Hope

I'm not a hopeful person by nature. In fact, I've struggled my entire life with "staying positive" and "looking on the bright side." My parents know I have the tendancy to feel "blue," and my poor, dear sister has served as my therapist for years. 

I know plenty of amazing people to whom optimism seems to come naturally (a true gift!)- and I envy them. I really do. For me, hope, is a constant decision. And sometimes a bit of a battle.

The strange thing about this phenomenon, is when I look back on my life, I'm quite happy with what has transpired. I have so much to be grateful for. And I can easily see how difficult times and challenges worked to strengthen me and my family. But most often, I complained my way through those times instead of trying to focus on the positive.

Remaining hopeful in the midst of a difficult moment - that's where I struggle.

A confession: I find it easiest to stay positive when I've got a trip planned - when I have something to look forward to.  Then somehow the daily grind, the frustrations, the annoyances seem more bearable. (I'm not rambling - really, I'm just putting all the pieces together to make a point soon).

I've been putting aside $20 a week for the past four and a half years to celebrate our 20th Wedding Anniversary which occurs this October. (Again, not rambling, just building to a revelation.) For four and half years I've envisioned something grand. Italy maybe? A biking tour in South France? Or even a cozy bed and breakfast in New England with the autumn colors. Something memorable.

Yet, in the past two weeks, I've decided to spend the money on something else entirely.  In nothing short of a miracle, Elise was offered the opportunity to travel with Madi to Hong Kong for the Amis choir. She was the alternate and was offered a chance to go just days before the actual event. Because our family is working on some other dreams (aka a new house in Virginia), funds were scarce. So almost without hesitation, I cashed in a chunk of my 20th Anniversary Fund to help pay for her to go. And you know what? I was happy to do it. (And a HUGE thanks to grandma and grandpa who also made it possible for her to go.)

Then last night. Owen and the kids were offered the opportunity to join dear, dear friends of ours on a Spring Break trip to north Bali. (I will be traveling with a high school service trip to Uganda - so won't be able to join them). Again, I cashed in some of the anniversary funds to make it happen. And again, it made me feel very happy.

 

The anniversary fund has now dwindled far below any dreams I envisioned. I gave it up, NOT because I'm selfless (far from it! I'm still very selfish). I did it because I know the power of an incredible trip. 

And because I HOPE. 

I hope my daughters' experience with music, culture, and travel will be as magically wonderful as the ones I've been blessed to have. I hope the memories they make together will carry them through future difficult times. I hope my family will enjoy their time in Bali. I hope they will look back at their snorkeling and beach adventures with joy.

 

(Elise and Madi in Hong Kong)

 

(The JIS girls in Hong Kong)

Somehow my hope for the people I love outweighed my own selfish desires. This is a rare (perhaps non-existant) accomplishment until now.

Maybe it's being 40 - I'm practicing being a REAL adult now. Or maybe I'm just starting to learn something that those people who innately live their lives with hope have already figured out. Sometimes hoping for others, and acting on that hope, turns into happiness.

  

 

I've still got A LOT of work to do. I'm still not good at flipping on the "positive switch." But I hope my family knows how much I love them.

"Hope has the power to fill our lives with happiness." - Dieter F. Uchtdorf

I know this is true.

2.5 years later...

Catching up on some things I've been thinking about...

Two and a half years ago I flew from Virginia to Indonesia with the five children. I did this without the help of my husband who had already traveled to Jakarta two weeks prior. My survival of this experience with five children was made possible by my very mature oldest two daughters (then only 11 and 9 years old who I promoted to adult status for the 24 hours of travel) and the calming virtue of Xanax for me (sorry Mom, it's true). Our flight included a stopover in Hong Kong which I wrote briefly about here.

This January, we took the same flight again. And again, I was solo without Owen. The kids and I ended up in the same Hong Kong terminal. Same waiting area. Same view of the emerald mountains of behind the city of Hong Kong. Same shops and restaurants. So much sameness it prompted an easy comparison of the two experience. I had some quiet moments in the airport while the kids were reading or watching Adventure Time on the huge tv (did I mention that Hong Kong is a GREAT airport?) to think about how we've changed and how we've remained the same.

Here's what I came up with: 

1) Traveling is a lot easier with older children. I actually got relatively good sleep on the airplane (except when I sat by the drugged, drooling man), and even got to watch a couple movies. 

2) I did not need to use Xanax (though I had a few with me, just in case). I'm much calmer than I was two years ago. Perhaps it's exhaustion or laziness, but I was pretty chill. 

3) I really love watching my children be independent. They are champs when it comes to security checks and customs. We have the process down: Madi goes first to collect my purse and laptop on the other side. I go last to help everyone else through. Jackets off. Shoes off. No liquids. Etc.

4) Teenager-hood. Whoa. Whole different ballgame. Enough said.  

5) The emerald mountains of Hong Kong are still enchanting.

6) The bowl of noodles is still the best Truman has ever had. After enjoying a first bite he announced, "They're just as good as I remember." 

Two and a half years ago, the traveling was a HUGE hurdle, a challenge, a test of my patience and survival parenting skills. This time, it was more than do-able. It was, at times, even fun.

I hope in the future as I face trials and challenges, I can look back on this comparison and find strength. Some things do get easier.  

My Thoughts about "40"

Sunday night there was panic. Sheer panic. Some of my thoughts: What? How can I be turning 40? Real adults are 40. I can't possibly live up to real adulthood. I haven't published my book yet (I guess I'll never be the next Stephenie Meyer). Crap. Crap. Crap. It's an uphill battle from here. I'll never be younger. I'll never have less wrinkles--at least not without surgery. I'll never feel less-tired. I cannot adequately celebrate my 40th birthday without some stupendous, exotic trip. I'm thinking Italy. (There also may have been some feet-stomping, and other not-mature-40ish-behavior).

My husband listened patiently.

Monday morning I had a good, therapeutic chat with my fellow English teacher Gina. She gets me. Her advice, "Take a personal day and go hike a mountain, or lounge on a beach, or visit a volcano." I looked up some flights to Bali during my break.

I posed the idea to my husband that night. Again, he listened patiently.

Tuesday morning I had a good facebook exchange with Karen. She gets me. She told me what I needed to remember. Plus she said she'd join me on a pilgrimage to NYC to see Les Mis this fall.

I told my husband. And, you guessed it, he listened patiently.

Finally, I woke up Wednesday (with only 48 hours left of being 39 years old) and I started a mental list of all the things I'd done so far in my life. I thought I'd aim for 40 cool things. My list looked like this:

1. I married the man I truly love.
2. I carried six children in my womb (2 at the same time!)
3. I've cried over a miscarriage.
4. I've seen the northern lights.
5. I kayaked with my Dad in the Pacific ocean (and saw whales).
6. I ran a marathon.
7. I danced and sang on a stage in Russia.
8. I studied Shakespeare in England.
9. I've admired the twinkling lights of Paris from the Eiffel tower.
10. I ate dinner on a rooftop in Rome with a view of the colosseum.
11. I swam in the blue ocean of Bali.
12. I applied for grad school and was rejected. I applied again and earned a Master's from Georgetown.
13. I've known the peace of rocking my own sleeping baby.
14. I've taught my favorite book to a classroom full of students.
15. I've cheered for my children on the sidelines of many soccer fields.
16. I listened to a symphony at the Opera House in Sydney.
17. I ran for student body president (and lost).
18. I've made my own raspberry jam.
19. I've taken my daughter to the temple in Preston, England.
20. I've laughed, shopped, and cried with my sisters.
21. I've mastered baking with yeast dough.
22. I've been blessed with incredible friends.
23. I've been poor, as in not-enough-money to pay rent and buy groceries poor.
24. I've enjoyed lemon gelato in Florence, Italy.

The list goes on.

Somewhere in the 30s, I realized I didn't need to go anywhere special or exotic or exciting for my birthday. The past 40 years have been incredibly full - full of ups and downs, victories and stupendous failures, memories upon memories upon memories.

I can only be grateful.

So instead of some grand adventure, my 40th birthday looks something like this:
An early morning run in the black Jakarta morning.
Chocolate cake with my English department.
A day of teaching.
Baskin Robins Ice Cream with my kids on the way home from school.
Pie making.
Mexican dinner with family and friends.
Board games with kids.

Perfect.

The Flood

We drive in the rain. Two of the three roads out of our Kemang neighborhood are blocked with water. Our only choice is to sit on Kemang Raya in the long line behind cars and trucks. Only the motocycles seem to be making progress down the road by squeezing through seemingly impossible tight spaces. Their tires send a spray of muddy water. I am grateful for a dry car. Even if we're moving by inches.

After thirty minutes to travel 20 yards (yes, I know it would be faster to walk - probably faster to crawl), we turn off Kemang Raya and see reason for the backup. The street ahead is flooded, but still passable. The water comes to midwheel. As I watch motorcycles stall out with water in their exhaust pipes, I am again grateful for my car.

We cross the bridge, I have a clear view of the river. The caramel brown water surges past the manmade barriers, invading local houses, turning empty lots into swamps, and threatening to submerge the bridge on which we're driving. Due to our snail-slow pace, I get a lengthy view of a house near the river. It is a cement house. Clothes still hang on a line - pink shorts, a tattered once-white shirt, and jeans turned inside out - getting drenched in the rain. I'm sure the owners have much more to worry about than wet laundry. Soon I can see the front of the house. A man crouches in the doorway. Behind him, water spills over the back entrance (on the river side), like a waterfall. He holds a plastic orange pail. He scoops the muddy river water out of his house and dumps it on the other side of his front stoop. Again and again.

The rate of his scooping is no match for the waterfall pouring in his back door. And I wonder at the sight. Why doesn't he give up? Does he see how futile his efforts are? However, instead of desperation (a look which I'm sure I would have if faced with the same circumstances) his expression is one of determination.

I watch him until we turn off the street. I feel a strange mix of pity and admiration for him. I think of him often through out the rest of my week.

***

Five years ago, I faced a waterfall coming through my basement window (when my dear friends Thomas Johns and the Peterson boys came to our rescue). Oh that was horrific. But since then, my "waterfalls" have been different. They aren't literal. Instead, they come in the form of decision making, mothering, guilt, feeling inadequate, laziness, feeling overwhelmed -- any seemingly insurmountable obstacle. Life is full of them.

I hope I can face my obstacles more like this Indonesian man in the Jakarta flood. I hope I can look ahead, not behind me at the water pouring in. I hope I can stay determined, and keep trying even if its with small, continual efforts. Pail by pail. Scoop by scoop.

Poppy's Helicopter

About thirty years ago my Dad transferred from the Army to the Coast Guard. Our family moved from Alabama to Port Angeles, Washington and our life completely changed. That was the beginning of many adventures. I always took pride in my Dad's heroic job. I liked visiting him at the air base and seeing him in uniform. But I only had a vague sense of the dangers and risks he faced as a search and rescue helicopter pilot. 

When we moved to Sitka, Alaska I started to get a clearer picture of my Dad's job. This was where the storms were more frequent and unpredictable, where the Coast Guard pilots marched in the Alaska Day parade, and more than once when my Dad was in uniform a fisherman (usually a complete stranger) would come up to thank my Dad for the job he was doing.   

So while visiting Seattle this holiday it was very special to go to Boeing's Flight Museum and see the very aircraft my Dad flew on display. 

 Dad brought his flight log and showed us how the number on the outside of the aircraft, 1415, matched his log entries. He recounted some of his missions: the medevac of the wife of a lighthouse worker to a hospital when she went into labor, searching for missing fishing boats, and routine flights. 

I hope my kids caught a glimpse of the adventurous and important job their Grandpa did.

 My Dad did his best to convince this next generation to consider becoming a pilot.

Who knows? Maybe there will be another pilot in the family...

Home

Lately, I've been thinking about the idea of "Home." It was soooo wonderful to be back in Mississippi, Washington, and Virginia this holiday season. But it was also a bit strange to see these places and people I love with new eyes. Eyes that have become accustomed to seeing poverty, concrete, traffic, and street vendors on a daily basis.

Home. I re-learned home is not a physical place. It is many physical places.

Home is Virginia.

It is Magen's house filled with people and her homemade pico de gallo. It is driving down ice-strewn Canby Road to visit Jessica with her music room, her new "wall of violins," and her most infectious laughter. It is a Zumba class with the queen of dance, Lisa. It is a tearful hug and fun lunch with Molly Kay and her now-three-year-old daughter. It is a cinnamon roll, still warm from the oven, in Karen's kitchen. It is watching my girls roller skate with friends. It is Costco. It is Target. It is dinner at Olive Garden with Allison, Rob, and Gage (oh the breadsticks!) It is a drive with Holly Davis to discover available land. It is the rolling hills of the countryside. It is the cozy town of Hamilton that brought me to tears while driving on main street.

Home is also Mississippi with canoe rides on the lake, BBC Austen movies, and jigsaw puzzles. It is Truman and Allison's gumbo, and a breakfast of grits and deer sausage. It is multiple trips to Shipley's donuts. It is watching my kids make wooden tops with their Grandad and watching Nana play "Frozen" with Charlotte.

Home is Washington. My mom's blackberry pie and potatoes au gratin. My dad's homemade hot chocolate. Home is running six miles with Katie on Soos Creek and holding my niece in a morning hug. Home is sitting on the green sofa opening Christmas presents while the electric train circled the Christmas tree. Home is family.

But home is also Jakarta.

Sometimes I feel torn. Torn between "homes." But then again, maybe all these separate pieces, these people and places that many never collide except in my own experience, actually make me whole.

New Year Celebration in Mississippi

After 36 hours of traveling (22 in the air and 14 in layovers) we arrived in Mississippi. The kids are seasoned travelers now and fared extremely well. My only complaint was the drugged dude I sat next to for 7 hours. In his sleeping stupor, he drooled and took over not only the armrest but half of my leg space too.

But being here with family and enjoying all the bounty of America was worth every second of travel.

My girls enjoyed entertaining and being entertained by our darling niece, Alyssa, who turns three next month. They also spent hours playing outside with Ducky - Truman and Mary's dog. Charlotte formed such a strong bond with Ducky that she cried when he had to leave to go back to Texas. Truman, Allison, and Nana made incredible food: gumbo, beans and rice, and a true southern breakfast with deer sausage and grits. It was a good thing Owen and I ran with Allison around the lake so we could compensate for the extra calories. 

For the first time in three years, we ate our traditional New Year's Eve dinner: Chinese take out!! Beef and broccoli, sweet and sour chicken, and shrimp fried rice. Delicious!

 We thought Elise got the best fortune in her fortune cookie:

 Bundled in layers of clothes, we sat shivering in the cold air to watch the fireworks. Nana retrieved old towels which we wrapped around our legs. Owen let the kids light the fireworks themselves with the explanation, "They'll have to learn sometime, might as well be now." Minus a singed eyebrow and a spark on Truman's lip, we avoided any injuries.

 After the fireworks we sipped hot chocolate and eggnog and watched "Persuasion" and "Becoming Jane." Elise, Owen, and I were the only ones who made it to midnight. We watched from the windows in the comfort of the toasty warm house as the lake lit up with huge fireworks and welcomed in the new year.

How we love it here. At Grandad and Nana's house. Near the beautiful lake. In America. Surrounded by family.

2014 will be a year of lots of change for our family. Our tour in Jakarta ends this summer, and we will return to Virginia. I feel excited but also very apprehensive. However, my hope for this year is to embrace the change and face any frustrations with courage. I was given a blessing at the end of summer before returning to Jakarta. In the blessing I was told "to look for the beauty" in my experiences. So that is my goal this year, to see the beauty of our experiences. And I'll do my best to help my children do the same.

After all, “Most of us are just about as happy as we make up our minds to be" (Abraham Lincoln).