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!

Does it feel strange?

“Does it feel strange to be getting married?” a friend asked me.

I paused.

To be in my late 30s and getting married for the first time. To share my day-in-day-out life with someone who sees my most embarrassing moments and my glaring flaws. To regularly cook for someone else, occasionally burning the potatoes and hard-boiling eggs until the yolks are green, but I have to serve them anyway. To put away food because the climate doesn’t have a year-round growing season. To factor someone else’s preferences and opinions into every decision. To not have to worry how I’m going to support myself or how I’m going to fix the wiring in my lamp without electrocuting myself or where I could invest a little extra cash.

Yes, I’d say that the idea of marriage is absolutely strange.

On the other hand, getting married to J feels like the most natural thing in the world, a natural progression of a serious relationship built on trust. And after all, why in the world wouldn’t I want to spend the rest of my life with my most favoritest person in the world?

So, no, it doesn’t feel one bit strange.

At the end of the day, I don’t know that it matters where “getting married” falls on my strange-normal continuum. I’ll take the strange and the normal feelings–and everything in between–as part of the beautiful package of being married to J.

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…

A life of perpetual humiliation

I just finished reading Anthony Doerr’s Four Seasons in Rome. Someone discarded it, and I picked it up, curious. This isn’t a book recommendation unless you happen to know that you like Anthony Doerr, but Doerr’s descriptions of life on the outside of a culture cut me wide open. I didn’t know there were words for these “in but not of” feelings.

Apartness and perpetual humiliation are part of daily life for those living overseas. Sometimes we talk about it too much. Often we don’t even acknowledge it but let our frustration become part of the existing barrier, like a thick moss growing over a wall we’re trying to ignore.

We are outsiders, always outsiders, chipping at the barrier that stands between us. And there are successes! Moments when a chunk of the wall falls away and we glimpse the other side…only to find razor wire.

“To be a nonfluent foreigner is to pass through one gate only to find yourself outside two more,” writes Doerr (p. 46). “We are humbled over and over–humility hangs over our heads like a sledgehammer… Oh, you think you’ve been here long enough to barter at the street markets? Guess what, you just spent €8 on three plastic clothes hangers” (p. 76).

After nine months in Rome, Doerr walks into a grocery store and makes an order without messing up a single syllable. “What happens?” he writes. “I get my groceries. No streamers drop from the ceiling, no strobe lights start flashing. The grocer doesn’t reach across the counter and take my face in her hands and kiss me on the forehead.” Instead, the grocer asks about his boys and speaks so quickly he can’t keep up. “…I miss 80 percent of it and sheepishly, stepping down from my throne of fluency, have to ask, ‘I’m sorry, more slowly, please?’” (p. 168)

For some, eventually the barriers do not loom so large or feel so insurmountable. But for many? “I know nothing… I never made it through the gates between myself and the Italians. I cannot claim to have become, in even the smallest manner, Roman” (p. 201).

True. Despite my efforts to integrate into the culture around me, my North American worldview remains mostly intact, placing me decidedly on the outside.

But if we let it, doesn’t living on the outside help us accept who we are? After all, like it or not, we cannot cease being a part of something. Not being a part of the culture we’re living in is because we’re part of another, or even several. Being on the outside can help us identify our own “inside.”

Apartness and perpetual humiliation are hard, but they are also opportunities to learn and grow.* And we need these opportunities to understand ourselves.

So I will try to be grateful. Even as my neighbor gives me a list of what is wrong with my couscous. Next time, it will be better. I can promise.

Doerr, Anthony. Four Seasons in Rome. Scribner, 2007.

*Thank you, J, for your positive spin on life to remind me to keep on growing!

Part five: Friends and ferries

Click to read: Part one: A palace and a hostel, Part two: A stolen sandwich and art, Part three: Relationship advice and edible puzzles, and Part four: Tanneries and street food

My friend was waiting when our bus pulled into one of the country’s eastern-most cities. Back at the house, we joined her husband and a bubbling lasagna and caught up over supper.

When the guys left to check into J’s downtown hotel, J took my phone–the one with functioning data–in case he needed help getting back in the morning. As he left, I worried aloud. My fears were unreasonable, I knew, with his being a seasoned traveler, but he was blazing a new territory all alone. He told me that I was nervous so he wouldn’t have to be.

As soon as they had gone, my friend and I got down to the heart-to-heart girl talk we’d been waiting for.😀

The next morning, her husband got up early to make the German version of cinnamon rolls, or “cinnamon snails.” After breakfast, we parted ways–the men for a hike, the women shopping. My friend and I moseyed through a shaded market area and even had the privilege of witnessing a fight involving a shattered shop display and two irate shopkeepers. We also meandered through the city and finally found an unoccupied shady spot in the park.

The only thing I bought was a notebook for writing letters. I figured J would approve since most of the letters would likely arrive to his mailbox.

We met the men for lunch in a family restaurant with comfortable chairs. We lingered over the mouth-watering salads, reluctant to move on, even after the main course arrived. Our main course, tride au poulet, was chicken slathered in some sort of sweet sauce and covered with thin sheets of pastry dough. It was delicious, but far too sweet for either J or me. We made a valiant effort, but still couldn’t finish the dish.

bread and small dishes of various salads

After an afternoon rest, we walked to a local park–a dot of refreshing green in the midst of vast brown. We picked up a few foods on our way home for a light supper. I may or may not have eaten more than my share of the maaqoudas (potato-based fritters) because I forgot how much I loved them.

The next morning, we said our goodbyes after breakfast. It had been a short but worthwhile visit. As we waited in line for a taxi to take us to the border city, I was unpleasantly surprised to see that our taxi would be an old Mercedes rather than a newer taxi where everyone was entitled to their own seat. The driver ordered J and me to sit together in the front seat. I attempted to be a good sport, but I could already picture us emerging from the taxi hours later with crooked spines and headaches. J perched himself on the center console and somehow managed to give me the majority of the front seat without interfering with the driver’s shifting. He even dozed off up there!

Our border crossing was smooth, thanks to our blue passports. From the border, we walked to the port and boarded our waiting ferry. We had the perfect amount of time, despite the fact that we had forgotten to calculate the hour time jump once we crossed the border. The ride was 6½ hours, so we had plenty of time both to rest and explore. We did both, but spent most of the time on the upper passenger deck. There, the wind was chilly and the sun bright. As we talked, we stared at the water, mesmerized by the swirling foam the ferry left behind. We even saw dolphins for a few magical minutes.

Soon, darkness was falling. Our ferry pulled into the Almería port and we disembarked into the familiar night air. After only five days in North Africa, Spain was downright homey.

Part two: A stolen sandwich and art

Click to read Part one: A palace and a hostel.

J woke up after the time we had agreed to meet in the lobby. We had planned plenty of time, so I was content to let him sleep off as much jetlag as possible. Besides that, I wasn’t confident which bed was his. With those curtains, what if I reached in and poked the wrong man? I sneaked a snack from our stash in the communal refrigerator and then noticed that the second half of the sandwich was missing. Who would have nabbed a half-eaten sandwich? I wondered, pensive. I passed the time answering messages and chatting with a Lithuanian lady who had broken her phone at the beginning of her two week trip.

Eventually, J came out to the lobby, looking much brighter than the night before, but still sleepy around the edges. He confessed to waking up in the wee hours of the morning to eat the rest of the sandwich. Mystery solved.

The Puerta del Sol was on our way to breakfast and the museum, so we stopped to get our picture taken under the iconic bear. Because I am several inches taller than J, but our families didn’t know how many, we decided to exaggerate our height difference. I stood on my tiptoes and J bent his knees. The camera snapped and with a little cropping, our photo was ready to send.

“Quite the height difference!” commented my sister with a laughing emoji.

“Yes, it’s something to get used to,” I beamed back at her.

“I do believe he comes a little higher than your elbow…”

I guess we’d overdone it. 🙂

Our breakfast was less than remarkable, but the Museo del Prado, the renowned art museum of Madrid, made up for it. We spent the entire morning there, wandering and wandering and still covering just over half before we were too exhausted to continue. I loved enjoying the paintings together, studying them long enough to point out things to each other. Sometimes, we laughed. Sometimes, we stood in awe. Sometimes our wonder was more of the skeptical type. We both agreed that we’d rather fully enjoy a few works of art than see everything at breakneck speed.

We attempted lunch but weren’t hungry enough to justify spending 50+€ on a paella for two. We thanked the hostess and ducked back out on the street where we found a grocery store that sold prepared salads. We took our salads to a grassy boulevard and sat on a bench to eat and bolster ourselves for another tour.

This time, we toured the National Library of Spain. We listened to an audio guide on my phone and after a strange encounter with the guard who seemed reluctant to understand my Spanish until I doubted that I was even speaking it, we toured the rest of the library unbothered.

Back at Retiro Park, we found the glass palace. Then, we sat in the grass and watched the carefree groups of people strolling by until we decided we should meander back for some supper and our hostel. We ate a seafood paella in a corner of a hopping restaurant, growing sleepier as the minutes ticked by. It would be an early bedtime, for sure.

The next morning, we were both up and ready to leave before we had planned to be. Our trip down to Almería was smooth. We traveled from bus to train to bus–two extra buses due to construction on both ends of our journey. We dozed, watched the scenery, and talked, sometimes about those topics that are best talked about in person. Wanna know what we talked about? Too bad. It’s “not your market” as the North Africans say. 😉

A teammate gave us a ride back to Mytown. I sat in the backseat, feeling a measure of something I couldn’t describe. It wasn’t entirely pleasant or unpleasant. So I just sat with it, pondering. We lunched with teammates, unpacked, and I gave J a mini tour of Mytown, introducing him to a piece of my world.

It wasn’t until I was preparing for bed that I was able to label what I was feeling as “emotional dissonance.” I was beyond delighted to show J my world in Spain, but watching my worlds mesh was unsettling. Like the world that had felt so close was being replaced by another world that, in new ways, felt closer.

Much blessings

This morning, a friend sent a voice message that ended with “Much blessings!”

Her non-native English made me smile; I love the way she talks. “Many blessings” is grammatically correct–my work email even signs off with that–because blessings are individual and countable. Or are they? We count our blessings, the many ways which we are thankful for what God has given us, but can we really count them all?

I’m pondering this on after saying goodbye to visitors who celebrated life with me. We toured an Arab fortress, a cathedral, and a greenhouse. We strolled the beach, picnicked by mountain springs, housecleaned, marketed, and tasted lots of foods. And my favorite parts were the conversations, prayers, and laughter woven through all of it. My friends brought gifts and letters from home. On the board above my desk, hang two letters from a nephew and a niece who are big enough to write in beautiful cursive and sign their letters, “Yours truly” and “Love.”

And this week, I have another visitor–one I’ve been looking forward to seeing since… well, since a long time.

With all of the extra activity infused with normal life and work, I sometimes struggle to keep up. Yet, I am filled, sandwiched here between the goodness that was and the goodness that is to come.

“Much blessings” describes this perfectly, I think.

What am I fit for?!

If you’ve ever given your heart to more than one place in this world, you’ll know what I’m talking about.

I am in a culture that is not my own; yet, in a strange way, I feel like I belong. But I will never fully belong because this is not who I am. Paradoxically, returning to the place I most expect to belong is not as comfortable as it used to be. I’ve changed, adapted, conformed–or whatever you want to call it–to my new culture, and I can’t go back without wearing that change.

One evening not long ago, I was on my way home when suddenly confusion washed over me. Where was I going? “If I were to go to the homiest home I can think of right now, where would I go?” I asked myself. My flat in Spain? My room at my parents’ house? Or any of the other places I’ve lived in my lifetime?

The concept of “home” was foggy, like waking from a dream and expecting to be in one place but being thousands of miles away instead.

When I feel that sense of homelessness, I think of Eliza Doolittle in the musical My Fair Lady. As the result of a wager between two learned men, Eliza has been transformed from a street flower girl into a proper lady. But now the experiment is done, and she is turned loose. But to where? In one world, she can only ever be an imposter; in the other world, she has changed too much to go back and belong. “What am I fit for?!” she cries.

I feel that agony sometimes. I want the luxury of fully belonging to one home and one culture, of not being different or feeling misplaced.

But this strange in-between space is also held in the hand of my loving Father. Today, that is enough. And tomorrow it will be too.