On Barrenness and Checkers

Recently, I have thought a lot about having children or maybe rather, not having them. Some mornings, it is my first thought when I wake...a combined reminder of my age, my single status, and a deep ingrained desire to have my life produce something more. Yes, literally produce.

It's on those mornings, that literally every peer I see seems to have a baby slung over the hip and another one running behind her. And it's all I can do on those days to hold on to a very thin wisp of hope that my life also has meaning, some greater purpose beyond myself. Recently, it's been difficult to find that truth, and a dark cloud has been looming over me.

My desire for children is not because I think it looks easy or fun necessarily, but it does seem part of some greater life experiences like losing a tooth, puberty, dating, working, marriage, getting sick, and even dying. Most people don't skip any of those life stages nor do they expect to. And yet here I feel as though I have skipped two of them, like being double jumped in a game of checkers. And because I'm not a strategic or aggressive person, I also feel hopeless to change my fate as my chips disappear before me: my hair starts to grey, my skin starts to wrinkle, and everything else starts to sag.

And in case you can't tell, I feel completely helpless in this situation. I try to distract myself with happy thoughts, Enrique Inglesia music, sermons on singleness, and random hobbies. But the dark cloud lingers, and I wish the wisp of hope were something a bit more tangible and didn't feel so much like losing a game of checkers.

Boy on my Mind

Some days, no matter what I am doing, I just cannot help thinking about a little man who I left in Hengyang. His name is "hammer, hammer" (sounds much cooler in Chinese.) I don't understand how in a room of 15 or so kids one or two of them can just reach out and steal your heart; that's what hammer, hammer did to mine.
Maybe it was because we had been through a kind of life and death experience together when he nearly choked to death while I was feeding him, or maybe it was because he actually responded during reading time, or maybe it was because he wanted to sit with me during the Christmas program, or maybe it was because he laughed a little after I made fun of his burp. I don't know. I just know that some days, my tasks here in America feel so silly and pointless compared to the gift of hanging out with that little guy.

And while I am comforted to know that I am replaceable and that others have taken over the work of bringing joy (and snacks) to that room of orphan kids, my heart still has a chunk missing and Hammer, Hammer's fingerprints are all over it.

New Friend Update

I received an email from Bee, the Chinese student I wrote about a couple of posts before. She invited me to her Birthday party next Sunday. I'm very excited and even better, I have the day off of work. Divine arrangement. Here are a few sentences from her email.

I'd love to invite you to join my Birthday party at my host family.

Join: some students from China, host family members (less than 15)

Food: pizza, ice tea, ribs, BBQ, vegetable, dessert, cake and so on

P.S. I am afraid you are busy lately so I dare to call you.

Bee

2 Random Videos

These videos are unique only in their lack of substance and a climax. But, since I'm a bit homesick for China recently, I really enjoy watching them.

Shane and I on a boat in _________ ? (Bonus points for whoever can guess the river we are on.)
v

Amber and I playing some oui at our dear friend's house. This friend would be considered part of the upper class in China. Both she and her husband have cars. Their apartment is big, completely furnished, decorated, and in one of the most expensive complexes in Hengyang.



P.S. My new favorite thing just might be posting videos.

Cup of Cold water

The other day, I was working at the Hospitality Center for Chinese. I had come in that morning to help coordinate some moves for later in the week. I felt overwhelmed being unable to get in touch with the people I needed to while other people were cancelling or rearranging their current move times which required me to get in touch with the people these changes were affecting. I was also trying to figure out how to check email and voicemail at the center. Oh yeah, and the keys to show furniture were missing this morning, and no one knew where they were and everyone else was in a meeting the entire morning. At the same time, Chinese students were coming in to look at furniture. All this to say, I was kind of in over my head and a bit frazzled. I couldn’t finish one task without another task popping up and distracting me, but I wanted to be cool and calm the students who were coming to a place with a title such as “Hospitality Center” seems kind of important that I be polite or something. It was at this time too, that I noticed a young Caucasian guy standing outside peering into the building through the glass doors. I smiled politely a couple times to him as he kept peeking in to see what was going on.

After he peered in a few more times, he opened the door and came into the building. “Hey, welcome to the hospitality center for Chinese. Can I help you?”

“Yeah, is there a pastor I can talk with here?” he asked.

“Yeah, there is. You’ll just have to wait about 10 minutes or so until his meeting is over.”

“What’s up?” I casually asked him.

"It's been the longest night of my life" he responded with heavy eyelids. He went on to explain his story: His friend and he had been driving somewhere in their car when it broke down. His friend got a lift with his family home while this guy just kept walking around hoping he could make it back to his apartment in Wayzeta. He wandered around all night and was exhausted. I offered him some cold water and filled it up a couple times for him. I also made small talk with him and tried to ask questions to find out more about what kind of help he was looking for.

I asked if he needed money and someone to call a cab for him. But, he said he just wanted a gift card to use for gas so he could give it to his friend who lived nearby to drive him back home. He said he felt bad asking his friend for a ride without offering him something for gas. But I guess he didn’t feel bad asking complete strangers for help. Yeah, I guess was pretty skeptical about his story, about him. But nonetheless, there he sat as I literally ran around, called people, and greeted Chinese students.

But after leaving the center, I realized that if this young man had been Jesus, then I had royally messed up. And for that matter, I should just acknowledge that in fact, I did mess up. For whatever help I could have given that young man, I would have been doing for Jesus. In light of that, my treatment toward him was pathetic. I didn’t offer him any of my own money. I didn’t even really believe his story. I was polite and gave him cold water all the while running around worrying about “important” tasks that were on my own agenda and seemed integral for the overall harmony of the Hospitality Center. But I wonder, how the story might have been different if I had sat down with him and told him about the cold cup of living water that never needs refilling.

Interviews: a Follow-up

For those of you on the edge of your seats, wondering whatever happened after the "Interviews Make me Sweat" post, I'm happy to report that I am employed. The job is not close to where I live and does not pay great, but it is sure enjoyable. Ironically, I also feel that I can now finally and fully relax because I am employed. While I was unemployed, I felt guilty just sitting around writing, reading, and enjoying myself. Now, I feel like I can indulge myself which is partly why the month of August has had lots of blog posts. A friend of mine suggested to me that maybe I have had too much time to think recently. Maybe that's true, but I think when I have time to think, I also have time to write, and when I have time to write, I feel pretty good about life even when I feel kind of bad about it. (Can that be logical?)

So, I am employed at Caribou Coffee coffee at the airport. I have had 2 days of training now. I think I'm not super great at any of the skills yet, but I'm sure friendly to people and can empathize with their dark-eyes, dry skin, dehydration, and need for coffee. Right now, I'm at a different Caribou than the one I will be working at. I work with a crew that is quite a bit younger than me. They talk about baseball players I have never heard of, movies I've never seen, and their significant others. I just study the coffee menu and try to laugh sometimes or make mental notes to look up some key names they are discussing. Oh man, if only I had a dollar for all the times I have felt completely awkward in the past month, I could eat out for a week.

At the rate I am going, I have added one major thing a week. The first week, I moved up to the Twin Cities. The second week, I started volunteering at the Hospitality Center for Chinese. This week, I started my job, and next week, I will start taking 2 graduate classes in Teaching English as a Second language. An interesting, stair-stepper of a month.

Furniture Diva

The past two weeks, I have been volunteering with a group in the Twin Cities called the Hospitality Center for Chinese.
My good friends Drew and Rachel first introduced me to the Center, and now I guess I'm pretty hooked and already feel a sense of duty. In fact, after about an hour of helping out at the furniture give-away for Chinese students, I was referred to as the "furniture diva." I don't write that because I think I'm awesome; I write it because I think they must be desperate for help if they are so quick to refer to me as a furniture diva. Fortunately for them, I am a sucker for flattery, words of affirmation, and feeling needed. So yeah, I'm hooked.

I have met about a dozen or so Chinese students already. Most of them seem fairly reserved and serious. I wish I could tear down their walls of skepticism, and let them know how much I can identify with their feelings of excitement and loneliness. But, I don't know how to express that to them, so I mostly just fish around for questions that I think might be interesting for them to answer. I'm pretty horrible at it, and would you believe that I ask some of the same questions that I hated in China. "Have you adjusted to the food?" "Where is your home-town?" "Where did you study?" and so on. So, as they are adjusting to a new place, culture, and identity as international students, I am also adjusting to a new role of befriending Chinese people while living in the States; it's clearly going to be a bit more difficult than it was in Hengyang. I don't have a supply of students here eager to chat about Twilight, dating, and other stuff.

It's been bothering me a bit, but I didn't realize it until today when I had a completely different experience. A student (we'll call her Bee) came in to pick out furniture. From the beginning, I could tell she was different and unusually comfortable even in this new environment. When I asked her about her host family, she bubbled over describing how wonderful they were and how cute their two daughters (adopted from China). And unlike a lot of the other students, she supplied lots of supplementary information about herself (really helpful since I'm off my game with asking questions). It took us only about 5 minutes to pick furniture because she was so content to get even the older, scuffed up furniture.

And perhaps the most bonding moment with Bee was when I was on the phone leaving a message to another student. I had wandered over to the desk area to get away from some chitter-chatter. Bee saw me near the printer that was spitting out copies, and with big eyes she quickly walked over to me and ushered me away from it: "It's not safe to stand near the printer," she explained to me as I was trying to leave a message on the phone. In that moment, I was so flooded with emotion, both slight annoyance and rosy nostalgia of friends who had done similar things with similar bizarre reasoning. And I was so distracted by it all that I lost track of the message I was leaving on the phone and just kind of hung up.

Maybe I am being overly optimistic about having a new friend in Bee. But, she did hang out at the center all morning, and she mentioned wanting to volunteer there. So yeah, I think it's very likely, that I might have a new, furniture diva friend.

A song

Sometimes Jon Foreman just says it best. These lyrics are from his song, “A mirror is harder to hold”

“I could try and point the finger
But the glass points in my direction
Sure you've got your sharp edges
But my wounds are for my own reflection
You've got nothing I could ever hold against you
I've got fatal flaws to call my own
Please don't go
Please don't leave me alone
A mirror is so much harder to hold”

or listen to the song here:

(Thanks so much to Amy and Joy for helping me figure out how to embed videos.)

Re-Entry. . .

People have told me I need to take time to journal about China. No problem. I like journaling. But people never tell me what exactly I’m supposed to journal about China. I am searching for some prompts or helpful psychoanalytical questions to get me started. For example, “If you could describe your time in China as a color, what color would it be and why?” and so on. But there are no prompts, and I don’t have the super important books I’m supposed to read about re-entry. So, I just flounder around in my thoughts a lot and sometimes write them down on paper or sometimes let them spill over while talking with my “foreign” friend who is further along than me in the adjustment period.

At this point in the process, mostly I feel a huge relief that I don’t have to get on a plane after merely five weeks of being home with family to head back to China. I feel thankful that I haven’t had to stock up on a years’ supply of things I might possibly need: hand-sanitizer, deodorant, hair gel, band-aids, shavers, shaving cream, and so on. Not to mention all the baking goods that seemed so important to me my first year in China. I feel thankful I don’t have to go buy appropriate teaching shoes or blouses that actually fit. I feel happy that I don’t have to buy local snacks such as beef jerky, Chico-sticks, and licorice to stuff into my suitcase. Happy that I haven’t looked at my passport for 5 weeks. Happy that I don’t have to say good-bye to family with such permanence as I cry through most of the domestic flights and layovers on the return journey to China. For these things, I feel relieved and contented. It feels amazing to relax through an entire August without dramatic farewells.

But sometimes when I am shopping at the super market, I think I hear a few Chinese words coming from Caucasian looking kids, and then I realize that I’m just hearing things. I have dreams about my friends in China. In the dream, we are talking, and my friend usually has some big problem she is dealing with. I can’t help her, and usually end up scolding her in the end, telling her she should be more polite. I wake up feeling sad and homesick. I look for these same Chinese friends online. I talk with them late into the night. I have a new hunger to watch all Chinese movies that have ever made it to the States. I am finally ready, yet again, to read books about China after having no desire to do so for the past 4 years. I can’t get enough of Chinesepod. I miss fried noodles. I miss using chopsticks. I say weird things about “harmony” and “convenience.” I watch movies set in China and cry even during the happy parts. My new favorite color is China red. And it has only been 6 weeks since I have been back in the States.

And my thoughts have no resolve about “what’s next?” And in fact when people ask me what I’m going to do next year, I feel kind of angry, and then I feel sad and depressed because this is the culture I have come back to. . . where you need a 5 year plan. But in China, you don’t even really need a 5 hour plan. But I guess, there is some beautiful balance to be struck between both cultures, some way to hold on to the good points of both without allowing the bad points to be more annoying than they should. And until I figure out how to do that, I guess I'm here with my jumbled thoughts asking myself "What's next?" and kind of scared what the answer might be.

Interviews make me sweat!

I have had two very different interviews in the past 2 weeks.
In the first interview, I felt very inept and slightly as though I had a learning disability at the end of it. They threw a bunch of education buzz words at me. . . curriculum mapping, universal education, 21st century education, PLC conferences, and so on. That's all I remember. It was a blur of clammy hands, awkward pauses, and sweaty armpits. I felt like defending myself with a "Well, since I have only been teaching in a classroom that had chalkboard and chalk the past 4 years, I have obviously been missing out on the sophisticated development of the education system in the US." But I said nothing. I didn't really feel like it would have mattered. Talk the talk or accept the rejection letter. And so I did. And did so with a bit of relief.

The second interview, felt a bit more like a date. I liked it. I think I might also like dates. "If you were an animal, what would you be and why?" or "If you were a coffee drink, what would you be and why?" These are my types of questions, and this is an environment where I could see myself thriving. Are you curious how I answered these two questions? How would you have answered?

I will keep you updated on the result of the second interview...unless the results are negative. In which case, I will not mention it again and ice over it with some self-deprecating humor. Stay tuned!

Orphans

Here's a video from the orphanage and non-profit group that we volunteered with in Hengyang.



Karen, I miss you. Hope you're surviving the Summer HY heat.

Playing House

Recently, I have been playing house. Since moving to the Twin Cities, I have been living with my friends’ family. They are so generous and kind. I am learning the gift of generosity by receiving theirs. This past week, they have been traveling around Asia. That leaves just me, . . . oh yeah, and another college student whom they are also extending the gift of hospitality to. Together, we are playing house. It’s quite surreal. I do house like things. Each day, there is some new task: I get the mail, do some laundry, start the dish-washer, water the plants, and so on. Sometimes, I also dabble in the cleaning. I scrub a toilet or get out the Hoover machine thing and sweep the kitchen floor. Just dabbling, really.

We have each also done a bit of cooking. I made pizza last night; it was pepperoni and cheesy and delicious. And unlike many pizzas in China, this one had sauce on it. Lots of it. And on Sunday, the room-mate made a pot-roast and vegetable dish in the crock pot. Between the two of us, we have plenty of left-overs. They are neatly stacked in Tupperware in the fridge or neatly tucked into plastic bags. I feel happy to open the fridge and look at the neat little stacks and marvel at how fun it is to play house. And while it feels very new and temporary to play house in America, I am just trying to enjoy the moments because they really are the things of life.