where there is no circus

If anyone needs me, you can find me in the front yard replenishing my vitamin D supply while I watch Bronwyn run barefoot and blow bubbles.

To say that we are excited to be outside again after surviving the tundra months is an understantement. If you live in the North East United States, I know you’re feelin’ me. Brutal, man. Brutal. I’m not entirely sure how we made it through but I know every individual and family had their own version of a battle plan.

I sure did. I prayed. And wept. And watched far too much HGTV. I slid my way down the hill for church and one other weekly interaction with humans. I flipped pages on the calendar. I jokingly harassed my husband in Zambia for never wearing a shirt because it was “too hot.” I waged war against SAD. I referred to my maternity leave as exile. I slept for nine hours a night. I sang the hallelujah chorus when we broke freezing. I was unapologetically melodramatic. I held on.

The one thing that made it all doable was the realization that, for me, this was all temporary. Next December through April, the chitlins and I will be religiously applying sunblock. We will not fear for the safety of our ears in the two minutes it takes to get the mail. We will SEE THE NEIGHBORS MORE THAN ONCE A FORTNIGHT.

Living in Zambia has shown me over and over that human beings were never meant to live in isolation. The cold keeps Americans locked away in ways that are unhealthy even for us introverts. And what I discovered in this season of cold hibernation is that, unfortunately, no one feels the sequester more than the stay at home moms.

I actually started to think of myself as a priosoner or war, (or maybe a nut house patient,) as all the hours of all the days were filled with imaginary play and the merging of my brain with that of my child. The days wore on and on. I longed to send her outside to find nature-based entertainment, but every time I opened the back door to chuck a poopy diaper into the garage, I felt the bite and remembered just how much nature hated us.

I would like to see a correlated graph of winter temps and wine consumption of NE housewives. Because had I not been pregnant… mmhm. A local analgesic is exactly what I needed. I love one-on-one time with Bronwyn - I really do. I think she’s the greatest. She’s the short, blonde love of my life and I can’t get enough of her.

But Zambia has ruined me. It’s all I’ve ever known in the realm of mommy-hood, and I now see that I’ve been conditioned to be a very specific kind of mother. My entire parenting strategy and my ability to invest solid chunks of love and happy feelings into our home while still feeling like a fully functional, sane adult, is completely dependent on this: the circus showing up at our house every day to lend me a hand.

I’m a little ashamed to admit this because Bronwyn is surely an amazing kid, but I maintain that I am a happy parent because I willingly outsource 90% of the kiddie play to the other kiddies who never run out of imagination and youthful nonsense.

This is our Zam-life. Every day, for all seasons. Including “winter.” I could set my clock by the prompt morning arrival of short people at my door. I live for this cycle because it is during the play time of the tinies that I do absolutely anything I want to. I clean. I write. I prepare. I plan. I do my job. I think grown up thoughts. I am mindful of what’s happening out there – I know these kids lack certain “be careful” brain cells, so I am always peripherally paying attention, but otherwise, I am FREE. It is the most beautiful system ever and I still cannot fathom how the perennial Tundra Moms survive without it.

But the US vs. ZM contrast gets worse. It is mid-May here and the tuplis and my belly are both in full bloom and the sweet refrain of our days is “Hey girl! You wanna go outside?” The fresh air is lifegiving indeed, but the SAD sticks with me in some ways. I think I had an expectation that with the rising temps I’d start to feel more Zambian – more at home. But there was one thing that I miscalculated. Despite the return of the sun, we still don’t have a circus.

I shed a tear when I took this picture (true story). 

All of this wide-open space and a grand total of one little person. In my former life, I would expect this hospitable land to be occupied by no less than a hundred short and sweet humans. I mean, we have BUBBLES here, so clearly this is the place to be. And yet, my kiddo is all by herself.

She’s happy enough, gloriously flexible and low maintenece that my child is, but my heart sinks a little knowing what it will take to give her the gift of socialization: a play date. My Zambian nose wrinkles at every mention of play dates. As much as I love them – oh, how do I say this without sounding heinous – ok I confess, I just don’t. You see, the beauty of the circus coming to my house to play is that I can then disappear and do my thing, whereas with a play date, I’m still obligated to be present and attentive and participate in the kid world. Sure I have another mom to talk to, and I do love that! But it also means I get no ME time. No writing, no planning, no thinking of the deep thoughts.

America has disrupted my rhythm. I have zero mojo. I have not blogged since NOVEMBER because my braincells have gone to mush.

Dear Lord, get me back to the circus.

I will never again complain about excessive noise or over-crowding in my living room and I willingly accept the consequence of a neighbor kids peeing on my floor every afternoon because it will mean friendship for my children and precious freedom for me and that is worth all the golden eggs in the world.

And simultaneously, I’m so sorry, Tundra moms, that while I’m escaping back to happy circus land, you are stuck here, and will endure again, and again. I don’t even know what to say other than I will light candles for you.  You are clearly on a higher latitude of motherhood and have transcended to heights of enlightenment of which I can only dream. You are strong and resilient, steady and amazing. I pray that you are the recipient of random acts of kindness and that bouquets of flowers randomly appear on your kitchen counter. I hope that when your tinies are grown and no longer needing your constant entertainment and play-date-planning, that all the people will rise and call you blessed. 

I already am.

letting the hard prompt our thanksgiving

I’ve been a little absent from the blog world as of late.

Short answer – I’m tired.

Explanation – I’m pregnant.

I’ve been living on a tilt-a-whirl eating nothing but gym socks while being forced to listen to Justin Bieber on repeat for more than 8 weeks now. Every time I’ve thought about blogging, I’ve realized I have nothing positive to say – nothing inspiration or whitty or shareable because once you are on there is no getting off the tilt-a-whirl.

And yet when I get like this I’m always reminded of the things I’ve learned from my good friend Ann. I’ve never met my good friend Ann, but I’ve told Jeremy many times that I want to move to Canada to live next to Ann because, well, that little book she wrote a while back – that New YorkTimes Best Seller – has perhaps been the most significant book in my spiritual formation of the last half decade and this makes me want to sell all and become and pig farmer and homeschool and chase moons just to spend time with thiswoman who taught me the discipline of gratitude.

The greatest lesson I’ve learned from Ann and the discipline of thanksgiving is the importance of giving thanks in the hard. To take the things which are less than ideal and use them as prompts for today’s – and every day’s – Thanksgiving. I knew today that I needed to do this for my own sake – to take my laundry list of hard and transform it into gratitude. And when I was all done I thought maybe I’d go ahead and share it with you all, because maybe on this day of Thanksgiving, maybe you need to do the same.

Italicized whiny prompts are followed by bold declarations of thanks. I’m confident you’ll get the idea. May this inspire you to sit and eat your turkey and when its your turn at the table to say what you are thankful for – may you not give a canned answer of “I'm thankful for my family and friends” but may you use the hard prompts to choose transformative gratitude, and be blessed.

~~

I’m tired or being tired. Thank you for naps and that I really am still logging a good number of hours at night.

She's so perky. I'm so jealous.

I’m travel weary. Thank you that we’ve made all of our connections and have had vehicles to use in between.

mmhm. we made it.

I’m pretty done with living out of a suitcase and always sleeping in other people’s homes. Thank you for the true abundance of hospitality we have experienced in the form of food, beds and friendship.

THIS is hospitality.

I’m bored to tears with giving the same presentation over and over… and over. Thank you for the overwhelmingly positive responses we’ve received time and time again.

I like to call this picture "death by furlough" 

I’m sick of throwing up. Thank you that there is a healthy growing baby inside of me, and that I have been able to keep every speaking engagement despite the nausea.

I'm smiling, but I feel like this on the inside.

It’s winter now and I’m part African and therefore freezing cold. Thank you for the kind souls that have given us sweatshirts and/or turned on their heat.

At least it stayed warm long enough for us to play outside!

And a few more for which there are no pictures...

I’m tired of having pregnancy brain and not being able to think. Thank you for grace in the moment – lifting the fog long enough to let me answer a question intelligently or for plugging people’s ears when I clearly can’t think any more.

I’m through with spending/talking about money in this crazy country. Thank you for the money we have raised. Thank you for meeting our needs and giving us confidence in the vision you’ve placed on our hearts.

I’m tired of missing “home.” Thank you for the ability to skype with Zambia and for the amazing fellowship of the amazing people that have loved on us here.

I’m exhausted from worrying about Jeremy’s departure. (This is the hardest one, because I’m still worrying about it. Jeremy goes back to Zambia on Tuesday and Bronwyn and I return to New York and I’m weepy and confused about how we are going to cope. I’m having to dig deep to find any gratitude regarding this upcoming separation.) And still, thank you that there is a work happening in Zambia worthy enough of our time, attention, and even our separation. Thank you for cell towers that allow us to call each other. Thank you for a safe place for Bronwyn and I to stay while I finish growing this baby.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE!

the culture of motherhood: peeing on sticks

Ok confession time for all the moms – raise ‘em up if you’ve…

a)  googled the phrase “what’s the earliest I can take a pregnancy test”

b) taken a pregnancy test before reaching four weeks

c) bought some form of baby paraphernalia the same day as taking a positive pregnancy test

No judgement, me too. 

Especially for  women who have been trying to conceive, that typical two week wait before “finding out” might as well be an eternity. Even the possibility of having a baby is kind of a big deal and the need to know (and to know NOW) can be all consuming. 

It’s also rather cultural. While early and rapid pregnancy testing is certainly not an “American” thing, it is a first-world/wealthy-people thing. In rural Zambia, pregnancy testing happens a little bit differently.

Most of my neighbor ladies get the news that they are pregnant when that bump starts to appear and when caterpillars and fish finally start to smell gross. Only a percentage of women have the opportunity to miss their periods – cycles are so influenced by extended breastfeeding that many go from nursing to pregnant to nursing to pregnant without ever receiving a visit from aunt flo. Those whose periods have returned since their last child are not used to charting cycles or jotting down the first day of the LMP which eliminates thinking about probably dates of conception.

The general attitude towards "am I pregnant???" amongst my neighbor ladies is, “If I’m pregnant, I’m pregnant. And if I’m not, I’m not.” 

Rational. Accepting. Calm.

This is a far cry from the American woman rushing to the drug store, buying a test, pacing around the bathroom waiting to see the magical line appear, and then basing her entire emotional state on the result. From the percentages listed on the box assuring accuracy 5 days, 4 days, 3/2/1 days before a period is missed, its pretty clear that the pregnancy test manufacturers know that we simply CAN. NOT. WAIT. And for the most part, they're right. 

I’ve never explained this process to my neighbor ladies – I don’t care to furnish them with any more evidence that Americans are high strung. But I can hear their rebuttal now:   

“So you just needed to“know”… know what? Know that your body is producing hormones? Know that your chance of miscarrying is now one in four? You want to get all hyper just to be devastated if you loose it all in 48 hours? If you are going to carry the baby to term, God is in charge of that – no magic stick can predict the future. This is silly. Just chill.”

I’m sure that if my neighbor ladies knew more about the typical American pregnancy, they would aptly point out the thread of impatience strung through the entire process: in needing to know whether we are pregnant, in clinging to a due date; in reacting to wrong due dates with induction; in compulsive re-checking for dilation; in ripping the baby out when it takes too long. “Tsk, tsk, tsk. Ya’ll just can’t wait for anything, can you?”

Having had two miscarriages, and having tested too early on a dozen other occasions, I have to agree with my neighbor ladies that the over-priced, over-hyped pregnancy tests really aren’t worth more than the box they are sold in. They provide us with a false sense of security and a misplaced charge to start planning for what is, in reality, a rather unforeseeable future. And what’s worse, they set in motion the emotional characteristics of an unsettled, impatient, reactionary journey of motherhood.

Having absorbed at least some Zam-woman wisdom in recent days, Jeremy and I made a decision to cool it significantly after our last attempt to conceive. If we were pregnant, my body would let us know. And if we weren't, my body would let us know that too.

When I was three weeks late, throwing up and crying over insurance commercials, I looked at Jeremy, pukey and weepy and said, “who needs a pregnancy test?” We laughed, I threw up, and we continued on our merry, trusting way.

Now at ten weeks, having seen a heartbeat, we are being wise in making plans for the future, hoping in God’s good intentions for our family. We are certainly not living in an ignorant land of que sera sera. But we do notice an emotional shift now in this pregnancy, distinctive from that of previous – not presuming to know more than we do or extend our certainty/anxiety/hyper-activity beyond the bounds of what we know TODAY.

this is what we know.

Neighbor ladies – you’re right more often than you give yourselves credit for. Thank you for being beautiful pregnant women, for teaching us to listen to our bodies, and for doing it all with such calm and trusting spirits.

ten reasons why America's grass is so not greener

Ex-pats live with the constant temptation to compare everything in their host country to its equivalent back in their country of origin. The size of the burgers. The straightness of the lines at the supermarket. The uniforms in the schools. The preaching styles in the churches. The weather. The accent. The everything.

Compare. Compare. Compare.

Of course, all of this comparison feels rather insightful and warrented. After all, we are just pointing out the obvious. Getting to know our environment via points of comparison seems logical, if not rather academic. Besides, if the burgers really are wimpy and the lines disorganized, and the sun hotter than the dickens, then I’m serving the intellectural curiosity of the ex-pat world by pointing these things out.

But what I’ve found in my years abroad is that loneliness can moonlight as a deceptive informant. Sometimes, living abroad can cause us to long for our home-country in ways that are less than honest. After months of engaging the hard fight of adaptation in a foreign country with different customs and different priorities, remembering the familiarity and ease of a place where you “get it” and where you know people “get you” translates all thoughts about said country into some version of flowing with milk and honey.

I do it too. The silent conversation in my brain goes, “that’s where my mother is and there is no malaria and THEREFORE the grass is always green and the food is always delicious and the people are always friendly and…"

Mmhmm.

For whatever reason, I’ve really paid attention on this America trip to all the ways that that glowing vision of America - the one I all too easily carry around with me in Zambia - is pitifully far from the truth.

Here are just ten ways that America’s grass is so not greener:

1. You have just as many potholes as we do.

We bent a rim going 2 miles per hour down a main road in New York. Jeremy’s only words were, “What is this, Zambia?”

2. Have you seen your traffic? Do not even try to travel on I5 in or out of LA between the hours of 3 and 10 pm unless you hate yourself.

3. You don’t know your neighbors.

Or maybe you know their names. But for the most part, you aren't all up in their business, and you certainly aren’t popping over to say hi every time you are bored.

4. Winter and SAD. Bronwyn is losing her baby diaper tan. The struggle is real.

Seasonal Affective Disorder claims the happiness of millions of people every winter. This does not exist in sunny beautiful Zambia.

this is my child in the dead of winter in Zambia. 

5. Your kids don’t interact with the earth.

I die every time I read yet another preschool blog includingsensory boxes. Where is the mud, and why aren’t your kids playing in it?!?!?

6. Friendships are scheduled.

Play dates, coffee dates – if you want to get your kids together with other kids or if you want to catch up with your girlfriends, there is going to be a calendar involved. This sounds like business - not friendship - to many cultures around the world.

it did not take three weeks of coordinating iPhone calendars to capture this picture

7. You still filter your water (of which there is a shortage).

It feels kind of wonky to me that we are fundraising for water development amongst people who still have to filter their own water. Every time I see a Brita, I think, Where are we???

8. Schools are not that good.

Ok I know Fimpulu Primary doesn’t even deserve to be called a school, but the more I hear teachers complain about the common core and parents lament bullying and teen sexting and all forms of garbage, I realize, I’d homeschool my kids on either continent.

9. It takes ya’ll forever to figure out what to eat – and then you feel guilty for eating it.

The number of food options available to people is clearly stress inducing. The choices, the demand of creativity and variety – food has become decision debacle for many. AND, to top it off, because of America’s thin obsession means that people loathe themselves after eating the gorgeous meal they just spent hours picking out and fixing.

Only a few weeks before leaving Zambia,
we bought our first oven.
I am currently flipping out with
the new expanded options for cooking.

10. You live to work and you work to live. America has seemingly sold its soul.

The orientation around work is still  the hardest thing for me to watch when we come back to the states. Tired as dogs, working to get ahead, another day, another dollar. Is there not more to life?

Bonus! 11. Pinterest shaming. I've never felt less crafty/creative/trendy/decorative in my life.

People in America say to us quite often, “I don’t know how you live over there!” To which I can now confidently respond, “I don’t know how you live here!” Get me to the land of sunshine where I can pop in to see my friends without an appointment and where weight gain is applauded; where my daughter interacts with legitimate nature and work ends whenever I darn well please. Hallelujah.

This little sojourn in America has been good for me – helping me see all the things that are bright and beautiful back in my other country. So thanks for your imperfections, America. You help me love Zambia more and more every day.