Notes from Shore to Shore

August 18: London, United Kingdom

Bexleyheath, Trafleger Square, National Gallery, Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, London Eye, Picadilly, Soho, Camden, Kings Cross :all in one days work. R in London has felt great joy to be nothing but herself these past days, and with great urgency she is encouraged to be.

August 26: Manson, Washington US

I am in a carpet-less room. I count 4 outlets, 2 windows, 1 gigantic made-for-me closet, 1 door. Lock pushed. There is a light outlet with an ‘R’ sticker not intended to be removed. My ballet slippers (circa 7th grade), which I have been wearing for the last week as moving shoes, lay under my open double window. A purple tank top is laying in front of the mirror next to the pine closet with a freshly fallen glow-in-the-dark ceiling star. Backpack and books (all that I entered the country with) are near the door, and me on my twin sized bed lay in the middle of the room. My bedroom, my blessed sanctuary, has been stripped of everything else. No photos of best friends and warm memories or corsages from highschool dances. Just me..feet dangling inches over edge.

I look outside at neighbor Dalton’s lit up place. Dogs are chasing and pouncing. Crickets chirping. Downstairs I can hear faint voices sharing. My room doesnt block out all noises, you get used to this is in old houses. Mine is one of the first to be built in this village. It has homed over 6 families in the near 100 years of its standing. Do I dare mention that it once ran as a brothel? No coincidence for its seven bedrooms…I can hear the dryer and washing machine on their last loads a floor down and five rooms over. And near me, lights are buzzing, my breath is steady. We have been packing since eight am. Still I am not tired. Running on adrenaline and nostalgia, the house that homed me for 21 years. 274 Quatas Street. Fawlty Towers. In the week that I have been here I have experienced the aches of moving box after box. I have strengthened muscles unbeknownst to me, forged the sea of the untouched attic, bathed in cobwebs, discovered treasure upon treasure upon treasure, and found peace in chaos.

People move all the time. Home to home. Shelter to shelter. Sometimes it is out of necessity. Sometimes it is a change from a previous way of living. Sometimes with heartache. Sometimes with joy. Always with new beginning.

I’ve lived in a few other places: in a car on Broadway, in a tepee in the Methow Valley, on a 3ft. love-seat in a moldy basement,- at all of these I laugh hysterically, oh how the lord has taken care of me! (And yes, a few nice houses with lovely housemates in Seattle) But this, though long ago, this was once a home. My home. Tonight, I began my parting. I said goodbye to the backyard vineyard, the apple and apricot trees, the lilac bushes bearing dark purple, light purple and white flowers, the 3 large fir trees that always oozed upon me leaving their sticky mark. I’ve said goodbe to the cellar where beer brewed and sauerkraut fermented, the piano that gave music and lesson, the dining room where 30+ people gathered each thanksgiving for fine dining and entertainment provided by the sidekick/surrogate sister and I. To the view of the beautiful lake, the winter snow-capped mountains and the stillness of the ‘village on the bay’- all to you I grant a gracious goodbye.

I found myself looking in the mirror tonight, begging for tears-evidence of emotion, I would think it sanity. They didn’t come when I thought of Africa. When I waited on poverty, broken homes, disease and death. I cannot help in this very moment but be freed for me. To be saturated in joy in this new beginning. I know my heart, how I know my heart, it beats for others. It will cry again for Africa, for India, for the diseased and dying… and soon enough I shall use these tales and these child-like hands to help free others.