Traveling Shoes

Annabelle is resting up for her big travel night and Bryan just ran out on one last errand so I am indulging in quick guilty pleasure is the midst of the madness and jotting down a few thoughts before we run out the door to catch a plane. Our room is flooded with folded piles of clothes and stacks of Christmas gifts for friends and family spilling out of suitcases yet to suck in their guts to be zipped closed. I have laughed at myself so many times already as I get ready to travel overseas for the first time with a baby. It is a completely new ball of wax. In college when I would fly home on school breaks I would deliberate for weeks on what to wear through the airports, usually settling on something comfortable but stylish, complete with cute shoes and dangly earrings. I liked traveling light and enjoying watching people around me, making up stories about who they were and where they were going, and inevitably having some flirtatious interaction with tall, dark, handsome strangers (at least in my mind). But now I am looking at the worn blue jeans, fleece and sensible flats laid out next to the massive diaper bag stuffed silly with sippy cups and applesauce. Instead of a John Le Carre novel in my purse there is a copy of "Good Night Moon" with teeth marks in it. I managed to slip some lip gloss into an outside pocket of the diaper bag to have on hand when I need it, but who knows if I will ever find it mixed in with the hand sanitizer, baby lotion, baby powder and baby shampoo. I can already see all the nice people buckled into their seats politely avoiding eye contact as we come lurching down the aisle thinking, "Please, please don't let them sit next to me..." As a matter of principle I have refused to drug my baby with Nyquil (though my principles my change dramatically after tonight) so I am anticipating long conversations with my insatiably curious six-month old as she babbles on about all the new things she sees and hears and what precisely she thinks about them.

And you know what? I can't wait. To the utter shock and disbelief of a younger version of myself, I don't give a rip what everyone else is thinking when we board that plane and am even looking forward to the delightful messiness of traveling with a baby. If midnight finds me pacing the aisles and singing lullabies like a fool in front of 400 other people, I gladly accept the honor of sharing these new experiences with my daughter. If she loves every minute of it and travels like a pro, I am proud to be her travel companion. If 24 hours in the bright sterile world of airplanes and airports is a bit much for her, than I am happy to be the shoulder she cries on. I may not be the most chic traveler in Heathrow airport tomorrow, but Bryan has promised to flirt with me all I want, and I suspect I will be one of the happiest.

Termites

For the past several days it has been raining steadily here in Tanzania, a slow, chilly drizzle only occasionally perforated with diluted sunshine. It feels so calm compared to my last memories of rain. In North Africa it seemed that rain almost always came in on a storm, heavy-handed and insistent. This rain is far quieter, less exciting (for one, there are no floods to hold back under the door with towels, no basins and buckets lost off the back porch to the crazy wind). It’s more of a temperament that a mood and every morning that I wake up to grey light and gentle drumming on the roof, I feel thankful. That probably seems a bit odd, but I have always felt that way about rainy days. They come with a certain leniency. 

Last night as twilight eased in, we sat on the back porch and watched the end of a lull in the rain as a cloud grew too heavy to move on and began shedding its load. As the first drops began to fall, a space in the grass a few feet in front of us opened up as though in response to some unheard password and thousands of termites that had been hiding below the ground began to pour out on new wings. They rippled out like bubbles being blown through a ring and gave the sky dimension and depth as they scattered slowly upwards. It felt like we were in an upside-down snow globe, a little plastic family sitting on the porch of our little plastic house while glittery snow-termites showered upwards. We watched them until they disappeared, presumably settling gently on the roof of the glass dome above us all.

I struggle to write these days. The things I find myself wanting to articulate come out sounding melodramatic (Latest news says a total of 63 bombs have fallen on our town and 74 civilians are dead. Do we know any of those people? Would we recognize their faces as friends, acquaintances, or even strangers we sat next to in a tea shop one afternoon…?) to altogether detached (I made chicken alfredo for my dad’s birthday on Saturday and we played dominoes while Annabelle attacked piles of shiny wrapping paper. She is cutting her first tooth). I exist in two realities. In one I cook in the kitchen with my mama, play with puppies in the back yard with my baby and sleep safely next to my husband in a room full of things from my childhood. In the second I check the news with a sense of dread, pray for the safety of friends in North Africa by name and dream of a former home almost every single night. In one reality I am happy and excited about the future; in the other I am sad and mourning losses of the past. The two realities edge around each other tensely, like inflated egos in close quarters. The only thing they have in common is a very deep sense of thankfulness – thankfulness for what was and what was not; what is and isn’t. It is this gratitude that keeps them in check, creates a sense of balance. 

We’re getting ready to go back to the States for a visit in a couple of weeks, something that both thrills and terrifies me. It’s been two and a half years since we left. I have changed since then, as have the friends, places and cultures I left behind. Life goes on for all of us. Even so, I look forward to the little things that will bring us great joy in the weeks and months ahead. Watching Annabelle’s face the first time she sees mountains of shredded wrapping paper under a tree or throws old bread to ducks in a park with swings already makes me smile. I know that just as there will be things to miss on the road ahead of us, there will be things to celebrate too. As unexpected and simple as a sky full of termites in the rain.