Coffee

Photo Credit here.

My first experience with espresso, where I ordered it and paid for it, happened during a trip to Europe as I returned home from my year in Ukraine. My friend and I visited Rome and were leaving to head to Pisa before making a quick trip back up to Paris to meet another friend. I don’t remember if I wanted to try espresso because it seemed an Italian drink to experience or if I thought I might need the caffeine. Still, I went to an open-air café, bellied up to the bar and ordered an espresso. I received the small cup with the goods and sipped. . .I wanted to spit it out. It was awful! I had no idea why anyone actually liked the stuff.

About two years later, as I worked with graduate students at Vanderbilt, I made another attempt. Fido was the hip coffee shop in Hillsboro Village and some of the grad students visited it religiously. I ventured out one evening and got the Pink Poodle – an outrageously large (and fluffy pink) latte with plenty of sugar. I had finally found a way to drink espresso, though I still preferred Mr. Pibb to a latte any day. 

 

My coffee tastes and explorations changed little as I moved to do my own graduate degree in New Jersey, though I joined friends at local shops here and there. When I moved to Berkeley to work with college students again, my appreciation of fresh foods and expertly roasted coffee grew. With Peet’s and the influence of Alice Waters, I continue to associate lattes (especially served in a large bowl) with a truth-telling, unifying and inspiring time of my life. 

 

After marriage, I started trying all sorts of diets – more to find the perfect collection of foods which would strength and nourish J and me, not to try and lose weight or sculpt my body in some way. In Kentucky, we fell under the influence of the Whole 30, and by that time, coffee was a staple of the morning and sometimes the afternoon (but with lots of cream). Dairy is forbidden on the Whole 30, so I started drinking coffee black. I immediately returned to half and half when we ended our reintroduction phase. I will still occasionally drink coffee black, but really, coffee continues to be a conduit for lush, frothy warm half and half.

 

Now, approximately 25 years after that first espresso in Rome, I have a growing intolerance of caffeine - another gift of “the change.” If I have nothing to do, I drink coffee and lattes with abandon, but I notice. I notice I do not feel at ease come bed time. I can still sleep, but I don’t sleep well. I’m a little more cranky and irritable. I don’t have patience for much foolery. 

 

So I’ve started limiting my coffee intake when I am working. I allow myself a (large) cup for 3 out of 7 days, usually the weekends, but the other days are caffeine free. I find myself tired by bedtime. I sleep incredibly, and I wake up with energy. My mind clears and my mood remains steady (or at least steadier) as I work through the day. I’m a kinder, gentler human.

 

If I have really been hitting the coffee on my time off, I have headaches and brain fog for the first couple of days, but J and I drink 75% decaffeinated coffee now, so the withdrawal is minimal. If you try this route, I suggest getting decaf prepared by the Swiss water method – the beans still taste excellent and no chemical agents, like ethyl acetate or methylene chloride, touch the beans.

 

I have other female friends who have experienced this change in caffeine tolerance with menopause. I’ll have to see if anyone has figured out why tolerance decreases, but given how little is researched with menopause, or with women-specific issues generally, I’m guessing no one has cared to investigate. Still, I’m glad a simple fix can improve my sleep, mood and outlook. 

 

But I still love a good cup of coffee, especially shared with J and friends over breakfast. 

After all these years, it’s grown on me. 

3/30/26

Resilience

 

They had taken the metro to the island in the middle of the Dnieper River. The war had not yet begun, the Orange Revolution had not yet shifted the political landscape. The catacombs remained intact, St. Michael’s gleamed golden in the sun, Lady Victory signaled an era which recently passed into history. This moment culminated a few weeks of planning between the English teachers and students which included gathering at the island to experience a cookout in the “usual” Ukrainian style. 

 

By this time the snow had given up and warming temperatures melted what remained. The teachers followed the university students on an unmarked path back into the woods. They found a clearing and a barbeque by magic, and soon, the students were unpacking their backpacks with the different snacks and food they brought. 

 

Potato salad, bread with dried fish, butter and dill; a dish called Shuba (layered fish, carrot, beet, mayonnaise) and Sala (or pig’s fat) came forward one by one. While the other dishes were cold, they heated the Sala a bit, then passed it around. They told stories of how Stalin, during World War II, starved the people of Ukraine. When they could no longer buy meat, Sala provided calories to keep them alive another day with hopes to see Stalin defeated. They were survivors. 

 

The English speakers sat silent – how does one respond to resilience of this magnitude in the face of vicious hate? 

 

With awe and respect. 

The picture was a Writer's Workshop prompt from February of 2023. I gave myself 15 minutes to write on the picture prompt and it took me to my time in Kyiv, Ukraine '98-'99. 3/20/26

Getting Here

Photo Credit here.

We finished our taxes today – a win on any day. We took a short walk, the sun calling us outside, the wind chiding us once out. We had a nice breakfast, warmed up leftovers for lunch and spent some time with the contractor reviewing the claims process for the roof. After he left, we drove to a CVS to pick up Dad’s Boost and as we curved and swooped around the crest of the hill, J wondered aloud, “How did we end up here?” 

He meant the particular suburb of our habitation – one which grew around the farm land my great grandfather purchased over 100 years ago. While once considered a “dangerous part of town” per an old college minister of mine, the area developed into an affluent section of the larger city. J quipped years ago we would never be allowed to live in this part of town unless we bought newer cars. I don’t know if he ever expected we would live exactly here, in the home of my childhood.

 

By his question, he’s still figuring it out. Or maybe he simply wants to make sense of the aimlessness of retirement or the boredom of home management – how did HE end up here?

 

Only he can tell his story, but as I sit in the room we now call the office, I remember it’s many iterations. When my sister moved into this room, we were a package deal. She read to me at night, fixed my hair in the mornings and put up with my kung-fu theatrics overnight. When she hit her teenage years, I moved to the front bedroom and she had this room all to herself. She painted the walls purple with a zig-zagging rainbow right in the middle interrupted by Garfield and his thought bubbles making sarcastic comments. I thought it was the coolest room ever. 

 

She left to go to college and I inherited her space. I can’t remember if I left the bed on the floor or if I placed the bed on the floor. Because I thought my sister cool, and myself not so much, I’m sure I left it on the floor, catty cornered to the middle of the room. The stereo system sat just behind the bed in the corner and it became my crystal ball. If Mr. Mister’s “Broken Wings” or Whitney Houston’s “How Will I Know” came on at just the right moment, then my crush had to have noticed me that day/month/year.

 

The room has been a place of confession, study, creativity; of prayers, tears, heartache. In the five years since our return, it has served as a TV room, an office, a dance studio and a music conservatory. We have all imposed our wills on this space and place, molding it to our needs, wants, desires. We ended up here because we have made it so. Each decision bending us toward a future we only recognize in hindsight.

 

For me, the decision to leave so many years ago inevitably led me back because I needed distance to discover the edges of myself and now, I need proximity to solidify them. It’s that simple and that complex. 

3/17/26

Returning

Photo credit here.

 A FB friend wrote today of his child’s 6^th year and the “normal” 18 year trajectory leading to college or career, then independence and the child’s own family. He found poignancy in statistics indicating 1) the most time a child is with a parent is the first 18 years of life and 2) on a deathbed, someone wishes for more time with family. With these, he concluded 1/3 of the time he will have the most contact with his child is over and the other 2/3’s will be over in a blink of an eye. He wished to cherish the days while confessing *cherish* may not always be how he reflects on happenings and interactions with said child. 

 

I could argue with the cultural standard he purports: I know of many families with children of ALL AGES living under one roof, often for financial, medical or needs-based reasons. The luxury of education or even having a job which could support independent living is not a given. 

 

However, stepping outside of my childhood home and seeing a scene familiar for most of my life, his words hit notes I do not hear. My husband and I care for my father in the house he built for our family while I gestated. Granted, I left for years, but I came back sensing the importance of doing so. The surreal experience of “returning home” in adulthood strikes dissonant chords some days, harmonic the next, in melodies I never expected to sing.

 

One oddity is the balance (or not) between respecting the surroundings of my father while attempting to make my childhood home seem like my adult home. We changed little in the common spaces for the first couple of years, maybe three. Then we finally moved out my grandmother’s dining table and chairs in the sunroom, rearranged the furniture to open up the space and unobstructed the window with a view, eventually changing the window to a picture window free of blinds. We moved couches out of the den and living room, but mainly shuffled furniture which had been in the rooms 30 years. 

 

Each change helped make the space a little more shared, but the walls still had the four paintings of my siblings and me when we were 2 years old, the painting of my mother and her brother at 5 years old and 2 years old respectively; my father’s high school graduation picture and several other family photos. I looked around and saw my parents’ lives and my childhood, but not my present life or my shared life with J. We lived in the house, but we were still visitors.

 

In February, figuring 2 years of Dad no longer regularly using the den meant we could change it, we tackled the room. J scrubbed, sanded and painted the walls and trim. We took out furniture, added our furniture back in, divided the room into sitting areas and bought new paintings for the walls. With the modifications, the den became “our” den and the house felt a little more like “our” home. 

 

Now, we have started on the living room, but the amount of kitsch is overwhelming. I am in process of wrapping my mother’s keepsakes, mainly bells, from her and Dad’s many travels. The layer of dust inside the closed cabinet betrays its usefulness. I take out each bell and consider my own collections. I picture them tossed in a box with a “free to a good home” sign or, even more likely, tossed in a box then piled high with other boxes on the side of the road awaiting the trash truck. Why keep so much stuff? 

Then I pull out the “Sacred Cat” from the King Tut exhibit we went to when I was a toddler. I remember the trip to New Orleans in the van. How my mom and I played games on the platform Dad built for the back so we could carry all the luggage for 6. I still see the long line snaking its way out of the exhibit hall and then the golden chin rest for a pharaoh carrying too much weight on his head. I tired of all the rooms and all the exhibits, finally sitting against a wall and watching swarms of people look at crafts belonging to a time and culture they could barely imagine – if they tried at all. 

 

“I’ll keep this one,” I think, a circle unbroken.

 

3/5/26

State of E

Photo credit here.

 

Take me away

To the State of E

Where war is waged

 

With foam swords,

Foam blocks – 

Where death

 

Relinquishes

Its foe

Through kisses.

 

A land of

The Tiny Bomb

Explosive with

 

Vitality and

Vigor

 

From day

To night

(with a nap in the afternoon).

 

High screams,

Low growls

And sand

 

Spread all over

The yard

On the best February spring day.

 

“Let’s Go!!!!”

Away, away

To the State of E.

 

For E - 2/28/26

Denali Trail Tale, Finale

Photo credit here.

 

Latitude 63 in July does not leave much time for darkness. As soon as the girmen closed their eyes, the wakening dawn nudged them. 

 

While the hours of hiking helped aid their slumber, sleeping on a thin Therm-a-Rest camping “mattress” on gravelly and pebbled terrain did nothing to encourage a shift of position to continue the night’s rest. Compounding the issue, the eyes respond to light, setting off a chemical reaction in the brain which brings the whole body to life. 

 

The McKinley River percolated around them, and they eventually reached for the zippers to greet the morning properly. As they righted themselves after crawling out of their tents, they found themselves face-to-face with Denali. It was as if the mountain saw all the effort they made to arrive at its base, so graced them by standing boldly before them – snow its only covering, reflecting the light so intensely its peaks seemed to glow. 

 

They stood attempting to fix the moment in their minds. The girmen meant for the camping adventure to lead them to bears, but the wilderness meant for them to stand awestruck before the highest mountain in North America. 

 

Their revery lasted some moments before the next thing had to be done. It was getting the food down and over for breakfast, then breaking down the tents, packing all the gear back into packs and finally beginning the trek back up the hillside toward the road. 

 

Nothing particularly noteworthy happened on the trip back up. The mosquitos buzzed around them, small helicopters crashing into skin, mouth, eyes. Remarkably, they ran into another hiker – a solo hiker – his head covered in mosquito netting. He knew Jen’s roommate somehow and became an unofficial 5^th wheel. They all appreciated another focus for their conversation. 

The hiker wore a “pith helmet” with netting hanging from the brim’s edge and draping his shoulders. The girmen had heeded the advice to “bathe” in DEET, but with the clear day, the humidity and the exercise inherent in carrying a 20 pound pack up a hillside, the DEET seeped into their eyes and mouths, stinging and souring them in turn. Had they been hiking further; they might have heeded the baser instincts of the survival of the fittest, tore the hat from his head, then argued and fought over the hat until one conquered the rest. 

 

Instead, they knew the road, and civilization, lay just above the horizon, and they pushed forward. Once returned to some semblance of a road, they sat on their packs beaming at their accomplishment. They had braved the wild of Alaska and returned intact. They would not be a headline or cautionary tale. Instead, they would eat their lunch and wait for the school bus returning to the park’s entrance, swatting mosquitos and aching for a soft bed.

 

2/27/26

Denali Trail Tale, part 3

Photo credit here.

An adage in orienting goes something like this, “It’s further than it appears. It’ll take longer than you imagine. And it’s harder than you may suspect.” 

 

None of the less experienced girmen thought a trip across the tundra might entail the snail-like pace and danger to life and limb it did. Seriously, it looked like a golden beach dotted with spruce – a carpet spread out before the mountains. How long could the trip down the hillside and across the plain take? Denali was RIGHT THERE, and the McKinley Bar was just before Denali – piece of cake!

Photo credit here.

But, no – no piece of cake. 

 

While not intuitive, the heat of July in Alaska covers the body like a wet blanket. The Southerner grew up in hot humidity, so the beads of sweat on her forehead and neck felt familiar. Her companions had no such familiarity. They cursed the weight of water (and having to carry it) but delighted in its presence as the day grew on. 

 

Jen’s roommate kept them on the correct path, keeping Denali to the left and finding as much tundra as possible to maintain good visuals. The other three mainly followed, initially buzzing with stories and excitement and then, as the day’s hiking wore on them, fell silent with muffled grunts and the occasional curse as yet another something snagged their clothing, or worse, their skin. 

 

Daylight in July shortens by several minutes daily in Alaska, but the days remain long. While the girmen hiked until the sun began to set, it was still closer to 10pm when they finally arrived at the McKinley Bar. Here, at last, was the beach they had dreamed of – at least a beach of a kind. While bits were gravelly, large river stones (baseball-sized or slightly larger) covered the ground. They were elated to have made it this far, but in camping, there is always more to do.

 

They needed to keep their food 100 yards from their camp (and 50 feet off the ground) and 100 yards from the area where they planned to eat. The eating area and camping area also needed to be 100 yards apart. So they looked for trees near the beach, but also a more gravelly area 100 yards away for sleep. As an added bonus, the trees provided cover for hygiene and bathroom needs. 

 

They found something more gravelly, less rocky far enough away from the trees and within a few feet of the McKinley River. Some parts of the river were clearer and good for water purification. They set up their 2 tents and Jen’s roommate secured the food. They ate something cold, then headed to bed. 

 

The waters surrounding Denali hummed by their tents, the voices of nature pooled together and singing their enchantments over the landscape. No other sounds drifted into their hearing. As the sun dipped below the horizon, and with no other lights for competition, the Milky Way spread out it treasures freely, with abandon. No other night had been so silent or so filled with language. 

 

And with Mother Earth cooing over them, they floated off to sleep.  

 

(To Be Continued)

 

2/26/26

Denali Trail Tale, part 2

Photo credit here.

The bus left them, kicking up dust from the dirt and gravel park road. The girmen (girl-women) covered their mouths and noses with shirts and began looking for the best place to begin the hike down toward the McKinley Bar. Fortunately, the mountain was out that day, so orienting proved effortless, to a point. Then came the dense brush with willow bushes high above their heads. Jen’s roommate guided them through the stand, until they reached a clearing. 

 

About a hundred yards down the slope they could see Jen’s dream come true: A grizzly stood in the tundra, its gaze looking toward them just as they came into view. The park rangers told everyone in those days to try and scare the bears away. Waving one’s hands, attempting to look bigger and yelling would ignite a bear’s natural instinct to stay way from humans. If those tactics failed, then covering as many body parts as possible (particularly the neck and head) while curling into a tight ball and playing dead was the next best option.

 

Jen began waving her hands in the air and half-singing, half-yelling, “Hey, Mister Bear!” The rest of the girmen joined in waving and yelling and even jumping up and down. 

 

To their relief, the bear turned and began running toward the mountain. . .then three fluffy dots trailed behind her. A MAMA BEAR! They watched her cover more ground in 5 minutes than they could in the next 3 hours. They stared at each other in disbelief while their knees wobbled and the packs suddenly weighed twice what they had before. Mama grizzlies strike terror in hikers who know, because mama grizzlies do not play with the safety of their cubs. They will fight to the death.

 

As they continued to hike downward, they rehearsed their good fortune and kept a sharp eye out for any more bears. 

 

After several hours of walking through the tundra, they met their next obstacle: a river. Because of their glacial origins, the river’s water remains icy cold and filled with glacial sediment. Coming from thousands of feet above, the waters move swiftly. Because of the silt, one never knows how deep the water is and some get swept away. 

Photo credit here.

 

Jen’s roommate knew this well, so she oversaw the reconfiguration of packs to keep everything hip height or above. The Southwesterner was tall and had somewhat more experience camping and had forded a stream at least once, so she got more gear while Jen and the Southerner got less. They discussed strategy for successfully reaching the other side, namely linking arms and holding tightly to each other while carefully securing each step less someone slip and take them all downstream. 

 

Jen’s roommate scouted the river’s edge to find what she guessed was the best place to cross. Then they lined up: The roommate, Jen, the Southerner and then the Southwesterner. The water froze them immediately and with each step, they went deeper into the current. They yelped and screamed but kept inching toward the other side. 

 

Wet from hips to toes, they emerged victorious and shivering. They spent a few moments taking off their boots and wringing out their socks. The Southerner was amazed by the glacial sludge and its ability to color everything. Gray water poured from her socks, the bright clover green of her Merrell boots turned murky, her white cotton thermal underwear, a dull gray which never washed out. 

 

Then they put socks and shoes back on and moved on. They had miles to go before dark.

 

(To Be Continued)

2/25/26

Denali Trail Tale, part 1

Image credit here. Back in the 90's, the buses were yellow school buses.

“Of all the paths you take in life, make sure a few of them are dirt.” – John Muir

 

Jen wanted her birthday celebrated in a portion of the park with grizzly bears. Growing up in the Northern Plains, she had little experience with bears and thought the idea exciting. Her two other friends – one from the Southwest and one from the Southeast – also innocent to the ways of the grizzly encouraged her in the adventure. Her roommate, however, spent too much time in the woods to go quietly into bear country. She also did not want to be complicit in a tale gone badly: “Three Hikers Found Mauled in Denali National Park.” The mountain had already taken the lives of several climbers that year, she knew she must provide some wisdom to the otherwise naïve teens.

 

They all worked just outside the park and a perk included packed bags of gorp, sandwiches and other food items for all those employees using off-time to camp. The four girl-women went through what gear they brought, then borrowed the rest. The Southerner, in particular, borrowed pretty much everything. She had not even had a decent pair of hiking shoes until a month before Jen’s birthday. She did not realize stores existed just for hiking and camping as these sports failed to register in a home dominated by football and wrestling. Her idea of hitting a trail was driving the Roaring Fork Road in Gatlinburg. She had no idea what awaited her.

 

Jen gathered the permits to camp in the backcountry where grizzlies had been spotted. She obtained bear cannisters for all food items. Her roommate tried to educate Jen and the other two about the importance of clothing, DEET and smell elimination. No “Secret” or cherry-scented lip balm. The mosquitoes are the size of hummingbirds and may actually eat you alive. Yes, you will get hot, but you will get cold and you HAVE to have clothing for all occasions. 

 

They finally made it to departure day and loaded one of the school buses the park used to travel the 11 hour plus road to Kantishna. All along the park road, the younger three laughed and talked about their non- or inexperienced experiences with camping. None of the 3 had ever gone into a backcountry where no trails existed, no blazes. They were all bluster and excitement. 

 

After 7 hours of bumpy riding and jaw dropping scenery, after watching the caribou herds in Polychrome and scanning the hillsides for Dall sheep, the bus stopped – nowhere in particular – and indicated the quadruplets needed to get their gear and head to the left. The emergency door in the back opened to them and there the girl/women heaved their packs on while all who were left in the bus pushed themselves up off their seats to wave a final good-bye to the girls: “Four Hikers Found Mauled in Denali National Park” and they would have been some of the last to see them.

 

(To Be Continued)

 

2/24/26

 

Feeling the Edge

I spent time with a college friend tonight catching up on threads of our lives we have not had opportunity to discuss since the beginning of the year. We talked about family, jobs, pets - the thorny problems, the unexpected pleasures and the confounding issues with childhood onset which ebb and flow in intensity. Neither of us sense we have the time to do all we want or need to do, and depending on the day, the fact proves defeating or simply inevitable. 

Boundaries (maybe limitations?) give me an opportunity for choice, though. If I encounter them reflectively, they encourage me to spend time doing what matters to me. If I find I cannot choose to do what matters to me, I again have a choice: take steps to get into a position to "choose my own adventure" or adjust what I can to incorporate more of what matters to me (what gives me life, if you will). 

A gift and frustration of middle age is the recognition of more limits, more boundaries - but maybe this means more choices, a narrowing of focus, a purifying of my goals. The problem remains my deep enjoyment of wanting to do everything. My more practical side tells me I can't do everything, but even considering all the possibilities enthralls me and juices the battery. I think it's genetic. 

Seemingly, I have a great uncle who spent his days in elementary school, atlas opened in his lap, pointing to all the places on its pages saying, "I want to go there and there and there." The story goes he had sailed the seven seas before his 20th birthday - he had explored the world as he wanted. I don't know, of course, if the other 40+ years of his life felt complete or fulfilling, but I imagine the desire to wander never left. I'm projecting, of course, because I'm guessing the wanderlust won't leave me. . . 

But the energy of youth will leave, and has to some degree - a boundary. 

Psychology says children with boundaries grow up to be more confident adults. Something about playing within a strong framework reinforces a sense of safety, maybe even a sense of mastery. Then as the child grows and boundaries broaden, the child masters more and more of his/her world finding a safe place to experiment within the limitations provided. 

We need limitations, it seems, in every phase of life.

Maybe Lent is a time of living into the limitations, giving us freedom to make mistakes within the loving boundaries God provides, but also allowing the limitations to help us discover what we need to release because we simply don't have room or time for it anymore as well as to help us choose what brings us to life.

PRACTICE

Lectio Divina: Read the following passage through after a few deep breaths and pay attention to any word or phrase which sticks out for you. Read through again and pay attention to anything further you notice about the word/phrase and how it applies to you. Read through again and spend time in prayer with the word/phrase asking God what you need to understand/know/do with the word/phrase (i.e., How might God be guiding you? What needs your further action? Where may your understanding need to be changed or expanded? How may this impact your relationship with someone else?). End with a time of thanksgiving. 

Psalm 16: 5-11, NRSV

5 The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup;
    you hold my lot.
6 The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
    I have a goodly heritage.

7 I bless the Lord, who gives me counsel;
    in the night also my heart instructs me.
8 I keep the Lord always before me;
    because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.

9 Therefore my heart is glad, and my soul rejoices;
    my body also rests secure.
10 For you do not give me up to Sheol
    or let your faithful one see the Pit.

11 You show me the path of life.
    In your presence there is fullness of joy;
    in your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

Photo credits: Found on this site.

Being Made Whole

Eighteen days left in Lent. I've done something for Lent over the last 3 years, and I find myself grasping for ideas, thoughts, plans about halfway through each time. Thinking about it, I recognize this as true for being halfway-ish through my life - if the self proclaimed prophetess was right in telling me God would give me 90 years. It's both freeing and anxiety-provoking to have a due date (an expiration date, an end?). 

I don't know what I expected mid-life to be, but sitting in my egg chair in the sunroom of my childhood home would not have crossed my mind. When I began my "work tourism" lifephase, I could not imagine it ending. I loved going new places, meeting new people, experiencing how people encountered life in different ways. When I finally landed in Memphis and met J, one way I knew he was "the one" was because I didn't want to move somewhere else away from him.

Memphis became home for about 7 years, then the school-itch returned, and we were off again. Two moves and 9 years later, we landed back in Alabama for reasons noted in earlier posts. Like the move to Memphis, the timing felt right; I had a knowing interiorly we needed to return, and my mother died 6 months later (I posted a reflection about this last year during Lent here.). Now, I work with teenagers and drive almost the exact route to work which I took to high school.

My grandmother once asked me when was I ever going to come home. As a woman who never lived outside of Alabama, I think my distance in my young adult years baffled her. She died when I was 30 and living in New Jersey. I don't know if she would have understood how this piece of land with a house felt nothing like home at the time. . .too many ghosts, too much silence. . .the pall of a culture which danced on the graves of women's aspirations, accomplishments and dreams. 

So I went searching, under acceptable guises, of course, and really, did I even know I was searching? A part of me did, I think, and when I landed in Berkeley I found a community of believers who trusted deeply in the healing power of Christ. As we completed our confession every week and the liturgist said, "Friends, believe the good news of the gospel." We replied, "In Jesus Christ, we are forgiven and are being made whole." The weekly repetition of the phrase worked its way into the cracks and crevices of my soul, feeding whole areas of my being and knitting together the rifts I had felt for decades. I still add "and are being made whole" each time I participate in confession because forgiveness is amazing, but the wholeness which comes from relationship with God is life-saving.

Augustine wrote in his confessions, "You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you." Somewhere in that statement there is a truth about finding home. Home isn't an address, but an expansion of our souls toward God, by God, in God, through God, then in that homecoming, we co-create (with God!) a space for others to discover the same, and we are opened to those ready to be our guides as well. 

Being back in Alabama is not always easy. This house still holds ghosts and sometimes silence, but they do not threaten to overtake me as they once did. Part of the grace of my life is my partner and friend, J, and in his spaciousness, I have been encouraged in my own - the expansion of my soul, the welcoming of home. And I find God in our life and the ways we walk this life together. I find, over and again. God's love is making me whole.

PRACTICE

Lectio Divina: Read the following passage through after a few deep breaths and pay attention to any word or phrase which sticks out for you. Read through again and pay attention to anything further you notice about the word/phrase and how it applies to you. Read through again and spend time in prayer with the word/phrase asking God what you need to understand/know/do with the word/phrase (i.e., How might God be guiding you? What needs your further action? Where may your understanding need to be changed or expanded? How may this impact your relationship with someone else?). End with a time of thanksgiving. 

Acts 17:23-28, NRSV

 23For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, ‘To an unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. 24The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, 25nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things. 26From one ancestorhe made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, 27so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him—though indeed he is not far from each one of us. 28For ‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said,  ‘For we too are his offspring.’

Photo credit: https://gaiaorion.com/products/wholeness-oil-on-canvas-90-x-90-cm?pr_prod_strat=e5_desc&pr_rec_id=fc33e333d&pr_rec_pid=4465649745969&pr_ref_pid=4469702361137&pr_seq=uniform

Ireland

photo credits: Global Racing Adventures

Using a photo as a prompt, I begin with description and end with ontology. Maybe this is why I love travel: Each place echoes an understanding of what it is to be human. The place pictured is Ireland.

Ireland 

The trail - 

Shifting left, then right - 

Snaking to the cliff’s edge;

 

A line of people - 

Looking outward - 

Taking in the horizon.

 

The ocean - 

Trembling beneath

forces unseen.

 

Arrows in the sky

pointing toward

what’s just beyond sight.

 

Earth striving

to reach the place

where sea and sky unite, 

 

Yet stubbornly - 

Weighted - 

Too heavy for air;

 

Too solid for all

the drops

surrounding it;

 

Encompassing

the conundrum

as old as time -

 

Our beings: Earth

And sea

And sky

 

Pointing - 

Always pointing - 

Where sea and sky

 

Meet,

But our earth

Can never - reach.

(4.5.23)

 

Nashville - Part Three

Where I worked for outpatient psychiatry at Vanderbilt

The route has been a bit circuitous, but Nashville played a part in bringing me back to Alabama, maybe a bigger part than I have realized.

Nashville Part Three 

I sat on the balcony/breezeway of my hotel at a small café table set for two. The traffic pulsing through the veins and arteries of downtown Nashville on a Friday night hummed and screamed to my right. I sent Jeno a short video of the scene. He in turn sent me the views from our home on R3, bird song mixed with the occasional sound of engines traveling down R3. I have enjoyed learning the past two days, and tomorrow morning will be good as well, but I have reached the point where my anticipation faces homeward. I miss home. 

 

This short trip reminds me of the panacean quality of travel for me, ever since I spent the summer in Alaska and possibly as early as my middle school trip to Colorado with Natasha. Through travel, I found new ways of connecting with the world and with myself. I recognize those years as the path leading to the outer edges of the labyrinth – moving in an erratically concentric path away from the center, eventually and methodically returning me to the heart of it. 

 

After the debacle of Lex Brodie, my next temp job in Nashville landed me in the outpatient psychiatry clinic at Vanderbilt University. I served as secretary to a geriatric psychiatrist, and later, worked in the office of an OCD researcher. I loved my work with these physicians and the nurses, social workers, nurse practitioners and support staff in the clinics. I thought, even then, that IF I decided to go into medicine at some point, I could see myself enjoying psychiatry. Funny how random assignments from a temp agency influence the trajectory of a life – something too coincidental to be coincidence as I might say (like in a sermon posted earlier this week). 

 

And my work with IVCF convinced me that I wanted to be in ministry full time which spurred me forward in my ordination process. The ordination process took me to New Jersey for another Master’s degree which in turn connected me to my boss in California where I worked with graduate students again (with an IVCF connection there as well). Then the hoops of ordination led to the Memphis move for a chaplaincy program, which brought me to Jeno and eventually hospice. Then hospice shaped the processing of my if-this-is-breast-cancer period which ended with me beginning the prerequisites for medical school. . .and I think many of you know the rest.

 

With each move, I returned slowly, though not deliberately, back home – back to the center where I began. Nothing I might have imagined, but exceedingly, abundantly more than I could have imagined. Grace, grace, everything truly is grace.

photo accessed from https://www.mapquest.com/us/tennessee/vanderbilt-child-and-adolescent-psychiatry-369582289

 

Nashville - Part Two

House of David, Music Row

A trip into a "familiar" part of Nashville, now not so familiar, spurred me to consider what makes space valuable, what creates the connection between a space and memory and what happens when that space changes? I'm not sure I answered all those questions, but it's a start.

Nashville Part Two

I met my former supervisor from IVCF at Sitar off of West End Avenue tonight. I drove the 1.7 miles as I did not have time to walk it. 

 

My 14 months in Nashville happened 21 years ago. I dated someone who lived off of West End Avenue and my job with Lex Brodie was off of West End, so travelled it fairly often. Tonight, nothing triggered a memory. I liken it to a dementia: The name of the street sounds familiar, but I recognize zero landmarks. Disoriented, I follow the voice of Siri, guiding me around the crosshatches demarcating blocks until I find the now diminutive building that holds Sitar.

 

“Siri, are you sure this is West End Avenue?”

 

“Yes, Kara, don’t you remember?”

 

No, Siri, I don’t.

 

On the 1.7 miles back, I made a wrong turn and ended up on Music Row. For about a block, the Nashville of my memory flooded my eyes. The early to mid-19^th century homes, neatly lined side-by-side with their muted colors trimmed in white. Across from these homes, the perpetually-empty, chain-linked-fenced lot dances in the corners of my memory, but is now replaced with something more commercial, something to feed the stomach or eyes or empty places within us all.

 

Even Siri missed that Chet Atkins Way no longer goes straight through to 18^th Avenue South as construction on a new several-stories-high condo/loft/apartment building blocks its path. Maybe Siri is having her own dementia issues. Maybe ChatGPT will be her guide as she slowly fades away.

 

The Nashville of 20 years ago wasn’t inherently better or worse than the Nashville of today. Just as the Nashville of the mid-19^th century Music Row wasn’t inherently better or worse compared to 20 years ago. I simply miss the familiarity and how certain places in their particular situation (the buildings, the streets, the green spaces, etc.) hold the familiarity and return it to me in an embrace. I see the place, and the place sees me, and we tell each other the secrets we share. 

 

When the space changes as drastically as West End Avenue has and is changing (and can anything that has taken 20 + years to change be called drastic? But work with me.), it turns cold: an old lover whose reinvention resembles nothing I found attractive in the first place.

 

And so, Nashville will be easier to leave, easier to release in my heart, easier to forget in my mind. . . maybe. I still hold the secrets after all, and somewhere the city holds them, too.

Photo credits:Andrew Nelles/File/The Tennessean