distance...

I think maybe I will write a book someday about long-distance friendships. I wonder if by then I'll be an authority on keeping them or on losing them... Probably both.

I'm not sure if it just feels this way right now, or if it's deja vu of so many other seasons in my life that makes me think I've had more than my share of missing people. You could say it's been my choice, I suppose – moving around too much and never staying in the same place...

Ironically, it's that moving which has brought me most of my deepest relationships. And it's that same moving that constantly threatens to take them away...

dis·tance n.
1. The extent of space between two objects or places; an intervening space.
2. The fact or condition of being apart in space; remoteness.

How long can you stay connected when the things that connect you become fewer and fewer? Perhaps that's why I find myself more and more in conversations with old friends, reminiscing and talking about the past. It's easier than the present, because our histories connect us – our present is a constant reminder that our lives are being pulled farther apart.

Are friendships – or any relationship, for that matter – a product of circumstance? Do we choose our closest friends? Do they choose us? Or does someone or something else orchestrate our crossings?

I believe the latter statement. I believe that a divinely creative mind, which sees all and knows all through a continuum we cannot understand, designs our lives as we go along, ever working things for our ultimate good. Notice I say ultimate good... not necessarily immediate good, or present good, or continual good... Life is hard. It's we who made it that way. God is busy providing ways to restore it.

Finding bridges across the distance is one.

:: "Love your solitude and try to sing out with the pain it causes you. For those who are near you are far away, you write, and this shows that the space around you is beginning to grow vast. And if what is near you is far away, then your vastness is already among the stars and is very great." – Rainer Maria Rilke

still life...

my desk... (sculpture by Shad, age 4)

pictures of my office from my boss' record label website...

quote for the day...

:: "Don't frown, because you never know when someone is falling in love with your smile."

1966...

Colombo Harbour, 1966... tugboat at work and the Italian liner Victoria...
:: photographed by Richard Francis – Ships

broken memories...

I dropped and broke my Sala Victoria mug yesterday.

If you just gasped in shock and horror, then you are one of the few people who knows just a little of how much that ceramic object meant to me.

It was just a mug. But one doesn't cry over just a mug. It meant so much more than that to me.

To begin with, I was its creator. I searched for hours on a slow internet connection through worldwide mug vendors to find just the right size (to comfortably fit a double-tall latte), just the right shape (graceful but unique), and just the right color (something that would go with a 50-year old classic ocean liner). I labored to come up with just the right words ("coffee on a mission" )... just the right typeface (upper or lowercase?)... and just the right placement of that logo (no to mention the hours spent on the logo itself). And before that, I spent weeks convincing the finance officer we would actually be able to sell them and make money... And that was all just for the mug...

Before the mug, there was the Sala Victoria Café. There's really only one other person (Genevieve, where are you?) who has any idea what went into birthing that little coffee shop on our ship. It was so much more than a café. At first, the Sala Victoria was just a dream in our heads and a donated espresso machine in the abandoned Mediterranean Lounge bar... Then it was a saga of politics and plumbers and perseverance... And finally, it was a name and a West African carved sign and a reality. The Sala Victoria became a meeting place for people who desperately needed to meet each other... a breathing space of conversation and laughter for people who desperately needed to relax... a venue for events big and small that became the stuff of Anastasis legend (who can forget Abba Karaoke, or the Pirate Auction, or the 50th Birthday party at sea?). The Sala Victoria became a very special place, for some very special people, within walls that had seen so much...

Long before the Sala Victoria, there was her namesake. The M/V Victoria was a Italian-built luxury cruise liner launched in 1953 – the past life of the beautiful vessel we renamed the Anastasis and called a hospital and home. The Victoria was an aristocratic debutant, reborn to be a gracious merciful angel, pointing her bow toward the world's forgotten places, brightening dull African ports with her beauty and softening harsh worlds with her hope... She was so much more than just a ship.

That mug was the only tangible thing I have from the ship, really. One of the only things I have to remember her by. And in six months, there will be no ship. She will sail off into some sunset to be sacrificed into scrap metal, and for months I have been trying to find words to express how I feel about that...

It was more than just a mug, you see. And glued together in eleven pieces, it will still be special to me.

Maybe even moreso.

:: "If you want to build a ship, don't herd people together to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea." – Antoine de Saint-Exupery

life without keys...

I received the loveliest engraved silver keyring for Christmas. It's now attached to my purse, after I realized I didn't have any keys to put on it.

Come to think of it, I haven't owned a set of keys for quite some time. The big house I live in has an electronic locking system that doesn't require keys. Since I work in the same building, there's no keys needed there either. Before, I lived with a gangway instead of a front door, and could never manage to find the keys to cabin 41 anyway (not to mention I had nothing worth locking up). My car keys I gave up four years ago when I left behind my self-sufficient life, and although I now share a "community" vehicle, I rarely use it and don't hold those keys. I barely remember having post office box keys in a past life. And even luggage keys I don't bother with any longer, since it's pointless to lock your bags when every security point between here and the new world can open them anyway.

The plus side to my keyless life is that I have no keys to lose. (Not that I ever lost them before...) They never fall to the bottom of my purse, I rarely worry about locking myself out, and I spend less time fumbling with doors in the dark.

Keys symbolize many things – independence, ownership, security, privacy... In a way I suppose my current life holds less of all of those things. But I'm also well aware that keys represent the trappings of responsibility – commutes, mortgages, car payments – normal life for most.

In my next life I'm sure I'll have keys. And I'm looking forward to them. But meanwhile, there's something rather refreshing about a life without keys.

Maybe fewer keys is the key to simple living. Maybe we'd be happier if we all walked more instead of driving, left our doors unlocked more, and our luggage too. Maybe we should use a safe only for protection from fire, not from theft. But the reality is that very few people live in a world simple enough to have the luxury of not worrying about all of those things.

The empty keychain on my purse reminds me how blessed I am...

:: "I adore simple pleasures. They are the last refuge of the complex." – Oscar Wilde

above the clouds...

I think I rang in this new year reading Blue Like Jazz somewhere over Greenland... but I couldn't be exactly sure when the year turned. I do know that I'll remember watching the first sunrise of 2006 from above the clouds, thinking -- maybe resolving -- it would be a metaphor for my life this year.

When days are dark and dismal below, I want to remember that view from above the clouds -- all golden pink and amazing morning. I hope I can remember, when the sun is not in sight, that light is just on the verge of breaking through. And when I am slogging through mud and wishing for dry land, I hope my spirit can rise above to where everything looks different... To where the truth is.

Feet on the ground, head above the clouds... Bonne année.

:: "There is something beautiful about a billion stars held steady by a God who knows what He is doing. They hang there, the stars, like notes on a page of music, free-form verse, silent mysteries swirling in the blue like jazz." – Donald Miller

the last...

It's the last Tuesday of the year, I just realized. For a few more days I'm home in Alaska, nearly as surprised to be here as people were to see me. The usual mix of familiarity and lostness finds me here... In the quietness of a snowy Christmas all the months and weeks have come tumbling to the bottom of this long year. And my heart aches with something I can't quite describe.

When you dig deep under sadness, you find a different sort of joy, I think. The joy of unexpected reunions with people you can't possibly deserve, memories you only believe because you lived them, bewilderingly normal sights like little African boys in snowsuits and seeing angels on both sides of the world...

If you drink deeply of life you will find it...

:: "The whole man is to drink joy from the fountain of joy." – C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory

alaska time...

Homer at noon, 10 hours behind me...

for today...

Reprinted from www.bruderhof.com

:: :: ::

You are probably striving to build yourself an identity in your work, out of your work and your witness. You are using it, so to speak, to protect yourself against nothingness, annihilation. That is not the right use of your work. All the good that you will do will come not from you but from the fact that you have allowed yourself, in the obedience of faith, to be used for God's love. Think of this more, and gradually you will be free from the need to prove yourself, and you can be more open to the power that will work through you without your knowing it.

The great thing after all is to live, not to pour out your life in the service of a myth; and we turn the best things into myths. If you can get free from the domination of causes and just serve Christ's truth, you will be able to do more and will be less crushed by the inevitable disappointments. Because I see nothing whatever in sight but much disappointment, frustration, and confusion.

Our real hope, then, is not in something we think we can do, but in God who is making something good out of it in some way we cannot see. If we can do his will, we will be helping in this process. But we will not necessarily know all about it beforehand.

- Thomas Merton

:: :: ::

the great divide...

If you want some sobering reading, read the latest UN Human Development summary: "Aid, trade and security in an unequal world..."

Every hour more than 1,200 children die away from the glare of media attention. This is equivalent to three tsunamis a month, every month, hitting the world’s most vulnerable citizens—its children. The causes of death will vary, but the overwhelming majority can be traced to a single pathology: poverty. Unlike the tsunami, that pathology is preventable.

Preventable. Not a natural disaster, not an act of God. Poverty does not need to exist. Things seem like they are getting worse instead of better -- the divide growing greater between the rich and the poor. Or maybe it just feels greater to me -- as I sit in country ranked #7 trying to reconcile the loves in my life... $3 cups of coffee and people living on less than $1 a day in countries #176 and #177... Doesn't add up.

And the unpreventable...? Watching news coverage of tsunamis, hurricanes and earthquakes, I realize even in natural disasters, it's always the poor that suffer most...

I had to do a search on CNN.com this morning to find earthquake coverage. That's how quickly it's dropped off the face of the news. But this weekend their special report on the "Faces of the Earthquake" broke my heart. If I were them... I might have wished to be among the dead instead of the survivors. I watch the rain turn into snow outside my window and wonder what that feels like under only a blanket in the mountains of Pakistan...

One country still in the news is Liberia -- last year's country #177 (rock bottom) on the Human Development Index. This year, it's dropped off the scale due to insufficient data. But last week, Liberians went to the polls for their first presidential election since the end of 14 years of civil war. And last month, our Mercy Ship Anastasis docked for the second time in Liberia's capital of Monrovia to assist in the country's rebuilding efforts with much-needed medical and development aid. God bless the new leader of the world's poorest nation and keep the peace...

I struggle with my own responsibility in the midst of this disproportion...

The first step to crossing the divide is awareness...

:: "Every right implies a responsibility; every opportunity, an obligation; every possession, a duty."- John D.Rockefeller Jr.

three years later...

Yesterday, this little boy in Sierra Leone turned three years old. And today, Adam found out his new family can take him home to Alaska...

Happy Birthday, Adams!

:: "I wonder if someday he'll realize that his very existence is a miracle... Most of all, I wonder if he'll grow up with a chance to know what his Life is truly about..." – me, from the beginning

once upon october...

Some people's new year starts in January... but my annual season of change has somehow become October -- in particular the 41st week of the year... A time when the leaves turn and the air grows cold, and I seem to do a lot of starting over...

:: four years ago: California USA, October 2001 ::
Last stop in the US on my way to a new life... An unknown sea leading to Africa... Did I know then it would be a voyage that would change my life? I think I did. I just didn't know how much. It has been the beginning of everything else...

:: two years ago: Germany, October 2003 ::
First days of a new job I never really wanted and completely didn't feel capable of... Why me? I think I wondered that before every Monday morning that year. But sometimes it's the things we dread the most that turn out to be the greatest blessings. And the experiences that don't actually kill us that make us that much stronger...

:: one year ago: Germany again, October 2004 ::
Last stop on the Exit Tour... Last night alone in the wee hours in the Photo Office... Wondering at how three years of ship life and work could come down to trying to organize a stack of papers and electronic files and a million untransferrable thoughts in my head... Bags packed and heart weary, I didn't want to leave but knew I couldn't stay... Time to go. Time to say goodbye... Time to start over.

:: present: Switzerland, October 2005 ::
I'm not coming or going today. Instead I'm wondering how I can go so many places in a year... and wind up right back where I started. I've been across the Atlantic and back three times, through 17 countries and states, and yet it seems I've gained little or no ground in the direction of my hopes and dreams for this year. The list of things I managed to accomplish in between transitions isn't nearly as long as I hoped it would be. Why does it feel like I'm back to starting over?

Where do we begin when we come to the end of ourselves? Perhaps back at our beginnings... Small and scared and standing in front of something a whole lot bigger than we are -- realizing we can't possibly do it alone.

And so I let go... and regroup... and tell myself that I'm an incurable idealist and perfectionist and I'm always harder on myself than I need to be... Maybe I'm finally learning that life is more about being than doing...

Tomorrow is another year...

:: "Hope is putting faith to work when doubting would be easier." - Unknown

arrivals...

I've spent an inordinate amount of time in airport arrival halls over the past weeks. If you're depressed from watching too much CNN and doubting whether there's much goodness and love left in the world, I'd suggest spending some time in one of these underappreciated places...

Pretend you're waiting for a late plane and just watch... The random collection of strangers gathered -- people who will likely never cross paths again in life, but for a few moments are united by an air of expectancy... All eyes trained on sliding doors that open intermittently to expulge yet another ordinary traveller -- a nameless person who suddenly becomes alive and intriguing when connected with a smile, a face, open arms on the other side of the room...

Personal snapshots in a sea of strangers... The intimacy of a kiss, warmth of a hug, aloofness of a handshake, depth of tears... Overlapping languages and so much emotion crowded in one room... If I had to pinpoint one overwhelming feeling emerging from that scene I would call it joy. The momentary realization of knowing you are loved, and missed, and looked for...

Everyone in the world should know that moment.

:: "Sometimes I would rather that people take away years from my life than take away a moment." – Pearl Bailey

angels among us...

It's still Tuesday somewhere...

I don't really know what to say about life these days. Tonight I'm thinking about friendship, and how there's something so supremely powerful about it -- the bond of true friendship, tried through the best and worst of times...

In the midst of the evil, tragedy and sadness that surrounds us on a daily basis, seemingly striking ever closer, I have to believe there is still hope to be found. There are angels among us. I know this because I know some. They are the friends I have scattered across countries and time zones, who are with me and one another at a heartbeat's notice... They are the people I watch rise above the murky floodwaters of life and emerge as survivors... They are the resilient suffering who are as close as next door...

I have never been so convinced that Love is stronger than anything. Love is compassionate and redemptive. And Love is all that matters.

:: "Pain is our mother; she makes us recognize each other..." - Over the Rhine

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