hummingbirds and toads

There are cicadas whirring outside my window. It is 9:30 pm and it's already dark outside. It was 85 degrees Fahrenheit today and people were sighing at how nice and cool it is.

I'm on day three in my new stomping grounds in the Raleigh, NC area. The last two months have taken me from Munich to Austria to the Lakes District in England to the West Highland Way in Scotland to Raleigh, North Carolina. It's been a wonderful whirlwind.

I'm not going to lie: transitions are hard and culture shock is real (you can see my friend Angela's take on that here) and there have been tears. This morning, in fact.

But there have also been many small, good things today that remind me that this is where I want to be.

Here are some of them.

~ a tiny toad the size of my thumbnail on the sidewalk
~ hummingbirds zipping in and out of the garden
~ a bunny rabbit meandering through the yard
~ cicadas so loud I hear them through my closed window every night
~ a pool with water that is pleasantly tepid, not freezing
~ gracious people
~ magnolia blossoms
~ crepe myrtles
~ white pine trees
~ a dryer so my laundry is finished after two hours total
~ garlic bread
~ iced tea
~ a screened-in porch

In the middle of so much newness, little things like these go a long way toward helping me keep my chin up. As does the audiobook of Charlotte's Web narrated by E. B. White himself. Just saying.

The Art of Leaving Well

One thing I've learned through many moves over the years is that leaving well is an art form, not a formula.

It would be easier if it were a formula: I could make a list, check off all the boxes, and tie up all the loose ends before moving on.

But that's not how life works. Uprooting is a messy, unpredictable business. Just as I successfully pull up one tie to a place, I inadvertently establish another. Somehow I always manage to be putting down new roots until the actual moment of being transplanted.

I'm moving away from Munich in less than a month, and it is really tempting to check out now. But I’m still here. If I’m called to bloom where I’m planted, that means I’m called to bloom here until the day I go. 

So even while I set up final visits with friends, I allow myself to spend time with new acquaintances. I initiate a four-week Bible study with a teenager from church. I invite a couple of kids over for a tea party.

I visit familiar haunts for the last time while still discovering new, delightful places.

Even while I'm preparing to leave, I still live here. There are still things for me to do here.

None of this means living in denial. Closure is important. But the truth is that there will always be loose ends. There will always be unfinished conversations and unexplored possibilities and things on the to-do list that never got done. People that I wish I’d sought out over the last two years that it’s now time to say goodbye to. It’s enough to make me crazy. 

In the weeks before I graduated from college, I was under immense pressure and immense blessing. I was preemptively grieving the loss of a community that was precious to me while daily receiving all the riches that community had to offer. I did not know how to process it all, and I was afraid that I would leave important things undone - that somehow I would miss something crucial and have no chance to rectify my mistake.

During that time the Lord gave me a word through a friend: "Rest easy. I'll take care of the loose ends. Fear not. Trust Me."

While this transition is not nearly as devastating as that one was, it is good for me to remember the assurance God gave me in the midst of it.

It’s a reminder that the work I’ve been doing here in relationships and community isn’t actually my work: it’s the Lord’s work. And it is being accomplished in His timing. If it feels unfinished to me, that’s ok, because I’m not the one responsible to finish it - He is.  

In the meantime, I write myself reminders, give myself space to grieve and to rejoice, hang out with friends, and practice the art of leaving well.

finding home

The soul finds its own home if it ever has a home at all. ~Marilynne Robinson, Home, 282

Dear Katie,

On Sunday after church, you asked me if I ever wondered where home is. You are bright and outgoing and wistful and twelve years old. 

The question caught me off guard, and I answered with my knee-jerk reaction: Yes. I do wonder that, often. And as I wonder, sometimes the only thing that enables me to keep moving forward is the promise that our citizenship – our ultimate home – is in heaven. It seems abstract, but it is more concrete than any other answer I can offer in the space of a brief interaction in the church foyer.

But I’ve kept thinking about it. 

I've lived in nine different cities. Not counting the three places my parents have lived since I left for college. Two continents. Three countries. Zip codes that all run together in my head so that I always have to double-check before writing my return address. 

I'm moving to my tenth city in two months. 

When do I not wonder where home is?

For both of us, home is not a particular house on a particular street in a particular city, state, and country. And there’s a certain sadness to that – a sense of loss that I hear in the way you ask the question. When you ask where home is, I wonder, What would it be like to have one home?

Home is cardboard boxes and moving crates and knowing that this place is only temporary - and I hate that. 

And yet. And yet.

Home is every place I have unpacked those boxes. Would I really want to give any of those places up for the boon of just having one home?

I have a home that is far bigger than one house in one city. I have not one home, but many. I look for hints of home wherever I go, and often I find it in unexpected places. 

I discover a piece of home every time I walk into an art gallery. Also every time I walk into a bookstore.

Home is James Taylor's album "October Road" on repeat from July through November. And my mom's collection of Christmas music. And Handel's "Messiah."

Home is a dorm room filled with more people than is entirely comfortable - a jumble of coats and books and mugs of steaming tea and rich conversation - or silence. 

Home is wherever my parents live. 

Home is Orion in the clear winter sky. 

Home is gathering friends together to cook and laugh and visit.

Home is humid days on a screened-in-porch in North Carolina, swinging in a hammock, listening to the creek.  

Airports are home. And train stations. Any place where people occupy liminal space - in transition from one place to another. 

Home is the sound of the Amsel - the German blackbird with an orange beak that has the most beautiful song in the world. It is also the sound of cicadas whirring in the North Carolina heat. 

Home is the community of believers learning what it means to be pilgrims to the city of God. Sometimes we speak German as we walk through life together. Sometimes English. The language doesn’t matter as much as we sometimes think it does. 

Home is the quilts my grandmother made.

Home is a kitchen in a church basement.

Home is whatever hotel I'm spending the night in. 

Home is the collection of postcards and posters and photos and paintings that I tape to the wall and then take down again when it's time to go. 

Home is a gift that I often find when I least expect it. 

Home the way we want it doesn't exist. There is no place in the world where all the people who are precious to us gather to do life together. And even if there were, a lot of the people we love don't speak the same language. There is no one house in the world that holds all the smells we associate with home and holds all our memories. There is no place in the world that can possibly satisfy the yearning for a place where we are fully known, fully at rest, where all is truly, deeply, profoundly, well. 

That yearning is only fulfilled when Christ's Kingdom is made manifest. And that is why I cling tight to Paul's proclamation that our citizenship is in heaven: because it gives me hope that one day the yearning for home will actually be fulfilled. Though the ache seems to last forever, it will only last a lifetime. A lifetime seems long when you're in the middle of it. Especially when you're twelve. Or even twenty-four. But then there's forever. Forever at Home. What a weight of glory. 

For now, we get to carry around that yearning as we live the live of nomads. And we carry around more than that longing - we get to carry some of the things that make a place a home. My mom puts the Mary Engelbreit "bloom where you're planted" magnet on yet another fridge. I turn on the music that holds sustaining memories. We cook food that nourishes our bodies and reminds us of other meals around other kitchen tables. We schedule FaceTime calls and send text messages and write letters. 

We refuse to be defeated by the reality of how temporary this all is. We choose to put down roots even though we know that when it's time to move on the uprooting is agonizing. Because as long as we are willing to put down roots, we have access to a foretaste of home. As long as we look for them, we will find bits of home that we can carry with us wherever we go.

  

Grace,

Kate

Things I Learned This Month | September 2018

I have a confession: I have been resenting the onset of fall. Usually I welcome the advent of sweater weather, but this year I clung to the last remnants of summer. Now that it's October, fall and I have made our peace and I'm enjoying bundling, but it's a struggle. As is usual with the close of a month, I'm sharing a few things I learned during September - mostly ordinary, some extraordinary.

{Also, I had the chance to write a guest post for The Write 100 Challenge last month. Check it out here.}

1. All the chicken things. I listened to The Lazy Genius Cooks Chicken a few days ago. Its a 40+ minute episode on all the different cuts of chicken and different things to do with them. I'm now dying to try change-your-life chicken. Also braising.

2. Pumpkin soup, which I already loved, is ratcheted up a notch when you add ginger, garlic, curry, and coconut milk. Yum. I'm so not a pumpkin spice latte person (hello tea-drinker), but I live on pumpkin soup in the fall.

3. Scrubbing the kitchen floor is THE BEST feeling. I moved back into my Munich apartment this month. Last year when I moved in, there were already people here, so I couldn't do a real deep clean. But this year I had the apartment to myself for a few weeks, and I attacked that kitchen. It probably hadn't been properly cleaned in five years. The final step was the floor. I got down on my hands and knees with two buckets of water, a scrub brush, and a rag and SCRUBBED that floor. End result, a job well done and a kitchen that feels clean for the first time since I moved here.

4. There is a tool to get at those pernicious weeds that root themselves in cracks in the driveway. It's a speed weeder and it is a beautiful creation. (Also it has a red handle. Score.) I found this randomly in a hardware store and bought it on a whim. This thing works wonders. You still have to apply a lot of elbow grease, but it's actually effectively applied elbow grease. My usual experience is huffing and puffing and straining and failing to get the roots of those weeds. This thing is easy on the wrist (directs force through the shoulder) AND gets the roots. Beautiful.

5. Dordrecht might be Holland's best-kept secret. My parents and I found this little gem of a town on a fluke and absolutely loved our stay there. I'm hoping to do an actual post on it eventually, but let's just say it has antique/junk shops galore, terrific seafood, idyllic canals, and a nature reserve where you can kayak. And everyone is incredibly friendly. Basically it's the perfect weekend getaway.

6. The Cinque Terre is one of my favorite places on earth. I knew this already, but I forgot how much I loved it in the 7 or 8 years since I've been there. I went this weekend with friends and fell in love with it all over again. There is nothing better than hiking hard along the Italian coast all day and then diving into the Mediterranean to refresh.

7. That word translated "angels" in Psalm 8? It's actually a word almost exclusively used for God. The word "angels" is actually 'elohiym. That word shows up 2,606 times in the Old Testament, and it's translated "God" 2,346 times, "god" 244 times, and then miscellaneous other things like "angels" the remaining 16 times. I could write a whole post on why this is awesome, but I'll content myself by suggesting that you go listen to Marty Goetz's song inspired by this Psalm. It pulls out the link to Christ as the Son of Man in such a cool way.

"When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,
what is man that you are mindful of him,
and the son of man that you care for him?

Yet you have made him a little lower than the angels,
and crowned him with glory and honor."

Mama's wisdom | bloom where you're planted

Long before the boxes are unpacked, my mom puts a magnet on the fridge.

“Bloom where you’re planted.”

In a life of constant transition, frequently uprooting from a now-familiar place to move once again to new cities, states, and even countries, it’s a blessed and much-needed reminder.

Over the years the phrase sinks into my bones.

I add my own to it: an index card with a Jim Elliot quote in blue letters:

“Wherever you are, be all there.”

Over the years, I build up a collection of quotes, Bible verses, fragments of sayings circling the idea of being present, making a home, putting down roots while knowing another change is just around the corner. Clinging to a heavenly home while making a haven of each place of sojourning.

There are two ways to handle the constant moving.

One is to remain distant, getting by on superficial relationships and minimal involvement. You avoid making ties to people and places in order to minimize the pain of parting. Don’t nest, because soon enough you’re going to have to pack it all up again.

The other option is to choose to put down roots. It’s a deliberate choice, made because you know the richness and joy of a life rooted in a particular place and a particular community. But you count the cost every transition. Uprooting is exhausting, and you leave a part of your heart behind you. Every. Single. Time.

I’m a roots person.

As I ran through a park in Munich today, reveling in the uncontainable outburst of spring, I realized why.

A plant can’t bloom if it doesn’t have roots.

I have to put down roots, however temporarily, or part of me will wither. I would much rather have a rich life with bittersweet partings than close myself off from pain and joy alike.

This is a common theme for me, and it’s at the forefront of my thoughts right now.

It’s not just the visible presence of spring and new growth that has me pondering transient rootedness.

A year ago today, I graduated from college. That particular uprooting was agony.

Now I’m waiting to hear if I get to stay in Munich for another year or if something else is in store.

When I moved here eight months ago, I assumed I’d be here just shy of a year. Even so, I became a member of a church, joined a choir, hung pictures on my wall. I made the space a spiritual and physical home, not simply a place to spend the night.

During the times when I got restless and lonely and frustrated with the challenges of being in a new job in a new city in a foreign country, I challenged myself be more present here instead of withdrawing and hunkering down until my time was done.

Now I have two possibilities: stay another year and continue to deepen the roots I have here or transplant again come July.

Whether now or later, inevitably I will pack up and leave Munich. I’ll move to another place. And one of the first things I do there will be to unpack my own reminders. Reminders to bloom where I’m planted, to be all there in spite of – and because of – the knowledge that eventually I’ll move on again.

sometimes it's the smallest things - springboards to friendship

Immediately after the congregation was dismissed, Mama leaned over and whispered, "I love that lady's haircut!!!"

Two things that are high on our list of things to find when we move: a church home and a hairdresser. We were close to settling on a church home, and Mama never hesitates to ask strangers where they get their hair cut.

As I gathered my sundries, Mom bolted out of the pew to catch the lady with the fabulous hair. By the time I got to them, they were deep in a conversation about hairstyling woes and fixes. Shortly thereafter, the conversation moved on as they swapped stories about how each ended up in Germany.

Before I knew it, we had accepted an invitation to lunch at an Asian restaurant. Jennifer and Mama had hit it off, and they wanted to continue their conversation. (Dad was at a conference that weekend.)

On the way out, Jennifer introduced us to another lady who is clearly the instigator of a lot of church projects. Her first question to Mama: "Do you run?"

It turns out that she's trying to organize a fun run to raise awareness for Compassion International. She's not a runner though, and wants insights on how these things go. My family has never organized a fun run, but we have participated in plenty, so before names had been exchanged we were in a pow-wow about how to organize a family 5k.

And just like that, we had two new friends and an "in" into this church community. All because my mom wanted to find out where a stranger gets her hair cut.

The moral of the story: if you want to make a friend, compliment their hair and ask where they get it done.

But actually.

Sometimes all it takes to make a friend is to compliment them on something they have a vested interest in and then ask them more about it. My mom cuts my hair, so I don't actually ask people about their recommended hair salon. But I've used the idea multiple times with people I want to get to know - I ask them about a project they've worked on that I appreciated, or a book they're reading that I love, and then I use that as a springboard to a conversation. Sometimes it's a two-minute conversation and nothing more comes of it. But sometimes we hit it off and I actually gain a friend from taking the trouble to reach out.

As I prep to move to a new city by myself, I'm keeping this maxim in mind to make me smile and give me the necessary kick in the pants to meet people instead of staying in my nice little comfort zone:

Make a new friend: ask where they get their hair cut. 

Wilkommen in W--

After a month in country, we finally moved into our new home this week! While I'll be moving to Munich for the next year (and who knows where after that), and Charlie is still in college, this is our family's home base for the next three years. And what a place. Welcome to W--. (See that dash? That's is me both emulating Jane Austen - because who doesn't want to do that - and preserving our privacy.) We'll start with the town.

The Town

For what appears to be a small town, there's a lot going on in W--. There are several restaurants, an Eiscafe (aka ice cream less than 5 minutes from the front doorstep), lots of little shops, and two churches (Catholic and Protestant). Our house is on one of the main streets, so we are only moments from all of these places.

The churches are right down the street from each other: these two photos were taken in the same spot. 

This marsh is just around the corner from the churches. There also used to be a synagogue, but it was destroyed in 1938. There's now a memorial museum commemorating W--'s Jewish community.

None other than the illustrious Napoleon Bonaparte was greeted with great fanfare in this square. Twice, no less - once in 1807 and once in 1808.

Bookstore! Over a hundred years old, and just around the corner from our house. 

This is the eiscafe, which not only serves yummy ice cream, but also hosts the German-American Stammtisch that is held once a month to connect Americans and Germans in this community.

Everywhere you look in this town is something photo-worthy. These are only the highlights.

The House

This is the front and back of our house. It's orange! It's a very happy house, not only because it's orange, but also because the landlord (who is also an architect and designed it himself) loves light. The windows are glorious, and the house is situated to capture as much light as possible at all times of day. For example, my room faces west, but there is a skylight in the loft above it that faces east, so I get amazing light both in the morning and in the evening. 

This is the view from my parents' room.

And this is the view from the laundry room. If the rest of the house wasn't so amazing, this would make the laundry room my favorite room.

The house feels kind of weird right now - the only furniture is what Dad had in Korea. While that covers the basics - living room, dining room, bedrooms - a lot of our knickknacks and furniture are still missing. This means the house is in flux.

Not pictured: the many empty cardboard boxes at the bottom of the stairs, Charlie's room, which is currently the holding place for anything random that doesn't yet have a place, and other sundry corners of the house that are not yet in a photo-safe state. Like I said, we are very much in flux.

Proof of this: the vignette on the right has since disappeared because Mom wanted these things elsewhere (the globe is now on display above one of the cabinets in the kitchen). But I like the picture so I'm including it anyway.

See the pottery dish between the lamp and the sink? That's where bio goes - organic waste that savvy gardeners would compost, but which also has its own separate trash can in Germany. We're happy to separate it out, but fruit flies are also happy to munch on it. We are currently experimenting with traps  composed of apple cider vinegar, water, and dish soap, with modest success.

This is my room. LIGHT, people. I love it. 

The next thing on my to-do list after finishing this post is to start putting up all the clippings that make a space my own.

The stairs lead up to a cool loft space. But we don't know quite what to do with it because 1) the stairs are so steep that it would be hazardous to try to take any furniture up them, and 2) you bump your head on the sloped eves at the top of the stairs. But I'm sure we'll come up with something ingenious. 

This is the evening view from my room...It's amazing every. Single. Night.

Speaking of views, this town is in the middle of a stunning area of the German countryside.

The Countryside

W--. It's a good place to be.

first day in Germany: alternate realities

It is 6:53 pm, the evening of our first day in Germany, and I'm still awake. We'll see if I can make it to my goal time of 9. I'm pretty confident I can.

Y'all. I am not just here for two months to help my parents move, but for a whole year with the Fulbright (more on that in posts to follow). I am so glad to be back - it's good for my third-culture-kid soul. The only thing missing is Charlie. It's been a happy day, and as we went through it I realized that there are very marked differences between one's first day in Germany on vacation and one's first day in Germany during a military move. Both can be very good days, but I was chuckling to myself as I came up with the list of comparisons.

Any time you go to Germany: you start getting excited the moment you hear German spoken in the airport in the States, and then cannot stop grinning when you actually get to the German airport. (Fun story from today: at passport control my passable accent as I said "Guten Morgen" and the fact that I was born in Wiesbaden led the guard to ask me - in German - if I had a German passport also. No...but I wouldn't complain if I did.)

The first day on vacation: you have The Sound of Music soundtrack stuck in your head all day because that's what you watched on the plane.

The first day of a move: you have "How Far I'll Go" stuck in your head all day because you finally watched Moana on the airplane and all the tck (third culture kid) vibes are resonating strongly (island home/ocean -> American home/Germany).

The first day on vacation: you don't have a rental car, so you take the train from the airport to the city center and then buy a transit pass that you figure out how to use as you go.

The first day of a move: you can't pick your car up until tomorrow, so someone from post comes and picks you up, throws all 8 pieces of luggage for you and your parents in the government minivan, and drives you to military lodging.

The first day on vacation: you have to stay awake all day, so you spend hours wandering around the beautiful old city center, ooh-ing and ah-ing over the architecture and cobblestones and atmosphere of the place.

{Munich 2015}

The first day of a move: you wave at the stunning German countryside as you whiz past on the autobahn - you won't see it again for the rest of the day since you have no way to get off post once you're dropped off. You still have to stay awake all day, so you spend the hours wandering over post, feeling totally at home among the old military housing (if you've seen one post, you've seen them all) and exploring the PX/BX (Post/Base Exchange - aka a shopping mall). You leave with polish pottery and an inexpensive cell phone.

The first day on vacation: you purchase food from the local grocery store, marveling at how inexpensive Camembert cheese and good bread is.

The first day of a move: you know that you don't actually have to do a big grocery shop since you'll get the car tomorrow, so you run into the Commissary to purchase the bare necessities. Dad goes for milk (for coffee) and bubbly water; Mom goes for yogurt, ramen, and chocolate; and you go for tea (black for the morning and peppermint for evenings) and apples.

The first day on vacation: you spend the evening hanging out in the lobby of the youth hostel with your traveling companions, figuring out wifi to contact family members and chatting with the hostel staff.

The first day of a move: you spend the evening in military lodging, either putting up with cramped army guesthouses (the last time we moved), or marveling over how spacious and pristine air force lodging is (this move). It's no secret that the air force is cushy, and while you take pride in your tough army status, it sure is nice to enjoy that pampered air force life to ease the transition. While your parents lay out a plan of attack for the dizzying logistical challenges of in processing, picking up the car, and finding a home preferably within 5 days (wishful thinking much?), you revel in your lack of responsibility and write blog posts.

Any first day in Germany: you spend the day in a confusing haze of euphoria, loopiness from jet lag, and increasing difficulty staying alert and cogent. You instantly recognize the distinctive song of the Amsel (the European blackbird), which you haven't heard in years and yet would know anywhere because it is a sound of your childhood. You enjoy the feel of the air and the way the windows open and the sound of the language and all the memories of little things from years ago that you thought you'd forgotten. You keep your eyelids propped up as long as you possibly can and then sleep like a log all night because you refused yourself the tempting instant gratification of a nap earlier.

{Munich 2015}