Tag — Immigrant Diaries
Solstice, Stonehenge, Solitude
a small sketch from my travel journal
It’s the night of Summer solstice. At home in Seattle the sun is at its highest right now, and hopefully the skies are clear to give the locals some much-onged for warmth during this cold Summer on this, their most treasured day. Here in Copenhagen–which is not yet home—the sun is starting to set, though the light has barely ebbed. Well after ten o’clock I can still read easily in the twilight glow that’s stretching over our high city balcony.
John Mayer is in town, the poet whose blues have sustained me through these strange and wrenching times. I searched for tickets—begged, borrowed and threatened to steal in two languages—but alas, none were to be found. Instead I’m sneaking smokes and playing all the live songs I could download one after another too loudly through the open windows of the living room. Message in Bottle (which I once heard Sting perform on an awkward date in an enormous arena). My Stupid Mouth (The Blogger’s Lament.) 83 (whimsical. nostalgic.) And finally, Gravity, my touchstone, my anchor.
I have been dreading this day, alone and away from my community on one of our most holy days. Paul is at a work party. One which has a reputation for being a bit of an orgy. One to which spouses are not invited. The girls are asleep after what for me was an exhausting night of homemade pizza, sing-a-long movies, and reading aloud extraordinary long chapters of Harry Potter. The grand finale for mom was one of those long, drawn out bedtimes only clever children can create, and enough dishes to make a restaurateur cry. But now that I’m here, alone with the dog, listening to John and watching the swallows dart after invisible insects; I find that I am actually okay in with this solitude, watching the sun slip into sleep, being grateful for the light.
At Stonehenge this morning the sun crested over softly arching hills, struck the blue-hued Heelstone, and drove its light between the arches of the great trilithon. Hundreds were there in dreadlocks and druid robes, smelling of travel and patchouli, trying to name something unnamable, making it up as they go along. Isn’t that what we all do? Cobble something together from shards of history and intuitive pull? Look for the meeting point between what we know and what we hope to be true?
I was at Stonehenge not long ago, fresh from the opulence of Europe’s finest cathedrals, ready to be unimpressed by a ring of stones surrounded by security fencing. I was surprised to find such holiness there, walking in a round where people have paced for thousands of years; waiting for the shard of light to crack the sky; hoping for a life continued. I followed the tour and when I reached the Heelstone, paused to touch its side. As I felt the warmth of the sarsen stone under my hand, I noticed a young woman walking counter clockwise to the organized tour, her shoes in her hand, her feet on holy ground. Seeing her example, I wanted suddenly to sink to my knees. It was all I could to do still my voice, to not incant ‘Holy, Holy, Holy.’ But I was unaccustomed of being a stranger in a strange land for so many long months, worn down from always sticking out, from always being obvious. I did not have the confidence to kneel in front of so many tourists in windbreakers and cameras. (Who knew the bending of the knee could be an act requiring so much strength?) Iinstead I stayed my hand on the stone, leaned my weight into my palm, and let my soul pour out thanks. Gratitude for the light. Gratitude for continuance. Gratitude for all that we need to go on.
It was not, and this is not, the Solstice I have come to remember. It is not the riotous and ridiculous parade; the familiar and homespun pageant built with our own hands; the silly, colorful crowd of thousands. Instead it is a new lesson in holy moments—stumbled upon alone (yet with casts of thousands now past); a mishmash of vices and virtues, of new songs and old stones. I feel as though I am soaking somehow in this history, in this present, and in the sun—always our promise of a future. I am melted. I am melded, somehow, me in this chair alone. And I think—held in this mystery of solitude amidst the companionship of souls—I think as the sun now fades, “Dayenu, it is enough.”
Immigrant Diaries: A Cross Cultural Experience
Ladies and gents, this morning I bring you a very special cross-cultural experience: Eurovision 2008.
Yes friends, long before Simon Powell got snotty on American Idol ,the citizens of Europe have been fighting amongst themselves to find the best songs/performers for the last 53 years. Last night the big finale was held in Belgrade, Serbia and 43 countries reported in with live voting results. With production numbers akin to the opening ceremonies at the Olympics, and with ratings to rival the Superbowl, Eurovision swept the continent last night. Even in little Denmark it was broadcast on no less than 3 stations with voice-over commentary in Danish, Swedish and German.
Truly, I’ve never seen anything weirder.
So here, to ease your way back into the work week with a smile and a baffled shake of the head, are my top pics from Eurovision 2008.
Most Enthusiastic
Latvia – seriously committed to the pirate look with Wolves of the Sea.
Most Confusing
France – always so classy, what with the women in beards an all…. Maybe they should have let Bret and Jemaine enter Foux Da Fa Fa instead.
Most Warped
Azerbaijan – operatic goth angels and something akin to vampires. Someone should probably check their basement for body parts.
Best of Show (According to Moi)
Croatia (music video, not show performance) — 75 yo rapper scratching on a gramophone w/a great band. This one is actually truly good.
Most Avant Garde
Bosnia & Herzegovina – Like the love child of Weird Al Yancovich and Cindy Lauper. Trip-ee!
Best “Ewwwww!” Factor
Spain – Apparently, Borat’s cousin rocks the house for Spain–complete with playskool electric guitar solo.
Most Likely to Rock Hard
Finland – These guys rock like Vikings! (This isn’t the live performance, but their music video. I actually kind of like ‘em!)
Official Winner (Really)
Russia – Do you think ripping open his shirt put them over the edge, or was it the ice skater?
P.s. My regular Monday post is still going up at BlogHer today. It’s on poetry as prayer and you can find it here.
A Tale of Two White Chapels
One of the things I love to do when I travel is too look for what the Celts called “thin spaces”—places where the natural and the spiritual intersect. Most often these are places in nature—streams, wooded glades, or sacred stones. But being the city girl that I am, I often find these holy spots in unexpected urban places. Here’s a stream-of-consciousness journal entry I wrote while visiting two of London’s famous chapels: the ornate and royal Westminster Abbey, and the lesser known and a more austere White Chapel (aka St. John’s Chapel) at the Tower of London.
Walking into this famous cathedral I am immediately disappointed. The view from both the left and right is a jumble of overwrought memorials, each one trying to outshine the next. There are so many of them that at first, I think some have been moved from another part of the cathedral for restoration work. But no, this is the cobbled together result of centuries of hero worship—a marble bonfire of vanities.
This is not a cathedral, but a tomb. Not mosque, but mausoleum. A place of worship, perhaps, but what is one to worship here? Power it seems. Money. On our more optimistic days, perhaps we could say artistry is worshipped here, as the stone has given way to sculptor’s hands, as the tombs shift from warlords to writers.
There is a staff of dear men here, trying to hold back the encroachment of effigies. Men who don red robes and hold wine aloft, who offer candles and incense, and who insist on a minute of stillness at the top of each hour to send their prayers out on a loudspeaker amongst the tourists.
I am standing in the ornate Lady’s Chapel when the bell of my first hour here chimes. The high arched ceiling is an architectural wonder of pleats and patterns. The eye is overwhelmed by its intricacies. In this visually explosive place, I am surprised and grateful for the crowd’s quiet acquiescence to the hourly call to prayer. The room goes silent as a vicar prays for survivors of Burma’s’ flood and China’s earthquake. Tears come to me unexpectedly, and I look longingly at the altar piece – Mother Mary caring for her young—and wish that I could sink into this moment and hold a little space for the parents who are mourning losses today, for the children whose mothers are gone. But although the crowds is willingly stilled for sixty seconds, they are balanced like racers on the balls of their feet, ready to spring forward and consume more sites. The second he says the Amen, the flow of traffic proceeds again, drifting quickly past the Marian shrine, and on to the huge black-and-gilt memorial of King Henry that dwarfs the small white altar.
< Yesterday I sat in another White Chapel, this one at the infamous Tower of London. Compared to the Lady Chapel at Westminster, the White Chapel of the Tower is barren. No, not barren, but spare. There is symmetry here between the clean arches and the rough stone, and a purity of line. It is not ornate. The kings never stayed here long and all the furnishings had to be simple so they could be carried with the court on progress. There is only a simple altar with a central cross, rows of wooden seats, and a single center aisle. All of the beauty is held in the Roman arches, and the age of the stone.
It feels very thin in the chapel, surrounded by all of the uncarved stone. The only representational shape the small cross on the altar. Even though we are several flights up into the Tower, I am drawn to the earthiness here. The altar is roped off, but I come as close as I am able and stand in the heavy stillness. I feel my body align into a centering pose, and I ask to be shown something of this holy space. It comes at me in rush then: the weightiness of the decisions made in this place, so regal in its starkness. Pious rulers knelt here seeking guidance. Greedy rulers came as well, justifying their often vicious actions by naming them as God’s own.
People stream behind me as I feel the importance of the White Chapel. They are flowing through this space to see what lies on either side. The chapel is merely a hallway to most. The portion of the Tower where the White Chapel stands is flanked on either side by rooms full of weapons: colonnades ringed in flintlocks, cannons in every corner, a whole hall of armor with enormous codpieces designed to intimidate one’s foe. Warfare and trickery lay heavily in most of these spaces; bloodshed and sorrow have baptized so many of these rooms. Power misapplied and malingered. But here, in this still stone room, in this dim light, even amongst all these shadows, a un-distilled power resides—some kind of force I cannot quite name: God’s power perhaps, too often ignored, man’s too often honored, and the ongoing strength of stone and silence.
More on Westminster Abbey and looking for London’s thin spaces coming soon…
Related Posts:
Mother Mary Calls to Me
Fairy, Mallard, Lily, Tree: A Christening
Oceans Vast: In the Wake of a Tsunami
Prayer Flags: Intercession for the Gulf Coast
Fairy, Mallard, Lily, Tree-A Christening
Eden in the role of fairy at the arboretum in 2006. Picture by MadGiddy.
There is a demonstration garden at the college of agriculture and veterinarian arts, which lies between our flat and the children’s school. I walk through it sometimes, on my way back, to escape the roar of the traffic on the morning-busy streets around our new home. The garden is moving towards its finest season, unfurling leaves and blooms.
There might be fairies here, I think, and thin spaces such as the Celt’s revere. A friend of mine, a full-blown adult, believes in fairies. She is not the type to wear caftans either, or to name her children ‘Willow.’ She’s actually an incredibly intelligent and well reasoned academic. She works with the poor all over the world, and struggles to find paths of escape for those caught in the throes of human trafficking. She is wise, my friend, and knows you cannot love reason too much and still nurture hope. And so, fairies. Why not? Why can’t the earth and her energy—the creative force of fern and flower, earth and air—why can’t these things sometimes appear to those with sighted eyes? Stranger things have happened.
At the very least, there is creative power in this place, so eagerly tended by students, their futures unfurling before their very eyes—all the possibilities of their own growth spilling out with earth and seed from their mulch-rubbed fingertips. All this cultivating. All this growth. It is the first thing we know of our parental divines: God Created. God creates. In this bright urban garden, with people barely out of their teens, that holy work continues.
I walk through the curving paths, trying out a new graveled walk or step-stone passage each time I visit. Today the garden leads me to Mallard couples, sleeping in loose pairs on the grass with their heads tucked under their wings. They look for all the world like croquet balls abandoned when the players were called away to tea. There is a pond here too, with a marsh tucked into one curve, and a lily pad farm in the other. As I walk along the curve of the pond, past low borders of bent-willow fencing and calla lilies as yellow as lemon tarts, I am greeted by a cherry tree which stretches wide where the pond path meets the trail to the gate. I pause there under her branches, the beautiful cherry, always our first hope of Spring. The air seems to hum with energy. Thin Spots. Fairydom. In a heartbeat she christens me, the cherry tree and her humming court. And then, with a slight reluctance, I move on, towards the traffic and city bustle, the chores and the normal—life beyond the narrow gate.
Just before I reach the street, there is a transitional space of sorts—the brick-paved expanse of the college drive which stretches wide between the garden and the roadway. There, I am greeted by the school’s fountain: five charcoal granite slabs slick in the sunlight. I hesitate a moment, feeling obvious and strange. Then I walk up the slick lower steps to the spring bubbling forth at the top, dip in my hand, touch my forehead, breastbone, the boney crest of each shoulder.
A baptism then, into the life of fairy and mallard, lily and tree.
For most posts about my sacred life click here, or become present to your own sacred life with Sacred Life Sunday. Thank you for being here!
Permission to Mourn, Granted
Have you noticed that your children leave you at every age and stage? When they stop nursing. When they can crawl into the next room while you are folding laundry. That first bright, merciful day of Kindergarten. The night they’d rather read Harry Potter by themselves than have you read it out loud because they can read it faster. When they hit the age where they can make thier own toast and eat breakfast on their own. …. I thought the leaving thing only knocked the wind out of you when reached the infamous “empty nest” stage. But really, it happens all along the way. I didn’t realize there would be so many passages that leave you breathless, trying to mourn and celebrate in one burning moment.
…….
Leaving Souren has been a little bit like a death. I hate to be so melodramatic, given that there are so many things going on in the world that are ever-so-much harder and more devastating. Leaving your semi-adopted teenager in the States in order to go gallivanting around Europe with your two adorable blood children and a handsome husband—this barely makes a mark on the ‘hardships’ meter. Still, it’s hard, to take a child into your heart and then to say goodbye.
I know, of course, that there is the telephone and internet, and even old fashioned snail mail. But if you’ve ever known, or met, or even grazed shoulders with a teenage boy, you should realize that communication is not, generally speaking, their strong suite.
I knew, when we left, that most communication with Souren would be over. And I’m trying to not put my happiness under his text messaging thumbs. You simply cannot let a teenager take the wheel of your happiness. That’s even more daft than letting them drive your car on prom night.
But at night, when those nasty little buggers come to get me, I am mournful, and I re-think the wisdom of being so nonchalant about grafting a child who is not my own, so firmly onto my family tree. In those dark moments, I write maudlin poetry on the pages of my notebook. (The emotions of my days and nights are so different, sometimes I am left wondering, which is more me?) Though the pain in these overwrought words are real, I have to ask myself, would I hesitate to love this way again…to love this way still? When we are paying attention to the true and the questions, these are the things that come up. These are the ponderings that make up the reality of whom we are and who we are to be. So of course, the answer must always be, ‘amen.’
——
loss is a wolf at the throat,
there, at the front of the neck
where all you cannot swallow
lies exposed and unprotected
the ache and the tear of it,
the way you bleed unchecked
this is what it is
to take another’s child,
graft him deep into your veins.
i cannot recommend it,
this unchecked rushing of the blood
when the graft does not take,
when the bloodline is severed.
even birthing blood ceases with the hours,
after the placenta tears.
but what of that wound
of which nature has no counterpart?
does this blood then run without clot,
without ebbing,
leaving in its wake
more than the womb as hollow?
Dislocation, Writing, and the Power to Print
a little something from my bulletin board to help keep me where the light is…
I suppose it goes without saying that moving to another culture is sometimes hard. There are a lot of exciting new things, to be sure. But there are sadnesses too, and mine tend to gang up on me around midnight. (Nasty little buggers.)
There’s been a kind of low-grade depression riding around on my breastbone these past few weeks. It seems to be always waiting for me—there, on the other side of the threshold, like the Wolf waiting until my Grandmother is weak enough to devour. I’ve been holding the sadness at bay fairly well, but when my hormone stew starts boiling, or if something goes awry – say, your semi-truck sized shipping container full of all your earthly goods arrives with a hole in the roof and two weeks of rainfall in the bottom –well, let’s just say things get a little shaky.
One of the things that is bothering me the most is that even here, in a country where I know virtually no-one and have no outside obligations, I am still fighting like mad to put pen to page. First I lost a week to migraines, then the children were out of school for Easter vacation, then there was a week spent getting ready to move, and another actually moving, then half a week waiting for the children to switch schools (again). Today I marched them into the local school, and when the teacher said this was just a meeting and not their first day, I had to insist that the schoolmistress had told me otherwise until the girls were given desks and workbooks, and I was able to escape to my desk for two quick hours before school was out again.
I feel so frustrated by the limitedness of my ‘success’ as a writer. At least as a pastor, at least at the church, there were concrete things to do, things that seemed to matter, something to show for my time. This accomplishing of things is much unlike writing, where a thousand days of pen-to-page may yield only a $50 paycheck and a stack of rejection letters. Still, I know in the core that there is no going back. I must write, compulsively and widely, even if the right combination of reader, market, and printing press never yields a dollar.
“This is the year for publishing, I think.” I wrote that in my journal a week or two ago. If a real live publishing house picks me up, so be it. But if not, there will still be books of mine on the market, even if the market is just the print-on-demand of self-publishing and a link to LuLu. Right after I made that decision, my soulsister told me she had launched this, and the self-publishing world transformed. Through Jen’s lens, sisters doing it for themselves was a not a second-class compromise, but a tool for artistic empowerment.
We may never make money, the soulsisters of the world and I, but we will put pen to page goddammit–we will testify.
BlogHer Monday: Across the Great Divide
When we were living in Seattle, we choose a public school for our kids that had as much ethnic diversity as our mostly-white part of the city would allow. For four years the girls jumped rope with little pixie girls from Cambodia, dark haired chiquas from Mexico, and quiet girls in long skirts and hijabs.
During that time I managed to build bridges with most of the parents, but the quiet Muslim mama’s remained distant from me. There was the language barrier, true, but that didn’t seem to stop me from speaking Spanglish with the Latino moms. And there were cultural differences, but I was doing okay with the Cambodian families. So why couldn’t I connect with the Mama’s in hijabs who did little more than offer shy smiles at my friendly waves? Invitations for play dates went unanswered, questions about holiday plans for Eid were brushed aside, and the little girls were swept away as soon the students came pouring out the door at the sound of the 3:10 bell. What was I missing about my usually successful “how to win friends and influence people” equation?
The Fear. I was forgetting about the fear.
We all know that since 9-11 people who “look Muslim” have been treated like the enemy, regardless of their nationality or the stringency of their beliefs. But I was living on the other side of the country from NYC, and in my über-PC west-coast city, I thought those racist attitudes were rare enough that the fear held by Islamic families had dissipated. Surely the racist extremism of those initial post 9-11 years had mellowed. Surely visibly Islamic families living in most parts of America were now feeling relatively safe.
The privileged safe anonymity of being white, middle class, and (mostly) Christian in America had once again lulled me into false assumptions about my sisters on the other side of the color line. Thankfully, Ira Glass and Company/a> gave this WASP a wakeup call, and my consciousness was once again raised.
I adore Ira Glass and will gladly listen to This American Life on an unending loop. The girls and I often listen to back episodes on line, and a few days ago we tuned into the Shouting Across the Great Divide, an award winning story by Alix Spiegl. Spiegl captured the story of Serry and her family, Muslims living in the U.S. When my 4th grader, Eden, heard the stories of why Serry’s 4th grader, Chloe, had to leave her public schools, she was appalled. And by the time Chole’s best friend walks right past her without acknowledging her existence, Eden was in tears. When Serry’s husband opts for living in the West Bank of Palestine rather than enduring the strain of being a Muslim man in America, I joined in the crying. Not knowing what else to do for our sisters across the waters, Eden I fell back on our standard response. We lit candles. We said prayers. We tried to hold space for Serry and her family—we tried to hold space for hope.
No wonder the Muslim mamas at the kids’ school did not trust my conversational overtures, and the beautiful African women in abayads declined to make eye contact. In addition to the cultural differences that divide us, they were living in a tension I’ve never experienced. I was blithely throwing out “why can’t we all just get along” vibes. They were living in a constant low grade hum of fear.
I have been longing to make a connection with my Muslim sisters for a long time now, and I had hoped that our move to Copenhagen with its growing Islamic neighborhoods might be the thing that helped those connections get made. But as this country’s political debate over immigration in general, and Muslim immigration in particular, loops around itself in angry spirals, I began to despair of those friendships ever being possible. Could relational bridges be built? Or will we continue to shout across the great divide?
I believe we can do it. I believe women can build bridges—that we can see opportunities others may not perceive. And there are stories—real , live, it-just-happened-to-me stories—out there in the blogosphere that will help me hold on to that belief. This week, Catherine McNeil at Everyday Life as Lyric Poetry records an inspiring tale about meeting folks over the quest for ethical meat. And Jen Lemen, my soulsister in WASPy-ness and one of the best cross-cultural bridge builders I have ever met, offers us this report of finding siblinghood with a brother from another mother. Both are stories of simple connections made over every day transactions. They inspire me and give me hope. These stories tell me that we don’t need a stellar plan of global proportions to create the ties that bind. Being present is enough. Being attentive to our every day will give us the chance to say ‘yes’ to the openings around. With attentiveness and intent, we can grasp each other’s hands as we stretch them across a (not) so great divide.
Okay John, go ahead and play us out.
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Sacred Life Sunday
Souren wearing the keffiyeh he got for his birthday in 2005.
If you walk around downtown Copenhagen for any length of time, you will see dozens of teens wearing the keffiyeh. White kids, most of them with shockingly blond hair, sporting the keffiyeh as an accessory to tight jeans and Chuck Taylor all stars. The boys wear them in the traditional black or red. The girls have them in everything from turquoise to hot pink. You can get them for less than $50 kroner ($10 US) at any stand on the street.
I asked our sometimes-teenager Souren, who lived most of his life with the Euro-kids in Germany, what this prevalence of the keffiyeh is all about. Did it mean that a lot of young people in the EU supprted Palestine’s quest for independence? Did it have something to do with aligning themselves with the much-maligned Muslim communities here in Denmark? Did the girls wear it as feminist statement aligning them with freedom-fighter Lelia Kahled, who was one of the first women to be noted wearing the traditionally male headscarf? Were they showing solidarity with recent Muslim immigrants who are struggling in this new country? What was the appeal of these Middle-Eastern head coverings worn in this cold clime as scarves against the winter chill?
Souren tells me that in Germany kids who like the peace loving tunes of reggae & skaa punk wear them; and that these kids often go to protests against the neo-Nazis. (Something that looms larger in his German upbringing than it ever did in my Californian youth.) But here, they seem to be merely in fashion.
I am long past being a teen, and I think that in this society, it would be ridiculous of me to wear the keffiyeh. But part of me wants to don this ethnic wear, to wrap something around me that would stand out as a sign to my Muslim neighbors – something that would say “I am with you. Don’t be afraid. You would have a warm welcome here.”
As racism and tragedy seep like poison into the veins of my new city, this becomes my prayer—that peaceful ties might reign in my neighborhood. That love might stretch across the great divide. That I might wear a badge of solidarity with all of those who seek to co-exist, as we wend our way towards Allah, towards God, toward Yahweh–stumbling as we are towards the Great Divine.
Paul is in Florida
Eden’s reaction when I told her they have to switch schools again because we couldn’t find a permanent apartment in our current neighborhood:
“I HATE God! Why God, why? Why would you make things work like this?!?!?!” (continued sobbing) “I would LITERALLY rather cut off my hands…cut off my ARMS than have to switch schools again.” (This went on for 20 minutes while we walked home from school.)
And here’s the email I sent Paul yesterday:
“It’s 6:35am and I am already prepared to beat the children.”
I love single parenting.
Sacred Life Sunday
“Lie back, daughter, let your head be tipped back
in the cup of my hand.
Gently, I will hold you.
Spread your arms wide, lie out on the stream and look high at the gulls.
A dead-man’s float is face down.
You will dive and swim soon enough where this tidewater ebbs to the sea.
Daughter, believe me, when you tire on the long thrash to your island,
lie up, and survive.
As you float now, where I held you and let go,
remember when fear cramps your heart what I told you:
lie gently and wide to the light-year stars,
lie back, and the sea will hold you.”
Phillip Booth, Words of Mouth
