Thankfully Torn to Leave

At a mindfulness yoga retreat I attended a while ago, I was instructed to shake my body for fifteen minutes and then dance for fifteen minutes–all to help prepare for breath work that would follow after.

I closed my eyes and found solitude even though I was surrounded by the other women who were doing the same thing. Just a few minutes into this bizarre but radical shaking, I wanted to give into the ridiculousness of it and sit it out, but an inside-of-me voice said, “Just shake.  All you need to do RIGHT NOW is shake!”

And so I shook. I gave myself permission to just be there, shaking my arms, shoulders up and down, legs in motion. I was waking all of the space inside of me, inviting body-mind-spirit to meet in one place. My body was moving in this tremendous, medicinal-healing way, while I noticed its capabilities and boldly declared in my heart, “You are powerful. You are strength. You are beauty.”

Next we breathed deeply, lying on our backs with mouths open and jaws aching all the while. In and out. Heavy. Noisy. Breath became thought and rhythm: Holy Spirit/within me. In and out. Holy Spirit/within me. In and out.  The yogini came over with calming burnt sage, and while resting her hands momentarily in the space above my heart, she whispered, “You are doing a good job.”

As she walked away, I tried to accept her motherly words, tried to take them in with my breath. “I am doing a good job.” But I wasn’t convinced. Months later, with the day quickly approaching that we will once again uproot our little family after three years in Qatar and stick our feet back in American soil, I feel regret. You see, I didn’t do a very good job as an expat at first. I was so eager to wish it all away and kept looking forward to the day we’d move back to our familiar place. But then I learned to notice–the ordinary and the vibrancy of life–and to put down roots and find sources of water.

post picNow I’ve supported other new expats, reassuring them of how they too will fall for this place. I’ve said to those women, “Notice how strong you are and notice those small victories.  Tell yourself regularly, ‘I am doing a good job.’ Notice what is in your everyday that you will never have outside of the Middle East.”

I am also reassuring myself, especially in these last days. When you begin to leave a place, you see these things and capture them to store in that space of your mind labeled, what-I-took-for-granted-when-I-lived-here-day-in-and-day-out. You begin to take great care to notice what you’ve come to love:

Noticing: My everyday contains the soothing hues of Filipino skin, Turkish eyes, Dutch fairness, the fluidity of the black abaya, multilingual children, and normalcy.

Noticing: Tamil on the tongue, labor camps and families who live countries apart.

Noticing: The aroma of turmeric and za’atar, karak and exotic incense.

Noticing: The beauty in the cream, sandy colors in our part of the world, pierced with the brilliant blues of saris, the sacred covers of black, patterned dashiki of rich purple worn on Fridays, the holy day.

Noticing: The most stunning of life’s mysteries witnessed in the form of my two small littles growing out from baby and toddler into thinking, independent children in all of the grace and sweetness that offers those who abide in this mystery.

Noticing: The friendships that were unexpected, healing, and that gave me belonging; and those I’d wish to have known deeper. The regret of depth missed in using this place to draw nearer to God, who shows up, even in the desert.

There is weight and beauty in the noticing.

And I am getting ready for movement again. Not the kind of shaking to prepare for breath work, but the kind of physical tiredness one goes through to move their family halfway around the world. In this move, I go with my packed little heart full of all that I’ve noticed. I go with my, “you are doing a good job” valediction. I go with thankfulness in feeling torn to leave this place.

* * * * *

bio-pic_smallLisa Collier moved from Pittsburgh in 2012 and is currently an expat living in Doha, Qatar as a lucky trailing spouse. Her husband, two girls and dog make this place a home. Lisa took on the challenging but wonderful experience of homeschooling this past year.  Lisa has traveled quite a bit, but the view from inside the train on the way from Milan to Zurich was one of the most breathtaking scenes. Read more at www.onceyouarereal.com.

Colorful incense: Photographed by Lisa Collier at Souq Waqif, Doha, Qatar.

 

Don’t be a Stranger

The green and yellow bus lurches to a stop, the doors swing open with a whoosh of air. “Good morning!” I beam at my usual driver as I step on the bus, monthly pass in hand. The doors close behind me. “You know, I think you’re the only person on my route who looks like they might actually like mornings,” he says shaking his head in amusement.

As the bus lunges forward I walk down the aisle with one hand over my head as I lightly finger the bar overhead. After several years as a proud strap-hanging public-transit-riding commuter I’ve earned my sea legs; the jerking and swaying doesn’t faze me as I make my way to my usual squeaky leather seat. I always sit where the rows of bus benches face each other because it provides the best view of the entire bus.

A few sleepy heads look up long enough to acknowledge me but not long enough to say anything.

The woman directly across from me is reading a well-highlighted leather Bible. Once, when she wasn’t reading she told me she worked at the Starbucks headquarters; she’ll get off at the transit station in order to transfer to the northbound commuter train. The preteen girl sitting next to her with her earbuds in—the universal bus sign for “No, I do not want to make small talk actually”— is clutching a pink backpack on her lap; she’ll get off at the middle school. Several other students are also lugging around heavy, bulky backpacks on their way to high school or the local community college. Sometimes they read their textbooks or flip through flashcards, always with their earbuds in.

The man next to me is sipping his regular morning coffee, obviously still trying to wake up. Sometimes he’ll nod a “G’mornin'” but that’s about the extent of his 6:30 am socialness. Several riders are slumped up against the windows, likely still dreaming of the pillows they had to leave too hastily. The only sounds are the creaking and whooshing of the bus doors and the occasional contagious line of yawns.

When an older gentleman steps on the regular riders audibly groan. He’s hauling his weekly recycling: a giant neon-orange cloth bag with pictures of jack-o-lanterns all over it. The person next to me mumbles, “Better pull your legs in,” as the man walks down the aisle with his scary Santa sized bag bumping along behind him. It barely squeezes down the aisle and when it gets stuck he gives it a tug, which elicits more moans from his fellow riders as the can-filled bag has a run in with several people’s knees. He sits down, and then the bus is quiet again.

I pull my black Beatle’s tote bag, complete with Bob Marley pins, onto my lap to make room for other passengers. A man in his late thirties slips a CD into my hand as he walks past. “I burned it for you because I saw your bag,” he says shyly before continuing down the aisle. The CD reads in blue hand-written ink: The Moondoggies. I’ll later find out they’re a local Seattle band. The album is entitled “Don’t be a Stranger.” (The title likely isn’t ironic because the next several times I’ll run into him on the bus he’ll ask for a date.)

As I slip my new CD in my tote bag everyone else is still slowly waking up. They read, catch up on podcasts or listen to their favorite songs, drink their coffee, and stare out the windows as the sun is just beginning to yawn and stretch right along with them.

3135087774_f3fa09289f_z (1)They are close enough that I could touch them, but they are always in their own little worlds. So many potential acquaintances, friends, and lovers just within their reach. And they never know. I’m surrounded by people—sometimes uncomfortably close to people—but alone just the same.

As the bus rolls on I continue people watching and when I happen to chance on someone who is awake enough to visit, encourage them to not be a stranger.

* * * * *

Picture of Kelsey“Don’t be a Stranger” was written by Kelsey L. Munger. Kelsey is a sixth generation Pacific Northwest native. Aside from three and a half months spent living in a very tiny town in Hungary among the sunflower fields, she has always lived in or just outside beautiful, rainy (sometimes a little moldy) Seattle, WA. Despite having to give up public transportation due to health issues, her memories of riding the city bus will always be special.    Kelsey blogs at KelseyMunger.com and can be found on Twitter at @KelseyLMunger.

Bus photo by aditya on Creative Commons.