Good bye

My thoughts are not from “afar” anymore. I realize this as I think about picking up blogging again. I also realize that the breathtaking whirl and now the steady plod of my life isn’t conducive to consistent writing.

J and I are thinking of starting a garden. I’ve never gardened before in my life unless you count the times as a child that Mom coaxed us out of bed to weed the garden before the summer sun got too hot. Oh, and I did manage to keep a pot of spinach alive for a few months when I lived in Spain.

As I write, I can see the rectangular plot of brown from the office window. Brown, spotted with yellow dandelions and a general air of forsakenness. These are the moments that I realize I’ve romanticized gardening. Imagine: me slipping out the kitchen door to pluck two ripe tomatoes, a cucumber, and some fresh cilantro for supper.

Yep. I forget that we must select, then plant, and wait, and weed, and water, and wait, and wait.

Likewise, I’ve romanticized my time and ability to keep up a blog. One must be attentive. Attentive I have not been. Attentive I will not be.

This is to say that my blog will continue in its general air of forsakenness until it closes down in April of 2026. It has served its purpose of giving me the space I needed to process my life overseas. Now, that is done.

Life here is every bit as interesting as my life was overseas. I’m basking in the white blossoms of springtime, learning the nooks and crannies of a new area, spending every possible moment with my companionable husband, and starting that long and beautiful process of cultivating relationships in a welcoming community.

But blog, I will not.

So, this is my goodbye. And my thank you for investing time and energy into reading my ramblings week after week.

Moving

I’m leaving Spain in a few days. Not just leaving, I guess, but moving. My mind hasn’t fully soaked that in yet.

Some days I’m oh so ready. I would love to skip over the lasts: wondering if I’ve said all I need to say or done all I need to do or packed the right things. But those hassles of leaving are also what are preparing me to be gone.

I know that.

That’s why some days I’m not ready at all. I want to soak in every last memory and moment, letting myself bump up and down through the feelings in order to fully experience everything that life brings my way.

Well, ready or not, I leave on Tuesday afternoon.

Until then, I will continue packing, clearing out my cupboards, giving away things, and saying those sweet and dreaded goodbyes.

I’ll be back on my blog sometime after my feet are on U.S. soil and the fog of jetlag has dissipated.

See some of you in less than a week!

Deeper sorrow, deeper joy

I know how to hide my feelings from myself. I’ve had practice telling those miniature white lies about how I don’t mind or that I’m unconditionally happy and galloping through life without unwanted feelings lassoing me.

My body gives me a jolt now and then: a wrinkled forehead glimpsed in the mirror, indigestion, weight loss, fatigue. But look on the bright side, I think. I don’t really feel that stressed, weary, cranky, or conflicted. I am living the ideal life. Who in their right mind wouldn’t want to be me right now?

What I don’t remember is that shutting down my “negative” feelings also shuts down my capacity to deeply feel joy.

Earlier this month, I realized that wedding planning all day on my day of rest was not a sustainable pattern. So on my next day off, I forced myself to rest, really rest. I wrote “read” on my to-do list and that was all. As evening came, I transitioned into watching Call the Midwife. Two episodes later, I shut down my computer and cried. It was as if feeling vicariously for almost 2 hours helped to release my store of pent-up feelings.

This is where I want to be: feeling. Even if sometimes it means feeling an aching loneliness or feeling downright scared at what looms ahead. When I open my heart to feel, I experience the richness of the ups and downs of a life fully-lived. Because joy is right there too, every bit as deep… deeper even, but I can’t notice it when I’m only skimming along the top of life.

This season of life is filled with lasts and goodbyes as I prepare to leave Spain in 3 1/2 weeks. “Another last,” said my teammate when we dropped off my final guests. My guests and I had had a marvelous time, exploring and talking, processing and laughing. Their leaving set me into motion, clearing out my house and closing up my life here. It aches, but not all aches are bad.

I’m also filled with energy as I think about trading this life for several months with family and friends in my home community. And then there’s the dizzying delight of marrying J in three short months.

God meant the sorrows and joys of this season to be felt rather than ignored. So today, I choose to stay in this vibrant sense of being alive.

My landlady, chocolate, and Ecclesiastes

My landlady is coming in a few minutes, and I’m dreading her visit. She wants to “see” what things she left in the apartment. “A whole wardrobe full and then some.” I want to say, “Please don’t buy anything else. I think your apartment can be considered ‘beyond furnished’ already.”

But I will try to smile as she pokes through my drawers and makes loud, unfiltered remarks. Maybe I will soothe my shattered calm with chocolate once she is gone.

The other day, I had a thought: Would it work best to be mentally present in only one world at a time? My feet are inevitably in two worlds right now, but does my mind have to be?

Yesterday, I was mentally in the States, shopping online for wedding paraphernalia, acting on a few decisions, buying a wedding gift for a friend, laughing with my bridesmaids about imaginary wedding disasters, and the like. When I needed a break from the screen, I returned to Spain, chatting with a shopkeeper, going for a walk, etc.

Today, I stayed in Spain, bouncing along on the bus to a meeting, setting up final healthcare appointments, and whatnot.

Now I am waiting for my landlady to come peer in my cabinets. Once she leaves, I have a handful of other projects I’d like to get to… after my chocolate, of course.

I’m not feeling particularly inspired to write on my blog. I asked J if he had any inspiration for me. He suggested that I write about Ecclesiastes, but only because he’s preaching through Ecclesiastes right now and that’s what’s on his brain.

I don’t have anything “ecclesiastical” to enlighten you with, but I remembered a poem I wrote many years ago. You may read it if you promise not to analyze it much; I think the only value I had in mind when I wrote it was face value.

"Vanity"
The sun races across the sky
Another day; another try.
The wind circles as it blows
Terrific sound; nowhere to go.
All day trickling streams will stray
To oceans same as yesterday.
What’s the purpose to be me
In light of so much vanity?

…

Well, since I copied and pasted this poem, my landlady swept in, summer dress billowing behind her. She snooped in the cupboards, teetered on a stool while trying to fix a blind that was broken long before I moved in, told me her moderately-unrealistic dreams for the apartment, and took the last payment of rent that I will give her.

I’m glad that’s done. I found that her presence eerily echoed the words of my poem. I could unpack that a little more, but right now, I feel depleted in a way that not even chocolate will alleviate.

J&T: A piece of our story

Besides a detailed account of our few weeks together, I haven’t written much about my relationship with J. It’s not because he has been pushed to the periphery of my life–he has been invading every nook and cranny! But I guess those were the nooks and crannies I once used to write on my blog.

Months ago, a reader asked me to tell our story. So here it is from my perspective…

We met at a wedding, our siblings’ wedding, to be exact. My older brother and J’s younger sister married each other in the summer of 2018.

You’d think that we both would have had romance on the brain in such a setting. Yet, he was based in China and I had just moved to Spain. Our minds were on our respective work, not romance. When I think hard enough, I remember things about him from that weekend–like when I tripped on my too-long skirt and he tried to blame my clumsiness on himself–but I can’t remember what he was wearing the first time I saw him or anything of the sort. He remembers even less than I do.

At the Sunday potluck, we chatted with each other. Our conversation was enthusiastic because, as overseas workers, we could connect in ways that we couldn’t connect with just anybody. He asked to be added to my newsletter mailing list.

I went back to Spain. He finished school and returned to China. I contacted him once about an article I was writing and he sent me some information. That was our only personal contact for five years.

His church became one of my supporting churches for two years. I was delighted because I already knew some of the congregation. I also knew his family. (When our siblings were dating back in 2017, I had made a point to travel to Ohio. Twice. And J was in China both of those times.)

In 2019, he returned to Ohio to finish his Master of Science with the intention of moving back to China. And then the pandemic happened, and he found himself planted Stateside indefinitely. Over the next several years, he made trips to Illinois to visit his sister, my brother, and our mutual nephews. I returned to Illinois as well, for a vacation or a home assignment, but our paths didn’t cross, and neither of us considered that they didn’t.

Then while I was on home assignment summer of 2023, I gave a talk at his church. J and I chatted a little that Wednesday evening, but I did a little chatting with a lot of people and nothing felt unusual. I was at the beginning of a long trip and was dealing with ongoing health symptoms I had become an expert at suppressing. Had I been a little more in tune with my surroundings that evening, perhaps I would have seen that quiet question mark above J’s head. But I continued my trip, clueless.

Still, he said nothing. Not that I was expecting him to have anything to say. In retrospect, it was as if, in my mind, he was married to China and therefore ineligible.

Toward the end of my time in the States that summer, he and his parents came to Illinois to visit his sister… the same day I left for Indiana.

It seemed that God was keeping us apart. And I think, in a sense, He was.

While in Indiana, I found a name for the symptoms I’d had for more than a dozen years, the symptoms that were getting progressively harder to suppress.

I started treatment after returning to Spain. Within a month, I recorded in my journal that I was beginning to feel better. I knew I wasn’t completely healed, but I was on my way. I had lots to be thankful for that Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving was also the time that J, who had been praying for me in the meantime, sensed that the time was right. He emailed me that weekend.

I woke up at 5 a.m. to take the day’s first dose of treatment. As I crawled back into bed that Sunday morning, I saw I had an email from J. I immediately assumed that he was writing to say he was moving back to China and could I please take him off my newsletter list?

Or.

I didn’t stop to ponder; I just tapped the notification and opened the email that would change my life. Stunned, I lay in bed, lost in thought until my alarm went off.

He didn’t get an answer right away; I had a lot to think through. The truth is, as older singles, we both valued our respective single lives. Could this really be God’s next step for us? I knew I would need to mourn that first layer of loss before I responded to his email. Finally, with both trepidation and excitement, I wrote back, mostly with questions he had given me permission to ask: What about China? How did he feel about singleness?

Our initial emails were full of questions as we tried to sort out if forward were the best direction for us.

Deep down, I had a sense our relationship would work out, which was based on what I knew about him, his family, and his church. At its core, that inner sense was: “Of course. Why didn’t we think of this before?”

We wrote back and forth for a bit and then were ready to make our relationship more official around Christmas. Our families were shocked and excited. Our friends were shocked and excited. At last, these two “permanent singles” were dating!

Starting a relationship while 4,000 miles apart wasn’t for the faint of heart, but I’ll skip over those layers for now. One month after our first official phone date and just when I was admitting to myself how much I liked him, J was nominated to become a pastor in his home church. The next Sunday, one man would be chosen by lot and ordained.

He wrote to me on Monday morning, and all I could do was fall on my knees.

We both had lots of feelings that week. We tried phone calls but found we didn’t have a lot of words. Tears came at unexpected moments. I wasn’t mourning; I was overwhelmed. How could I support him when I was feeling so weak myself? What exactly was the new girlfriend’s role?

The events of that week drew us together in ways neither of us could have anticipated. Our relationship deepened to a level we would have said we weren’t ready for. We learned to trust each other.

I watched the ordination over WhatsApp, tears flowing as J was chosen to serve as a pastor in his home church.

Then we picked up and kept going, in both praise and uncertainty.

He came to visit Spain in May. We had 19 whole days on the same continent. During that time, we finished falling in love and seriously talked about a future together.

Three months later, I spent three weeks Stateside, in my home community and his. Right in the middle of our time together, J asked me to marry him. Even though I had known it was coming soon, he managed to surprise me. (Well, he surprised both of us, but that’s another story. 😉 )

Then came the whirlwind of excited decision-making in the week before I returned to Spain. Spain is where I am now. The whirlwind hasn’t stopped and likely won’t as I close down my life here, move back to the States, and plan a wedding.

But I’m surprised to find how much joy is in the whirlwind too.

This message has been approved by J. 😉

I’m packing my bags

I’m packing my bags. Well, to be honest, I’ve been packing for a while now, trying to make every kilo count down to the last gram.

Mom told me the Amazon packages she’s piling on my desk in Illinois make her think of Mr. Grabbit. Toothbrushes, shoes, supplements, etc. Things I won’t have to bring with me.

I’m planning to wear multiple outfits to give myself several sets of clothes for the trip. “I might look homeless when you pick me up at the airport,” I tell J. The layers of clothing, the bulging pockets I stitched to the inside of my jacket, and the supermarket bag I’m planning to use as a carry-on might make me a key candidate for surveillance. Especially since I’m clambering into Chicago the weekend before the Democratic National Convention.

Time is winding down. Less than two more days now. My to-do list is moderate, all things considered. I put “mop the floor” at the top. The dirt on the bottoms of my feet comes off in rolls when I rub my feet together.

Below are a few snippets of summer life here that happen through the giddiness of preparing to see my family, friends, and J…

I love the extra wiggle room of a summer schedule. While most people choose not to cook or bake this time of year, I’ve tried North African bread, North African lentils, brownies with peanut butter and almond flour, and crackers with ground sunflower seeds. I’ve also attempted couscous twice and decided that “moderately close” is as good as it’s going to get for now. Puttering in my kitchen is delightful without the breath of a dozen other tasks at my neck.

I’ve been studying language at the local library. The walk across town in the afternoon sunshine is oppressive, but it doesn’t eclipse the joy of descending to the cool library basement. The summer crowd is sparse and the quiet is so thick it almost hurts until the ink chamber inside a pen rattles as someone write a note or careful feet tick down the stairs. I don’t use the library resources other than the air conditioning and the atmosphere, but it’s always worth it.

Summer has also been a good time to meet up with the friends who remain in Spain, to spend time in their worlds or let them be a part of mine. Maybe it’s English class or breakfast together. Or my little neighbor boys come up for a visit with their mommy to play with Legos, make the floor sticky with melon juice, and watch cookies bake with great anticipation.

While the cookies are still in the oven, I give them a drink of water which they drink with too-long straws. “Do you want one?” I ask the oldest boy, offering a container of dates I have on the counter.

“No,” he says. “I want chocolate cookies.” And he returns to watch them through the oven door, content to wait.

There have been meetings, appointments, and the like. This week is also my week to work ahead on office manager responsibilities in an attempt to keep my absence from being too obvious.

I guess you might say that I’m planning to be distracted for the next few weeks. 😉 Until another day, then…

There isn’t much that separates us

The public health clinic was teeming with people. Where was she?

“Over here!” My friend waved me over to a corner of the waiting room. She rushed to explain her health problem, pointing to various body parts while keeping an eye on the door where she was to go as soon as her number was called.

My breathless mind tried to keep up with her Arabic. I was still drumming up passable Spanish vocabulary when her number was called.

We squeezed around an old shopping cart piled high with unsupervised medical supplies and stepped into the consultation room.

“What is the problem?”

I took a deep breath and launched into an unrehearsed explanation. Interpreting between two foreign languages is always a workout for me, and not a flattering one.

The lady at the desk was silent until I paused. Then she said, “You both realize that I’m a nurse, not a doctor, right?”

Actually, no. I had never been beyond the door in this particular public health clinic.

“Look, the only thing I can do is test and see if she still has the infection.” She handed my friend one of those flimsy plastic cups we use at children’s parties for juice or Jell-O. “Urinate in here and bring it back to me.”

Apparently dismissed, we squeezed around the shopping cart and wandered around the building in search of restrooms. Misplaced people were milling everywhere in a warm, concrete facility that smelled of metal and sweat.

We eventually found the almost unmarked restroom, nestled between consultation rooms. Then back down the long hallway we went, my friend trying to hide her cup of pee in a plastic bag she’d dug out of her purse. “There wasn’t any paper in there to wrap the cup,” she said. “I don’t want everyone here to see it.”

We wiggled around the overflowing shopping cart again. The nurse stretched on a pair of gloves, stuck a testing strip into the urine, and told us to wait outside. My friend turned and left, still holding her cup.

“Uh… can she throw away the urine?” I asked.

While I was still verifying this with the nurse-not-doctor, my friend lost her way and, unable to read, ended up in the men’s restroom. There was an unsettled man waiting outside when I arrived on the scene. “This is for men,” he said in Arabic when my friend emerged.

We found seats in the waiting room. As much as I love to people-watch, it was hard to look around without feeling absolutely hopeless. Did anyone in the healthcare system really care about these people?

As we waited, the lady next to us asked if her number was on the screen yet. She couldn’t read; she could only hear the tone and see the digits move without understanding what they meant. I looked at her tiny slip of paper, the kind of ticket you get while waiting in line for olives at the market. It was hard to see that wisp of green-blue and not see my own personalized number on a freshly printed ticket from the private health clinic across the street. My initials followed by 524. Always the same. Always announced over the speaker while I sat in the air-conditioned waiting room.

Her number was 254. The number on the screen was 272. “It’s past,” I explained. By a good half hour, likely. She walked up to the desk and was sent to get another number and start the process again.

Meanwhile, my friend and I were called back into the consultation room. The overflowing shopping cart had been removed and this time we could walk in without yoga posing our way through the doorway.

The nurse told me, “Tell her that she still has an infection, but she needs to finish the week of antibiotics she got yesterday.”

Oh.

That was a piece of information I had been missing. My friend had apparently just been to the emergency room the day before, but wasn’t satisfied with the lingering pain from the infection. As if one dose of antibiotics should have removed her aching like magic.

It was hard to look at the nurse sitting at her desk and not feel absolutely hopeless for her. Was this what she dealt with day after day? Confused immigrants expecting or even demanding immediate fixes without understanding her role as a nurse, not a doctor or a magician?

My friend and I walked toward home. She pulled me into a North African store and bought a bag of fresh figs: big, purple, and sweet. On the street again, she handed me the bag. “I got these for you because you helped me today.”

We sat on the front steps of my apartment building until the hopelessness of the morning faded with chatter and laughter. Deep down, there isn’t as much that separates us as we sometimes imagine.

What’s NOT been happening recently

I was planning to jot down a few of the things that have been happening recently here in my daily life in Spain.

So what’s been happening recently? When I thought about it, I realized that there have been a lot more things that haven’t been happening. In fact, it’s precisely because of what’s not been happening recently that gave me time to sit down and write today.

At times, it’s hard to keep a full schedule in the summer. Most people don’t care to do things during the hottest part of the day, so social interaction hours are limited. Besides that, there are fewer people to do things with at this time of year. During summer vacation when the greenhouses and packing plants are mostly empty and the children are out of school, immigrants pile their cars and vans high with the gifts their families are expecting and return to their countries.

That means that when plans are canceled here in Mytown, the backup plans are a wee bit sparse.

Take today, for instance. I had a full day planned. Actually, several layers planned. A friend had invited me to the restaurant where she works to learn how to cook lentils. Last night, she messaged to say that something in the restaurant was being repaired today and the restaurant would be closed.

All right. My canceled English class from earlier in the week had been tentatively rescheduled for Saturday morning in case my first plans were canceled. “I hope you’re feeling better…” I wrote to my student. And she was, but not enough better to leave her house.

So I reached out to my neighbor. I enjoy when she brings her boys over to play or when I pop down to visit, catching up on the happenings of life. But she was out of town visiting her sister.

That was the point I gave up trying to be social.

It was my week to clean the center anyway. And besides that, the inch of dust glaring at me from the baseboard in my own apartment attested to a month full of Saturdays of half-hearted cleaning around uncanceled plans.

So that’s what hasn’t been happening recently. What about you? Anything not happening in your day today?

Summer blessings

I could whine about whining mosquitos and the wet that blooms on my back as I walk to the store with the sun burning the top of my head.

Summer is not my favorite season of the year, but today I choose to remember the things I like about summer…

Electrifying cold water descending down down to pool in my belly. Coconut oil that pours rather than being chipped from the edges of a jar and butter that comes pre-softened. The chorus of air conditioners from those lucky enough to have them. Shadows sharp from the bright sunlight. Coolness seeping out of underground parking garages to embrace passersby. People who aren’t afraid of the night because of other people who aren’t afraid of the night. Late morning yawns on balconies and on streets. The long shadows of morning and evening, wide enough for everyone to walk in the shade. The coolness of freshly mopped floors under my bare feet. Open windows, open doors. Always a conversation on the tips of tongues: the heat, the dust, the wind. The perfume of sunscreen–cocounty and sweet– from those in line at the supermarket. Every excuse for a siesta. The lack of hurry from a summer culture who has time to wait. Cars and vans leaving town, roof racks piled high with bundled gifts for family just a ferry-ride away. The lessening, the stealth of quietness that crawls into town as more and more people slip away for the summer. A pace of life that finally matches the projects at hand. And enough time in the day to spend with friends (those who remain).