We returned last night from a long weekend in Portugal. Colorful, sunny, delicious Portugal. I picked up the dog from the kennel and he doesn't appear any worse off for being the unfortunate victim of my craziness prior to leaving. I sincerely hope I am not the only person who forgets they have a dog, or an appointment, or--hypothetically speaking--a child waiting to be picked up at the bus stop. I feel like I'm rushing to catch up, only I never do.

I've thought a lot about rest lately, spiritual rest, the kind where your soul lies down in green pastures and is restored. Every time I sit down to write about it, I can't. I circle round and round the idea in my head, but I can't seem to get the words to trickle down into my fingers. The best way I know how to express it, is to say it's a longing. I long for a deep rest of the spirit, the kind that has nothing to do with my schedule, my responsibilities, or my feeble attempts at keeping all planets revolving around me.

I woke up early on Saturday, to the sun breaking across the sky and the sea. Clouds sat above water, hugged by earth, lit in a golden glow. Each element knew exactly where it belonged, hung and held and revolving around the Son. I watched the day break and I knew I had seen the thing I long for. Rest is knowing I am not the sun or the Son. All things do not live and move through me. Responsibilities exist, lists must be made, but instead of allowing the light of the Son to shine on those places and bring me into a place of restoration, I try to become all things. I try to be the sun and the earth, the sky and the sea, when all He desires is for me to simply be.


I feel the light of the Son wooing me, calling me to come, to be, to rest. And I feel the longing again, to answer the call with a quiet yes.

Last night I arrived home from my kids' Spring Piano Recital around nine pm. It occurred to me that I have a ticket to board a plane today and I hadn't done a thing to prepare for the trip. Out came the suitcase, and the grabbing of clothes from drawers, and the yelling at children to just bring me the flip-flops already. Once I made a chaotic mess of the bed and floor, the dog pads into the room and stares up at me.

I look at him and I remember.

I remember I have a fourth, furry, four-legged child. I email and then call the kennel. I pray I remembered to book him in for this weekend. I look for evidence in my email. There is none. I pray harder and I think of ways I can explain this to my husband, because clearly my marriage will be over when he finds out I forgot about the dog. Again.

I ask God to grant me this one itty-bitty marriage saving favor, and I email two friends who might take pity on me and don't want to see me divorced and destitute. Both say yes, they will take the dog if the kennel doesn't work out. One promises to make her husband sleep on the sofa because last time the dog came to stay he jumped into their bed and growled at the strange man trying to join him there. The other says she'll try to work him in around their newly adopted cat. God loves me. He gives me good friends who recognize I might be borderline insane, and who still like me. They might like me a little bit less after last night, but they like me.

I decide to use the friend with the sofa sleeping husband as my back up. I plan to use my lack of linguistic skills to my advantage, and show up at the kennel in the morning anyway. The worst they can do is send me away in a flurry of words and stupid American insults I can't understand anyway. I decide not to tell my husband until much later. Last time things didn't work out with the dog, it involved the police, a locksmith, some swearing, a pair of scissors, and a mangled cardboard box.

I drive to the kennel first thing this morning. I take my eight year old boy with me for moral support and translation services. We arrive at the gate, I take a deep breath and I shove the dog into the arms of the girl who greets us. She looks at me, hugs the dog, and asks when I will be back to pick him up.

Panic recedes. My son translates dates and times. My marriage is safe. I realize calling myself borderline insane is probably an understatement. I leave and call my friend to tell her she can sleep in the same bed as her husband this weekend. Fortunately, so can I.

I've been thinking a lot lately about what it means to put down roots. For someone who dislikes change as much as I do, I think it strange I should have such a gypsy heart. I wonder if I'll ever be satisfied with settling down, planting my feet in the dirt, and growing deep into the soil of a place. I have fantasies that one day we will settle in a small New England town where we will call the postman Junior, I will own an inn and frequent the town diner, and everyone will know our names and our favorite flavor of ice cream. And then I realize I'm dreaming of a Gilmore Girls episode, and I'll never own an inn or be witty in real life.

I also fantasize about moving to London again and living the big city life, where we are surrounded by interesting people who do big city things. There, I will follow in the footsteps of my literary heroes, and we will live near the river and drink copious amounts of tea from a place called Orange Pekoe. And then I realize I'm dreaming of the life I used to live, before my husband developed an aversion to rainy weather and I birthed three kids. Still, I feel the soil of the city clinging to my feet.

We have one year left before we have to pull up the tender roots growing down around Switzerland. They'll never grow deep here, and I hold the loveliness of this place lightly in my hands. But, I wonder about the future and, truth be told, I worry.We are told we can always go home again, but when we do, we realize we are not the same. Each street and town and country leaves a mark on our DNA. We change, we grow different, molded into a new shape influenced by the people and places we discover. We find the things which delight us in one place, may not delight us in another. The land that inspires and feeds a dream in the early years, may not nourish us in the years to come. And some places don't nourish us at all.

I don't know where we will be in a year. I don't know if we'll have to bend ourselves into the shape of a place, or if the place will shape itself around us. But I do know it will always leave it's mark.

Tell me where your putting down roots. How is it changing you?

While we spent most of our time on the Red Sea, we traveled to Cairo for a day in order to see the city, visit the pyramids of Giza, and go to the Egyptian Museum. You can imagine how thrilled the kids were. Museums and old stuff. Throw in some sand and wild traffic, and it's every child's dream vacation.

Cairo is a riot of noise and color and movement. There is no rhyme or reason to traffic flow, safety measures, or rules. Bomb sniffing dogs, yes. Freedom from stalking and personal harassment in the marketplace, no. I have never seen anything like it.

We drove through the city, crossing the Nile River, and driving to the outskirts of the Sahara. The pyramids rise up out of the sand at a distance, and when standing in their shadow, looking in one direction you will see the high-rise buildings of Cairo, and in the other you see dune upon dune of grit and sand.

The pyramids were magnificent, and lived up to every Indiana Jones fantasy I've harbored since I was a kid. They are built like a jigsaw, a complex set of locks and keys. Each piece was cut by hand to specifically fit into the one next to, beneath, and on top of it. It was a glimpse into the engineering genius of that age, and as someone who still can't cut a paper heart with any degree of symmetry, I was awed.

From the pyramids we took a short drive out into the desert, following a caravan of white nondescript vehicles full of tourists. We stopped for photos of the pyramids at a distance and then arranged to ride the camels led by a group of Bedouins. Our camels were led by three boys, children of the desert, who spend school hours walking straw-hatted rich folk in circles in the sand. I tried to get caught up in the exotic excitement of it all, but I could not stop thinking about the boys. Wondering what they think of their life, what they think of me, and if they sometimes wonder at the strange nature of it all.

They walk day after day in sun and sand, at the end of a very short leash, wandering into nowhere. I wonder if they find joy there? If, when the last straw hat dismounts their beast and the last camera is shuttered, they go joyriding on camels beneath an endless, low-lying desert sky? I don't know. I don't know where they find joy, or make peace with their past, or with their present. I do know this: I left there unsettled, thinking of them, of the great pharaohs of the past, and of the holy words in Ecclesiastes proclaiming that there is nothing new under the sun. The ancients gathered up their treasures under Heaven, hoarding them under blocks of lock and key, and what remains is nothing more than dust and shadows and children of the desert.

And I am left wanting to leave more than the sum of this behind.

Spring break is nearly over, and we have spent the last few days recovering from our trip to Egypt. Me, from a nasty upper respiratory infection and a mountain of laundry, and the kids from a serious case of re-entry boredom. This leads them to do things like 'play fight' which inevitably ends with one sibling really fighting and the other sibling in tears, or to developing a sudden love for practicing the piano but only before 9am or when I need to make a phone call. To say that I am craving a little quiet is an understatement, however not the kind of quiet that is preceded by a loud huff and a stomp out of the room. Apparently, this is how certain tween members of our family are affected by re-entry blues.

My boy called our trip a breakthrough for the family, a revelation if you will. We tend to take lots of city breaks which involve, in little people terms, old stuff, walking, museums, and more old stuff. Not exactly top of the must-do list for the under-18 crowd. In Egypt, we spent the majority of our time at a resort on the Red Sea swimming, snorkeling and enjoying time together as a family. This was made infinitely more enjoyable by the addition of a heated pool, a few lounge chairs, and a midday mojito.

We spent a few days in the sea, snorkeling off a dock in clear, shallow reef waters. That glimpse, that tiny cove of color was such a revelation into the imagination of a God who created such beauty for His own pleasure, knowing there are worlds below that we will never set eyes on. One afternoon, we slipped into the water and were immediately surrounded by hundreds of neon purple jellyfish. I won't lie. There was some screaming and flashbacks to the scene in Finding Nemo when Dory and Marlin are trapped and repeatedly stung in a cloud of jellyfish. We were assured they were harmless and once back on the dock, we lay on our stomachs, hot sun on our backs, watching slippery purple globes rising gracefully to the surface. I want to remember that afternoon, little brown bodies stretched out, reaching for things usually deemed untouchable.

Much of Egypt was like this, so much deemed untouchable. From the food on the street, to the water in the tap, to the children eating with dirty hands from a cloth spread on the curb, to the broken and wasted land. So much.


It made me long for the day when all of those things will be redeemed. When the sting of the past and present will become a graceful rise to a perfect and whole future.

It felt as if we were chasing Eden, looking for the great beauty beneath the rubble of fallen, corrupted things. I saw it in the sea, their smiles, the moonlight on water, and the way they wrap themselves and the land in pigment and spice.

I know there are only glimpses of it this side of Heaven, but someday it will be just as it was meant to be, and we will be able to stretch our hands long and touch it.

Hello, faithful friends! It seems I took a much needed and entirely against my will vacation from the internet. Who knew it would be impossible to get online whenever one wants to (or at all) in Egypt? There is much to discuss. Namely, the fact that we have been to Egypt and survived to tell the tale. After one short stint on a camel in the desert, swimming in a sea of hundreds of jelly fish, eating various unidentified food items, and a harrowing day spent in a van driven by an Egyptian hell-bent on showing us how people from Cairo really drive (the word homicidal comes to mind), I hereby report the holiday a rousing success.

I believe Eleanor Roosevelt was right to say 'Do one thing every day that scares you.' Perhaps she traveled to Egypt too. My family would tell you that I scare easily, so living up to these words comes a bit easier to me than some. I hated that about myself until I realized that finding adventure and joy and fear in the smallest things is more of a gift than a curse. It makes life infinitely more interesting.

To do this trip justice I will need a few posts to capture it all, so if you can bear with me for a few days, I'll take you along for the journey. You won't have to give up your social media or swim among the jellies or take prophylactic acidophilus to do it. Would you like to come along?

Great! I'll meet you here. I'll be the one in the bug eyed glasses and silly hat because the sun hates my face and I like to look as unattractive as possible while on vacation. You'll be the one with the cup of tea and comfy chair. See you soon.

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?

We recently spent a weekend in the mountains, Interlaken to be exact, and I kind of, a little bit, lost my mind and allowed my husband to convince me to go paragliding. I have a confirmed, long standing fear of heights, as well as an aversion to anything that might make me vomit. You can see how this was a difficult decision for me. However, upon learning that my nine and eleven year old children were fearless enough to do it, I signed up. There was no way I was going to let a kid who still likes being tucked in at night out-brave me.



It was glorious, just a wee bit scary, and definitely nausea inducing, but worth every moment. I nearly cried on the way up the mountain when the pilot informed me he had only been flying since May. E turned to me with wild eyes, as I silently devised a way to fling us from the vehicle while not falling off the cliff. After a very awkward pause, he said 'May of 1996'.

Never let it be said the Swiss don't have a sense of humor.



We reached the launch site, and after a running start down the mountain, the wind lifted us above Interlaken for breathtaking views. The currents blew us above alpine forests, lakes and the town below. Just above us, two eagles circled and we followed the pattern of their flight for a true bird's eye view.


I don't know that I would do it again, as it took me about 45 minutes on land to gain a sense of equilibrium back. But to drift to the current of the wind beneath eagles wings was the chance of a lifetime. I'm glad I took it.

Kimberly

PS Photos from the air were taken by husband. I would not have had the presence of mind to do so, nor was I about to release my death grip on the safety handles.

We've been back in the States for just over a week now, and I am being slowly seduced by the ease and convenience of being here. It started with this overwhelming feeling of relief. One big, delicious sigh of understanding. I get this. I get the rules and the tenor and the general USA-ishness of it all.

I've found myself getting lost in other people's conversations (some might call it eavesdropping, I prefer to call it overly acute hearing). I'm enjoying small talk and smiles and 24 hour convenience, because there are times that one may want to take three jet-lagged kids to the grocery store at 5am. Oh yes, there are.

I had once believed Target to be the greatest seductress of them all, but I was wrong. It's the library, in all it's florescent lighted, geriatric, hushed glory. Not having ready access to the written word, has been one of the most difficult things about living in Switzerland. The internet does a fine job of keeping me up to date with the latest releases and such, but there is nothing like walking among the rows and stacks to make me feel like I'm home.

Big, delicious sigh.

Kimberly

The kids had a few days off school recently and we decided to brave chilly weather and some rather unfortunate attitudes and take a road trip to Germany. Our first stop was Neuschwanstein Castle. After a long drive, we were all a bit desperate to find a toilet. Due to a ridiculously complex system of parking, paying, and castle transport, three of us were able to make it to the toilet before climbing on board this fairytale horse and buggy ride.



Two of us were not. Unfortunately, it was the two of us with the least bladder control: the youngest and the one who's given birth three times. Let me tell you, that was no fairytale ride.



We arrived with 30 seconds to spare before our tour, prayed they had a working toilet (they did), and entered a fascinating world of color and storybook surprise. The kids decided to embrace the fairytale theme and brought their best impressions from the dark side. To which I was forced to channel my inner Wicked Witch, and say things like "You know, there are poor kids in Africa who would do anything to be in this castle right now".





Because that's what poor children wish for instead of a healthy meal...a castle in Germany with a cranky mother who needs to use the loo.



The castle is set like a jewel between evergreen and rock, and from every room the views made my breath catch. Stunning.


We had our fill of the castle, helped ourselves to bowls of goulash and fried cream cheese pastry balls, and piled back into the car for another hour's drive to Munich.

I wasn't sure what to expect, as so many of Germany's cities were destroyed in the war, but Munich has been beautifully and faithfully restored.




We took the kids to the Hofbrauhaus, a world famous biergarten, where it takes two hands to lift the beer stein. When we arrived the place was in comfortable chaos. Tables filled with food and frothy mugs, men in leiderhosen bustling by, and a traditional German band complete with accordion. We ate to the slamming of steins on wood and music floating on pretzel tinged air.



The next day, there was more bad-itudeness, so we doled out punishment in the form of an art museum. No fun, just art. Old art. I think it may have been one of the best punishments ever because too often when I'm punishing the kids, I'm also punishing myself.  The kids managed to find a bit of fun anyway. There is nothing like splashing water on a chilly day to inspire brotherly and sisterly affection.