It's All About Steve(n): Our Birth Story

I gave birth to our first child 18 days ago, a boy that looks just like me and whom we named Steven Bruce, after our fathers.

I’d like to share my birth story, because I think childbirth is misrepresented in our culture and has become something women fear and dread. Why wouldn’t they? Besides the common practice of things like epidurals and planned caesarean sections (which puts the idea in our heads that labor can be unbearable), we are exposed to the horror stories of other mothers.  It was the worst pain I’ve ever experienced and Trust me, get the drugs!  Have you ever heard a woman tell you that her birthing was an amazing experience?

Maybe I’ll be the first.  I will admit that labor was labor indeed, and it was no walk in the park.  But I did not experience unbearable pain.  It wasn’t something that I just got through and barely survived.  It was difficult – the hardest work I’ve ever set out to do.  But excruciating?  Not at all.  In understanding the purposefulness of my body, I was able to embrace the sensations I felt and have a healthy (and swift!) birthing.  It was an incredible experience of being awed by my body and by my own strength and control.

Curt and I prepared for labor well; we primarily focused on the Mongan Method of Hypnobirthing (trust me, not kooky like it sounds), but also delved positive experiences and tools from Natural Childbirth the Bradley Way and Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth.  But the most important tool we utilized was practice.  Every single day, I would listen to a hypnosis script or we would go through one together.  Sounds bizarre, yes, but it wasn’t something that put me into a trance.  Rather, it was something that taught me how to relax thoroughly, to be in control of my relaxation and focus, and to achieve a sort of dream-like state, like when you daydream.  Even with practice and the knowledge on the Mongan and Bradley Methods, an important part of my preparation was actively battling negative stories and comments that I heard from some of the people around me.  We tried to use positive language – avoiding words with negative connotations like “pain” – and focused on positive birth experiences of other women.

I was able to stay active the whole pregnancy, which helped me avoid lower back and hip pain.  In the last few weeks of my pregnancy, I could feel my body changing, as my hips started to shift. I started to get pretty sore and achy.  I also fatigued easily.  I would walk to the food market five minutes from our house, buy minimal groceries, walk back home and be completely expired.  That’s why I guessed that labor was imminent when I got a sudden burst of energy those last couple days.  It seems nature knows what we need, when we need it.

I had been having a tightening sensation for a couple weeks, during which my belly would rise up out of my abdomen and become more squarish than round, and it would feel very tight and hard.  Saturday evening, the 12^th of October, I had more of these sensations with my thighs tightening up.  I now know that these were contractions, but I wasn’t certain at the time since they were just tight, and not uncomfortable.

The last few days of my pregnancy, I had trouble sleeping due to soreness and heartburn, so the night of the 12th I slept on our couch downstairs.  I woke up frequently – you know, pregnant bladder – and at about 1 am, I felt something start to come out of me.  Then it rushed out of me and I had no doubt in my mind that my water had broken!  I won’t tell you what I said – I was startled and exclaimed something that is not good for my young sons ears ;).  I rushed to the toilet and called Curt on my phone.  Yes, seriously.  That’s how I got his attention since he was sleeping on the 3^rd floor and I on the 1^st.  From there, I could barely get off the toilet; fluid just kept coming and coming as I relaxed.  We set me up on the couch comfortably and on top of garbage bags and towels, and Curt started to pack the final items in our hospital bag.  We planned to labor as much as we could at home, since that was the most comfortable and familiar place.  The surges (calmer hypnobirthing word used for contractions) started coming right away, and in a way that they hadn’t before.  They were uncomfortable, yes, but I wouldn’t necessarily describe them as painful.  They required a lot of focus on relaxation.  While Curt was busy running around, I timed them myself and breathed deeply and slowly.  They were only a few minutes apart and anywhere from 30 to 60 seconds in duration. 

After my water initially broke, we had a snack for energy.  But as my labor progressed, I couldn’t keep anything down.  I had read stories of vomiting during labor, usually as you are late in dilation, and it’s not cause for concern.  Curt told me later that he was shocked, but my acceptance (and embrace! It felt good!) of it let him know that it was ok.

We had decided beforehand that when deciding to go to the hospital, we would take into account the frequency and duration of my surges, but also my emotions.  Bradley speaks of emotional sign posts – women typically start labor excited and cheerful, get serious when they realize the work that their body is doing, and experience self-doubt when they are exhausted near the end.  The 2^nd emotional signpost – seriousness – is the most appropriate time to go to the hospital when you want to labor mostly at home, since you will have progressed quite a bit and will spend the minimal amount of time laboring at the hospital.

So we labored at home!  My surges were very close together – about 2 minutes – but I was still cheerful and excitable.  We spent most of the time on our rocking chair with Curt on the ottoman rubbing my thighs with each surge.  Oof, they were tight!  I’d say the intensity of my surges was moderate at this point.  My body was definitely going to work, and they required deliberate focus.  I was still vomiting small amounts frequently and even having a hard time keeping water down.  Time stood still; we spent about three hours in this setting, but it felt like much shorter.

We moved to our living room, where I could sit on our bench or a birthing ball.  Apparently, it was here that Curt realized I hadn’t laughed at any of his jokes in about 20 minutes, so he knew I was entering the serious phase.  He told me later that he was making jokes on purpose to see where I was at emotionally.  He suggested that we go to the hospital, and I complied.  It was 0530 when we left home, four and a half hours after my water broke. 

We live just outside the naval base, so we were able to get to the hospital in about 5 minutes.  We worked our way up to the maternity ward on the 3^rd floor (after having a surge in the parking lot – I used Curt as a jungle gym), and they helped us into a triage room.  We asked them to contact my midwife, Genie, but praise the Lord Almighty, she happened to have duty that Saturday and was still on the ward.  That was one of my major concerns going in – that neither of the midwives I had been seeing would be able to attend the birth.  I have nothing against obstetricians, but they often take a different approach than the one we were hoping for.  Also, I had never met any of them.  Genie came in to the triage room while the nurse was checking the baby’s vitals and my own.  I was so relieved to see her face!  She checked me and announced that I was fully dilated.  Amazing!  I had been thinking about my dilation, but didn’t let myself hope for anything above 5 centimeters, let alone ten!  I attribute this fully to staying relaxed.  When you do so during surges, your uterus is able to pull your cervix up more efficiently.  When you’re relaxed, you’re not working against your body’s ability to pull that muscle upward and “open the door” for your baby to pass through.

So we were in business, and I was immensely encouraged by full dilation.  It was a push I needed to start the next phase with full gusto. 

The delivery room started off with a bustle.  There were blood draws and a hep lock insert (a port for intravenous fluids, so they had a way to give me an IV, but I wasn’t constantly hooked up).  There were questions about medicinal allergies and diseases in the family.  This was a more hectic scenario than I was hoping for with our birth, but because of how our labor had gone thus far, I felt in complete control.  I put people off.  “Sir, I’m having a surge and need a minute … ok, please go ahead.”  I was able to put up a gentle hand and close my eyes to signal a gentle back off for a second!  And even later on, when I was in the heat of the pushing phase, I was able to gently push away a nurse with dobbler monitor (heartbeat monitor for baby) with a “Can’t concentrate … “.  She respected me and immediately backed away.  These moments of taking control, not just with the hospital staff, but in my own body and experience, allowed me to shed the idea that labor was something that was happening to me.  I was in tandem with my body’s purpose and was not taken captive, but was working alongside the process.

The pushing phase was long.  Curt and I were all over.  I laid on the bed and breathed while he rubbed my thighs (they were still tightening with every surge).  We stood.  I leaned.  I squatted.  I used pretty much every function of what we came to call Bedimus Prime.  The bed into just about anything we needed.  The very end of it came down about a foot and became a sort of birthing stool, with options for attaching a bar to brace yourself.  I was so thankful to have the freedom to move, to go with what my body wanted, since I didn’t have medication and my legs still had feeling.  I used gravity and was able to shift things around to work baby down.  I was also able to feel and listen to the sensations of my body.  Push now.  Ok, not so much.  Now relax; let yourself regroup for the next surge.  Just breathe.

The pushing phase took longer than expected because I was still figuring it out.  I could practice breathing and relaxation before the birth, but practice birthing a child?  You don’t exactly come across that experience every day.  Hard to prepare for.  For a while, I was letting instinct take over – which was good – but not realizing the intention I had to set for myself, the work I had to do.  I had to breathe baby down, yes, but I also had to watch for that time when I needed to give a push.  We just needed a little more. 

This is where our midwife was clutch.  She stepped in after a bit of time and offered fantastic suggestions.  And in between each surge, we were able to expound those suggestions and get them set in a way that agreed with my brain, in a way that I could not only understand but also implement.  The application had to be there.  My confusion was how to relax my body while also giving energy – pushing – to the process.  Through the difficulty, I started to become discouraged.  Not only because it was really difficult to get my baby boy’s head through a place that had a lot of stretching to do, but also because I wasn’t convinced I was making progress.  What I needed was encouragement and affirmation.  I needed the emotional support.  I needed to be told that I was doing well and making progress.  This is the point where I imagine most women would have started thinking they needed medicinal support. Never in my birthing process did I think about turning to medicine.  The thought just never occurred to me. Stalling during labor was disheartening, but with the support of my husband and midwife, I was able to keep my courage and my control.

What we finally came up with to help me understand the pushing phase was the idea that when I felt a surge, I would take a big inhale and then a slow exhale while focusing downward, and then give a long, suspended oomph at the end of each exhale.  Each time, it helped to give a low-toned and long oooooomph.  I pushed for a while in a squatting position, then changed to a semi-sitting position while pulling my legs back.  But the last few surges, I felt the need to be on all fours.  I would strongly inhale and then slowly exhale while shifting my pelvis back and down and giving my oomph.  His head felt so low, and was hanging halfway out for the last bit.  When he finally came out, it was a little bit of a shock!  I’d been at it for so long, but the moment he was born just kind of came upon us.  Since I was in an optimal position, his head and shoulders came out together. It happened in just one push.

Since I was kneeling, Genie said, “Grab your baby!” and I was able to reach down and grab our new-born baby boy; I was the very first one to hold our son.  The room erupted with energy; it had been quiet and dim, but nurses jumped in right away, cleaning and aspirating the crying, slimy baby in my hands.  I was helped onto my back with baby against my stomach.  Genie went to work on me since I had a lot of bleeding.  Because of this, she couldn’t delay cord clamping and cutting. The placenta was delivered swiftly.  I had two small tears that Genie quickly repaired, and everyone rushed out of the room to give us time with our new baby.

The next hour and a half was pure bliss.  I could not believe the creature wriggling around on my chest was our son!  He moved around, rooting to be fed.  It was amazing to watch his instinctual behavior when he was just minutes old.  I just stared at him as he crawled around looking for food.  He found it alright, but didn’t quite latch on his own – I think he was still feeling a little disoriented.  After watching him and getting to know him a bit, we decided to name him Steven Bruce, after our fathers.  The name suits him well.

A corpsman came in and helped Curt give Steven his first bath.  They also weighed him – 8 pounds 7 ounces!  Bigger than both Curt and me at birth, by at least a pound.  Haha, that fact made me proud, not just that our boy was fat and happy, but that I was able to get a baby that size out!  One thing I learned throughout my pregnancy is women’s bodies are amazing.  They can birth 11 pound babies vaginally.  They can birth breach babies vaginally.  They can birth when things are stuck, like the shoulders. 

Fortunately and unfortunately, I was anxious to see Steven get his first bath and take some photos.  This was two hours after his birth and a little too soon for me to get up.  I walked back to bed after snapping some photos, started to feel woozy, and fainted!  Luckily, my favorite nurse, Alea, was standing next to me and caught me perfectly.  She swiveled me around onto the bed and called the obstetrician on duty.  Thus began a somewhat invasive and very painful pelvic exam and a Pitocin drip.  This is synthetic Oxytocin, the hormone that contracts your uterus; it can cause the blood vessels in your uterus to constrict and aid with excessive bleeding, which was my problem.  I also had orders to pee or get a catheter.  Fortunately, Alea saw that a catheter was the last thing I wanted and advocated for a few extra hours at a bathroom attempt before a decision would be made.  I’d never been so excited about my own urination, difficult as it was. 

We spent about 4 hours in the delivery room after Steven was born, but were finally able to move into our postpartum room and enjoy our new baby.  We made calls to middle-of-the-night Minnesota, got some rest and ate lunch.  We relished the day – for the good labor and delivery experience and for our new baby.  We couldn’t believe how cute he was (is)!  We’ve been home for a little over two weeks; recovery is going well and we’re learning, day at a time, to be parents.  Steven is growing more alert and our schedule is solidifying. And it turns out Byron is pretty good around children.

My Holy Discontent

Photo credit: Nick Brandt

Today is the first day of Great Lent in the Orthodox Church. I was planning to write about my experiences with Great Lent and how Orthodox Christians view, meditate on, and eventually celebrate the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus.

But an issue has been making my heart sore, and today it came full swing. I often try to care about things, but often my real motive in that is to be significant and tell myself that I'm doing significant things. I sit here in Japan, but I have painful tears running down my face for what's happening to wildlife in East Africa. Surprisingly, poaching is at an all-time high, and at least one African elephant is being killed per day. Hunting elephants and rhinoceroses is illegal by international law, yet these invaluable animals are being killed for the immense rewards of their tusks and horns. They are being sent to East and Southeast Asia, to the part of the world I live in myself, for the sake of medicinal myth and pursuit of good health and fortune. We could feasibly lose the African Forest Elephant altogether - poof, gone - for the sake of a false belief.

Photo credit: Nick Brandt

I can't help but fall silent. And somewhat frozen.

In 2008, I was introduced to the work of photographer Nick Brandt. I fell in love with his style and his photographs captivated me repeatedly. The photos at the top of this post are the ones I originally saw that year. To revisit them and to learn that the vast majority of these elephants have been killed (bottom and top left in 2009, top right in 2010) is more than heart-breaking.

What do you do? Just what is the thing that you should do when you feel so much for something? What do you do when things are so dire? And for the love, what are we doing?

Please peruse the organization that Nick Brandt has founded in response to what he's seen. The Big Life Foundation has employed about 280 rangers to defend over 2 million acres of land within Amboseli and Tsavo National Parks. Trust me, I've been to both of these places, and losing elephants there would, of course, change the nature of the whole ecosystem. But I think, and maybe even more importantly, we'd be losing a creature so valuable and beautiful to our world.

Come on safari with me someday. I'll show you elephants.

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Sawa Sawa

Photo credit: Jackie Jeffery

People just blow my preconceived and long-maintained notions out of the water. I've often been intimated by any sort of professor I've had. They're just such brilliant people that (seem to) have it all together. I think no matter what a university faculty member teaches, they're bound to have an interesting story of research or time spent abroad or entire dissertations that they've struggled through. I think professors are either true to the professor facade - wearing sweater vests to the core and being unintentionally too brilliant for the rest of us to even comprehend ... OR they're essentially hippies who wear clothes they can get dirty, have wonky hair, and are passionate not just about the subject at hand, but also about teaching and creating future researchers and enthusiasts.

Such is true for the faculty I had in Tanzania and Kenya. We had John Mwamhanga, a man as serious about teaching us life lessons as the socioeconomic issues of East Africa. He even went as far as to give me marriage advice when he learned I was close to engagement. It got a little awkward when he started talking about "going at it again" in the bedroom. We had Bernard Kissui, who works with lions in Tarangire National Park and whose voice would hit high pitches and even squeak when he was talking about something he was really passionate about. We had Shem Mwasi, who named himself Chui Kubwa (Big Leopard) and told students to kindly shut up when they were talking too much. Then there was John Kioko, who made us hold elephant dung to understand the texture and taught us about trees whose nuts looked ... well, like nuts. He called them by their nickname, Testicle Trees. He also saved us from experiencing an elephant charge a mere 4 days after arriving in the country.

These people are still blowing me away, and I'm not even their student anymore. I've been seeking their advice for how on earth to get back to Africa. I have received only support and constructive ideas from them. Mwamhanga even told me that I need to continue to believe in myself, and identify myself as a safari guide! "You need to say 'I am a safari guide!'" Kioko offered to help us get a business transferred over to Tanzania. They all want updates as I progress.

When your faculty are this supportive and approachable, it is a blessing beyond many others. Hallelujah.

 

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Erp?

I gotta admit. Today, I got nothing. There are times I stare at this blank screen, and nothing comes out of my mind. I'm just blank. Inexpressive. A little mundane even, at times. You know that feeling when your husband is across the world from you, and you just want to leave him alone because he's in transit, and you're in a sea of Japanese people?

Oh, sorry. Haha. Probably not.

I actually appreciate this sea of Japanese people right now. And at most times, actually. I don't know what it is, but it's sometimes less lonely to me than being in a sea of Americans. Because with Americans, there's more to be done, socially. I should be making conversation, making some new friends. There's opportunity here, take advantage! So if I chicken out, I just end up lonely AND guilty. Phew. Not fun. But in this wonderful sea of Japanese folk, we're hanging out and there's nothing more. I'm literally 24 inches from a young woman with pretty pink shoes shuffling around her iPhone. And you know, that will be the extent of our interaction. Or maybe she'll say, "Sumimasen" as she passes. But really, that'll be it. Ah, no obligation. Yet I feel like I'm with her and with that woman over there in the heart earrings, and that old man who's doing absolutely nothing but enjoying a cup of joe on a Saturday evening. And even though I have ear buds in and I'm listening to blues (maybe that's my problem), we're just together. Thanks for keeping me company, guys. ;)

My current remedy for my melodrama while my husband is away (besides friends, of course; they are primary): personal goals. Learn to sew. Crochet more. Consolidate my cookbook (seriously, am I a housewife or what?). Volunteer more at the zoo, and expound on my work there. Work towards Africa, make more friends there, research my options. Learn Japanese, for crying out loud! And maybe French.

Phew. Welp, it seems like I did have something afterall. Boom.

 

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Living on the Cusp

federerphotography.com

It's been three years since I started attending the Orthodox Church. In any other story, I would actually be Orthdox after that long; I would've normally gone through about a year of catecuminate, and would've been chrismated (instated, in a way) into the Orthodox Church. I would take the eucharist every week and participate regularly in confession.

But our lives haven't been normal.

Between study abroad, getting married, and moving to Japan, this hasn't been able to happen. But man alive. The road has been (and will continue to be) riddled with challenges to becoming Orthodox, but it has been a beautiful journey to say in the least. The Orthodox Church is gracious in allowing the non-Orthodox to still participate in most traditions. This sounds like a given, especially for a Protestant believer, and many see closed communion as exclusive and somewhat elitist. But the Orthodox believe when we commune, we become one with Christ and a sole body with each other. We are not just communing with Christ, we are being brought together. To commune with someone who does not yet adhere to Orthodox beliefs would be to live out a unification that doesn't (sometimes doesn't yet) exist.

Anyway. Though I am not Orthodox, I still get to participate in many events and traditions throughout the year, and in any given Orthodox Church, we are welcomed with open arms more than I've experienced in many other places. My husband and I have been able to experience Orthodoxy (although me not to the fullest), and slowly study and reflect on what it means to be Orthodox.

I am thankful for the preparation.

The real challenge, for me, is also something that I love about Orthodoxy. In many parts of the world, including the US, it's the best kept secret. I didn't even know Orthodoxy existed until a few years ago. It's a world out of the spotlight, and that allows it to operate well. But this also means that Orthodoxy isn't in all places, and that there isn't a given demand for it. I am thankful that Orthodoxy exists in Japan (thank you, St. Nicholas!), but in the military? Less so. I wish I could just dive in to this Church, but what I also need is day in, day out community.

For now, this means having one foot in the Orthodox world and one in the Protestant one. This often means a constant internal struggle. In some ways, and unfortunately so, these two churches either have differing approaches or are on completely different paths altogether. This is not to say that the core is not the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. But beyond this core, if things are constantly different, it can be challenging, especially if you're trying to dive into a particular one.

But I was encouraged at my last Protestant women's event, and God is reminding me that it is (in fact!) ok! It's hard to explain, and I don't think I'll try in print, but the Protestant church allows me to continue to fall in love with the Orthodox one. It's like both are in agreement about my future, and are thus passing me from one to the other. Protestantism is letting me go and pushing me with its fingertips, and glory be, it feels good in my heart.

 

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Jelly Bellies

We visited Baltimore last weekend and checked out the National Aquarium. Admission is a bit pricey, but by the end of the day, none of us were griping about that. Well worth every penny. By far by favorite part was the jelly exhibit. Goodness, those things are so cool. And even if you try, you can't take a bad photo of them.

Upside Down Jellyfish

These guys were tiny!

 

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Honing Some Skills

I'm trying to piece this whole Africa thing together and nine days out of ten, it's incredibly overwhelming. I'm at a point where the disadvantages are at the front of my mind the majority of the time, and inadequacy starts to settle in. I don't have what it takes. Yet. I couldn't walk into Africa and tell it to hire me to show tourists around its lands and parks. Not yet.

We're trying to think more constructively about this. I have more to gain, more to do before I take a step of action and physically go to Africa. Since I'm a random white foreigner trying to work abroad, we're piecing together skills that I can hone now that I will (or may) need a leg up on either. First Aid. Bartending. Japanese Language. French Language? Networking. Knowledge on Wildlife Taxonomy, Ecology, and Behavior. If we prepare me adequately, I'll be ready to be taught in the field.

Current lesson: firearms.

Many safari companies require a rifle certification. I'm not sure I could fight off a lion with my bear hands to ensure the safety of some safari-goers (maybe I should look into extreme cagefighting?). I would need a scare tactic, and a rifle is some good insurance.

So in the meantime, we're going to get me comfortable handling a weapon. This, my friends, is when it's beneficial to be married to a Gunnery/Ordinance Officer. Score. We went over the four rules of gun safety until I was blue in the face, and made plans to go to a gun range.

I've only been shooting once in my life and I only remember one thing about it: I was terrible. I was an awful shot. So going into the range yesterday, I wasn't expecting much from myself. I started a .38 caliber revolver and did pretty well. When I switched to a 9 mm pistol, I think I had a special moment with the gun. How romantic. I got familiar with it, raised it, and shot the X for the first time. WOO! I put the gun down immediately, and caught my breath. It was so exhilarating. My husband rushed up because he thought I was overwhelmed by the recoil. But I stopped out of little-girl-jumping-around excitement. It was a tiny hurdle overcome. Yes, Africa is far away and I have my work cut out for me. But at least I can shoot a gun. I can hit the X. And I did better than I thought I would. Hopefully, I'll be saying that a lot in the next few years.

Baby steps will get me there. The slow preparation is painstaking, but the small victories will pull me along.

 

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KWS Rangers

Courtesy of: Capital FM News

I keep up with the African Wildlife Foundation news feeds, and since it is Kenya's Golden Jubilee year marking 50 years of independence, they have commended Kenya for its commitment conserving landscapes and wildlife.

This article brought me to nostalgia when it mentioned one of Kenya's main conservation initiatives, the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS). This is their all-things-conservation-and-wildlife force. During my semester of study abroad in East Africa, we worked with their rangers while doing research. They were essentially our bodyguards while we were in the bush, and I came to immensely appreciate how KWS works and how serious they are when it comes to anti-poaching work. KWS rangers are freaking soldiers. They are the cops of bush law enforcement. They have to graduate from an intense program, carry rifles and flares, and are mostly very large men. During my first experiences with the KWS, my only thought was, Holy crap! It's like a war, protecting wildlife against the bushmeat trade and harvesting of horns and tusks.

My favorite ranger, Raymond, was a big old dude who was committed to his work. I never felt unsafe in his presence, even spending days walking among elephants, giraffes, snakes, and at one point, a very pissed off wildebeest. Whenever we encountered elephants, he would get very serious and quiet, and he would be very direct in leading us to safety. This guy knew what he was doing. My research partner, Jackie, was always the one to ask exactly what was on her mind, and for every KWS ranger we worked with, it was "Have you ever killed a man?" (accompanied with a rugged cowboy voice, of course). Most KWS rangers would say yes - though they never initiated gunfire - and wouldn't be able to tell us how many people. It brought to light the gravity of this wildlife-people tension, and made us feel pretty somber.

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Homebody

When life moves you around a lot, it's easy to get confused. Don't get me wrong, I know exactly what I want and where I want to be. But it's not what I would've initially expected.

This winter, I traveled from Yokosuka, Japan to Yokota. Then it was back to Yokosuka and on to Tokyo to fly from Narita International Airport to Minneapolis/St. Paul via Guangzhou, China and LAX. The next five weeks were a refreshing whirlwind - seeing family, catching up with long-time friends, enjoying holidays - and it's clear that Minnesota is my home. During that time, I bounced back and forth between there and my other familiar and alma mater town, Madison, WI, for a friend's wedding festivities. We are now in the middle of a 4-week stint in Dahlgren, Virginia. Minnesota was a fantastic time, and I was filled to the brim by people I can't wait to live life with again. Someday.

But I miss Japan.

I miss the culture. I miss the tight spaces. I miss some of the little things. I somehow even miss being a minority. It sobers you. I miss the trains, and I miss the convenient stores. I miss my neighborhood, though I can communicate with only one of my neighbors. I miss the way it feels. I miss taking out trash every day. I miss biking everywhere. I miss our tiny little house and our ornery cat. He's bothering someone else for now.

I guess what I'm saying is that Japan is truly home now. But just for now. And you know, that feels nice. To know we are able to make home where we are. And to actually feel pain for not being there, though it's not Minnesota. How strange, that a place 8000 miles from our hometown with a culture so vastly different from the one we were brought up in, can make us fall in love with it.

Lessons from C.S.

My husband is a hero. Back in June, my dearly beloved MacBook crashed, taking all of my precious documents with it. I'm not exactly tech savvy, to the point where I don't even understand all the possibilities. But Curtis came to my rescue without me asking and had my hard drive taken out and cased. My various documents are now all converted to iTunes and ready for upload on my iPad.

Lord knows I love that man.

One of my rediscovered documents was Chapter 6 from C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity on the topic of marriage. Guh, it is so good! I keep it as a reminder of the bigger picture, of who we are in marriage and the beauty of how it was designed and is orchestrated. It is refreshing to read something this wholesome when I am too often reminded of some of the modern-day views of marriage. To me, many are incomplete and superficial.

Here are my favorite quotes from C.S.:

The Christian law is not forcing upon the passion of love something which is foreign to that passion’s own nature: it is demanding that lovers should take seriously something which their passion itself impels them to do. And, of course, the promise, made when I am in love and because I am in love, to be true to the beloved as long as I live, commits me to being true even if I cease to be in love. A promise must be about things that I can do, about actions: no one can promise to go on feeling in a certain way. He might as well promise never to have a headache or always to feel hungry.

Being in love is a good thing, but it is not the best thing. There are many things below it, but there are also things above it. You cannot make it the basis of a whole life. It is a noble feeling, but it is still a feeling. Now no feeling can be relied on to last in its full intensity, or even to last at all. Knowledge can last, principles can last, habits can last; but feelings come and go.

But, of course, ceasing to be ‘in love’ need not mean ceasing to love. Love in this second sense - love as distinct from ‘being in love’ - is not merely a feeling. It is a deep unity, maintained by the will and deliberately strengthened by habit; reinforced by (in Christian marriages) the grace which both partners ask, and receive, from God.

‘Being in love’ first moved them to promise fidelity: this quieter love enables them to keep the promise. It is on this love that the engine of marriage is run: being in love was the explosion that started it.

[on the longevity of being in love] This is, I think, one little part of what Christ meant by saying that a thing will not really live unless it first dies. It is simply no good trying to keep any thrill: that is the very worst thing you can do. Let the thrill go - let it die away - go on through that period of death into the quieter interest and happiness that follow - and you will find you are living in a world of new thrills all the time.

What Am I Doing Here?

I know exactly what I want to do when I grow up.  Yes, as a 25-year-old, I still have some growing to do.  I thought this clarity would be freeing, and it often is.  Whenever I am tempted to compare myself to someone else and their professional path, I can easily go back to thoughts on what's mine.  It's then that I realize that there's nothing to compare, since I don't want their professional path anyway.  

But there is still so much struggle.  How to get there.  How to make my time count towards it when I live overseas.  How our future kids may factor in.  I'm in the lull.  I'm not even sure I should call it a lull because the preparation matters too.  The balance between waiting and reflecting and searching and constructing and acting is difficult to find.  Should I always act and think later?  What are the actions?  There's no particular right set of stepping stones, but I still long for some guidance.  That's the thing, it's all on me.  Even when others offer advice, I am unsettled.  Because I need to start.  Or keep going.  The process needs to be mine first.  

Sometimes I long for convention.  I want to give up and find a normal job and live a normal life.  Just to find stability or feel like I'm an adult.  But then I say that out loud and want to slap myself.  

So here I am.  Living in the process.  Finding some sort of way, and feeling like a late bloomer.  Frustrated and frantic at times.  But full of peace and yearning in others.  Impatient with myself, but glad to be on an unorthodox and organic path.

Cheers.

Between the idea

And the reality

Between the motion

And the act

Falls the shadow

(T.S. Eliot The Hollow Men)