Home

I've been thinking a lot about moving lately. One of our close friends here is moving to Seattle this spring and is already starting the transition process. For us personally, it looks like our little family will most likely be looking for a new place to live here in Chicago once June shows up and our lease ends.

I have moved so many times in my life. It just comes with the territory of being a Pastor's Kid and a then a Missionary Kid and then a College Kid and then a Chicago Renter. I know that moving and transitions and the concept of "Home" are a bit more abstract in the life of a Third Culture Kid, and I think that this will probably have an effect on me in some small way for the rest of my life.

It is so different for Eric, who was born and grew up in the same house that his parents still inhabit in Nebraska, with no plans to move anytime in the future. "Home" is a concrete noun with solid imagery that coincide with it. It is not only his physical house in Nebraska with his childhood bedroom and some of his old possessions, but it is also the friends he has there, his childhood church, as well as his parents and siblings and all the other memories that have passed during his 19 years spent there. After college (which are almost always transition years for everyone who goes to school out of their home state), his "Home" became being a family with me in Chicago, regardless of what physical dwelling we are currently in.

But for me, the idea of "Home" is so much more webbed and conflicted. A little spread here and a little there. Some in Spanish, most in English. Sunshine and concrete, swimming pools and snow, dirt floors and tortillas, red brick apartments and functional playgrounds. Never quite fitting in anywhere. Thankfully, I have a much more solid grounding now that my life is intertwined with Eric and my babies, but the "Where are you from?" question still eludes me, even after being in Chicago for almost seven years now.

I can only imagine how my older sister Allison feels about "Home" given all the different places and people where she has poured out her life in and for. Her roots go deep wherever she lands, but she consistently cuts off the top of the plant, her life, again and again to move to new places and to new people, leaving deeply planted roots behind in the soil all over Latin America.

I just finished reading a graphic novel called Daytripper, by Brazilian twin artists Fabio Moon and Gabriel Ba. It is all about a man walking through life, only to discover when he is an old man that it is not until he can accept the fact that he will one day die, that he can truly let go and enjoy life fully. The imagery of the graphic novel is captivating, focusing in on the quiet moments of life, the unspoken, what is quietly said with the eyes, a view, the emotions that colors convey. Towards the end of the story, the main character, Bras de Oliva Domingos is on a train returning home from the hospital, where he just learned he has new tumors growing on his brain. As he reflects on this and on his life, which is coming to an end, he discovers some things about "Home" which I found to be quite truthful. Obviously much of the meaning is lost without the visual imagery that is so vital to a graphic novel, but hopefully the words will be sufficient enough to carry some of the meaning.

It takes some time and a lot of looking around, but you eventually find that your home is a lot more than just the house you live in.

Bras has all the time in the world to figure that out.

He discovered your country can be your home, or a city, or just that particular neighborhood.

Sometimes your life changes --

--YOU change--

--and your home moves to a different place.

Bras realized that home is not a physical place at all, but a group of elements like the people you live with -- a feeling, a state of mind.

He feels safer just knowing that even if he's away...

...there is a home...

...waiting for him to return.

It's where he can rest.

Where he finds peace.

(Daytripper, Moon & Ba, pp.232-234)

And of course, I can't help but reflect on the fact that our true home is in God's presence, right in the center of His heart, where one day soon, absolutely nothing with inhibit us from being with Him face to face, in His arms, where there is a pure perfect love and forever peace.

A sweet season

Love.

Baby belly

Here's a sweet belly photo that my friend Jenny took of me (and my baby) several weeks ago. More to come soon!

http://storiesfrombehindthelens.blogspot.com/2012/01/baby.html

"Sew" cute!

Thanks to my wonderful, amazing, favorite Aunt Helen, I have found a new creative outlet: Sewing! A couple of months ago, my very creative aunt (who also happens to be a pretty expert seamstress and quilter) called me and announced that she had received a much deserved new sewing machine for her birthday and was looking for a good home for her perfectly functioning old machine. I about peed my pants. This sewing machine has been in the family for years, and it is an enormous honor for it to pass into my hands! So, eager to start sewing and happy to provide it a creative home, I accepted the offer. Eric's parents were spending Thanksgiving in Missouri, and agreed to pick it up from my aunt who lives about an hour from where they were. When they came to visit us this December, the sewing machine came with. It currently resides on my art table in the sun room and has been running quite frequently in the past two weeks.

With the help of my friend Liz, who provided me with verbal instructions (you can visit her amazing sewing blog here www.mommysaidsew.com), I made this knot dress for Lexi. I finished the dress this afternoon and took some quick snapshots of her modeling it.

(And yes, my daughter has two legs. She's just tricky like that.)

Now that the dress is done, my next work in progress is a small quilt. The fabric is currently in the drier and waiting to be pressed and cut. But first things first. A certain whining toddler needs her dinner or I fear WW5 may be heading our way...

Electric hair

Yesterday was fort building day. An afternoon in which our living room turned into a canopy of fuzzy blankets and support chairs.

Lexi got to experience the full effects of static electricity.

(Please excuse the cracker in the open mouth.

Her hair was just too hilarious to miss the photo op. )

Thursday Thoughts

It's Thursday, and I have so much that I am thankful for and that have blessed me this week that I thought I should take a minute and share some of them. Most of it has to do with Lexi, but that is to be expected since we spend 11 hours a day together.

1) Lexi had her first Gymnastics class yesterday! And if you are sitting there thinking, "Beth, your kid is 20 months old and is way too young for gymnastics," well, friend, you obviously don't know my daughter. While she does have some trouble following directions (what one-year-old wouldn't have trouble listening in a room full of laughing little kids and a cushy floor that is covered in foam wedges and balls and tunnels to crawl through!?!), Lexi can do somersaults and hang on the bar way better than some of the 3-year-olds in her class! Of course, being a gymnast myself in my younger years, I am immensely proud of her, and thrilled to death to think that we can totally afford gymnastics classes here for quite some time (hooray for the wonderful Chicago Park District!).

2) Eric received some new video equipment in the mail this week and has been acting like a 5-year-old kid on Christmas morning. I love seeing him having so much fun and loving what he does for a living!

3) When I gave Lexi an apple this morning, she looked at me and said very proudly, "Thank you you're welcome."

4) I sat on the couch yesterday afternoon and watched Lexi play pretend with her stuffed animal Violet for a full hour. I still can't believe that this smart little girl was formed and developed inside my body. God is constantly giving me things I definitely do not deserve.

5) The snow falling outside our windows this morning. While I have loved loved LOVED the sunny 50 degree weather we have been enjoying, there is nothing more beautiful than watching the first real snow of winter fall gently past the windows and coat the ground with pure white.

6) I think that what I am thankful for the most this week are the hard times I have been going through. I know it sounds strange, but it is because of some incredibly difficult circumstances in my life lately that have allowed God to reveal Himself to me in some pretty big ways. And He has not only been revealing Himself to me, but He has also been revealing to me the poor condition of my heart. This breaking process is not fun, to say the least, but the blessings that come with the healing far outweigh any pain in the process. More about this later (when Lexi isn't squealing that she is done with lunch while throwing noodles all over the dining room floor.....).

7) Eating a bowl of cereal in bed last night while watching BBC's The Human Planet. Did you know that there is a species of bird that actually intentionally leads humans to trees with honey-bee hives? God is so cool.

8) Being a part of a really cool church that has really cool people that have a heart for the city of Chicago.

9) The cups full of creamy chicken noodle soup and fresh bread that Nick keeps bringing back for us from his restaurant job. YUM.

10) Dan coming over everyday for lunch now that school has started up again. There are some huge perks for him now that he is an art teacher at the middle school across the street from our house.

Quiet.

This afternoon I find myself sitting in a coffee shop, sipping a spicy chai tea and feeling warm and comfortable after a steaming cup of delicious bean chili. It's quiet in here. Soft lights and comfy couches. Quiet conversations about French literature between friends, a family sitting and enjoying each others company and the early evening by the fireplace. Individuals reading, writing, or just sitting and being.

It is rare that I force myself to intentionally come to a place simply to be alone. To be quiet.

And I am realizing now how important that is for me. Especially now, as a mom to the most active and intelligent toddler on the planet (ok, slightly biased, but I have no problem burning calories with all the running around I do everyday to keep up with her!), and with a baby who is only about 3 months away from joining our family in person.

The real reason I am at this coffee shop right now is because I completely lost it today with said active toddler (who can't keep her hands out of a certain animal's water bowl), and then continued to project at my husband (who certainly doesn't deserve an unkind word) and even at the dog we are currently caring for (who can't keep his sniffing nose out of my grocery bags!). Ten minutes later I found myself crying in the laundry room, folding the laundry and trying to not smear my runny mascara on the clean towels.

So after some apologies and hug, my husband (who is very understanding of certain crazy pregnancy hormones) took Lexi to his friend's apartment to spend the afternoon and ordered me to either go to a coffee shop or go buy shoes. Strangely enough, I chose the former. (I'll take him up on the shoe offer later.)

And so here I sit. Relaxed and finding quiet.

I don't have a chaotic life. In fact I work hard to keep my schedule relatively open and activity free. But I am realizing that even if I am not going somewhere, or doing something significant, I am always trying to be busy doing something. Anything. Because there is always something to be done.

So maybe in this new year I will try to find the quiet more. Create it, if that's what it takes. Because God can be rather difficult to hear if there is constant noise everywhere.

And I am a firm believer that every soul needs quiet in order to thrive in the noise.