July 16, 2016: “The Look” the third time

This post was written in the air on the way to Dubai. It was posted in the Dubai airport. The WIFI is slow and I’m not able to get photos off my phone–yet–so hold on for some images!

Marvin said that on Thursday morning he saw “The Look” in my eyes for the third time in all the year’s he’s known me. The first time was at Tarangire Safari Lodge. We had friends visiting, so we all (Jean, Marvin, Eric, Anya, me and our guests) went on a short safari. I came up to the others of whom someone was taking care of Anya, who was then just about two and a half years old, but I looked around and didn’t see her. “Where’s Anya?!?” We all shot out looking for her. I ran straight to the swimming pool. There she was at the edge of the pool on the far side, looking down into the water. I ran and hugged her. Still to this day, this brings me to tears at how close I was to something tragic.

Marvin continued that the second time he saw “The Look” was when we all (same core group and with our Aussie friend, Sarah) had been at the Pangani beach on the Indian Ocean. We came back in the evening, and I took Anya from having fallen asleep in the Land Cruiser to her bed, a foam mattress on the floor. When I pulled the mint green blanket over her, a black snake about the size of a wooden drum stick slithered out of the blanket! I snatched her up and ran up our spiral staircase to the loft. I yelled out, “Eric, there’s a snake! Get your boots on!) We learned from our Friday-evening-end-of-the-week dinners at the Snake Park that most snakes can’t really lunge high, so wearing boots reduces the risk of bites (this excludes spitting snakes). I then ran two doors down to Jean and Marvin, whose Maasai guard came and skewered off the snakes head. (We hadn’t told the grandparents about this until now!) We scooped up the carcass in a glass jar and took it to our next Friday Snake Park dinner. Lynn said it was just a wolf snake, like a garder snake and harmless. But when she heard it was in Anya’s bed, she said she could see why we would kill it. That was the second time Marvin saw “The Look” in my eyes.

Thursday morning, I had “The Look” again. Granted, the circumstances were very different and no imminent danger, but there was a helplessness. After three weeks of not being able to sleep and living in the chaos of packing with a week of frenetic packing, I was exhausted. I had no short-term memory and kept misplacing my keys, glasses, and phone. Emotionally, I had to downsize life to 100 cubic feet and 200 pounds of checked luggage for or move to Sweden. I’ve also been dealing with weeks of tennis elbow in my left arm from demolishing the tree house and zip line (thanks again to Janet and Mark for their help). Sometimes I can’t even hold a glass or scratch my head, but I had to keep on. (I’m typing now with one hand, because typing aggravates it.) I really wondered if I was going to lose it.

This is why I’m SO grateful for all the help that rescued me! Yes, Jean and Marvin are neighbors once again, living less than a mile away as the crow flies. They have painted almost all of my living space of my house and countless other tasks. Greg and Carol came down from Anacortes twice to help. Carol and Leslie D. tackled the kitchen and cleaned out the fridge, with amazing help from Leslie’s daughter and Anya’s friend Hannah. Leslie U. made probably 8 trips to Goodwill and Half-Price Books. Several others made these trips too, as well as other trips for recycling or the dump. My in-laws drove up from the Bay Area for a short goodbye, but made a huge contribution in packing up books. Friends loaned a power washer and a hand truck. I am again convinced of the life-giving and vital need for community.

While in comparison to refugees fleeing war and terror, this is so drastically less. In terms of my life, this has been in the top three stressers (Eric’s cancer/death and leaving Trinity; the PhD writing in Dec and Jan is 4th).

Anya was a trooper, but I knew that she also needed some special times of farewell with her friends before leaving.

I also had a couple heavy goodbyes with a friend who is in stage four cancer and my elderly neighbor. Will that be the last time I see them on this side of eternity?

Even though there is much goodness in this move, there is a mounting pile of little losses. I passed on perhaps a thousand books. So many things that aren’t extremely important or are too big to take with us were passed on to friends or strangers. A niece of a friend now has the piano. Her friend who helped to come and move it now has the large living room rug! Craig’s List Free Stuff and Freecycle were ways to pass on the bigger things quickly. For you LBI’ers reading this, I finally chucked almost all of my notes into the recycle bin (except Pat’s Livin’ Forgiven/Galatians notes and Mark’s Greek songbook). Sigh.

Yes, this is an opportunity toward traveling lighter through life, but right now, I’m in the loss stage and a bit of unsettledness about a major transition to a new country and especially a new language. Heavy sigh.

I’m now flying to Tanzania for 18 days, where I help facilitate a group from church. At least life in Tz is mostly living in the day, and I’m quite comfortable with the way life works here (sometimes).

With blessings,

Beth