My Inner Children......

My inner child flares up every now and then, and embarrasses the heck out of me.

I want to love that inner child, but she is such a rascal. She just spits out words without a filter (even though she is a 58 year old child). Sometimes she pouts and that ain't pretty at all. Mostly she does behave and just sits and reads but the times she comes out with full force, I just want to take her across my knee.

She says, "I don't want to play nice when people take away my toys in the sandbox...When the big kids are mean...stick their tongue out at me...or throw sand in my face...or just don't like me."

After her outburst, I tell her that I understand, and I try to teach her how to deal with them big kids. I let her know that she is loved, but sometimes that does not make a bit of difference to that little red-haired stepchild. She just ain't havin' none of it. (Notice how she has acquired a bit of a southern accent too?)

When I see her appear, I cringe on one level, and yet admire her spunk on another. She wants life to be fair, and does not understand that there is no such thing. She wants to be heard, be noticed, be made a fuss of, and in her childish naiveté does not understand that life does not revolve around her and that other people have things they are dealing with too. Which means they do not understand the stresses you are dealing with either.

Yesterday, the red-headed girl came out strong when I was trying to have a very adult discussion about the future of some important work. She wiggled and squirmed her way into the conversation and soon she interrupted with her fears and frustrations. I know she just wanted the other people to love her, accept her, and listen to her, but she never comes across that way. She just seems pushy and frankly, rather annoying.

So if you happen to meet that little girl, who looks a lot like I used to, then just give her a hug. Sometimes that is enough to make her go quietly and read her book for awhile.
 

Sitting Under a Mango Tree....

Talking to you, baby...

My love affair with Africa started many moons ago. I have often sat under a mango tree in Africa, and in limited Bantu language/English combo have "communicated" with an Africa woman while we cut up tomatoes or sorted through beans, whether it has been Kenya, Malawi or Zambia. Just sitting there in the quiet rural setting, without the usual "noise" of our western life, I feel a peace and contentment that I rarely find in North America. And a sense of sisterhood with this quiet dark-skinned woman who has let me into her space to perform a job that gives her a chance to sit down for a few minutes. Sometimes we laugh ourselves silly as we communicate or try to, but the laughter is healing, and joyful.  

Why is it that you can go completely out of your comfort zone in a country that is totally foreign to your own, and have such a joyful experience? Once, when I was staying in a village in Malawi, I woke up at 2 am, and needed to use the pit latrine, which meant a walk at night from my hut through the maize field across the yard and behind the volunteer teacher house. I went and did my business, and as I was walking back I woke up enough to take a look at my surroundings. Not a sound except for some night bugs chirping softly. It was bright enough to see where I was walking, so I looked up and instead of the moon, I gazed up into the milky way. I held my breath, I was mesmerized. Above my head a ribbon of stars seemed so very close that I felt I had only to lift my hand and I would touch it. It was a sight I had only ever seen in glossy coffee table books, where scientists take photos of the sky with special telescopic cameras. I stood there for over 20 minutes, just soaking in the sight above me. The lack of light pollution gave me a mind-blowing experience that I still remember 15 years later.

Another time, I came back to the girls high school that I had started in Chamama, Malawi, and was greeted by women dancing and singing in Chichewa. They drew me in to dance with them, and although I knew not the words or the steps, I gave in to the pure delight of being included in this cultural event. I found myself instinctually knowing not only the movement as I was caught up in the dance, but understanding that this was to celebrate a harvest.

When arriving at a friend's house in a rural area of Malawi, I went to bed early because of jet lag. Before settling on my pillow, I looked out the window to see the village children gathering to join together in the early evening, singing in perfect harmony, clapping in perfect rhythm, and dancing by joining together their feet in a perfect circle and hopping round and round and round. I went to sleep with the surreal joyful sound in my ear.

Some day I will tell you the story of how I came to have 4 African-born grandchildren. But for now, maybe I will plant a mango tree in my backyard. Will anyone join me if I sit under it to sort beans for supper?

So sorry.. But it came to pass.....

 If I have offended anyone in the past year, I am sorry and I apologize.

My favorite Bible verse this year is Matthew 26:1 "And it came to pass..." By the way, that phrase, "and it came to pass..." is used 396 times in the King James translation of the Bible. Why is this my favorite? Because it did not come to stay.

This past year, since last June, has been an extremely difficult year for our family in so very many different ways that I cannot and will not describe here. Suffice it to say, this has been the year from you know where....okay, I will say it....the year from hell.

When I was nineteen, I almost died without knowing why. Only because I pushed a car out of a ditch were the doctors able to diagnose my life-threatening congenital heart defect and give me a new plastic aorta through open-heart surgery.

I would have that horrible surgery all over again just to take out all the bad parts of the last year...and throw them back to you know where. Don't make me say it again.

So I am apologizing to all the people who know me to say that if I was curt, short, snappy, argumentative, stressed, rude, forgetful, or anything else in that vicinity, I am so sorry if I offended you in any way. I have cried, yelled, screamed, wept bitter tears, panicked, paced, and some days put on a plastic public face. Most of that I have done behind closed doors, occasionally on a friend's shoulder, more often in my husband's arms, or on the road in my car. My dog Cleo has just quietly shadowed me without being overly affectionate, knowing somehow my boundaries for her needs this year.

Canadians (and Canada is where I was born), have a tendency to say "I'm sorry", instead of "Excuse me" like the Americans do. There is almost an inherent tendency in our frozen DNA to apologize for existing. I know this drives some of my American friends up the wall, but Canadians have it down to an art form. In fact, one relative (through marriage) was so upset, because I said "I apologize..." for whatever I had done, again! instead of saying "I am sorry..." that she did not talk to me for two years. Or was it the other way around? I forget now, but either way, I was wrong and I had not verbally atoned enough to satisfy her wronged soul.

In my work, I deal with hurt people, victims of crime, many with painful stories that tear me up inside. If nothing else, this past year has helped me look beyond their crude language, their acting out, their vulgar attitudes, to try to see the hurting person underneath. Sometimes I find one, and sometimes I don't. If I do, then I can use my knowledge and experience of how I felt with my terrible year to encourage them to do the next right thing, to make good decisions that will affect their lives and even the lives of their children. My psychologist friend will say that I am talking to myself and I most probably am.

So it came to pass. June 15 is hopefully the end of the worst year of my life....I am hoping for some really really good news on that day. Someone I love will have a great new job OR I will get a raise OR Someone will discover me as an artist or a writer and will offer me to travel all expenses paid while I get to do something wildly creative for them OR a huge amount of money will come in to fund the schools in Malawi and Zambia that I am working with OR my family will just have a wonderfully quiet peaceful year. No drama, no tragedies, no life-threatening illnesses, no crimes, no fortunes lost, no loss of jobs. Just quiet zen-like peace.

If that doesn't happen, I am truly sorry.