displaced persons...

Tuesdays are too far between to relay all the things going on in my head... I've been doing a lot of thinking about my life this week -- what in the world I'm doing here, where my life is going, how much I do or don't have to give... Feeling displaced in life in a number of ways...

I need perspective...

Mine this week came from Liberia, a little war-torn country on the corner of West Africa -- through pictures taken by current Mercy Ships Anastasis photographer Scott Harrison, just docked in Monrovia a week ago... Go look at these images and maybe you'll see what I mean... (Ganta upcountry screening, patient screening...) In particular, I was struck by the gallery "A study of Monrovia's former luxury hotel Intercontinental. Now home to more than 1500 Displaced Persons." Just look at the pictures, and think about it. Think about what was, and what now is, and the harsh and vacant reality of the contrast...

Displacement. I don't even know the meaning of the word.

My self-centered wonderings about my own ridiculously blessed life are silenced for the moment.

:: "What you don't have, you don't need it now..." - U2

vacancy...

I'm determined to write on Tuesday no matter how I feel... Tonight you're catching me at full-fledged creative exhaustion. I've got nothing but raw, disjointed thoughts...

I'm thinking about the Anastasis arriving in Liberia last Friday without me... And I'm thinking about the frustrations of conjugating French verbs... And I'm thinking of the people I miss... I'm also thinking how providential it was to have Sorina come for a 36 hour visit this weekend and help fill the friend void I've been feeling... And I'm looking at the tulips on my table that remind me spring is just around the corner...

Bon nuit...

:: "Love is what we were born with. Fear is what we learned here." –– Marianne Williamson

retrospective...

Maybe it's the new snowfall outside, or the mountains surrounding me, or the wide ocean insulating me from the rest of the world, but my life feels quiet and muffled today. One of the things I realized when I came here to start this quieter season of life was how much I needed exactly that -- space and time and quiet for me to process so much that had gone before...

What do I learn from looking back? From the pages of my life a year ago: "The past few days have been full of Adam. He's onboard, and I've been able to be there from admission, to the ward, to the OR -- holding him in the recovery room when he woke up, and even carrying him down to the ward. Memories for a lifetime or more are being made every day..."

Memories reach into the present... Today I got an email from Adam's waiting new mother, who heard from the orphanage that he had a seizure and a high fever yesterday. He is okay today. But my heart skipped so easily back over time...

A year ago on a beach in Sierra Leone I ended a journal with these words... "I suppose you always feel that the time you are in is the one that will change you the most. But you can't know what lies around the bend. Time -- the speed of it takes me ever so steadily toward my next destiny... "

I look back to remember... to find echoes to fill my quiet.

:: "Life is a journey, not a destination..."

parlez-vous français?

I started French lessons on Monday... And what have I learned in a week? I've learned to say "Bonjour! Comment allez-vous? Je m'appelle Tianna. Je suis graphiste. J'habite à Lausanne." ...among other things. I have learned that Lausanne is a very international city -- my class of 9 comes from Australia, Israel, Peru, Brazil, India, Portugal, Italy and America... I have learned that I actually can survive walking to and from the bus every day in below-freezing temperatures... I have also learned that "to go" coffee is a very American concept -- at least to the people on my bus... And I'm still trying to figure out how to get my work done in half a day and still find time for my French homework...

:: "C'est la vie..."