a shadow of sorts

I long, as does ever human being, to be at home wherever I find myself
~Maya Angelou

Strangely enough even though Maya’s words truly resonate within me, I find myself longing for the home I recently left behind; and, this my friend, is the blessing and the curse of the roaming nomad. If one chooses to move around and truly be at home wherever one finds oneself, then they can then say that they have been blessed by the experience of having not one but many homes. The opportunity to explore and settle into a new environment is an unexplainably illuminating experience, and yet, with every new home experience comes the tragic yet ever looming necessity of saying goodbye. Goodbyes are never easy and if anyone says they are then they are minimizing the pain or avoiding the connections. As human beings we are not good at it; therefore, we avoid goodbyes like we avoid the plague. But if we chose to connect and engage with others, then leaving will most definitely be exquisitely painful.

As I sit here thinking about my most recent home, Liberia, I ache. I realize now that I did not consider it home simply because I lived there for an extended period of time; I considered it home because I felt so incredibly understood there. A few exceptional people who knew nothing about my past, nothing about my future, decided to take a risk and let me in. What’s unbelievable about that is that simply based on random circumstance, their pasts have been filled with heinous events and their futures are for all extensive purposes, unknown. I was moved by it all and miss each and every one of them.

It’s nice to come home to my nest in Denver and with every touching reconnection, every sunny day, every walk with Tuesday and every conversation with a curious acquaintance I am reminded why I feel so exquisitely loyal to the life I have created here. It wasn’t handed to me; I earned it by making meaningful interpersonal connections and memories with people so incredibly dear to me that it brings tears to my eyes just thinking about it. And yet, for every day, every month, every year that I decide to call another place home, I am left being experienced as a memory, an idea, a shadow of sorts by all the people I hold dear on domestic soil.

Being experienced as a shadow is very painful but truly being present and engaged when we reconnect is a healthy reminder that proximity is not always the answer. Being close doesn’t always solve the problems or make people feel more connected. Sometimes being close allows people to take things for granted; reunions are a chance to express and reminisce. So it seems there is a fine line between comfort and pain when it comes to interpersonal relationships. In fact it is a common belief that a relationship without pain is a relationship not worth having. To some pain implies growth. But how do we know when the growing pains stop and the injury pains begin? Am I an explorer or an abandoner if I close to walk that fine line? And, what happens if I make the wrong choice?

So the question remains can I continue to do this work (and move around as I do) and still hold on to those I hold dear? I fundamentally believe my work is a calling of sorts. For every second of my life I have felt lost, I have felt comfort in the fact that I have always known what I was meant to do professionally. But am I a whole person in any given world I chose to live in if I am chronically leaving it? My biggest fear is that I am in fact living my life as a shadow and am more frequently referenced as someone from the past rather than someone from the here and now.

awake in the rain

When I opened my eyes I could hear it was still coming. The rain has been coming for a while now, but yesterday it was serious and there were pools of standing water in nearly every crack and crevasse. I rubbed my eyes and looked at the clock on my phone: 2:22 - it was early but at least it was a good, no rather a perfect time (I simply adore those double twos).

I started thinking about a number of things…..the pending loss of my dear sweet house/teammate who will be finishing her contract in 5 short weeks. This idea kindled a memory of pupino strategically moving his dog dishes around after being fed in such a way that it was clear he had a plan. Next came a hazy thought of my brother and his alleged frustration about me being so indescribably far away. This was followed by a flash of the handsome gentleman I recently met with a rush of what it feels like to be close to him. We experience each other intensely (secondary to some uncanny chemistry) each and every time we run into each other. Then just like that I pictured two of my close friends in Denver. Both brides-to-be who must be feeling overwhelmed by the immensity of it all; but, who take time to check in on me nonetheless. I imagined seeing them in a few short weeks at the base of Peak 8 in Breckenridge. I was struck by the realization that I am most definitely ready for a break, and, then I drifted back to sleep, a head full of the important characters in my life. I awake with a slight chill in the morning, the rain was still coming.

I make the small cup of coffee over a small gas stove in the percolator I carried across the globe. The first sip feels like my single most enjoyable indulgence in this desolate place. I move to the hammock and listen to the rain. In the mornings I don’t rush around like I typically do in the West trying to organize, get ready, check e-mail, check voicemail, pay bills, feed the dog, blow-dry my hair put on make-up. Here I am no longer in the business of rushing.

I am also no longer in the business of seeming. I recently received a couple (actually a number) of calls from the people who know me best. These people are clearly more than a little bit worried about me. They hear my voice crack when I talk about what I am seeing, go stoic when I talk about all the ex-combatants and their veiled threats and go numb when I talk about the trauma that surrounds me and they are all worried. So tonight I sat once again in my hammock and thought about their expressed concern while I watched the clouds move and change in front of me. They shifted and altered themselves so dramatically it was as if I was strolling though an art museum glancing at different palates, different ideas.

ready for a break

I realize that I am exhausted. I have become more withdrawn or maybe a better word would be obscure, as in faint, unclear, distant. I say that and think that’s not it exactly because the thing that I am most tired of is how visible I am. Every movement, every gesture every look – watched, studied, judged. Empty coffee cups gather around my sitting spaces: the few places I feel unwatched are scattered and my journal is full of unfinished thoughts.

This is not to say that I do not feel love for this place, because I do; sometimes I feel it so strongly that I think I might be having a panic attack. In those moments, my heart races uncontrollably and I worry that I may throw up. The love I feel is for these wounded souls who surround me, souls who have survived more than I can even image and they move on, grow - love. Although there are some days where it makes sense that I feel so alone and tired of being seen and it feels so difficult to accept the fact that there is simply no one I can reach out and touch and say nothing with because of the inherent power my “otherness” holds. I am warn down by this reality, hence the need for a break.

reflecting back: a different version of me

For a long time I never revealed what I felt. In my late teens and early twenties I lived by a simple principle: never willingly show fear or pain. I have always been expressive and playful but I was always strong, some would even say tough. I also became exquisitely good at feeling the emotions of others, even the unexpressed ones, and therefore I became good at what I chose to do. Then, following some of my own therapy, I realized that pain or fear must have been the only thing I was feeling – because if there had been anything else, I could have expressed it without violating my principle. I always liked to laugh but aside from my silent boughts of laughter, emotions were a sorted affair. Only now do I realize I was only half way there.

Based on my principle, I was unable to show any of my feelings because in the end they were all painful, one way or the other. The most exquisite joy was a sting to the heart, and love – love was a crisis of the soul. So I lived a very contained very controlled life. I never endured a crippling heart break but I also never endured intoxicating love; I never risked my pride to the point of failure but I also never took a risk for something that seemed unattainable and attained it.

For the last few years I worked on adjusting my principle, and it worked, or at least it worked half way. I was able to speak what I felt, but now I realize that rarely, in any other way, did I truly display emotion. I did so in periodic outbursts, uncontrollable releases but rarely about love and rarely in a fluid expressive manner that didn’t end with me asking the question “am I making sense?” or “do you think I’m crazy?”

In the last few years I reached a point where I could express my feelings through language (except with one kindred spirit out there who may or may not know I am making reference to them because they would have to feel it: with this individual I was chronically reticent). Until recently I had yet to reach a point where I truly felt it and spoke about it in the same instant.

Now I am doing both and those who know me best are concerned and rightfully so. It seems I can’t control it yet. I’m like a little pup: blind and grateful and exposed. It’s like I’ve been cured from a self-inflicted defect and now I can love not just in the general but in the specific and it hurts, painfully so.

So even though it is hard here and I am a little traumatized, I am not ready to walk away. I’m utterly exhausted in body and spirit but it still feels marvelous. And, knowing I have those of you out there who are having your very own abduction fantasies and are ready to jump on a plane to come and rescue me from myself gives me a feeling that is indeed a crisis but a crisis of feeling loved.