Saying Goodbye

About six months after I arrived in Uganda, a group of health and agriculture Peace Corps Volunteers closed their service and headed home. The remaining PCVs, myself included, greedily grabbed up everything they left behind and I inherited a tattered, well-worn pair of red Tom’s.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been giving away everything I own, bit by bit. It’s strange to see Lindsey wearing the v-neck purple shirt I brought from home, and Kelsey wearing the gray parachute pants I picked up in Turkey, and Airi wearing the floral skirt I found buried in a mountain of clothes laying on a tarp at a market in Fort Portal.

I am going home on December 18^th. I am going home next Saturday. I am going home in 7 days. I know that I am going home. I have known for a long time now. But I haven’t been ready to admit it. I haven’t been ready to say goodbye.

My life in Uganda has been complicated and simple and beautiful and awful and invigorating and devastating and enlightening and miserable. It has been everything. And the thought of trying to explain this everything, to leave this everything and all of the people who understand its everything-ness has been too much. Just too, too much. And so I pretend. I pretend that Jenna and Andre will end up living in Utah. I pretend that I’ll visit Linda in another state once a month. I pretend that Heidi and I will miraculously learn to love talking on the phone and will chat at length every night. I pretend that I’ll get a part-time consulting job with Peace Corps Uganda and be back in a few months to see all of my friends who remain in country for another year or more. I pretend that I’m not hugging Eric or Amanda or Ravi or Paul for the last time. I pretend that my Ugandan friends, my community, will still be there in 8 days. That Tracy and Edeth and I will drink soda at Tracy’s house, surrounded by kids, soon. That Miracle will sit next to me in church the Sunday after Christmas. I pretend and pretend and pretend.

And I think about my work here. I wonder if I am pretending about it too.

Tomorrow is the last day of technical pre-service training. I have spent the past month with a group of people who have seen me bravely journey into connection; back out of connection. Into fear; out of fear. They made me a book. A rhyming, adorable book that was signed in red thread. They don’t know, couldn’t know, how many crucial, beautiful moments in my life hang on books. My heart is book shelves. They wrote me a book and I love it. And I love them. And somehow, picturing Lindsey and Kelsey and Airi in my well-worn clothes warms me. Imagining Megan resting her head on my giant feather pillow soothes me. Closing my eyes and remembering the red yarn tied loosely around the wrists of the people I love and wrapped firmly around my heart comforts me.

Surprise! The members of my church threw me a party to say goodbye

I am scared. But I will put on my red Tom’s covered in holes and I will follow my thread to the next beautiful book. 

Saying goodbye to the women in my community

Out with the old & in with the new: the PCVs I've been training met the PCVs who are closing their service

Perfidy and Forgiveness

My favorite book of all time is about a tiny mouse named Despereaux. At one point in the story, covered in oil and a coating of flour, his tail having been brutally chopped off, with a red thread tied around his neck, he faces his father. I’ve been thinking a lot about him, about this image, over the past little while. You see, I have experienced many emotions in my life-sadness, fear, joy, anger, regret, love, hopefulness, despair. But somehow I largely escaped one emotion that I suspect we all face at one time or another-perfidy.

Perfidy, my friends, is treachery. Untrustworthiness. Deceitfulness. Betrayal. Have you had the unfortunate pleasure of meeting it yet? Did it just brush past you and send a chill down your spine? Or did it shake your hand and sit down awhile and have a cup of tea in your kitchen? Did it jump out and surprise you? Or did you see it coming and hide, hoping it wouldn’t notice you cowering in the corner behind a plastic plant?

Perfidy decided its visit was long overdue, and so it came. And just to be sure I remembered its name, it came again.  

It did what perfidy does to all whom it visits. It rubbed its inky black fingers on treasured things, beautiful things. It stood between me and my memories and cast its long shadow over them. It outlined a question mark with its ashen, gnarled finger on my ability to choose wisely. And it did all of that with a mere brush in passing. It simply grazed my cheek as it drifted by.

Ultimately, perfidy did what all gauzy, black emotions do. It presented me with a choice.

You see, for all its terrible beauty, it is lacking a home. It twists around your heart and asks to stay awhile. It commiserates. It comforts, even, in its brutal way. It lays gently at first. It purrs softly about how it can protect you. It offers to carve out large swaths of space all around you. And you get to choose.

Despereaux got to choose. His father committed a terrible act of perfidy. It was no mere brushing of the cheek. Perfidy assaulted the poor little mouse with the gigantic ears. It nearly cost him his life. And yet, when he faced his father, covered in oil and flour and the weight of what was done to him, he did not choose to let the inky emotions find a home. He chose forgiveness.

Forgiveness, like all light emotions, is much less subtle than its counterpart. It is the bold choice, to be sure. Forgiveness and hope and fearlessness and all the other gold emotions are lacking silver tongues. And they are so bright, they are blinding at first. If you glance at them and then away, their afterimage will haunt the blackness around you for days. They remind you that they already have a home in your heart. They don’t need you. You need them.

“’I forgive you, Pa.’ And he said those words because he sensed that it was the only way to save his own heart, to stop it from breaking in two. Despereaux, reader, spoke those words to save himself.”

I imagine myself, covered in embarrassment and pity, with a freshly inflicted wound and a red thread tied around my wrist, facing perfidy. I look it in the eye and say, “I forgive you.” I speak these words, dear reader, to save myself.

 

 

<Please read The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo. Your heart will thank you.>

 

The Golden Snitch

When I was a teenager, a boy wrote a poem about me that compared me to a raven. Dark. Illusive. Mysterious. This is how the world perceived me, for a time. My natural reserve, my reluctance to let people in, an inner life that was completely inaccessible to others…to my fellow teenagers, these characteristics were intriguing. Appealing, even. But then, my friends, then I grew up.

These characteristics, in the harsh light of adulthood, can be seen for what they really are. Barriers. Giant walls designed to keep people out, constructed out of fear.

Ever so slowly, I’ve been chipping away at these walls, like the classic tale of a prisoner trying to escape from his cement cell with a kitchen spoon. This year, though, in this place that is perfect for uncomfortable stretching, I decided to put down the spoon and pick up the wrecking ball. I set a resolution to be more open, to be more connected, to tear down the walls, once and for all. And for the first time ever, I felt ready.

You’ve read and/or seen Harry Potter, right? Of course you have. Do you remember the golden snitch? Dumbledore gifted it to Harry, and Harry sat staring at this hard, cold little orb for many, many pages, unable to understand how to open it. No amount of force worked. He basically ended up just walking around with it in his pocket, baffled.

I saw myself holding that fluttering, tiny ball. I thought, “Okay, it’s time to open up it now, to open myself up now, to let the world see whatever is inside,” and then I turned it over and over in my hands, perplexed by how to do so.

As you well know, Harry eventually gets the golden snitch to open. “He pressed the golden metal to his lips and whispered, ‘I am about to die.’” He realized that he must die. He acknowledged it. He accepted it. The snitch opened.

The past few months have been something of a death for me, too. My desire to be perceived a certain way is slowly dying. My insistence on guarding my past, my demons, my sensitivities, and my beliefs is dying too. But most of all, my desire to protect myself from pain and misery is dying. It is nearly dead. I am killing it.

Rumi, in one quote of many that I love, said, “There’s courage involved if you want to become truth. There is a broken-open place in a lover. Where are these qualities of bravery and sharp compassion in this group? What’s the use of old and frozen thought? I want a howling hurt. This is not a treasury where gold is stored; this is for copper. We alchemists look for talent that can heat up and change. Lukewarm won’t do. Halfhearted holding back, well-enough getting by? Not here.”

I want a howling hurt. Isn’t it strange how I spent so many years trying to protect myself from hurt only to learn, in the end, that lukewarm won’t do? That to numb myself from all that is painful is to numb myself from all that is beautiful and loving and magical and good? Halfhearted holding back, well-enough getting by? Not here.

I, too, have held the orb up to my lips and whispered, “I am about to die.” I’ve acknowledged it. I’ve accepted it. And as I have, my little golden heart has cracked wide open.

 I am no longer mysterious. There is nothing more hiding in shadows. I am a vulnerable, deeply flawed person who is writhing in a howling hurt. But I am also open. Connected. Compassionate. Brave. And I love it.

 

 

 

 

Worst Day

Well, I finally did it. I opened the letter. The letter my best friend gave me just before I hopped on a plane to come to Uganda 15 months ago. I was saving it for my worst day in country and today was that day.

Strangely, my worst day in country was in a place where I have electricity and running water. HOT running water. In a place with a big, luxurious bathtub. In my home with smooth tile floors and an actual ceiling. My worst day happened with a belly full of cheddar cheese and sweet corn. As it turns out, worst days aren’t made of cockroaches and bats and candlelight bucket baths. Worst days aren’t about being called “Muzungu” a hundred times and being cat-called by motorcycle drivers. Worst days aren’t even about eating eggs for dinner AGAIN or running out of gas to boil yourself some drinking water. Instead, worst days are about the things that happen in your head.

One of my favorite things to see in Uganda is people digging in their fields. Granted, it doesn’t sound idyllic, but it’s a thing of beauty. Imagine a lone, wrinkled woman with her hair wrapped in a red cloth, bright green banana trees all around her, and rolling green hills behind her. She lifts a heavy hoe above her head and it glints in the sunlight. There is a moment, one perfect moment, where the hoe stands still above her. She brings it up and it pauses, hovering in the air before coming back down again. It’s the pause that appeals to me most.

That pause, that sacred pause, is something I think about a lot. This week, this horrible week, I bought a ring with a blue stone. My blue stone reminds me to pause. To take one deep breath. To stop the flood of thoughts and feelings and doubt. Doubt about myself. About my ability. About my worth. About what I do and do not deserve. I pause, and in that moment, with the sun glinting, I know the Truth. Yes, the moment is fleeting. Yes, the thoughts come rushing back again. But I have my sacred pause.

On the blackest moment of the worst day in Uganda, I paused. I paused and I opened a sealed envelope. It was filled with pictures and stories and memories and love. It was filled with Truth about who I am and the important parts about the life I’ve lived.

I am now armed. I have my letter. I have my ring. I have my sacred pause. I have access to Truth. When the next worst day comes, I am ready.

Jump

I hate diving boards. I hate them. Why would anyone actually WANT to jump off of one? To willingly get that pit in your stomach as you look over the edge of a man-made cliff? To plunge into that cold, deep water, disoriented and unable to breathe? No thank you.

In the interest of full disclosure, I should say that I took swimming lessons as a child. Now, I can’t prove this, nor would I try, but I’m pretty sure that I was forced off of a diving board during these lessons. As in pushed off the high dive. Would someone really do such a thing? In any case, I have hated diving boards as long as I can remember. They fill me with dread. I have very few fears I still cling to, but this, my friends, this is one of them.

Not long ago, I found myself staring up at not one, but three diving platforms. I’ve never seen anything like them in Uganda, but there they were, looming over the pool on my day off from training the new volunteers. Not surprisingly, they filled me with terror and loathing, but there was something different there that was surprising. I wanted to jump off of them. Okay…wait. “Want” is not the right word. No part of me “wanted” anything to do with jumping off a high, concrete platform. But I didn’t like that I was afraid of them. I decided I didn’t want to be scared anymore and that forcing myself to jump was the best way to face that fear.

And so, I jumped. It wasn’t quick, nor was it graceful. It took me at least a solid 5 minutes to jump once I finally convinced myself to do so. I emitted a scream as I made my way awkwardly into the water, holding my nose. I shook with fear before I jumped. I shook with fear after I jumped. But I jumped. And then, I forced myself out of the water, and I jumped again. And again. And again.

I wish I could say that the fear went away, but it didn’t. It was there Every. Single. Time. But the fear did not stop me. It moved to the side. It watched me jump.

I’ve been standing on a diving board of a different sort for the last few weeks. You see, I was offered a job. The Lead Literacy Specialist for Peace Corps Uganda. It’s an amazing opportunity to design trainings and help Peace Corps volunteers be better teachers. It’s the kind of work I see myself doing long term. It’s the kind of work I love. But still, as I look over the edge of this cliff, I see myself moving two hours away from my Peace Corps family (my Linda), and away from my Ugandan family (my Rose), and away from everything I know in this country (my apple man, my egg man, my waitress, my tailor, my taxi drivers), and I’m scared to jump. I’m really happy here, in little Wanyange. I’ve made peace with my squeaky bats and dusty floors. I’ve fallen in love with my students, with my fellow teachers, with the rice paddies and the maize gardens in back of my house. And I don’t want to leave. I don’t want to jump.

All change feels like this, at least to me. Like standing on the high dive and looking down and having your stomach lurch with fear at what’s in the water and how deep is the water and how hard will you hit going down.

I’ve been lucky so far. Unlike when I was a kid taking swimming lessons, I haven’t been forced to jump. I think everyone is forced to jump at one time or another. You get a catastrophic illness. Someone close to you suddenly dies. And there you are, on the diving board with a sword to your back being forced to walk the plank. Sometimes, you don’t get to choose whether or not you jump and your life changes. Sometimes the choice is made for you.

But this time, this day, I get to choose. I get to choose if I stay where I am, where it is comfortable, or if I jump. This isn’t the first time, nor will it be the last, that I will make a decision like this. In the past, it’s taken me years just to approach the ladder and begin climbing. I’ve even changed my mind mid-jump before and clung to the platform, my legs dangling off the edge, until my fatigued fingers gave out and I fell painfully into change. But all of this practice is helping. Yes, the fear is still there Every. Single. Time. But tonight, on my last night in my blissful little house before I move, I’m jumping anyway. The fear is there, but it doesn’t stop me anymore. It moves aside. It watches me jump.