I'm away from home and out of my usual element. I'm absent from schedules and thinking time and my own bed. I miss my bed. I have a pain running between my shoulder blades, and I wonder if it's the unfamiliar mattresses or if that's where I'm carrying the weight of what's left of this year. I feel it bearing down on me, begging for one last look before the new one arrives.

These last few weeks have been busy with very little time for wonderings and wanderings. I've tried to squeeze together a few moments, but mostly it's been a holiday of here, there and everywhere. I went so far as to sit in my parked mini van while the rest of my family watched The Muppet Movie on the big screen. I had a pen, and with it I swept up the crumbs of moments and memories I wanted to keep, and placed them in a red Meade notebook. It was good, good but also impossible to place the year neat and tidy onto college ruled lines.

I think 2011 is more deserving of a collage in all of it's colorful, chaotic glory. It would look like castles against a gray sky, rolling hills and water falls, three grinning faces, and pretty words strung up in a row. It would smell like the sea and the cold mountain air that hurts going down. It would sound foreign and familiar, a symphony of laughter and tears and looks that say more than words could ever do. And it would feel like giving birth, over and over again.

Yes, that's exactly it. It felt like giving birth, like carrying the weight of something beautiful in my womb and then watching it come to life before my eyes. It wasn't without pain and more than a few sleepless nights, but the joy in watching my dreams take their first breath was worth every bit of the laboring.

Thank you for coming alongside me this year. You are midwives, each and every one. You are here when the words are birthed, and I thank you for reading and commenting and giving me the chance to practice an art I'm not always sure I possess.

I hope to meet you here for the next one.

Tell me about your year. Was it what you hoped it would be?

I'm so excited that Emily has extended the invitation to unwrap more gifts on a Tuesday. I don't know about you, but I need to be more purposeful in my thanks giving, and Tuesdays Unwrapped is the perfect opportunity to do that. Join us?

PS If you are new here, the following post makes more sense if you know that I am an American expat living in Europe. Otherwise, I sound like a crazy person. Because only crazy people take German lessons and get a turkey from a butcher unless, of course, they live in Switzerland.


I managed to procure the turkey. I am happy to report that at no time did I imitate a turkey by gobbling or resort to hand drawn bird cartoons during my two visits to the butcher. It wasn't without a little drama and some embarrassment on my part, but the bird was purchased, cooked, and eaten with delight.

Around the holidays, we try to make the experience feel as authentic as possible, but it's never quite the same. For one, there is no indulging the tryptophanic stupor when Thanksgiving falls on a regular school day. There isn't Mom's Cornbread Dressing or Aunt Carol's Apple Pie to run off the next morning. And there are no familiar hugs and how are you's. There is thanksgiving sandwiched between everyday and life.

On Friday, my German tutor asked me about it. She wondered how we fit the bird in our (not much bigger than an easy bake) oven, and if I could find all the fixings at the supermarket. Then she told me about a few of her family Christmas traditions; the advent wreath, the Christmas goose, and Grandfather trimming the tree on Christmas eve while the children wait expectantly in the next room. She showed me a photograph of her mother's dog called Lia, and one of her nephew who is two and best babysat during nap time.

My eyes watered a little, and the photos blurred.

As we talked, I realized that the consistent feeling of being on the outside looking in, was starting to shift. As if the front door had been opened without my having to knock, and someone had called my name to invite me in. I felt like I'd been given a gift, an invitation to know and be known by another. And if all I can do is say 'Hello, my name is Frau Coyle' after four hours of lessons, then I'm still coming away having learned far more than how to make an introduction.

I'm not sure if she realized the difference she'd made, but that night I gave thanks for the gift, for the open door, the invitation and the chance to find something lovely sandwiched between everyday and life.

The fog of Fall has rolled in over Lake Zurich. It makes everything feel dull and thick, like soup. Up the street from our house is a grassy hill where the sheep graze in autumn. With each movement, the bell around their neck tinkles and tolls. Morning to night they chime through heavy air, and sometimes I find it charming in a Heidi-ish sort of way, and sometimes I want to stuff those dang bells with cotton.

Hello, friends. I thought I might stay away for a few days, but it seems I quite like the habit of stopping in here on a more frequent basis. I'm not sure where November will find me on the scale of posting frequency, but we'll take it one day at a time.


I have a few weekend adventures to discuss, mostly so I can relive the joy that is traveling with children, but I think you'll enjoy them too. The kids have asked, begged, pleaded that we stay put in Zurich until Christmas. We literally give them the world, and their idea of a perfect weekend is to die a slow and painful intellectual death at the hands of iCarly.

We've tried very hard to cultivate an attitude of thankfulness and gratitude in them, but it's been, in a word, difficult. I wonder if perhaps I should be lecturing less and living it more. In an effort to do that, I'd like to begin November, the month of Thanks and Giving by saying thanks to you.


I'm so grateful that you stop by, that you comment and care, that you receive my words with grace. Thanks for listening, and asking, and mostly for enjoying our travels without asking me once for the toilet/a snack/or to go home. You rock.

What are you grateful for this month?

It seems that while I have been busy stuffing my face with such delicacies as chocolate peanut butter ice cream, enjoying summer fun with my favorite little people and spending time with my favorite grown up person, the days have been silently stacking up. The memories have too, blanketing these days until they are a fuzzy haze of sticky hands and sunshine.


I'm trying to soak it all up, these little people who won't stay little no matter how much I wish it, the friendships that cross oceans and time zones, family that loves and gives and loves some more. And the husband, the husband whose first answer is always 'yes', and who wakes up as steadfast as the sun and the moon.


I wish this for you as well. May your summer be blessed with every good and perfect gift. May it be full of laughter and sticky-handed love, and may you be wise enough to recognize and revel in it.

Kimberly

This is part three of a smallish series about living out your story. My story happens to include living overseas and traveling a lot, but it's really about the bigger picture; about contentment, acceptance and taking our deepest desires and fashioning a life out of them.


If you've been reading this blog for any length of time, you know that in the last ten years we have moved from PA to London to NJ to Zurich. That's not considered a lot of moving among most expat circles, but for a risk averse person such as myself it is enough.

Each move has come with it's own set of challenges, which I refer to collectively as 'Kimberly'. I tend towards over-dramatization. And an ungrateful spirit. And did I mention I'm risk averse? What all of these character flaws amount to is discontent, and discontent will literally destroy the ability to live out your story. Or in this case, my story.

The truth is that living out our story is messy and unpredictable. It is challenging, it has unexpected twists, and it probably doesn't look anything like we think it should. I spent two years living in London before I emotionally committed to my life there. I then fought, rather bitterly, against our move to New Jersey. I cried about the location, the house, and the church. I perked up a bit when I discovered the joy that is Target, but it wasn't all sparkles and rainbows.



It was in that place, one I considered completely lacking in interest, beauty or excitement, that I began to learn what it means to be content in all situations. Contentment is seeing each moment, each small handful of wildflowers, each sunny day or short line at the grocery store, each breath as a gift. They are all gifts, whether or not they take place in New Jersey or Zurich or the place that you call home.

I have good days and bad. I still on occasion have buyer's remorse over our decision to move overseas again. But I am content. Content to take each day as the gift that it is.

Kimberly

PS This was supposed to post days ago, but both blogger and my internet service have been down.

I have days that are all fireworks and twinkle lighted, castle bound joy.


Today, I'm unwrapping the gift of finding joy in the mess.  I'm trudging up and down the basement stairs, looking with my eyes at the mess, but seeing with my heart, the joy.

The joy of having a family to call my own. Kids to pick up after and a husband's dry cleaning to drop off.  Cozy flannel sheets to launder and homemade meals to prepare.  Bags to unpack and a crazy fun vacation from which to recover.  There can be joy in the mess, but sometimes it requires looking through a love filter.  Not the rose tinted kind, but the love filter that clarifies and refines and makes the real rise to the top.

Kimberly

After a Thanksgiving that proved to be painfully beautiful, we spent a Together Day outside, enjoying the last of fall.   Leaves were raked and beds prepared for winter.  The dead was removed and made ready for the fresh start to come. The last of the sun's warmth was soaked into cold weather skin and the hammock swung with legs, arms and giggles.  I gave Thanks... for the pruning, removing and readying of my heart as well as my home.

Kimberly

I'm linking up to Tuesday's Unwrapped at Chatting at the Sky.  Emily encourages us to take a closer look at our everyday and seek out the given gifts.  Even if they're painfully beautiful.

Not thankful when it pleaseth me,

As if Thy blessings had spare days,

But such a heart whose pulse may be Thy praise.

~George Herbert

From my heart of praise to yours, wishing you all a Happy Thanksgiving.

Kimberly

What am I thankful for this holiday season?  New beginnings. The page of our story is turning and as it does, it reveals the next twist in the plot.  Our next page will look something like this come February.





I am ready for the adventure, and thankful.  Thankful that life never turns out the way we plan, but instead unfolds one page at a time.



Kimberly