Grief and joy

It's yearly meeting week, which is easily one of my favorite weeks each year. Memories of children's picnics and daycamp mix with stories of middle school mischief and learning how to grow up well.
My best friends came from this week. Today I got to see many of them; to sit in silence, as we have learned to do, and to worship together in the spirit. Some call it culty, we call it worship and I call it home.

As we gathered and meditated on what we might envision as our future together we all saw images of light, of testimony to togetherness, of laying down ourselves for the sake of the whole. We saw unity.
And one friend spoke about grief.

There is a lot to grieve, and we avoid it. Dreaming of together is so much easier than looking one another in the eye and saying "you made me feel pain, hate, and gassy multiple times today". Talking about moving forward in unity is easier than recalling painful words or awkward moments that have sat and festered as open wounds for too long.
But grieving and facing these things gives us the opportunity to actually see and experience the joy of being together.
There is deep joy that comes from healing. And grief is our way of doing that well.

Yearly meeting drama aside,
I have a lot to grieve.
And while tonight's centering was about our community as a whole...I understood so personally that message.

I have learned the imprtance and significance of grieving to be fundamental in my own life. BUT it's also a lesson that has to smash itself over my head every time for me to remember it.
I instinctively run away, or keep running into the perverbial fire. It's healthy. I know.

So I'm going to let this blog be long. And incomplete. And a bit cathartic. Because I need to stop numbing being home. I need to grieve that I have left a place that became home in seven weeks. That I discovered myself on the rocky hills of the Makhrour and in the lofts of Ramalah. I have to grieve that I have left a family who welcomed me as one of their own-for better or for worse.
I have to grieve that I thought I found love, and that I am still coming to terms that I did not. I have to grieve being away during graduations, construction projects, festivals, protests, jagger parties, nargilla breaks, and trips to Tel Aviv.
I have to grieve that all I might have to look forward to is a 3 week trip in March.

I have to grieve that I am not there to shiva face in person. That I miss the craziness of Palestinian drivers and the anxiety of Goin anywhere. I miss catcalls and acid wash and araq. I miss lemon and mint tea and Mish Mish week. I miss arguing with my host brother about everything and sweating through my shirt on the walk to work. I miss church bells competing with call to prayer and the peace of Ramadan.

Hell. I even miss the wall.

And I have been so worried about letting myself be open about this for the sake of wanting this transition to go smoothly.
And that was wrong. Because I need to grieve. I need to be honest that this is hard and that I wish I was still there and that I would do anything to go back.

So here's to finding joy in presence by letting myself grieve the past.
Prepare yourselves.

Wherever you are; be there

Yesterday, something weird happened to me.
I went on my back porch.
I don't do that very often mostly because there is always a TV show to watch or a song to listen to or a friend to see. Why would I ever go outside?

and then yesterday, in the midst of jet-lag and bad sleep habits and iron deficiency catching up to me all at once, all I wanted to do was sit outside.
so I did.
and what did I learn? Oregon sun is just as warm as Palestine's, and it smells nice out there.

Today, after watching Inside Out, my mom and I decided to walk home instead of riding in the car with Ken.
It was strange, making a decision like this. When the easier thing to do was to hop in the Saturn and be home really fast.
But it was so nice out, and Oregon was calling me to be present.
And I've learned recently that it's really hard to be present because I spend a lot of my life in countdown mode.

sixteen week segments of life separated by short-term adventures and retreats into nature
I have thirty-two weeks of college separating me from the rest of my life.
And only twenty-four weeks of classes, tests, and monotony separating me from going back to Palestine.

One week ago I started saying goodbye.
You see, countdowns are a two-way street.

It seems to me that I am constantly conscious of the passing of time, how I am drifting farther and farther from key moments, and how I am drifting closer and closer to tomorrow.

Rarely am I rooted in the present.
And for now, all I want to be is here. And, if we're being honest, there and there. But there is time to be there, especially if I am here. and now I feel like the caterpillar in Alice in Wonderland, without the nargilla.