I'm Going to Miss...

Things I'm going to miss like crazy after spending two lovely weeks in Florida (I head home tonight):

• playing peek-a-boo with A.
• waking up to baby giggles, cries, and babbling
• faces that break into a smile when I appear
• K's various quinoa concoctions
• listening to theology lectures any time we drive anywhere
• frozen yogurt
• sunshine
• warm temperatures even when it rains
• long conversations with K & J
• taking our cameras with us, and always taking the time to capture the shots
• lazy days with netflix while the baby sleeps
• grouchily responding to Jillian Michaels while we do her Yoga Meltdown workouts
• Target
• long conversations about life, abortion, and all sorts of other hot topics
• safe friends for venting
• glasses of wine on the harder days
• hugs from good friends

Blessed

I went to bed and woke this morning feeling blessed.

It's not been the most common feeling over the last year, but this last week or so, I've been basking in it.

I feel held. Known and seen and loved.  By the people around me, and by Jesus.

There are things in my spiritual life that I can't quite describe that are contributing to this feeling.  A knowing calm and peace that I don't always have.  But right now, right now it's present, and I'm basking in it.

I feel blessed to have friends who are praying and holding me in the midst of some challenging new directions of life and faith.

I feel blessed to have sat in St. Mary's Cathedral on Wednesday, and worn ashes on my forehead for the first time since I received them at the Vatican five years ago.  I feel blessed to have been joined in that evening by two good friends.

I feel blessed by the way this most challenging of clinical rotations turned out.  It went well, and my eyes have been opened (both physically and spiritually) to new things.  I passed my psych rotation - the rotation that seemed like it would be my undoing as it triggered my own mental illness symptoms.  Not only that, but I passed with flying colors!

I feel blessed to have shared dinner with good friends and two adorable little boys on Valentines Day.  To have spent the evening laughing and talking, teasing and being teased.  To have elbow bumped my favorite date (in lieu of a kiss or hug) as I was dropped off at home.

I feel blessed to have spent last evening resting and packing and eating chocolate mousse cake.

And today I feel blessed because I had the means to buy a plane ticket, and in a few short hours I'll be boarding a plane and winging my way to spend a week with several dear friends, and enjoying palm trees while soaking up some natural vitamin D.

This is a good place to be living, this place of knowing blessings, and I wanted to stop for a minute today and celebrate that.  I'm blessed.  Thanks Jesus.

Catch-Up Day

After I arrived home yesterday, my luggage decided it wanted to keep traveling without me.  The prodigal bag finally returned around 7 last night, a full 7 hours after I arrived home.

That means I didn't get to my own home (I went to my parents, since that was where the bag was being delivered) until around 8:30 last night.

Which worked fine, I suppose.

I did the majority of my unpacking, and then fell into bed and promptly gained many much needed hours of sleep.

And today? Today is a catch-up day.

I'm cleaning and doing laundry.

I'm working on making the little kitchen area I've created a bit more functional.

I'm preparing for house church tonight.

I'm wrapping a present for my favorite little guy's third birthday party on Sunday.

I'm pondering rhythms.

I'm listening to an audio book.

I'm catching up, and enjoying that this is part of my rhythm, part of my routine.  To spend a bit of time creating physical order, while my mind and heart slowly work their way towards internal order as well.

It works for me, this catching-up, and I'm enjoying it - even the blisters on my hand from turning the dozens of screws required to assemble a little cubicle shelf for my makeshift kitchen.

I'm moving slowly, but with purpose, and settling into that space of rhythm.

I'm enjoying this feeling of presence, even as I look ahead to other places and things.

I'm catching up, and it's lovely.

Limbo

I was hoping to write a nice trip summary sort of post today.

Instead, I'm in travel limbo.

Weather in Florida meant I missed my connection to Calgary from Houston last night.

After grabbing dinner and 4 hours or so of sleep in a hotel, I got back to the airport to discover that weather in Portland was making my connecting flight to Denver late, and that I would again miss my connection to Calgary.

Thankfully, this time they put me on a direct flight to Calgary from Houston.  And in this case they even upgraded me to first class (which given the budgets I work with will probably be a once in a lifetime sort of experience).

And while I wait, I'm writing a blog post about being in travel limbo, and kicking back to chill a bit.

I've got something like 3 hours until I get on a plane for home, and then about 5 hours of flying, and then, then I will be home, and at this point, though I didn't feel ready to leave Florida yesterday, I'm definitely ready to be home.

You Ask, I Answer Take 22

I'm bring back You Ask, I Answer once a week for a little while.  Check this space on Tuesdays!

Today's question comes from Tea, who asked:

Where/what would be your dream vacation?

Oh dear.  That's a terribly hard question to answer!

There are so many places I'd love visit.

I think, just at the moment, I could narrow it down to two places.

The first would be to visit Machu Picchu in Peru.  I've dreamt of going there for ages, and can't wait for the day when I will finally visit.  I actually spent my first birthday in Peru while my parents were leading a short term mission team, and it's a country that has somehow burrowed in my heart.  I love the Spanish language, and I dream of going to Peru to visit someday, and spending some time in the ruins at Machu Picchu.

The second, at the moment would be to spend a month or so in New Zealand.  One of my closest friends is from there, and will be returning shortly after quite some time abroad.  New Zealand is a country I've heard so much about, and L. has promised to tour me all over the islands when I finally manage to visit her.  I'm looking forward to beautiful vistas, great food, fun accents and conversations, time with a fabulously dear friend, and wine tours among other things.

Thanks for the question, Tea.

And now, let me throw it back out to all of you.  Do you have a dream vacation?  Tell me in the comments.

Move. Learn. Eat.

Have you seen these videos yet?  I loved them.



MOVE from Rick Mereki on Vimeo.




EAT from Rick Mereki on Vimeo.

You Ask, I Answer, Take 15

Today's You Ask, I Answer question comes from Jenny, who asked:

Where would you like to visit next if money were no object, and why?

Oh dear.  That is a very difficult question for someone who has been badly infected with the travel bug to answer.  My thoughts go in a number of directions, as follows:

• Anyplace where one of my dearest friends is currently located.  For me this could include travel within Canada, to the United States, to Europe, or to New Zealand, depending on the day and month (did I mention that my dearest friends mostly all also are infected by the travel bug?)
• Peru.  I celebrated my first birthday there, and it's a country that has been heavily on my heart for quite a number of years.  It's a place that I know beyond a shadow of doubt that I WILL visit at some point in my future, so, if money were no object, it's one of the first places that I would prayerfully consider visiting.  (If money were no object, I'd probably just arrange for one or more of those dear friends I mentioned to join me, since it's a trip I know I likely won't make alone.)
• North Africa and/or The Middle East.  I've been reading extensively about these areas over the last six months or so, and I'd love to have the chance to experience them in person.  The memoirs I've read have fascinated me, and broadened my heart and my understanding of the world, and even stretched my prayer life.  Again, if money were no object, these areas would be high on my list, and since I know they're high on the lists of various people I love, I'd probably just bring those people with me!

So, there you have it!  My three-pronged answer to where I'm dreaming of traveling next.  A return to Europe remains on my list, my bucket list includes spending a minimum of one week on each major continent except Antarctica, I'd love to visit Turkey, and parts of Asia.  I want to experience Haiti and a thousand other places.  Basically, I'll go wherever my heart leads as I prayerfully consider next things and steps.  My next more immediate trip will most likely be this fall, to somewhere in the US, though I'm still dreaming and thinking and praying and considering just exactly what that might end up looking like!

You Ask, I Answer, Take 6

Today's You Ask, I Answer Question is from Jenny in Australia, a long-time reader of the blog.  She asked:

Overseas travel - what inspired you the most - sights, sounds, smells?

Yikes!  Another good question!

My first overseas trip happened when I was just a baby.  My parents led a short term summer team to Peru in 1984, and took me, their blond haired, blue-eyed baby with them to Latin America, where I celebrated my first birthday.  I'm no longer either blond haired or blue eyed (that had all changed by my third birthday to my current light brown hair and hazel eyes), and I don't have memories of that trip particularly, but to this day I have a deep love of the Spanish language and Latin culture, and I maintain that it is from having my unconscious immersed in it at such a young age.

I've traveled extensively in the United States and Canada (I've visited about 27 of the 50 states, and all 10 Canadian provinces), but my first non North American trip happened in my early twenties, just after graduating from university.  I joined a team of young adults and teenagers and traveled by bus from my hometown to Juarez, Mexico.  We worked on a building project in a colonia in Juarez, and did a bit of outreach in the colonia as well.  The moments I remember most from that trip are incredibly varied.  I remember being in a stuffy room, late into the evening, playing with small children, using my limited Spanish to help them with a craft, asking their names, ages, and what color paper pieces they wanted to use.  I remember the sign in the bathroom of the school we were staying in, reminding us that absolutely NO toilet paper should be flushed down the toilet.  I remember being absolutely coated, head to toe, in sand and dirt, after days spent shoveling sand and mixing concrete in a desert on the edge of a dump of sorts, in the midst of windstorms.  And I remember wandering through the market on our last day, choosing souvenirs, and then simply sitting with a few good friends, eating fabulous chips and salsa (is there anything so tasty as Mexican food?), soaking in the color, the culture, the language, and thinking that I could happily spend the remainder of my life absorbing and experiencing the beauty of other cultures.

My next overseas trip was three years ago, to Malta, Rome, and London.  It was a trip I'd dreamed about, having studied European history in university, and was full of unexpected things.  From that trip I'll never forget touring the Maltese President's winter palace (thanks to a connection with someone who was part of the Presidential guard), eating pastizzi at the city gates of Valletta and rabbit stew (another Maltese delicacy) at the home of a friend (incidentally, the pastizzi, both the pea version and the ricotta version, I loved, the rabbit stew, well, it was mostly just memorable!).  I remember the beauty of the Mediterranean, and visiting the ruins of some of the oldest freestanding temples in the world.  I'll never forget the majesty of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, and taking part in an Ash Wednesday mass there.  I'll never forget the view from the top of the Basilica, looking down over the square, and the private Vatican gardens.  I'll never forget the Sistine Chapel, and simply soaking in the atmosphere of a place so truly ancient, a place full of beauty and history.  And OH. MY. GOODNESS.  You haven't had hot chocolate until you've had the stuff they serve in the little piazza cafes in Rome!  It's thick and rich, and topped with whipped cream if you want it, and truly amazing.  I don't drink hot chocolate very much in North America, but in Rome, it was divine! From London, where we only had a few days, I'll not forget the simplest of things, sitting on the steps of the British Museum, alone with my thoughts and journal for the first time in weeks as I waited for a friend, taking time to think and pray and write.

Just writing all of this has ignited the travel bug again!  That feeling from the market cafe in Mexico persists for me - I could happily spend much of the rest of my life traveling and absorbing the beauty of culture.  Cultural differences fascinate me - I'm continually aware of them, whether I'm simply in Chinatown here in Calgary, traveling in the United States, or on a different continent entirely.  The diversity and richness of culture and language speaks deeply to my heart and moves me to pray, to write, to read, to think and to create in ways that very few other things can.

Okay!  So, there's another answer!  Thanks for the great question, Jenny!  Are there more specific questions I can answer?  About this topic or anything else?  Leave them in the comments or send me an email (I've recently updated my profile so that there is an email address there again!).  I'll add them to my list!

U2

I'm heading out today for a city three hours north, to catch U2 live in concert.

If you'll remember, I was supposed to see this concert a year ago, and it was unexpectedly postponed.

If you add in the time since when I bought the tickets, that means that I've been waiting more than a year and a half for this concert, which has been my dream concert for years.

I'm totally excited to be joining two good friends for the concert, roadtripping with one of them, and spending the next day or so enjoying great music and great company.

See you on the other side!

Homeward Bound

In a couple hours I'll be getting on a plane, bound for home.

I'll be at my parent's place for the weekend, meaning, I suppose, depending on your definition, and mine is odd and ever changing, that I'll be truly home on Monday night.

Classes start again with a vengeance on Monday, and I'm mentally starting to gear up for that a bit.

It has been good to have some breathing room, to be away from the crazy realities of my day to day life, to hang out with friends, get hugs from a baby, watch some favorite movies, and rest a bit.

I have a list of things to accomplish this weekend that is, well, long. (Though most of them are relatively painless and can be done while sitting or reclining in bed.)

I plan to maintain the attitude of rest through the weekend.  I still feel the need for that.  It just might have to be a more active form of rest.

Sometime in the next several days I'll have the chance to see one of my favorite people in the world, my former roommate, L.  She'll be in Calgary for a visit for the next couple weeks, and while we have plans to spend a full day together late next week doing decadent things in the mountains, (afternoon tea service at a beautiful, historic hotel anyone?) I'm hoping to see her sometime before that day as well.

Tomorrow morning I'm going to take my first yoga class in a week and a half.  I expect my body will be protesting that on Sunday, but I think it will be worth it to round out my week of rest by stretching and resting.  I'm looking forward to the warm room and the peaceful nature of the class.

But for now, I'm catching up on a few things online, and chatting with my friend, across the table, and getting ready for my flight.  It looks like a clear (though very cold) day, and that should make for a beautiful view flying back across the mountains.  I'm not one of those people who has anxiety when flying - I actually love to fly, and always want a window seat, so that I can see what we're flying over

World Air Traffic

The travel geek in me found this incredibly fascinating.
ht to Adam Mclane

Reverb 10: Day 22 - Travel

Today's Reverb 10 Prompt:

December 22 – Travel

How did you travel in 2010? How and/or where would you like to travel next year?

(Author: Tara Hunt)

This was actually a kind of slow travel year for me.

I made two trips.

The first was in May.  A cross country road trip with my dad, after unexpectedly losing my job, to attend the Ontario wedding reception for my brother and his wife, and see a friend.  The trip is pretty much a blur in my mind, hazy from the pain and shock of the sudden job loss.  I was moving through life pretty much shell-shocked, and I'm sure it showed.  On the way to Ontario, the conversation was pretty minimal.  I slept a lot.  Dad and I had one conversation the first night about the circumstances that had me accompanying him, and that was about it.  The rest of the conversation centered around whether or not we should keep driving, where we should stop for the night, and where we should eat.  The answer to where we would be eating while driving through Wisconsin or Minnesota, by the way, is Culvers, for a Butter Burger.  The answer to whether or not we should keep driving was almost always yes (we're sort of long-haul road trip fans, dad and I).  That answer actually led to us spending a night sleeping in our seats in the truck in a rest stop parking lot, after all the hotels in the small town where we'd decided to stop were filled up with people in town for a state-wide high school tennis tournament. 

The highlight of that trip was stopping at the Eerdman's Publishing House Clearance centre in Grand Rapids Michigan on the way home.  My brother and sister in law drove back home with Dad and I and I think my poor sister in law was wondering what she'd gotten herself into when she experienced three book nerds in a store that we would define as "heavenly".  The poor girl just kind of sat while the three of us went a little nuts shopping at extreme bargain prices, without the trouble of airplane luggage weight restrictions!

The second trip was to California, in mid September, to meet a friend in person for the first time, after a few years of conversing on my blog and by email.  I wrote about it quite extensively in several posts.  (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6)  That trip was also an escape, a chance to pause and pray and consider steps of healing and rebuilding.  It has very much shaped the way the months since then have played out, and I'm so incredibly thankful for that change of scenery and time with a dear friend.  I'm also still amazed that palm trees actually do grow outside!  I think in my head I really was convinced that it was all a photo-shopped marvel, and to see that they do exist was quite shocking to me, followed by a prompt falling in love.  I'm now convinced that my life will not be complete until I've lived for at least a period of time in a place where palm trees live outdoors!

As for travel and 2011, my dream travel year would be this:  A repeat visit (at least one!) to California.  Time in Europe with my dear friend and former roommate, L, who is now living over there, and then a stop in North Africa or maybe even the middle east.  South America remains on my list, but the timing for that doesn't seem right just yet.  So, if I could go anywhere this year (aside from California, which is the only one that might fit my budget!), it would be some European adventures with a friend and proven excellent traveling companion, and then some time in North Africa.

Monopoly Pieces and Conversation (California Part 6)

I think the best part of my recent escape to California was simply the hours and hours of conversation.  It was seeing where Lisa lives and works, meeting her family and friends, and then hours and hours, through everything that we did, of sharing stories.  The stories we'd already shared by email and in blog posts took on new life now that they had a personality and voice attached to them.  And we talked and talked.

I'll be honest in saying that I was a bit apprehensive.  I'm not exactly known for taking risks, or handling new things very well, and, while two years of emailing had me convinced that I wasn't walking into some sketchy situation, I still wondered a little what it would be like to spend an entire week with someone I'd never met - how I'd handle that.  I was pretty sure I didn't need to worry too much, but I did still wonder.

I didn't need to worry.  I walked off the plane in San Diego and into a hug.  A hug that was repeated over and over through the week.  A hug that I'm definitely missing now that we're back in our separate CA's.

Because a huge part of my day to day reality is that the people with whom I share history - the people who are closest to my heart - all tend to live far away, time in person with someone like that is precious to me.  And, while Lisa and I admittedly didn't have in person history, two years of emails gave us a great base to work with.

And we talked for hours and hours.  In fact, one of the days that I smile the most at as the memory returns is the Sunday afternoon.  She had a giant bucket of the little metal monopoly markers (the dog, car, hat, etc.) that needed to be sorted for the Sunday School Talent store at her church.  After we got home from church that day, and ate lunch, we settled in to sort the thousands of pieces in the bucket.  A few of those tokens even made the trip home with me, and are sitting in a spot where I can see them easily, and be reminded of the fun, and serve as prayer reminders as well.  We passed a book (pictured below) back and forth that we'd been using as a jumping off point for conversations, each of us taking a turn picking a question that we'd both answer.  And we spent hours sorting monopoly tokens and sharing life and stories and laughter. 

And tears.  My life is admittedly raw right now, and tears have been frustratingly close to the surface for months.  Per usual, and initially to my embarrassment, they made themselves known rather frequently.  But there was such a blessing in sitting across from a friend whose eyes I could meet through the tears.  A friend who repeatedly gathered me into a hug when the tears flowed as I finished whatever story it was that had triggered them.  A friend who saw all the messy stuff and still saw me and welcomed me into her home and her life.  That was a gift of a value that I cannot even describe.  To simply be loved on, to be challenged to continue to seek healing, in a time where my heart was so longing to simply be seen and loved, to not be judged for being broken, but to be seen as valuable, and encouraged to continue to fight to heal.

I thought of that gift that Lisa gave to me when I read this quote from Richard Rohr last weekend after getting home:

I hope you’ve met at least one Kingdom person in your life. They are surrendered and trustful people. You sense that their life is okay at the core. They have given control to Another and are at peace, which paradoxically allows them to calmly be in control. A Kingdom person lives for what matters, for life in its deepest and lasting sense. There’s a kind of gentle absolutism about their life-style, an inner freedom. Kingdom people feel like grounded yet spacious people at the same time, the best of conservative and the best of progressive at the same time.

Kingdom people are anchored by their awareness of God’s love deep within them and deep within everyone else too. They happily live on a level playing field, where even God has come to “pitch his tent” (the literal translation of John 1:14).  (Richard Rohr)

I'm thankful for the gift of time with a friend who offered me a place to exist that felt "grounded yet spacious" for a week.  And that gift, as well as the promise that I will be welcomed again, the next time I need to escape, was truly a treasure that I'll hold onto in the coming weeks and months as I walk through some challenging new things.

I'll close with some pictures of our monopoly sorting adventure, and the book that fueled lots of great conversation throughout the week.

 see the size of the pieces in perspective against the bucket?

 part way through the sort

 see?  a whole coffee table full of monopoly pieces!

The book that fed our conversation.  Not all of the questions are ones I'd ever use, but the ones we did use were great conversation starters and I'm already pondering what sort of book of that nature I can pick up to spur further conversations the next time we're together in person!

Disneyland (California Part 5)

For nearly as long as I've known Lisa, I've known that she escapes to Disneyland in the same way that I escape to the Calgary Zoo to sit and visit with the gorillas.  She's also been telling me as long as we've been talking that Disneyland would be a must if I ever came to visit, and, once I actually booked plane tickets, I got a few emails telling me which specific day we would spend at Disneyland, based on her perusal of the Disney website and which rides would be open when.

I knew I'd absolutely enjoy spending a day at Lisa's favorite escape, but I'll admit here (and I admitted to her) that I was skeptical that a place known for people and crowds could actually be an escape for a more introverted, need time away from people, kind of person.  I just couldn't figure out how that would be an escape! 

It was!  It was a fantastic day, made all the more fun by Lisa's vast collection of knowledge about the park and how the "magic" actually happens.  I couldn't believe how time slid by, tried things I would have never tried if I wasn't with a friend I trusted, and generally had a great time.  I'll admit that when I closed my eyes that night, my dreams were spinning a little - as a first time experience it was perhaps almost overstimulating, but I'm eager to visit again and work past that feeling of overstimulation!

 The two of us together at the other Lisa's favorite escape.

 Hidden Mickey!

 Because the weather was - and the weather at home in Calgary that day involved snow!

 I was assured that one could not come to Disneyland for the first time and not meet Mickey.

 Because this cracked me up, and the sign somehow felt apropos for the state of my life lately!

 Mini Palm Tree, next to the miniature Agraba - Alladin's city.

This cracked me up, too.  This is a bird, in miniature London.  It gives a great sense of scale, no?

San Diego de Alacala Mission (California Part 4)

One of my favorite stops was the first Franciscan mission established in Southern California.  I'm a sucker for history, and for places that have been dedicated to prayer for years and years.  There is a peace in those sorts of places that is striking to me and always moves me deeply.  That this particular mission was Franciscan and had images of Claire and Francis of Assisi, both saints that are a dear part of my heart, made it a particularly lovely place to walk through.  If I ever move south, as Lisa is campaigning for me to do, (and as I'm considering anyway!), this would definitely be a place that I'd be going to to pray.

Sun, Sites, Water (California Part 3)

 

One more zoo photo, just because I really happen to like this photo.

The Museum of Man

 

At the beach at Coronado

Hotel del Coronado

Lisa pointed out this sign to me, and it cracked me up!

Seals at La Jolla

Needing to get my feet wet

At the Presidio

Lisa introduced me to many of her friends (who I promptly informed her that I was going to borrow/adopt) and one of them was hosting a Moroccan Tea.  That was a totally fun experience!  Also, this particular friend's driveway, on a sunny, somewhat humid morning, smelled like the butterfly garden at the Calgary zoo - an indoor smell, outdoors.  My commenting upon this fact, like my love affair with palm trees, was, I think, a source of great amusement for my friend who is used to a somewhat more tropical climate year round!

And, I don't have any pictures, but the day we spent in the LA Garment District was full of adventure, too.  That was a day that I'd been promised would be a truly cross-cultural experience, possibly complete with a marriage proposal or two extended to Lisa.  I don't think there were any marriage proposals, but I had great fun trailing Lisa and her Mom around to the various fabric merchants, and, since the weather here at home is colder, have made use of the scarf I purchased there at Santee Alley on several occasions.

"You're Just Going to Stay" (California Part 2)

For nearly as long as we've been corresponding, Lisa has been trying to convince me that the "other CA - the state, not the country" is the place to be.  And, I'll admit, the lack of snow is definitely a selling feature.

Upon arrival, she immediately set out to convert me, with a complete lack of subtlety that was absolutely hilarious.  She basically told me I wasn't going home, I'd just have to move there, and how could I possibly be in San Diego and not fall in love with the place?  That said, her zeal for conversion (and how well she'd gotten to know me via all those years of blog posts and emails and facebook) made her an excellent tour guide!

Food was the one highlight I didn't take any photos of, but lunch at the Old Spaghetti Factory made me a convert to Mizithra cheese (turns out that this is a CA delicacy that I can repeat simply by going to downtown Calgary!)  Steak dinner at the Boathouse, and Godiva chocolate cheesecake that we shared over the course of several evenings were all highlights.  And, genuine Mexican food in Old Town.  So good.  I love Mexican food!

On Wednesday we spent the day at the zoo.  Thanks to a friend of Lisa's who works there and got us in free, I've now toured the famous San Diego Zoo, and not actually seen the entrance!  I love zoos anyway, but this one was great fun - pandas, koalas, polar bears, giraffes and otters were some of my favorites of the day.  (I was also quite astonished by the size of the Galapagos tortises, though their sheer size doesn't really show in photos.)

And then, of course, there is the great love of palm trees that I discovered!  I actually don't think, in the course of my travels, that I've ever been to a place where palm trees just grow outside.  In the wintery world in which I live, palm trees are in the indoor botanical gardens at the zoo or downtown - not outside.  They're the thing you put in the photo of some tropical location on your computer desktop background to get you through the winter - the pipe dream of someplace fabulous that you'll maybe go someday.  Quite honestly, palm trees might be the biggest selling factor for a move to California one day!  They definitely became the standing joke for the week, as one or the other of us pointed them out, including the "miniature palm trees" on one of the rides at Disneyland!

In the posts to come, various sites, the best parts of the trip, and of course, Disneyland!

At the Airport

Here's the piece of information only a very few people knew about my trip last week.  I'd never met the person on the other end that I was planning to spend a week with.  We'd never talked by phone or skype.  We'd never seen each other's faces in anything other than pictures.

A little over two years ago I posted this on my blog, and came home later that night to find an email waiting for me from a woman who shared my first name and last initial, telling me that she'd been reading my blog for quite some time, and that it seemed we shared oddly parallel lives and that the post on Papua New Guinea tipped the scales and pushed her into writing.  She closed her note by saying she'd thought it was finally time to introduce herself, and that she'd been praying for me, even though she didn't even "know" me.

I remember feeling pleasantly surprised, and slightly wary - it is the internet after all, who knows who it was that was writing me?  But I replied, and we slowly started to trade regular emails, every few weeks, then weekly, then, by the time I was needing to find an escape after finishing my crazy summer of school and other things, nearly daily.

We'd been talking for quite some time about getting together in person, and since neither of us is particularly shy about hopping on airplanes and going, we knew it would eventually happen, we just didn't know when.  Her coming to me is limited by the fact that she is Californian and doesn't "do" winter - an admittedly complicating factor since I live in a place that really does seem to have winter or threaten the coming of winter at least nine months a year!  And me going there?  Well, it always sort of seemed like a pipe dream in my head, one of those "that's a fun dream for a long way down the road" sorts of things.

And then I had this crazy summer.  The summer that came after months and months of everything in my life deconstructing itself.  And some complicating factors in the month of September that left me knowing that I was in desperate need of a temporary relocation and break, preferably with a friend that had become dear.

After two years of trading emails, blog posts and comment, and facebook comments, I was comfortable that I probably wasn't flying into some sort of crazy abduction situation and sent her a message "so, do you want a visitor?" and got an enthusiastic "are you serious? yes!" in response.  I booked tickets using rewards points, and hopped on a plane to meet in person the person that knew all kinds of things about me that even my family doesn't know.

I'd have normally probably tried to at least talk by phone or skype before getting on a plane to meet a total stranger, but we both have lives that tend to get crazy, and neither of our lives disappointed in the two weeks between when I booked tickets and when I got on the plane early one Tuesday morning.  I really was going to meet and hear her voice for the first time upon landing (a fact, which, by the way, was causing a bit of consternation for a few of those who knew what I'd planned!)

We debated back and forth by email about what story we'd use to explain how we'd met, knowing that since I was from out of country (as it seems that so many of both of our friends are!), we'd be asked where we'd met.  After throwing around some perfectly ridiculous options (I think her favorite was "we met when our fathers were both in the CIA") and knowing that neither one of us would make it through them with a straight face, we settled on the truth, "we met at the airport on Tuesday", and I began anxiously anticipating the startled and confused looks we'd get while explaining this to her friends.

They didn't disappoint.  We used our story within hours of my arrival and the confusion was fabulous.  "Wait, you only met this morning?"  As the week went on, we began to naturally take turns with the line, and then the explanation, "well, I have this blog, and she was reading it, and then she emailed me, and we've been emailing regularly for several years, but we really did meet for the first time at the airport on Tuesday."

When I walked off a plane last week in San Diego and into a hug, all I knew was that I was looking forward to a week of putting a face and personality to the emails and stories we'd shared for years.  And, it was fabulous.  I'll share more in the coming days, but thought I'd close this post with a picture of my new but totally not new dear friend.  This is us, affectionately known as LP/CA and the other LP/CA (the way we've signed emails for ages, a reference to our shared name, and the shared initials of our locations of residence).

Home

I arrived back in Calgary late last night, and I'm currently holed up in the bedroom at my parent's house that I slept in (affectionately known as the "fishing room" based on it's use as the office for dad's fishing business when someone doesn't need the futon).  I'm waiting to see how long I can stay holed up before someone either checks to make sure I'm not ill, or suspects that I'm hiding and comes to find me.

I'll blog about the trip with some pictures and details in the next day or two.

This morning, though, I'm thankful for the time away I had (even if I'm wishing I'd extended it a bit longer...) I'm thankful for hours of conversation and laughter and hugs.  Because I'm pretty sure I'm going to need to hold onto those pretty tightly in the coming days.

So, in a few minutes I'll crawl out of bed.  I'll move into the day, and organize myself.  I'll miss the world where I could wear skirts without pants or tights underneath.

I'll be back daily with the daily 5, but even as the season of the year officially changes today to fall, I feel that shifting in my life again, too, and an urge to perhaps be quieter for a while, here.  (That said, it seems like every time I give myself the freedom not to write, I suddenly actually feel like I have things to share.  So, who knows!)

I'm grateful for escapes, and praying for a growing reality that will be less and less necessary to escape.

Past the mid-way point

I'm laying in bed in the home of my friend in California and pondering.

For the last hour, my friend Karla's "Chair and Microphone" album has been playing softly through my headphones.  Her music is the stuff I often turn to first in the moments when I need to think and pray and process life a bit.  My heart hears Jesus when she sings.

Sometime last night, or in the wee hours of this morning, drifting in and out of semi-restless sleep and dreams, I hit the realization that comes for me with every trip - the realization of being past the half-way point of this escape.  That the days remaining are growing fewer.  The realization that a return to the harder realities of day to day existence are coming, and soon.  That what comes next - the healing to come, the things to deal with, the waiting on school acceptance, the looking for a job, seem exhausting and overwhelming and sometimes even terrifying.

And really, I want to cocoon forever in the escape place (wherever it is, whichever vacation it is), full of laughter and hugs and friends who know all the messy stuff and want to hug on me and love me anyhow.  I think about the community around me at home and long for that place of openness to come.  I grow impatient with the reminder that there isn't history there yet, and that day to day life doesn't tend to hold room for the hours and hours of intense conversation that escapes have.

And so, I pause to consider the coming day, with Karla singing quietly in the background.  To ready my heart for the things it holds, but also to bask in it, to draw sweet memories and moments to hold to when the end of the escape comes and reality returns.  To have things to remind me of hope in the harder moments that are bound to come.  Because that was the point of escaping anyway - to get away from reality for a few days and rest and prepare for the coming of new realities.