I'm better than OK. I'm RESILIENT.

So, I bet you're wondering why I'm not crankin' out the blog posts.
OK, maybe not. But I'm going to write as if you were. Let's suspend disbelief together, shall we?

Verse 1: My life sucks

Our life since jumping onto this carnival-ride of international mobility has been a non-stop exercise in adjusting to change and coping with frustration.
We've lived at three different addresses within the last year.
Our bank account has been mind-bogglingly large (briefly) and empty as a guppy's mind (occasionally).
We have enjoyed 'customer service' from a large array of service providers. Sometimes the journey ended on the glittering mountaintop of customer satisfaction, but getting there always involved a trip through the valley of despair. You don't need customer service if things are working properly. We've needed a lot of customer service.

We can't get access to our usual laugh-out-loud resources without extra effort. We can't get Colbert at all. (Feel. My. Pain.) When the internet is down (which is often) we are thrown back upon our own resources. We engage in bitter gallows humor and drink a lot. Sometimes we laugh about what whiners we are. Then we sink into sullen silence and pour ourselves another stiff one. This does not apply to the boys, of course. They stick to the sullen silence alternated with books about zombies or time travel or both. To each his own.

Chorus: It's not that bad.

Our lives haven't been dropped in a blender. We aren't lone survivors of a full-on asteroid impact or unattractive bubonic-like plague. We get it.
(Those of you who know me can sing along with the refrain. You know that my favorite coping mechanism it to compare my situation to someone whose life sucks WAY worse than mine, thereby making my concerns trivial. Boot-straps, baby - GET SOME.)

Verse 2:

So far we've experienced one flat tire, one shattered side-mirror, one crunched tail-light and one wheel-clamping due to a tax-payment SNAFU. We've fixed two out of those four problems.

Our movement through this life so far is not a sashay down a primrose-lined path in elegant evening-wear. Instead, it's more like the spastic dance of a foul-mouthed, alcoholic Lithuanian forest-fire-fighter. We stomp out problems like mad, cursing a blue streak (in our heads), then plop down at a table, get a stiff drink, and start complaining.
-- Why Lithuanian, you ask? Because I think that they are the best at looking dour, complaining, swearing and drinking. If you like, you can substitute another nationality.
Regardless of the nationality of the fire-stomper, one thing he can be sure of: there'll be more fires and more stomping in his future.

Our life here is like one of those page-a-day calendars. Every day one of us gets up, tears a sheet off the calendar, and chirps, "Good morning, dear. What do you think today's random headache will be?" The other one lays in bed, jams a pillow over his/her head, and mumbles, "Shuddup."

It's been a long time coming, and it won't be particularly profound.
With that apology, to those of you who (against all reason and probability)
check back here and see what I have to say -

Well, there's a lot of romance to moving overseas.
Perhaps especially to moving to England.
Did you know Jane Austen was from England? (*pause for sit-com laugh*)
Or the Bronte sisters - all three of them? (I'm an English major - I know that there were three. On a good day I can name them all.)

England is an advanced, post-industrial country.
Jane never saw it coming: the pavement crusted with chewing-gum; the pub with alcoholics outside, smoking; the constant problems with crime, petty and not-so-; the weariness.

There's a trajectory. The Romans exemplified it. You can only be on top for so long. From there it's all decline.
Maybe England will rise again. I love its heritage enough to wish it to be so. And it's got vestigial recources. But they are tangled in forms, red tape, tradition, and a thousand strands of silver, strong cables that the past has spun.

There are other empires rising. India comes to mind. England has a lot to answer for there, and a lot to celebrate. But England is an aging parent. She wasn't a perfect mother, and she's now in the stage of looking back, wondering what's ahead for her in her attenuated existence.

Do nations hope for heaven?
I hope that this one goes there. She's given the world a lot, and for all her sins, I hope there's a reward for beauty. She's shared a lot of beauty. I thank her for that.

Coveting her epitaph

From a marble monument placed in the wall of Chichester Cathedral.

"Here lies interred the body of
MRS. FRANCES WADDINGTON,
Wife of the Right Reverend D. Edward Waddington, Lord Bishop
of CHICHESTER, Daughter of the Rev'd Mr. JONATHAN NEWBY of a
very Ancient and Reputable Family in Worcester Shire.

She was in a very Exemplary manner a Sincere Disciple and Lover
of her Blessed Saviour Jesus Christ, an eminent Pattern of
constant and regular Devotion, Tender and Affectionate in the
Highest Degree to her Relations, of great Compassion and Libe-
rality to the Afflicted and the Poor. She was Affable, Courteous,
and Friendly to all People, and always Enhanced her Favours,
by the Civil and Chearfull Manner in which She Bestowed,
While She Treated her Inferiours with Candour and
Humility. She knew well how to Maintain her Character, and
Preserve the Esteem & Respect of Persons of the First Quality.
The many Obligeing Things She constantly Did, and Said, were
the Genuine Fruits of a Christian Faith, a Fine Understanding, &
a most Sweet and Benevolent Temper, Her whole Behaviour
made her, when Liveing, the Delight and Admiration of all who
knew her, and rendered her Death an Inexpressible Loss.
After 51 Years Spent in Piety and good Offices, 29 of which
were perticularly Employed in the happy Intercourse and
Returns of Conjugal Affection, She Exchanged this mortal
Life for a Better. Sept 5 An Dom 1728

At one time, it was not odd to live a life in the hopes of such an epitaph.
Reading this, I find myself thinking that I hope that mine will be even half so warm and loving, that I will consistently display my own list of virtues. I guess I'd better start on that...

This wasn't written by her children, by the way. She had none.

Lost in the Downs

We're at the six-month mark now. Six months since we left our home for an adventurous lifestyle of itineracy around the world.
There are times when the best description for that decision is, "it seemed like a good idea at the time."
Adventures are wonderful to read about, but quite uncomfortable to live, I now see.
It is an adventure to go somewhere exotic and get a very large intestinal parasite. It is an adventure to go for a hike in a wood and get stomped on by an anxious mother moose. It is an adventure to go ice-climbing, have a rope break, and slide down a glacier into a crevasse. The Donner party had a heck of an adventure. So did the passengers on the Titanic.
Adventures are traumas we wish upon ourselves.

Now, all this seems a bit silly. We haven't moved to a jungle or desert. We've moved to a town south of London, in an area of 'Outstanding Natural Beauty.' The harshest thing one can say about the climate is that it's grey a lot of the time. Oh, woe is me! I'll have to carry an umbrella!

The food is conveniently available in ordinary ways (grocery stores), mildly exotic ways (outdoor markets), pricey ways (boutique shops), and very pricey ways (in restaurants). I have not had to dig up and cook grubs, process the poison out of cassava roots, or eat unidentifiable body parts from unidentifiable animals.

Transportation is easy and very western. You can buy a car and whiz around in it to your heart's content. You can go anywhere you want. No check-points, no armed drivers, and plenty of sat-nav signal. No camels, no rickshaws, no canoeing into leech-infested tributaries. If you want to bike or bus or take the train and tube, you can. And you can walk all you like, anywhere you like. There are sign-posted and mapped walking paths all over the place. They offer an alternative travel experience - on the paths you can go where cars aren't allowed. It's like traveling through a system of rabbit's burrows or worm-holes through space.

And shelter, while outrageously expensive, is entirely adequate. We live in a 3-story town-house sort of thing, mashed between many identical units. We've got hot and cold running water, functioning toilets and drains, heat, windows that open, all the mod-con appliances, a door that locks, and a tiny patch of grass and ornamental plants surrounded by a high wood fence.

So what's all the hand-wringing, whinging and catastrophic thinking about?
Simply this: I don't like change. I like familiarity. It's comfortable. I like for variety and adventure to be my-sized; I like to choose it and decide when it starts and stops. I like CONTROL.

I've lost control.

The list of things I don't know stretches for miles. The answers I get when I ask questions are not always accurate. The pathways to where I'm trying to go are obscure, wiggly, and frequently interrupted by blockages and detours. This is both figurative and literal. Ever since we've moved here there have been road works and building construction happening all around our house. We never know from day to day where the road will be blocked, reduced to one lane, or pitted and lumped by excessive traffic and wear. Leaving home is a journey into chaos.

I've never been easily quick. Some people learn their way around in moments. They know where they are in space; they notice the names of roads; they intuit signs and signals I never perceive. They move quickly and with assurance through space and time while I trail along, assaulted by unfamiliarity and traveling on trust rather than any form of knowledge.

This is HARD. I'm scraping the last bits of plucky courage out of the big jar I brought over here. Amazon.com doesn't carry it. I'd cash in my chips and become agoraphobic, but that would make things difficult for John and the boys. Plus, I told a bunch of people I'd do a bunch of things, and I really hate backing out of commitments, however optimistically made.

So the only thing to do is to get up and face each day on its own terms. I will learn someday, I hope, to meet myself half-way. I will allow myself to be scared witless by each change of terrain without telling myself to stop being such a ninny. I will give myself credit for the fact that even though I didn't know what I was getting into, I made it through and got back home again - late, rattled, and cursing rather hysterically, but in one piece.

To any of my friends who take the time to read this - I want to thank you simply for being there. For reasons that mystify me you take an interest in the welfare of me and my family. I'm struck with awe again and again at how each of you have reached out in just the right time, in just the right way - without the slightest notion that you were doing so, probably. While I'm too skeptical of my own motivations to see God's hand at work in my actions, I look at what you do and I see His providence and guidance. I watch you, my friends, to see what He's up to, and I can't believe how clever and creative He is. Please keep in touch.

Home

Home is a slippery term. I'm nearly obsessed with it now.

I have a place I was born, a place I was raised, a place I raised my children, and the place I live now.
My parents don't live in any of those places.
They aren't even in the same place.
Where's home?

Do we choose our home?
I could be described as a 'home-maker', but the home I'm making is rented, and we won't live here more than 3 years (4 more months, if John has his way).

We still own property in West Lafayette. Does owning property make a place stay home? It's lived in by someone else. Is it their home?


The people of God were obsessed with home too. Their time of homelessness in the desert and in captivity were regarded as bad and difficult times, times when they were being formed or punished.

Yet as people of God we are called to homelessness. We are called to be disciples following Jesus, to be Marys rather than Marthas. We are called to foresake family, to wander the desert like John and travel like Paul.
That's not something I feel capable of doing. My family counts on my presence, my stability. They want me Martha-ing away day after day. They count on it.

I don't know what to do with the seeming fact that God doesn't leave a lot of room for home. In God's scheme, home-making is a lesser calling. But it seems that it's my calling. Is that servant-hood, or idolotry?

Airport news stands are packed
with shiny things,
a paid-by-the-hour attendant
staring at the mirrored walls
or, to stay awake, texting on her phone.
She will not meet your eyes.
You're just passing through.

Here are the things you do not need:
a souvenir shot glass, a tabloid magazine, a luggage lock,
a pack of gum.
The aspirin is $7.50.

Here, they've got you where they want you:
past security, pre-boarding,
a place that's not a destination,
embarked already on a journey
of artificial light and recirculated air.

No liquids in carry-ons. A bottle of water
now seems vital.
That'll be $4.50.

It's all so shiny.
Surely something that's sold there
must resolve the current crisis
of discomfort or boredom.
Keep looking.