Oceans Bright with Stars: The Journey Mama Writings, #2

ON THE WAY

After the craziness of packing and moving across the world, traveling through Turkey and Israel, on our way to India, was strangely blissful. Our travels weren't without incident, but how could they be, with preschoolers and toddlers along? (And would we want them to be? Incidents can be fun.) Chinua and I were impressed and heartened by our first experience of traveling with children. I'm so glad we had Turkish delight, baklava, and memories of the Mediterranean Sea to lead us into the next few years of frequent traveling with many young children and far too many bags.

We took in a rainbow gathering in Turkey— a very rustic and basic communal camping experience. It was short-lived for me, as I found it too hard with the kids. But the welcome of people from around the world, if only for a couple days, was just what we needed to feel received into our new global existence. The kids and I waited out the rainbow gathering in a nearby seaside town, using the time to explore the ice cream and playgrounds of a different country.

I was so unsure of what to expect of our new way of life, as well as tired from my pregnancy, and hopeful about the future. These first weeks of travel were in a way like pregnancy themselves, that precious time during the waiting, before you know all that will become, all that will emerge.

may

May 8, 2008

I am sitting in the traveler section of Istanbul- Sultanahmet- drinking a tiny cup of Turkish tea and trying to put sticky fingers on my feelings about being here. My wonderful and considerate husband suggested that I go out and spend a little time alone.

The plane ride was hectic and long, as anticipated, but the kids were wonderful. They are not angelic or without their kinks, but they are little troopers. We didn't sleep much during the hours that we should have been sleeping, and I was surprised and amazed by how they kept on playing, walking through airports, and standing in line, with a minimum of meltdowns. I was also blown away by just how bone-weary that journey made me. WOW. Being pregnant really adds whole new dimensions to your jet-lag, with tracers.

We are a bit of a spectacle, wherever we go. Chinua already draws a lot of attention, with echoes of Bob Marley, Bob Marley, following us as we walk down the street. But with the three kids and my round belly, we get even more attention. It's good attention; people everywhere call out, Very Good! in Turkish, which is cool, getting points just for dragging our kids around. They probably don't see a lot of tourists with a young entourage like ours.

And the cheek pinching that has been going on! Turkish people are cheek pinchers, let me tell you, and once again, the kids have been responding really well- laughing and ducking their heads. Leafy has been giving people fives when they hold out their hands for handshakes, which just makes him look really enthusiastic, and Kenya has had her hair touched a lot. Will it get old? We'll see. If people keep giving them candy, Turkey may become a favorite place for them.

Yesterday, we were stopped in traffic in the taxi we took from the airport, and a man in the car next to us started smiling and talking to Leafy. Then he picked up a little stuffed frog keychain and gestured for me to take it. I opened my car window and reached across to where he was holding it out. Thank you! Thank you, we said. It's amazing how people love children here.

We are staying in the crappiest, tiniest little guest house, with artsy iron railings on the stairs and a kitchen that— well, you should just close your eyes before you walk in. The guy working this morning made us a breakfast of bread, jam, cheese, tomatoes and boiled eggs, and later, when Leafy had finally woken up (at 10:30 we were starting to wonder if there was something wrong with him, but I think he was just catching up) we found him some food. The manager came in, asking whether the protein was in the yellow or white part of the egg- we fumbled our way through answering him, and he gestured toward Leafy, I was wanting to make sure he got some protein and I wanted to know what part of the egg to get him.

It's so heartwarming when people look out for your kids' protein intakes and give them toys from the next car, wipe their noses and exclaim over them. It heals that whole children-are-an-embarrassment-in-public vibe that can emerge from American culture at times. And all and all, it seems that we are going to be okay.

Because of course— there I am, wondering whether we'll be okay, picking things to death philosophically, even while we wander the streets of Istanbul and my kids are playing leapfrog over the decorative short poles on the sidewalk, while we eat Turkish Delight (truly delightful) and my kids race each other through the park, while we walk through the Public Bazaar looking at lamps and dishes and rugs, and stand in the shadow of the Hagia Sophia. I am seeing it all, marveling, yawning, shifting from foot to foot, eyes wide and happy, but I am wondering one thing- Who are we now? Away from where we were? Who will we become?

And then I remember who we are right now. That we are loved, that we are holding each other's hands tightly. I remember to trust God again, and to live in this day.

And Chinua and I see each other and smile and try to remember not to kiss in public.

May 11, 2008

Today I spent my 28th birthday in Antalya, Turkey. It was… a birthday to beat the band.

I don't know what it is- whether it's spending the time making the kids' birthdays special, or if it's getting older, but I find lately that I just like to do quiet, happy things with my family and friends on my birthday. Which is to say, I've gotten stodgy. No parties for me.

We landed in Antalya, only to go to the guest house that we had picked and find that it was closed. We asked out taxi driver to stop, so we could get out and try to get our bearings, and we happened to be parked right beside a guest house that had two beautiful adjoining rooms for us, run by a Dutch woman who had immense sympathy for me as I waddled in with a sleeping Leafy in my arms.

I felt like maybe Antalya was heaven. The air was balmy, there was a garden for the kids to play in, with real live tortoises for them to feed, and a beautiful room with lots of space! And a shower! We ate a late dinner under the trees (never managing to wake the jet-lagged Leafy Boy up) and met up with a bunch of the friends who we will be camping with, here in Turkey, at the Rainbow Gathering. It was wonderful.

And then, this morning, I woke up to the sun. Oh, well, okay, I actually woke up to the jet-lagged Leafy deciding it was time to play at 5:30, but forget about that-- Chinua got up with the kids at 6:30 and let me sleep longer.

We had Turkish breakfast in the garden: a plate consisting of a boiled egg, some bread, cheese, jam, olives and a couple of fruits and vegetables.

Later we walked around Antalya and picked up some stuffed bread to eat by the water. By the Mediterranean. I think this was the point that I realized how truly amazing it was to be spending my birthday in Antalya.

One of our friends watched the kids while Chinua and I took a little scooter ride around the city, dodging foot traffic and other vehicles. We've driven around on a scooter before, a few times, and it's always so special for us.

And then, the crowning touch. I went to Sefa Hamami, a 600-year-old Turkish Bath, which is a whole story in itself and may have to wait another day. I'll just say that it involved being punched in the backs of the thighs by a strong Turkish woman with oils on her hands, having previously had water thrown on me while I lay on my back in a 600-year-old dome. Also being scrubbed red from top to bottom, and rubbed down with soap like a little baby. Well, that's pretty much the whole story. I guess it didn't have to wait.

May 15, 2008

I wish you could have been here today when we reached a little Kebab restaurant and two Turkish men rushed to pull out a pink satin highchair and then fuss over putting Leafy in it, until he was all strapped in (does anyone even bother with the straps with their third kid?) and had a large chunk of bread in his hand to start stuffing into his mouth.  Or when various older men rush out of their shops to give the kids candy, which is so nice of them and also makes this healthy mama cringe a bit, since we're a low candy consumption kind of family.

It just took me an hour to write that paragraph, because I'm using this weird Turkish keyboard and it's really really hard to use.

We have had our moments, for sure.  There's Kenya and her various breakdowns over the states of the bathrooms.  They're not always in the best condition and she's always had an issue with bathrooms, so every experience is a hurdle for her. 

Or there is the way we went out this morning to do some errands and got everything done— shopped at a little market for olives and fresh cheese and Turkish pickles (of course) - got Leafy some pants- and bought some diapers (I think we need to be more settled for potty training to work) and shampoo, only to leave it all on the bus on the way home.  And let me just say, in Turkey none of these things are cheap. It was a smooth move, pregnancy brain style.  Argh.

And of course, I should be at a Rainbow Gathering right now—it's the reason we came to Turkey.  But it was just too hard, there wasn't enough food (a Rainbow Gathering is like a big remote camping experience where everyone throws money together and then a couple of meals a day are cooked over a fire) so Chinua brought Cate, who wasn't feeling so well, and me into a beautiful nearby town. He went back in this morning. We have everything we need, except of course my brain, sufficient patience, and my computer, which is in another town, in storage. 

I think I can pray for the first two... I'll just have to wait for the third.

May 16, 2008

In the spirit of throwing money away, today when we were at lunch eating the cheapest food around (pide, which is flat bread with cheese—a pregnant woman's dream) Leafy knocked a bottle of wine onto the concrete floor.

Everyone in the entire restaurant let out a huge collective gasp. Fortunately it wasn't a very expensive bottle of wine, but I felt like a heel as wine trickled all the way down the street in front of the open restaurant. I bought some bread and cheese and olives again, and we have fruit... tomorrow we will probably stay here at the guest house to eat. We seem to be slightly accident prone.

To tell you the truth, my eyes welled up with tears when I felt the eyes of everyone in the restaurant on me. This is not always easy. And I think Leafy is going to give me a heart attack, beautiful harbor or no beautiful harbor. Two-year-olds are not the most relaxing traveling companions, though they sure are cute.

But you should see the beautiful wooden sailboats. Oh my.

May 19, 2008

1. Fethiye seems to be very well known in England.  I think that 3 out of 4 tourists here are from the UK.  So interesting.  I wonder how that happens?  Guidebooks?

2.  In the interest of adventure and a change of scenery for the kids, we went on a boat tour yesterday.  The boats line the harbor here, all boasting a 12 island tour with lunch included.  It was pretty cheap (about $20) and it was free for the kids, so we decided to go for it- hey, lunch is included!  We had fun.  Or maybe we had funnish.  Kenya claims that she didn't have any fun. I had fun trying to keep Leafy from going overboard. 

3. The kids did make a friend- a little girl from England named Mia.  They squabbled a bit about what things were called: Do you want any crisps?  Those are chips.  NO, they're not CHIPS. and so on.  We had some good lessons in how words are different in different countries. 

4.  I absolutely adored swimming in the Mediterranean.  I thought this was the Aegean Sea, but I believe we are on the very edge of the Mediterranean. It's fun, pretty cold, but very refreshing. It has a high salt content and buoyancy, so if you let your body relax, with your feet straight down in the water, your head doesn't sink.

5.  I am getting so much exercise that I am pretty sure this will be my fittest pregnancy ever, despite a lumpy start.  I am not sure how many kilometers we walk each day, but it's a lot, let me tell you. We live up a hill that we climb by a few flights of stairs, too, several times a day. 

6. It's a good thing we are walking a lot, because we are also eating a lot of bread and cheese.  But we make sure to eat fruit and veggies too. Tomatoes are in season here and we are overdosing on tomatoes.

7.  The Turkish breakfast we eat every morning is incredible: a boiled egg, olives, tomatoes and cucumbers, fresh bread, soft cheese, and cherry jam, along with tea or coffee.

8. I got too much sun yesterday during our eight hours on the boat.  Whew.  Last night the kids rubbed my back with shea butter and made sympathetic noises... Oh Mama, your poor, poor back.  They were very sweet. 

9. I miss my Superstar Husband.  He'll be back from the Rainbow Gathering soon, I hope. He tells the best stories, plays the best games, and has the sweetest face. 

10.  I'm thinking a lot about the beautiful people I met at the Rainbow Gathering.  I made friends with people from Iran, from Israel, from Turkey, from Germany, and from Russia.  One night around the fire the Israelis sang the Iranians an Iranian folksong that they learned in Farsi.  So beautiful. Where does this happen?

May 21, 2008

Last night I put the kids into the double bed in our room and began the nightly routine of breaking up the small fist fights that break out. 

Leafy almost always asks to sleep in the double bed with the other two kids, and every night I let him, with the warning that if he starts the pummeling or smacking, he will be moved to the other bed until I can deliver him safely, unconscious and snoring, back to the bed with the brother and sister he abuses so cheerfully. 

I sit on the little balcony outside our room, across from the water that is lit by twilight, the lights from the houses and boats starting to shine across it.  I read by the light of my small lantern.  Last night I started a book that I bought from a book stand.  I think I memorized all twenty of the English book titles contained by that little stand and found the book that seemed to be the least smarmy, stupid, violent, or depressing.  It was risky, but I can't be without a book to read at night.

Frequently I go back into the room, which smells strongly of citronella and geranium oil from our Burt's Bees bug spray, to tell someone to be quiet, to put Leafy back in his bed, to encourage Kenya to calm down and not be shrieky.

Sometimes I eat an orange.  I love oranges.

Last night, as I was getting into my new book, Kai came running out onto the balcony.  Mom, Mom! he said.  "I think I heard Daddy's voice!  He was calling- Rae!"

Nooo... I said.  We weren't expecting him until the evening of the next day.  But I went out into the hall.  He wasn't there.  Then I went up the stairs, into the smoky rooftop restaurant and I saw him.  The most beautiful face, even dirty and tired.  He's back, and we are very, very glad.

May 25, 2008

Do you remember that funny story about how that one time, when I was traveling in Turkey with my husband and kids, a heavy window dropped on my thumb when I was trying to close it before going to sleep? And do you remember the way the sound startled someone outside so that they screamed, and for a split second I thought someone else was hurt, not me, but then I pulled my hand away from the window and my thumb nail was already black, and then I fainted?

And do you remember how I spent the whole night in the tiny bathroom at our guest house, alternatively holding my hand under the cool water and then keeping it out because it hurt too much? It was one of the longest nights of my life, and I tried to sing, and I prayed for all my friends who are sick or in pain, up at night anywhere by themselves trying to breathe deeply, because it's a terrible thing.

And then do you remember how the next morning I went to the Internet room at the guest house to try and see what should be done for nail bed injury, and when I was reading about it with my hand resting on a bag of ice, I fainted again?  It was probably the part about putting any severed parts in a plastic bag which got to me.  But the young, long-haired Turkish guy in the Internet room freaked out and ran off to get my husband, yelling, Your wife!  Problem! She is sick!  Come now!

And then there was the bus ride, painful and long, and the hospital visit, surprisingly cheap, where they drilled four holes in my thumb nail and let out big pools of blood and finally... relief!

Yeah, that was a pretty funny story. Oh me.

May 26, 2008

Life is very strange. Here I am, sitting in a café in Jerusalem late at night with a busted thumb, listening to the Be Good Tanyas on my headphones, going through hundreds of photos, well aware that I need to keep up with the digitalius. By which I mean the thousands of photos that might disappear into my computer forever if I don't do something with them. And the memories that might float away if I don't pay attention to them.

You'll just have to put up with me. The problem about traveling is that there is so much to write about, and much less time to write about it.

june

June 2, 1008

Tomorrow we step into the next phase of our sojourn.  We will walk over the border into Jordan, climb into a taxi destined for the airport, and fly to Doha, in Qatar, where we will wait for our plane headed to India.

But I will never forget Jerusalem.

I won't forget the Western Wall, where I stood on the woman's side, a head or so above every other woman there, laid my hand on the stones, and cried.

Tears for the rolled up pieces of paper with prayers written on them, stuck in the crevices of the stones on stones, tears for the women singing their prayers around me, tears for a city divided into sections with barbed wire between them.

I won't forget the Mount of Olives.

And I won't forget the dear, dear friends here.

It sounds like the border into Jordan will be pretty interesting to cross.  Children tend to make things run more smoothly.  Hopefully that will be the case tomorrow.  Meanwhile, packing again.

GOA

Reaching Goa in the first days of the monsoon, in the wet, dirty, flooded streets, still counts as one of the hardest things that I have ever done, if not the hardest. I immediately panicked, and the panic seemed to come from out of the blue—certainly I wasn't expecting it. I think that after the last stressful months of getting ready to move, I had been waiting for the time to process and relax, waiting for when we would finally reach our new home. When we arrived, however, I found that it was not home, it didn't look or feel anything like home, and what was worse, I needed to prepare for the birth of my new baby in just a couple of short months. I still remember fainting in a small market, from stress and fear and panic. I had been picking out some tea bags that were pre-mixed chai. My husband asked me, Aren't we going to make our own chai? and that question in that moment was like cold water in my face. It meant we were staying, that this wasn't just a bad dream, that we had to make a home out of this hard, unwelcoming, rainy place.

I wish I could reach back to myself in that moment and whisper, It's going to be okay. You're going to learn to love it here, more than you've ever loved anywhere before. More than you can imagine.

june

June 5, 2008

Exhausted, but here.

Hot, but here.

A little confused, but here.

Reaching a city in India is like having the layers peeled back that normally protect you from the tragedy and beauty of humanity.  The buffer zone is gone, and there it is before you.  You've always known, in the back of your mind, that some children play in trash heaps.  You've known that there are many different religions in the world.  You've known that there are shanty towns, that some people wear bright clothing, like flowers, you've known that in certain places the water is not clean.

In Mumbai, there it was, all of it.

It makes me feel a little like I'm seeing a bit of what God always sees.

Last night we left Mumbai and took a night bus south to Goa. Let's not talk about how badly I needed to pee on that bus.

So, here we are. Intact, loving each other, figuring out the next step.

June 7, 2008

A long time ago, I made the tagline of my blog, Cultivating Joy, because I believe that joy is something to be cultivated, something that isn't necessarily in the box of crackerjacks when you first open it.

You search with eyes open wide and sometimes full of tears.

I have so many friends who are going through such trials right now, trials that make mine seem small. Especially considering that I walked into mine, almost ran. I am simply homesick. And I don't even know what place I am thinking of when I think of home.

But I am thinking of friends, and family, and a different climate, and a different way of walking down the street. And I am crying in the Internet café. And it is okay to be sad, it is okay to curl into your pillow.

But then comes the time when you need to cultivate joy. My garden is swampy in this monsoon. I need a little shelter for it, something to let it breathe.

I keep thinking of these doves I would see, as I looked out from the balcony of the guesthouse in Turkey. They fluttered and cooed, we heard their cries every morning, we woke up to them. But if you watched at the right moment, you could see one of them halt. It would stop flying, relax like an empty bag, and simply fall.

It would plummet freely toward the ground, and then at some point open its wings and effortlessly return to flight.

I think I am at the descent, the falling point, the part where you relax and allow yourself to drop into what feels like nothing, but is really the very atmosphere that will hold you up when your wings unfurl again. Here we go, falling, looking for joy with eyes wide, sometimes full of tears.

June 9, 2008

Let me just say that kids are the most adjustable creatures in the universe.  They are loving life right now, even in our sorta yucky little apartment, even in the rain. They like the rickshaws and the scooter rides and the mangos. They are simply happy.

And I am getting better, little by little. I realize that I had stored up a lot in the last few months of being in America and I am just beginning to process it now. So it could be a while for me. But God sustains.

These are those magical moments, too, when you don't yet know how things will turn out, and later you look back and say, Do you remember when we first arrived, and we didn't even know this place yet?  and it is incredible to you, that you ever didn't live here.

Sometimes I feel like I hate it here, sometimes I have to breathe deep because I am panicking, and sometimes though, there I am, making oatmeal in the morning and it's okay.  It will be.

June 11, 2008

I witnessed something that struck me as such a tender event, as I stood on our balcony hanging clothes on the line yesterday.

We are temporarily in a little flat above a busy chowk (intersection) and yesterday at about 1:30 a whole bunch of kids got out of school.  They all wear uniforms: checkered shirts with navy shorts or skirts, and as they flocked out into the chowk, dozens of scooters came by, driven by fathers and mothers picking up their kids.  I watched as two or three kids jumped on a scooter with their dads, ready to go home after a day of school.  I waved at the girls with long braided hair.

In a few minutes most people were gone, and then the rains came, heavy and fast and in sheets.

June 15, 2008

I have more and more normal moments each day; moments where I am just doing what I am doing without that burning feeling in my chest, or the slightly nauseous wrenching that means I am fully aware that I am displaced.  I would describe these feelings as a little bit like what a baby goes through when she is playing happily in someone's lap, only to look up and discover, that's not my mother!

But they come less and less.  More often now I look up and decide that although this lap belongs to a stranger, she seems safe.  Maybe even like-able.  Maybe even someone who will be my friend.

Loneliness is something that is fairly strange to me. There have been a few times in my life that I have felt lonely; raw, gut-twisting loneliness. The funny thing is that it was usually when I was surrounded by people, but new people. There is a lesson here, I think. There are many lessons.

One time that I can remember is when I was first married. I think I had expectations about finding my other half; about the completion, the wholeness of two people. And then I found myself sitting beside Chinua on our little couch in our little room, realizing it's still just me in here. As much as Chinua is my other half more than anyone else in the universe, I stand alone before God. We all do. It was crushing to me at the time, though. I think I had expected more magic and less conversations with the words Can you tell me one more time exactly what you mean because I just don't understand? in them.

(I've had a series of epiphanies like this; the discovery when I became a mother that I didn't feel any different. I was still just Rae, but 24 hours-on-call Rae who might not possess all of her faculties, and was alternately giddy and weeping. And spouting milk. My grandmother told me once that she used to look in the mirror in her late seventies and feel exactly the same inside as she did at thirty.  Her body was like a stranger.)

But mostly, loneliness has not been a big part of life for me.  As an introvert who is married with three children and has lived in community for the last ten years, I just don't have time to be lonely. I'm more often looking for solitude. But there are new lessons for all of us, and coming here has been lonely. At least for now. I'm so thankful for my sweet, sweet husband. But we both look at each other at times and wonder where everyone is.

Lessons come for understanding, I think. Right now I want to reach into the solitude of anyone I can and place my hand right between their shoulder blades, and say, in the