Yes, Ms. Deirdre Sullivan, I agree.

My friend recently shared this from NPR's "This I Believe" series.

When my grandfather and his wife died, a long, long line of people came to the services and testified to us of the love and compassion my grandparents had shared with them. Friends far away sent love and thoughts and prayers--and even oranges. Dear friends nearby cooked, cleaned our apartment and my car, and washed weeks of dirty laundry for us so we could get about putting our lives back together.

Yes, Ms. Deirdre Sullivan, I agree. Always go to the funeral. Always do what you can.

Pacing

Thanksgiving Day, I made cranberry sauce, stuffing, and pumpkin cheesecake bars.  I also hand-squeezed 29 limes to make Honduran-style limeade.  Not the best idea I ever had, but I was proud of myself nonetheless.  Michael worked a full day.

The Friday after Thanksgiving, while Michael was away at work again, I studied for the GRE, I picked up around the house, I updated two of the remaining bank accounts that still had my maiden name, and I caught up on the flex spending account reimbursement applications.

Saturday, I went with Michael and our friend D to Atlantic City to volunteer with a non-profit called Hope 4 AC.  We met up with some other volunteers to clear out a couple of houses that had been flooded during Hurricane Sandy.  We mostly tore up the existing floors, took out some kitchen cabinets, pulled down some drywall, carried out a lot of moldy-wet wood, and swept up the dust and debris.

Each night ended with a get-together: Thursday with the Viera extension, Friday with the primos, and Saturday with an old friend.

Sunday, we were exhausted.  There was plenty more to do: laundry, dishes, schoolwork... We came home from church and found Signs on TV.  We decided to sit down and watch that for a little while.  Michael fell asleep.  I found a game to play on the iPad.  And I was thankful for a Sabbath, a day of rest.

Cousins

My cousin, G, is getting married in less than a week, so for her bachelorette, we headed up north to T's house for a mini weekend getaway.  We ate food, we drank wine, we giggled, we talked, we played games...we even went for a morning hike, and a indulged a midday cooking class.

When we were little, in our recent-immigrant skin, with parents that worked too many hours because life in this country is hard, G, A, and I spent a lot of time together.  In the years between 1992 and 1997, we ran a lot of races, climbed a number of backyard obstacle courses, took a lot of trips to the public library, watched a lot of PBS, buried at least one time capsule, and put on at least one fashion show.

And then in 1997 a lot of things began to change.  Eventually, I moved away.  I arrived back to New Jersey two weeks before A's wedding.  I'd been gone for seven years, traversed three continents in that time, crossed international borders 15 times, slept in too many airports.  Sun-burned and jet-lagged, I returned just in time for A to walk down the aisle to the man she'd fallen in love with.  A lot happens in seven years.

I had planned to stay in New Jersey only a few weeks.  Wanderlust is powerful, and we had planned a journey through the Midwest and the Southwest, eventually reaching the Pacific coast.  But the love of family is powerful, too.  As we sank into the comfort of familiar faces, Michael and I realized we were travel-weary, too many years of too many planes, and the wanderlust faded.  We decided to stop, to rest, to learn to be family with these people who do it so well.

In these three years, there have been weddings, births, and deaths.  Some have graduated, some have started new degrees.  Some are launching careers, some are mastering managing homes.  All of us are settling into our adult lives.  This pace is different than the pace we used to keep when we were kids.  Things keep changing and we don't get enough long, lazy afternoons eating ice cream cups and watching cartoons.  So, our mini weekend getaway, as the youngest of the Viera-Flores girls prepares to march down the aisle, played out--inadvertently I think--like a "throw back" to the mid-1990s.  We changed the locale and added some new faces, with T and L and the little ones, Ab, E, and R, but we still overate, we still laughed too hard, we still shared secrets, and managed to include one obstacle course in the form of a morning hike through Tillman's Ravine.

How wonderful, after fifteen years of too many changes, to arrive back to the glory of childhood: adventures with cousin.

Authenticity

Some people are better than others at being authentic.  They're people comfortable in their own skin, so self-aware that nothing is off the table for discussion, not their fears, not their failures, not their insecurities.  They navigate taboo topics effortlessly--almost defiantly, but never forcefully.  They, unlike the rest of us, do not rush ahead to the end of the conversation weaving through guilt and shame, just hoping, hoping to come out unscathed.  No, these people arrive gracefully, short-comings in hand.

My friend, T, is one of those people, unabashed in a way that is so comforting, so refreshing, so safe.
Her authenticity is like a salve on a tender burn, seeping deeply into a wound that has no other way to heal.

I had the pleasure of spending some time with T yesterday, doing the most authentic thing possible: getting coffee at a gas station--how much more real does life get than an empty gas tank and a caffeine headache?  And as we shared our troubles in turn, wrestling together through our most recent manifestations of imperfection, I began to find myself again.  This woman with her permanent judgement-free zone, with her open-air baggage was making space for me to realize me.

I don't think we much value authenticity; we don't strive for it.  We make do, feigning humility when our faults embarrass us; boasting when they give us an edge, give us footing.   People like T are rare, people with natural gifting that allows them to rise above our ordinary obsessions with saving-face.  For them, authenticity is not a skill, learned by training and refined by practice, it's just something they carry with them like a charm on a bracelet.  Good for them, we shrug, unaffected by their grace.

But I am beginning to think that authenticity might be worth learning, for those us of who aren't so good at it. T, who is willing to unfold the dark corners of herself, helps me to understand that our respective brokenness is worth knowing--that it is not worth hiding--because it creates a space for us to be known and to begin to heal.  T's authenticity blesses me and teaches me that I could bless others, if only I could be so open as her.  That if I stopped being so concerned with who I want people to think I am, and became more concerned about who we all really are, we could start getting somewhere.

And I wonder if this isn't what the bloodied Savior was telling us all along, this God-man come to earth to listen to demon-men and prostitutes and swindlers and thieves unravel their stories, come to earth to eat with them in their homes and walk along with them on their roads.  And, because the only way to heal brokenness is to be broken, He who is Perfection allowed himself to be broken in the utmost, took on all our faults, to create a space for us to be known through eternity.

Send-offs and Farewells

Up until a few months ago, the island of Malta and I were completely unaware of each other in this mutual bliss that was far more commonplace before the age of the internet. But now, me and Malta have a mutual friend in Raquel, who today departed for a 13 month dual master's program. Yesterday, I spent the day in DC enjoying lunch with an eclectic group of individuals that only Raquel has a knack for gathering, then driving through and around the city as she made some last minute preparations.

Before I left for DC, when Michael and I were talking about the financial and logistical implications of traveling through the mid-Atlantic states, Michael said to me, "Whoa. You won't see Raquel for a whole year." I laughed. I met Raquel when I was 14 and she has since been among my dearest friends. But within the last twelve years of our friendship, we've spanned up to twelve timezones and, between the two of us, relocated across state lines seven times. We've only lived in the same town for about two and a half of those twelve years. So when he said, "Whoa. You won't see Raquel for a whole year," I laughed. "I've done it before, " I responded.

I have, since returning to the United States, felt more of the bitter part of the bittersweet truth that the more you see the world, the more isolated you become. I have great friends everywhere--except wherever I currently find myself. It's the trick to being the new guy, the sojourner, the foreigner. I have been wondering, these last 26 months, if it's really worth it, if the intensity of new experiences is a fair trade off for the comfort of long-term intimacy.

But yesterday, as I followed left-right-stay-in-this-lane-go-around-the-square driving directions between stories about such-and-such-in-recent-days and the-waiter-at-the-restaurant and down-that-street-is-where-I-used-to-live, I felt more that sweet part of the bittersweet that means that it is possible to maintain that long-term intimacy across state lines and timezones and oceans and continents. I want to believe it's not only possible but feasible. And in Raquel, it's easy for me to believe that it is.

So me and Malta are becoming pleasantly acquainted, now seated together as part of that eclectic group of individuals only Raquel has a knack for gathering.

More Travel Poems

The hottest summer, they said,
in 30 years, they said.
We got on a plane and flew south;
I huddled next to you,
wrapped up in my corduroy blazer,
cursing the AC in the airport and on the plane.
The moment we landed, we dashed out to the Texan sun
letting the hot air welcome us with its warm embrace.
And while those around us cursed the weather,
We relished our homecoming to warmer climes.



I am wondering whether this is a fair exchange
This globetrotting lifestyle:
eyes filled with images of far-flung places
feet dusty and worn from many miles.
I am wondering if all this beauty
was really worth all this wandering,
if being there is worth not being here.
The problem, I think, is that with each new locale
there's also new people,
people with eyes full of images of places I have yet to go
and with feet dusty and worn from the miles their lives have traveled along.
The problem is that everywhere I am,
there is a multitude of these people somewhere else.

More Thoughts on Family

Today I got an email from my good friend, Robbie about the haps in his life over the last few months. This email was in response to a series of emails written by people I lived and worked with while I was in still overseas.

I smiled as I read the email, excited for him and his new wife, about God's leading in their life, about his new job and the cool new opportunities it brings...Just like I was excited to hear about Melissa, and Ross, and SamandJoan (in my mind SamandJoan are actually only one person) and all the haps in their lives. And when I got to the end of Robbie's email, I sighed the way content people do and I thought to myself, "It's good to catch up with family."

And then I had the sudden realization that Robbie, Melissa, Ross, and SamandJoan are not actually related to me. That we share no bloodline and except through an arranged marriage of our children/grandchildren, we probably will never be "related" to each other.

But we are family in the way that the intensity of our shared experience, coupled with the Faith and Spirit that binds us, AND the similarity of our hopes and ambitions for the present life make us Family. And I thought about other people in our lives who are significant in this way, and I missed them greatly and ached for eternity.

It is indeed good to keep up with Family.