Between dogs and wolves.

I grew up and lived the majority of my life in the far northern United States, never further than a few hundred miles from the Canadian border.  As you move away from the equator the dusk and the dawn stretch out longer and longer; the first hues of pale blue lighting the horizon long before the actual sunrise, and summer evenings dawdle as they dwindle, holding on to the day like a small child fighting sleep for as long as possible before darkness finally falls.  

This space between darkness and light is one of wonder and awe.  I loved hearing the morning songs of the birds, the rustling in the leaves, the sounds of life awakening and a new day dawning. I hold close fond memories of playing cards late into the night on the front porch with the mosquitos buzzing angrily outside the screens and the loons calling between the lakes as they settle in for the night.  The French have a beautiful, poetic phrase for this space in between: temps entre les chiens et loupswhich literally translated means the time between dogs and wolves.  It’s the twilight hours when you can’t quite tell the difference between dogs and wolves, or maybe it’s the time in between the dogs barking and the wolves calling, but either way, even thinking about it brings a familiar ache to my belly of longing for that magical feeling of the world holding it’s breath for just a moment longer.

Here, near the equator, it’s a different story; the night falls very quickly, the daylight appears almost abruptly.  One second I look out my window to complete darkness and seemingly a few seconds later it’s full-on daylight. The sun comes barreling in to the day like a bull in a china shop and it’s as if it can’t wait to escape the heat and humidity of the day (I can relate) and plunges us all into darkness as quickly as possible. Without the spot lights and street lamps and gajillions of gigawatts of power at our disposal that you might have elsewhere, the darkness here is really, really dark. 

I’ve been thinking a lot about this time, this space between darkness and light, in our own lives.  When we’re feeling the darkness closing in, and we try to find the light… sometimes it’s like equator light; we say a prayer or make a decision and the darkness lifts immediately.  You take the risk and open your heart to the possibility of being loved and everything changes in a flash.  You get honest and admit your struggle and suddenly you have no desire to continue living in darkness. You decide one day to give up whatever vice is holding you, any one of a hundred possibilities, and for whatever reason, you stick to it.  Forever. The abrupt change from darkness to light can be disorienting, but you can also clearly see the difference between dogs and wolves where to place your feet and walk towards a future of free from that particular darkness.

But sometimes, a lot of times really, we don’t get that equator light.  We get a peek of light on the horizon where we take a breath and hope but it’s a long, arduous journey through the space in between.  Sometimes we can’t see where to step or where the path leads or the difference between the dogs and the wolves, and it’s really tempting to just sit there, refusing to move. What we don’t realize in that is the light won’t come if we aren’t moving towards it.  The sun will always rise eventually because the earth is in constant motion towards the light.  It’s not always a given in our own lives. 

Humans are excellent at ignoring, avoiding, deferring, or defying logic, and truth, and hope, and all the other components to life to the full, freedom, joy, and light.  I’m usually a decisive person, and won’t hesitate to make a change if I know the outcome will be good, no matter how painful or difficult the change might be.  I don’t like times of uncertainty, of not being able to tell the difference between dogs and wolves, but sometimes we can’t just flip a switch.  

It’s not a secret the transition to this season has been long and arduous and I just wish the dawn would rise for heaven’s sake! But there’s always beauty to be found, in the time between dogs and wolves.  

It's where the most beautiful sunsets are. 

Homesick.

Home is a tricky word for the global development worker. Home could mean the house you grew up in, or your passport country, or the place you currently lay your head, or any one of the dozens of places you have lived in your lifetime that captured your heart in a special way. 

Home for me is Minnesota, where my biological family is. Home is Seattle, where my heart family is and where I lived for many years and where I’m still an official taxpaying resident. For many years home was on board a ship somewhere in Africa, my heart still longs to return there someday. When I think of home and my heart aches a little, I still think of Boston, though I lived there less than a year, southern France, a place I stayed several times, and Colorado and Florida though I’ve never lived there; they all contain people I love, and when I think of home, I think of being with people I love and who love me; that feeling of safety and belonging and being known, regardless of where it is, feels like home. 

It hasn’t been the easiest transition, coming to this place I am now living but don’t call home, and someone said to me yesterday when I was thinking longingly of a getaway weekend to the States, “I think you’re just really homesick”.  

I’m in my tenth year of living overseas, and it honestly never occurred to me that I could still be homesick.  When people have asked about that over the years I’ve always said nah, this is just my life, I don’t really feel that attached to one place or long to return to another. Like somehow after a certain number of years or moves or goodbyes you can turn off the emotions.  But when she said this to me it was like, duh, oh yeah. That’s it.  I’m homesick. 

And not for a certain place but for that feeling of being known and loved and belonging. 

I was watching a vlog from a friend who was talking about making friends in a foreign country. He said give it at least six months to make any progress on the friend front and I was like WHAT? Oh man… If you know me at all, you know I do things quickly. I make decisions quickly and expect things to fall into place quickly.  And until now I’ve been pretty successful at making and finding community in my own timeline.  And I’ve met some great people here, don’t get me wrong; friends I’m sure I’ll keep in contact with long after we’ve all gone our separate ways.  But I haven’t felt at home. 

So this low level despair I’ve been beating myself up over? This longing that I have been angry at myself for feeling… How can you be unhappy when you are so privileged?  By finding it’s name, it’s no longer this scary monster that I’m simultaneously running from and trying to appease.  It’s homesickness, and it’s totally normal.  I’M NOT FAILING AT LIFE, I’M NORMAL!  And that, my friends, feels like a profound relief. 

Let us find it.

The sea felt calm this morning. 

If you’ve ever lived on or spent time near the ocean, you’ll know what I mean when I say it’s moodier than a teenager.  These last months, during rainy season, the sea has felt angry; its color dark with sand and silt and other debris stirred up from within its depths, depositing huge heaps of seaweed ripped from its roots by the relentless current and cresting and crashing, while eating away at the shoreline as if it were desperate to consume anything and everything in or near its grip.  

If I’m honest, that’s a bit what this season has felt like for me, too; angry, ripped from every known and comfortable thing and deposited on to these shores gasping for breath, with dark waves crashing around and over me relentlessly. There’s definitely been great moments, like a stunning sunset after a rainy day while sharing drinks with friends and soaking in the breath of hope it brings for a better tomorrow. But those wisps of hope have been fast moving and fleeting, with angry foamy crashing waves coming up behind and washing away the remnants into the deep, dark abyss. 

(And lest you feel the need to remind me I chose this life, I wasn’t ripped from anything: Yes, that’s true.  I chose to come here.  But what I anticipated the transition to be like (a few challenging weeks followed by finding my tribe and settling in) and what it’s actually felt like (ripped, deposited, and gasping) has been markedly different, difficult, and jarring.)

But this morning I woke up to only the sound of my air conditioner and not the steady drum of rain on the roof; shifting the curtains, I peeked out and saw what appeared to be blue sky with clouds tinged pink from the rising sun.  We’ve had a few nice sunsets at the end of rainy days here but I can’t remember the last time I woke up to sunshine; I was so excited I called a taxi and grabbed a few necessities and headed to the beach. (I had already told my staff not to expect me today; after a long few weeks of running trainings and hosting guests I needed an extra day off this week)

As I walked towards the sea I felt my blood pressure drop and my lungs fill with the salty damp air; the sea was calm, more beautiful than I’ve seen in months. The colors around me were so intense it felt as though God had cranked up the color saturation and I found myself gasping at the beauty of it all.  The sea was blue, the sand free of the debris that was piled up the last time I had seen it; the palms were rustling in the breeze and the grass seemed to be reaching towards the brilliantly blue sky, every blade desperate for the sun’s rays as if their very existence depended on it… because it does.

Not unlike what I was feeling, as I settled in with a coffee and my journal.  The sun always comes out, eventually.  Soon, or so they tell me, rainy season will be over and every day will be like this; but this particular vibrancy you can almost feel to your marrow only comes after the rains.  It was breathtaking. And I felt myself release some of the tumultuous dark sea that had been churning in my soul.  Hope does that. Hope gives you the chance to breathe deeply and believe that the seas won’t always be angry and the rains won’t always be falling and the lonely won’t always be present and the questions won’t always be haunting. 

I sat there this morning, sipping my coffee and breathing in time with the calming seas, until a few hours later, the clouds began to roll in again. 

That happens, too. The sun will always come again, but so will the clouds, the storms, the angry seas and the difficult seasons of wondering and wandering and hoping and dreaming. 

This is what life is. Putting one foot in front of the other, regardless of what happens to be going on in the sky, trying to make something good of what I’ve been given and making the world a little bit better when I leave it than it was when I came in.   By being angry at the sky and believing that everything will be better once the rains stop or I can live on my own or I do this thing or that thing or whatever I’m grasping at for hope on any given day, I’m missing out on the good that can come even through the rain. 

And I want to find goodness in every day, not just the sunny ones. Because it’s there.  I have to believe that it is.  

So I’m choosing to hang on to the peaceful seas and the vibrant beauty of this morning regardless of the state of the sky or my emotional state or the state of the union or anything else might be the object of blame... in the end all things will be made new, more beautiful than the most vibrant of sunrises and more peaceful than the stillest of mountain meadows.  In the meantime, there is beauty and love and goodness to be found in the gift of today and every day.  

Let us find it, and celebrate.