mercy neverending...

A month of Tuesdays and where have I been...? This link should answer part of that question: www.mercynewyork.com

I stepped into this project a mere three weeks ago, and since then I've logged nearly 200 design and production hours, plus a trip to NYC and back, and I'm still not exerting one fifth the effort Scott is...

Too much? I don't really think so.

The show hangs tomorrow and opens on Monday... Pray for grace.

At the bottom of every one of the 300-plus emails that have gone back and forth in the course of this project Scott has a quote that rings truer to me the more times I read it and the longer the nights are at my computer...

:: "There can be no transforming of darkness into light and of apathy into movement without emotion." – Carl Jung

expatriating...

The first time I heard the term "expat", somewhere in my mid-twenties, I had no idea what it meant. In my international NGO world (another term I had to learn the meaning of) the word came up quite a lot. Eventually I figured out it was short for expatriate, and then it made more sense. Except it still sounded negative to me... an "ex-patriot", meaning what? Someone who no longer has allegiance to their home country?

Now that I officially am one, I've grown curious about the origin of the term. So as not to disappoint my regular readers, here's a definition:

ex·pa·tri·ate
n : voluntarily absent from home or country [syn: exile] v 1: expel from a country [syn: deport, exile] [ant: repatriate] 2: move away from one's native country and adopt a new residence abroad

I find the "voluntarily" part particularly fitting... along with the "expel" part and the "exile" synonym -- words none too strong to describe the adjustment of swapping countries... There's a lot more to changing one's country of residence than I ever thought about. And I know I have it easy -- a job and a home already provided for me -- environments in which I can comfortably speak English... People to help me translate the letters I get in the mail, research health insurance and taxes and open a bank account...

This weekend I went to a Swiss village and a French-speaking church, where I met the speaker -- a woman who's been a missionary to the Philippines and Asia for over 20 years. In our five-minute conversation we touched on the thing that I think makes expats everywhere kindred... That feeling that you don't quite fit anywhere...

People are always asking me where I want to "settle". This question bothers me on several levels... First, because that's a word I don't particularly like, for all its implications. Secondly, it bothers me because it's a question I can't answer, though everyone seems to think I should be able to. Does everyone have a picture in their head of where they'd like to "end up"? I suppose I can think of things I'd like to be doing and people I'd like to be near, but I can't honestly pick any one geographical spot on the planet.

At some points this transfer process has felt like a violent back and forth across the Atlantic, with my heart wondering where to place its loyalties. In America I'd find myself walking through Walmart aisles complaining that I couldn't find fresh-baked crusty bread and brie... Back in Switzerland I'm mourning the lack of flavored coffee creamer and affordable Mexican food. Am I never satisfied? There's something missing everywhere...

Europe connects with me... the cobblestone streets and looming cathedrals and quaint villages strike a chord somewhere within my Swiss roots. But at my core I'm still an American, and more, the little girl from wild Alaska... Yet when I'm home in my Alaskan-American roots, I find there are parts of that life that still fit me, but other parts that I've outgrown forever...

When you almost lose something, it makes you realize how much you really wanted it. Waiting to come back to Switzerland, it may sound a bit dramatic to say I saw my life flash before my eyes, but that's sort of what happened -- my Swiss life anyway, with all its lost possibilities. So I promised myself... that if and when I returned I would spend less time missing the familiar, and more time exploring my new surroundings... That I would take advantage of the glorious outdoors and take up running again... That I would determine to learn French and go paragliding and try sailing... That I would burn more candles and paint more pictures and read more books... That I would work hard but not too hard... That I would cross borders and open my eyes and see as much as I could see...

Today I may have plenty of reminders that I am absent, exiled, expatriated from my home country... but I'm present somewhere else.

:: "We live in a moment of history where change is so speeded up that we begin to see the present only when it is already disappearing." - R. D. Laing, The Politics of Experience

where I've been...

It's not Tuesday, but there's something I want to show you... To see the project I/we've been working on for months, and get a reminder of what my whole Switzerland move is about, go here... www.mercyships.ch

momentum...

It's time for a very unambiguous blog entry -- uncharacteristic, I know. But let it be your first clue that my life seems to finally be making a little more sense! Having a Swiss visa in hand helps, of course, in determining the all-important question of where I will spend the next 18 months of my life... Funny how one little piece of paper in my passport took all that time in the universe and makes all the difference in my mental state.

After weeks of not knowing what to say I can tell you concretely that I have my work visa, have a work contract, and I can stop all this wondering and get something done, for 18 months at least...

Momentum... looking at the path of my travels over the US during my 11 weeks of exile, it's roughly the shape of a circle. Actually more like a trapezoid, but at any rate, it felt a little like I was going in circles. Maybe I was just winding up speed, because now that I'm back home, things seem to be finally taking off.

mo·men·tum, n.
1. A measure of the motion of a body equal to the product of its mass and velocity. Also called linear momentum.
2. Impetus of a physical object in motion.
3. Impetus of a nonphysical process, such as an idea or a course of events.
4. Philosophy. An essential or constituent element; a moment.

I'm back at my desk, with a long list of things to be done... projects I am excited about and prepared for. Back in my new room, in this big house in this beautiful country... Back to a life I wasn't sure I'd get back again...

During my 11 week detour I feel as though I came full circle -- from being completely sure of my calling to being completely not sure, and then back again... A necessary letting go, perhaps. A necessary preparation for what lies ahead.

And it's all forward from here...

:: "The wind blew her back..." – Wilco

11 tuesdays later...

I'm HOME... in my own room, in Switzerland, with a newborn week-old visa in my passport that immigration at the Geneva Airport didn't even bother looking at today...

After 17 strange beds I'll sleep in my own tonight -- although funnily enough, they swapped out my bed while I was gone so I haven't slept in this one before either.

And everything in between there and here is just too much to say...

:: "Lately it occurs to me, what a long, strange trip it's been." - Jerry Garcia

the sound of silence...

East Texas is very quiet. Quiet enough to hear the birds outside the window, and the wind in the trees, and people across the field... Quiet enough to hear all the questions in my head... And then there's the silence.

Sixty days and counting and I'm still wandering... and wondering. No answers. No news. Do not pass go, do not collect your visa...

I looked up the word "trust" the other day. It's a word we throw around a lot. Jack Bauer uses it too much on the show 24... "You just have to trust me..." "I need you to trust me on this one..." Does he have any idea what he's really asking?

One definition of Trust: "complete confidence in a person or plan".

That's a rather large statement. But there's more... Synonyms: faith, confidence, reliance, dependence -- "These nouns denote a feeling of certainty that a person or thing will not fail. Trust implies depth and assurance of feeling that is often based on inconclusive evidence. Faith connotes unquestioning, often emotionally charged belief. Confidence, frequently implies stronger grounds for assurance. Reliance connotes a confident and trustful commitment to another. Dependence suggests reliance on another to whom one is often subordinate."

Trust in the silent fog... Although strangely, silence isn't really silent... It just means you're not hearing the one thing you're listening for. On the ship I remember sailing nights when I would be woken up out of a dead sleep to the ominous sound of silence.... No engines, no generators... The absence of sound more disturbing than the sound...

My silence is crowded by questioning thoughts... And I wonder, how much does my doubt affect the outcome of my miracles? Can my disbelief actually make a difference in what is meant to be? How can you leave room for acceptance of any outcome while still having a pure enough faith to hope?

"Depth and assurance of feeling..." I'll risk hoping because there are some things I know for sure... even if occasionally I forget. I have to trust that His faithfulness is more powerful than my doubt.

:: “Often enough our faith beforehand in an uncertified result is the only thing that makes the result come true.” - William James

backstage...

Every week (almost) I sit here and try to think of what I should tell you... What might inspire and encourage and give you insight into my journey while helping you on your own... What view of the world do I have to offer today?

Most times it's not anything at the forefront of my life that comes to mind -- it's the backstage wonderings and ramblings that seem to emerge as most important. -- setting the stage for all other things that happen to me. What's behind it all? What's underneath, beyond the obvious and the superficial... What are the connections I'm not making, between the divine and the everyday?

My daily life at the moment, front and center, has become a random chain of happenings jumping from place to place. Worlds that used to be quite separate all blur into one. I find it surreal that I can sit here in a cafe in the middle of America, with a cup of coffee and my laptop and free wireless, and be connected to all of my worlds. There's my friend the aid worker fighting sweat and sand in the Sudan... my creative team working 7 time zones away in Switzerland... my colleague pondering his future from Germany... my Mom waiting for emails and spring in Alaska... I can chat with four countries at once, handle my job, organize my life and the people in it, all through an invisible electronic connection.

Behind it all... beyond my present wandering exile and multitasking life and future, there is something bigger at stake. My comfort, my privileges, my everyday happiness... All of that is playing out for the sake of a storyline far more important.

Sometimes I forget. How did I get here, again? Why are most of my worldly possessions across the sea in an empty bedroom and the rest of them in a suitcase? What is the reason I'm not pulling a paycheck or looking for homeowner's insurance? How did I get myself into this?

As I'm sitting here in ostentatious comfort in this oversized cafe chair, with everything I could possibly need and more, I remember... Somewhere in the world there is a girl who hasn't looked in a mirror for years because she can't stand to see her own face. Somewhere there is a boy who can't walk because he didn't get the right shot at the right age. Somewhere, a mother has stopped crying for her starving children because she has no more water for tears. Somewhere, another heart is breaking for being forgotten.

One of those somewheres is a country called Liberia. Right now, at this moment, there's a ship there full of people meeting a land full of need -- one person at a time. Their stories come to the surface, brought forward through the eyes and ears of living human connections...

They remind me that this is what I'm about. This is why I'm here and there and everywhere. This is what I'm working toward and what I'm called to.... To take people backstage. If only their faces could be seen and their stories told... surely the world could never forget.

Here's one look backstage...

:: "What we see depends mainly on what we look for..." - John Lubbock

100 years to live...

(I borrowed this post from an email to my best friend...)

I've found a new song of the season. It was playing in a restaurant one night a few weeks ago, as I sat with good friends talking of life and future and ages... and it cemented that surreal moment forever in my mind.

We only have 100 years to live... One thing I have thought lately as I've gone from one decision to the next -- is that wherever any of this goes, whatever any of it means -- life is too short to not seize the moment. Maybe this random two months of my life is meant to teach me to surrender... to plan less and pray more... to think less and live more... to be present in every moment and to recognize each miracle from the inside out.

What really matters to me? People. Relationships. Phone calls and emails and all the lines that connect us. Awareness. Authenticity. Not being so busy that I miss things. Not being so self-absorbed that I miss opportunities. Finding beauty... Creating beauty... Unearthing the real and the true and the redeemed...

I'm sure there's heartache somewhere around the corner. I'm going to hit a day where everything seems to be falling apart and I'll wonder all over again. But I'll get past that day and go on to the next -- that's living. That's life.

I am all the ages I've ever been... I am all the worlds I've ever lived in... I am all the people I've ever known. And the more I embrace it all, mingled, messy, unresolved... the more I find myself in the middle of it, somewhere.

I look at how many time zones I'm living in right now... There's six on my computer screen, plus the one I'm in now. Seven worlds that matter immensely to me. Would I trade all those today for one simpler life, more peaceful?

Not a chance.

:: "There are two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle." - Albert Einstein

vertigo...

It's a condition, a U2 song and a word that jumped out from my required reading this week ("The Millenium Matrix" by M. Rex Miller):

:: :: ::
Certain conditions or dynamics are known to induce vertigo: Fatigue slows the cognitive process and leaves people or institutions vulnerable to disorientation. Moving too quickly seems to upset the body's balance mechanisms and leads to coriolis vertigo (disorientation associated with operating physically free from the earth's movement). Pilots know that anytime they experience a loss of horizon (such as when flying at night or in clouds), they are in danger of vertigo. Too much noise and vibration in the environment creates a mental overload, which very often leads to vertigo. Finally, fixating on a particular item or issue can cause one to eliminate or deny other essential information and thereby lose the panoramic command of the environment.

Those suffering vertigo lose all sense of vertical and horizontal orientation; they literally lose their alignment to, and placement in, the real world. Pilots suffering vertigo have flown their planes full throttle into the earth.

Because it represents the tyranny of the subjective, the only effective recovery from vertigo is an absolute, resolute, focused reliance on objective reality (such as an airplane instrument panel).
:: :: ::

It's also an interesting metaphor for my life at the moment. Over these weeks I have Jumped from world to world, familiar to strange, known to unknown... It's some days very hard for me to determine what is real... What is true horizon... What is safe to focus on.

But I know it's there...

:: "We're not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us; we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be." - C.S. Lewis

a great wind...

"You make your plans and then a great wind comes along..."

Tonight I'm borrowing words from Sabrina Ward Harrison's "Messy Thrilling Life", which I read yesterday while waiting in yet another airport... Sometimes another's words can be more fitting than your own...

:: :: ::
And in the end, it turns out that maybe it's not the order of our words and our stories that's so important, but how we pick them up off of the floor and how we hold them, how we live them and how we begin again... There really is no protection from life. But why all the believing there is? Why all the acting as ifs -- the careful protective editing and graceful sashaying away for safety. There is no clean shield from living and loving... I am filled with happiness, not perfect rightness, just a softening of understanding for the way life is going. This has all happened before us... Untied and loose we travel together, making it to the next landing point, bags in fist, eyes wide open.
:: :: ::

I feel the wind these days... And while I don't know what direction that wind is going to take me and what it might do to the pieces of my life, I'm very sure that it's going to carry me to a very good place.

Trusting what I cannot see...

:: "We must be willing to get rid of the life we have planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us." - Joseph Campbell

plight and flight...

I'm safely across the sea again... Last Tuesday at 12:35 I was beginning my transatlantic journey -- I had the thought during my ten hour flight that maybe going backwards across five time zones might actually give me a chance to catch up with myself...

Six days and three states later I'm still a bit numb. Nothing's changed about my life circumstances except that I've now had to try to explain it to a lot more people. Which means, I suppose, that there are more people praying, and more people caring, and less people I have to explain it to later.

Traveling from place to place this way my I'm struck by how my possessions dwindle (less to carry) but my relationships grow. The less I have to hold on to, the more I cling to intangibles, and the more they actually become tangible. Ties of family and the care of friends turns into something I can feel -- like an invisible blanket surrounding me with warmth and security. Small generosities and acts of kindness amaze and humble me. And I am left feeling forever indebted.

Someone asked me the other day, after the muddled explanation of my current situation, "but are you happy?" I thought about it and said that I was. Even in the middle of this uncertainty and undefineable future, I realize my happiness. It's a quiet sort of stable happiness, that ebbs and flows but is always within view. It's in knowing that my security and richness doesn't dwell in anything that can be taken away. Whatever happens in the next few weeks, wherever I end up, the most important things to me in life are not at risk.

They go with me.

:: "My happiness moves..."

quandary...

I almost forgot it was Tuesday... And last Tuesday, it wasn't exactly that I forgot to blog -- I just had a serious case of wordlessness.

When you're at a loss for words, dictionary.com is always a good place. And I did find one:

"quandary" n 1: a situation from which extrication is difficult especially an unpleasant or trying one; "the woeful plight of homeless people" [syn: predicament, plight] 2: state of uncertainty or perplexity especially as requiring a choice between equally unfavorable options [syn: dilemma]

I think that pretty much covers my current life.

Bible.com is also a good place when you're speechless. Interestingly enough I didn't find the word "quandary", but I did find the Scripture of the Day:

"For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end. Then you shall call upon me, and you shall go and pray unto me, and I will hearken unto you." (Jeremiah 29:11-12)

And I think that pretty much covers it as well.

:: "I know God will not give me anything I can't handle. I just wish that He didn't trust me so much." - Mother Teresa

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..."

transatlantic...

I've added a word to my blog title:

trans·at·lan·tic, adj.
1. Situated on or coming from the other side of the Atlantic Ocean.
2. Spanning or crossing the Atlantic Ocean.

Life happens in stages... I think this is the best word for mine right now, given I'm not sure what side of the world I'm on half of the time.

I wondered if there was a word "transpacific"? Indeed there is... who knew? It's funny that I've never heard of it before, being a Pacific Northwest girl...

:: "I am not the same having seen the moon on the other side of the world..."

la jument...

This image captivated me today. Look closely and you'll see the man at the lighthouse door... I wanted to know the story...

I miss the ocean. I was born on an island, and my entire life (with the exception of four land-locked years at college) I've lived within view of the sea. I love its hugeness – its peace and its power... It reminds me of God.

In the midst of this overwhelming sea, I am still and safe...

:: "This is over my head but underneath my feet..." – Lifehouse

blur...

I have 59 minutes to still make my Tuesday deadline... and ironically, nothing much to say. Well, not much I can say here, anyway, in this randomly public forum. Not that I don't trust you readers with my innermost thoughts and most confidential information... it's just that I don't trust the rest of the world that might trip across this page someday.

Do you ever feel as though you are standing still and watching everything else rotate around you? No, not the "I am the center of the universe" daydream -- it's a real feeling I'm talking about -- as if things are moving and happening so fast and it has nothing to do with you, yet everything to do with you. Like pieces shifting into place, being positioned by a divine and deliberate hand...

That's how I feel. I'm in the middle of something. Something big.

For now I can't speak. I can only watch, and listen, and sometimes feel overwhelmed and sometimes very peaceful... And go to sleep at night trusting another piece of the puzzle will fit tomorrow...

:: "Can anybody fly this thing..." - Coldplay

one more ocean line...

Alright... I think the Ocean Lines site was feeling abandoned so I posted one more update that I hadn't finished from the end of January. Maybe I won't quite be able to leave it behind after all. We'll see... www.northernharvest.org/tianna

My ski-less Saturday was vindicated today -- it was such glorious weather we abandoned our desks and headed for the mountains... Carpé diem. :) So all of you can quit asking me if I've gone skiing yet (as if that's the only thing to do in Switzerland... there's also fondue!). All in all, it was a very Swiss day. I promise I'll work twice as hard tomorrow...

And no, it's not Tuesday (again)... but keep checking. ;)

:: "The mountains are calling and I must go..."