell me about your world. What almost-six-year-old says this? Not only is it outside of a five-year-old’s own world (and many simply don’t leave), but it was such a globally framed question that I immediately loved her for it. I think of this as maybe a glimpse of an old soul.

Last Sunday, I went to a beach club with some friends.  We lounged, they played volleyball, I soaked up the sun and a Primus.   A young girl kept coming by – a total ‘tude’ is the only way to describe her demeanor.  Hilarious and charming, but full of ‘tude.  She would come by with these extravagant and demonstrative gestures, seemingly order us around in half-french, half-something-else (Kirundi?  Swahili?), then run off laughing.  Or maybe stick around and sit down for a few minutes, trying to make herself understood with insistent but good-natured gestures.   My friend recognizes her from the university pool he occasionally visits.  She clearly recognizes him, and continues to come by and vie for his attention.  He said her name is Pamela.  Pamela easily finagles the last piece of his pizza, all of our popcorn, and my water bottle – and maybe a little of our hearts – over the course of several hours. 

I imagined her world.  I assumed she was with the Burundian family that was occupying the sofa area next to ours.  It was riddled with kids – the girls with long-braided hair (most girls seen walking along the roadways between Bujumbura and anywhere upcountry keep their hair very short), pool props like arm floaties and a blow-up tube, nice swimsuits and clothes, ordering pizzas and fantas and ice creams.  I imagine they belong to an upper middle class Burundian family – a very small percentage of the population here – enjoying a Sunday afternoon at the beach with some friends.  Pamela seemed to be mingling in and among them.  I didn’t twig on to how differently she was dressed and coiffed just yet. 

Throughout the day, she kept coming by – employing our table as her own, depositing her juice, her lollipop, her dress.  Wiggling a little dance to entertain us, ensuring we watched – and applauded – as she jumped in the pool.  She helped herself to a piece of African fabric I had with me – the beautiful painted prints worn by African women, known as a pagne – and wrapped it around herself as African women do, in expert fashion.  “Wow, she’s really got that down” noted my friend.  After a while, I realize she is not responding to French in the way a French-speaker would.  She’s throwing words around, but just words.  She would come up and quickly spout something indiscernible – I would ask “quoi?” (“what?”) and she would nod, wide-eyed, “oui!” and run away or jump in the pool.   Hmmmm.  Where has she learned these words?  my friend muses.  I’m now confused – an upper middle class family would have educated children, and that would mean French.  I also realize this family was now gone.  Had they move to another seat?  Down to the beach?

Sometime later in the afternoon, she picks up my iphone and adeptly works out the camera feature; she reaches for my camera and does the same – starts snapping photos and squealing in delight with each one, quickly showing us before the 3-second preview turns back to a lens.  Posing does not seem new to her.

After chancing our popcorn out of us, she scurries over to the group of people at the corner banquette.  She’s working them the same way.  We joke that she’s playing us against each other, creating a competition, hoping we’ll fight for her. 

The sun is now starting to set, and she’s back.  Wrapped in my pagne, she takes off her shorts and we realize she is now “washing” them out in the pool, wringing them as though she’s at the river, and then hanging them over the railing.  Ummmmm…  

She’s now cozying up to us, lounged across the sofa that I too am lounging on.  She picks up my arm and puts it around her, and snuggles in.  We smile at this, but just keep talking.  It’s like she belongs. 

We’ve had a few friends-by-extension come by to see what we’re up to for dinner, and we eventually formulate a plan.  We move to the covered area as we make our way to the car, and we chat with the club’s manager for quite some time.   I am leaning lazily against a pillar.  Suddenly Pamela is close by my side, tucked once again under my arm.  Someone asks where her family is – it becomes quickly clear that the manager had thought all day that she was with us.  She is here alone.  To my horror, with the snap of a finger, she is quickly escorted to the steps leading from the club’s platform down to the beach.  A conversation with a few of the waitstaff ensues, and suddenly, she is gone.

Her world is not at all as I had imagined it.  In fact, it was hard to imagine what her world was.  It was after dark – she was no more than ten.  Does she have a home?  Would she find her way?  I suppose she would find her way – Burundians are incredibly resourceful, and this was clearly not a new racket for her, but what dangers would await her along the way?  As she ran off, shoeless, I imagined this was a regular Sunday for her – hustling food and company from unsuspecting mzungos with her charm and vigor.  This eventually dissolved into my feeling pangs of sickness, heartbreak, helplessness.   

We went on to enjoy an excellent bottle of wine poolside at a lovely hotel under the stars.  But I have thought about Pamela all week, wandering somewhere, under those same stars.  I wonder if I’ll see her again.  I wonder what her days are like, who her family is and do they miss her when she’s gone all day, what her future could possibly hold.  

Will she be one of the incredibly admirable people I’ve met here who have created opportunity out of desperate circumstances, and insisted on a future they envisioned, even when it seemed impossible?  I recently had a conversation with someone who fled the war in the middle of a school day – alone.  He walked for days, being fed by generous countrymates along the way, and found his way to Tanzania.  He spent three years in a refugee camp.  He said it was awful.  He was a teenager and he was alone.  But he stayed.  Why?  Because they offered school.  I’m wide-eyed with awe and admiration.  He is now university educated with a career, a family, a future.   I imagine – in fact see – that this is not the norm.  The long and dark war ravaged the country and many along with it.  People were robbed not only of land, family members, possessions, dignity, but also of spirit.  Rebuilding is a slow and frustrating process.  People are left behind.  People fall through the cracks.  People don’t have opportunities.  If mine weren’t presented to me, I wonder very much if I would have created my own.  I find myself making this comparison often here and being embarrassed by what I believe to be the truth.

I wasn’t planning on tying this particular entry back to VHW, but I can’t help myself, because the segue is now so obvious.  The co-ops that VHW helps to organize and support are just these kinds of opportunities.  People in the rural mountainous catchment area – mostly women – who have had no education and a complete lack of opportunity, are now business owners, tradespeople, respected members of their communities.  This is just some of the great work of VHW. 

me on the Kigutu road with the yoga bags

I visited the sewing co-op again this week and greeted the lovely people who make the yoga mat bags that I’m now peddling at my Saturday morning yoga group.  They were busily filling an order of 100 bags placed by our New York office, to send home with some US visitors returning next week.  I take seven on consignment; I sold three last weekend and intend to top that tomorrow.  I eyeball one for myself – it has a non-descript bird motif (quail? pheasant?  wild turkey?  stunted peacock?) in gold and cobalt, with a sort of vegas-meets-versace flash – I imagine the non-descript bird as a glittering medallion on a giant gold chain around a rapper’s neck.  I decide my world needs this irony.

My world.  My world is my own.  My world is free to acquire things, take trips, make choices. My world is free to write and speculate about the world of others.   My world is whatever I want it to be.  But tell me about your world, Pamela.  Tell me about its hardships and challenges and heartaches.  Tell me your hopes and dreams and what you want to be when you grow up.  It’s with ruefulness that I resign myself to the fact that I will simply never know, and it’s with melancholy that I consider that her world may simply be survival, and that dreaming about what she wants to be when she grows up, may be to her, just completely another world.