Friendship Refreshes (or Morning with Dave)

Byron and I walked over to the local coffee shop for a 7:45 date with an old friend. When we were first married and living in Santa Barbara, Byron worked for Dave White (and Dan Ribbens) while I was finishing my degree. I finished my degree and we left for Africa in October of that year.

That was 1984 :-)

Dave looked exactly the same to me; tall and fit and smiling. We hugged and grinned and figured out that we last saw each other something like 21 years ago.

The morning flew by as we caught up with each other's lives. It is absolutely astounding to hear Dave's stories of the last few years. We sat there in awe of the grace, joy and integrity so vividly shining.

An added pleasure was that we got to listen instead of talk. Sometimes, we get really tired of hearing ourselves explain what we're doing in Africa. As Byron says, we get so bored of our own story.

But Dave did want to hear about us as well. As we blathered on about what we're excited about, what we're dreaming toward, what is inspiring us and what is floating our boats, Dave was listening with pure pleasure on his face.

"I LOVE this!" he said. "You guys have BIG dreams!"

I suppose it sounds ridiculous but there are times when it's good to be reminded that our dreams are good, exciting and worth going after.

The needs in Africa... Well, they can just stop you right in your tracks. Our efforts on that continent... Well, they can just strike us a pathetically small.

Dave's enthusiasm for the dreams in our hearts and the way we're already realizing parts of them was refreshment on the way.

Friendship kindled and dreams shared, it makes a difference, doesn't it?

Post #419 (in which Lisa has a curious meltdown)

So today started out smoothly, above average, lovely. It was a spectacular morning in the NW and the green trees and blue skies of the greater Seattle area were very pleasant to wake up to. It was a holiday morning and we rolled out of bed closer to 8am, made our tea and resisted the urge to do the work waiting on our computers.

Going to thrift stores (aka charity shops) is one of our favorite pastimes anywhere but especially in this town. We've made some famously great clothing purchases in this place in the last 20 years of visits.

Pulling into the parking lot, we didn't notice any clear indication of which way traffic would flow and we very innocently pulled into a spot. And that's when the yelling began. A driver in another aisle of traffic was apparently intending to take that spot from another direction and she yelled at Byron that it was her spot. And that's when the security guard came over with his very serious "YOU ARE IN TROUBLE" face and waved his big arms and told Byron in the sternest tones, "BACK OUT!"

So we did.

Honestly, we were not trying to snake a spot. We were just unaware of how the system worked.

And that's when I started to cry.

May I preface this by saying I'm very tired and there's quite a lot going on in my heart these days?

Still, it sounds very silly but I just cried and cried. In fact, I needed to stay in the car while Byron and Heather perused the shop so that I could let my tears out and get a grip.

Here's the thing: being yelled at by a perfect stranger triggered all these feelings in me of so often being foreign to a place. It triggered in me the layers and layers of memories (going back to 4 yrs of age) of times that I have been confused in a new country, language, city, school, or social setting. As I've mentioned before, I've lived in 6 different countries and I've moved many times within cultures and communities in those countries.

I guess I was just too tired today to be reminded that I don't even know how to follow the normal traffic clues in a parking lot at a thrift store in Seattle. The funny thing is that I wasn't even driving. But it still smacked me upside the head in the most surprising way.

Later, home at my sister Tanya's house, I told her all about it and cried again. She hugged me and sent me for a nap with her favorite blanket.

I think that was a very nice sisterly thing to do.

Arusha Calling...

Today marks 7 weeks since we left home in Arusha. It's 4 weeks and 2 days till we begin the journey back.

It's a long time to be away from home and normal routine. There is so much good in it and I'm really, truly, very deeply thankful. It's so important and so beautiful to get time with people we love and care for and who love and care for us.

But tonight I'm just kind of worn out.

Nothing else to say really.

I guess I'm just homesick for Africa.

Mother's Day in Review (the Grand Mother)

We had a lovely Mother's Day lunch at Playa Azul in Santa Barbara. Sadly, we didn't get a photo of the whole group, which included my sweet parents and Annie. But here we have 8 Bordens--the 6 of us plus Grandpa and Byron's sister, Bev.

And here we have my mom, (aka "mum" since she's Canadian.)



I was thinking about how great my mom is the other day. As is the habit of some of us Bordens, Jesse and Trevor were a bit behind schedule on getting the airline tickets they need for Washington last week. Their mom, ( that's me) offered to help.

Soon I got stressed out about the tickets. That's when the Big Kahuna stepped in. (That would be Mum.) She found that they had enough miles to get cheap tickets to Seattle and she secured those tickets lickety split.

I thought about that little chain of offspring that kept turning to their moms and how the Top Mom saved the day with great tickets. And I thought about the term "Grandmother." She's the GRAND MOTHER because she's the best mom. She pretty much rocks the whole wide world ;-)

My Nose Gets an Update of Her Own

I had a small surgery on my nose on Tuesday and this is only Friday but I'm having difficulty hanging around being gentle. The process to remove the basal-squamous-carcinoma from my nose involved Swipe, Freeze, Check, Repeat. These are my non-medical terms for it (in case you thought otherwise--ha ha.)

Swipe is when the doctor takes the scalpel and cuts off what he believes will be all of the cancerous stuff on my nose. Freeze is when they freeze the tissue so they can look at it. Check is when they look at it through the microscope and decide if they got it all. If there are basal-squamous cells at the edge, they have to go back until they get a clean perimeter.

It took 3 Swipes before they got it all. The little hole left in my nose is about the diameter of a plump pea says Byron, who was watching the procedure.

Next step was Cover the Hole. This required a little skin graft taken from right in front of my left ear.

Then you have Stitch and Patch. Or Patch-Stitch-Patch. Make a patch, cover the hole, sew it in, sew up the graft site, and patch me up with bandages.

This all went fine. The patch of graft on my nose is lighter than my nose skin so I will have a little polka dot on the left of my nose. I could decorate that with a piercing, I suppose. (Except I'm too old for that.)

Anyway, it's THE BANDAGE that has given me grief. Turns out I'm allergic to the adhesive on the tape and I woke up on Thursday all swollen with puffy eyelids. Happily, the allergic reaction caused the nurse to remove my LARGE clown-nose bandage. Sadly, I have to be more careful now in the next few days because my nose is more vulnerable to disruption.

So, I was set to fly to Kansas City today to be with my 24-7 Prayer mates. But I'm here in Pasadena being gentle instead.

I am accepting this weekend as a gift of rest... but I'm still having a bit of a hard time with it. I can't help but feel a little sorry for myself to be missing out on the chance to be at the Kansas City Boiler Room with some of the best folks around. Many of them have flown in from Europe for this.

The remaining patch on my nose looks like a yellow ball about the size of a gob of chewing gum. It looks like the stuff that people hang posters on the wall with. It's actually sewn onto my nose right over the skin graft and it looks like I've stuck chewing gum onto the side of nose.

This ball patch comes off Tuesday when I go show my healing to the doctor.

And all of this is to say, PLEASE WEAR SUNSCREEN, friends. I've not been a mad sun-worshipper but every minute of over-exposure does finally catch up to us.

Thanks for prayers. I appreciate them.

(Regarding the photo: the sewn-on patch is a little bit scary to look at but here I am anyway, some puffiness still remaining.)

Nicely Done (We Celebrate Jesse)

Once upon a time there was a little blond boy who lived among the Maasai. He grew up climbing trees, holding goats, stealing honey from bees, watching wild things in their environment, walking barefoot, identifying birds and collecting butterflies and bones (most especially skulls.) He brought his Mama frogs and toads, tarantulas and hunting spiders. He brought her tortoises and chameleons, crabs and hedgehogs. Sometimes he brought her snakes, though she was not very excited about housing snakes on the back porch.

He liked the streams, the lakes, the oceans and the sky. He noticed the mosses and the smooth stones. He picked out particularly pretty leaves and watched the clouds building over the hills. This little boy made campfires in the early morning hours when it was cold and his parents were not yet up. He chattered away in Maa as he fashioned simple wooden stools for his Maasai aunties.

This little naturalist saw good things everywhere and he pointed them out as he went along his way. How beautiful is life? How marvelous is the world? So much wonder! So much cause for joy! So many reasons to worship.



Jesse graduated with Westmont College's Class of 2009. He earned his degree in Environmental Science. He made us all beam with pride, as families are wont to do. It was a very fine weekend, complete with friends, fires, evacuations and festivities.

Jesse has a few ideas but he's not exactly sure what the new season will bring. We'll certainly enjoy watching the adventure unfold :-)

Oh, Santa Barbara!

The Jesusita Fire has burned close to 3,000 acres and I believe there are 30,000 people evacuated right now. Evacuation areas are huge and much of it is residential. We are staying at Dan and Kathi Walker's home and last night this area was told to be on evacuation warning. Kathi's folks and her sister and family moved over last night as their homes are in the already mandatory evacuation area.

Can't say I slept too well last night but a lot better than 30,000 evacuated people did, I'm sure. Trying to find out this morning what's happening in Monetecito as we hear fire has spread again there. OK, just heard, Westmont IS now evacuating.

Wednesday Night and I Ponder

(Photo: smoke bank off of Santa Barbara today)

It's been a weird couple of days I guess.

I'm wide awake at almost midnight because somehow in this transition to the States, we've returned to our Portuguese way of doing things which was to go to bed at midnight but still get up at a decently early time. It must have been the pass through Portugalia on our way to California that re-calibrated us to a southern european rhythm.

But that's not weird.

It's been a weird couple of days because yesterday I went in for the pre-op visit with the skin surgeon who will be removing the little spot of skin cancer from my nose. That was a bad sentence because it wasn't going in to see him that was weird-- it was how I felt in there.

I haven't really dwelt much on the surgery coming up next week. But sitting in the way-too-cold air-conditioned office with the bright lights and sterility of the place gave me a queasy feeling. We talked about after-care for this little surgery site (so small that the doctor and Byron were having difficulty locating the exact place on the left of my nose) and things that could go wrong and whether or not I can travel etc.

And I just felt like I don't have the option to not take care of this yet I don't have the patience to do it in this busy season and I don't really feel like hanging out with a lot of people I need to see at a meeting just a few days later with some clumsy bandage on my face that needs to be changed twice a day. And I wish I had time to just hang out and read afterwards but I also don't like that I care so much about flying across the country on a plane full of stranger with a bandage on my nose. Like, when did that become an issue? There are so many worse things out there that it's embarrassing to admit I even care! Plus, I really want to go. So that's that.

Then a real problem happened (not some lame Lisa cares about walking around with a bandaged nose problem) when the Jesusita Fire broke out above Santa Barbara and it's burning out of control as I write. Homes are being lost and that makes me really sad. I know about how that feels and I ache to see houses in flames on the TV screen.

We arrived at Westmont (in SB) Wednesday afternoon, having watched the bank of smoke billowing out from town over the ocean as we drove up the 101. On the campus, students were all on their phones to their families reporting that they see flames a couple of ridges away.

And it was just surreal. We had planned to take Jesse and Trevor out for dinner and downtown was all closed up, waiting to evacuate if need be. We found something open near the wharf and forgot the fire for a while.

Things were quiet as we returned them all to campus. They felt confident about staying there, knowing that they can all shelter in place in the gym if something changes and the fire actually moves toward them.

So it's almost tomorrow and I'm feeling Portuguese AND messed up with my shallow reactions to nose bandages coming my way, while also feeling sobered by this terrible fire AND blessed by the peace of the students I saw.

Highlights: hugging Jesse and Trevor, having Annie and Cari join us for dinner, Rita sharing her writing with me.

Let this wandering post come to a close now, I say. Goodnight.

laundry line meditations

wendell and i commune outside the laundry door
my feet planted softly in the dewey grass
back warming in the gentle morning sun

i move up and down by the basket
stretching wide sheets and
smoothing faded t-shirts
across the sagging lines

from some part of my memory
wendell speaks
lilting lines
songs of earth and sun and field

in the rhythm of my work
i take pleasure
and feel joy

these damp garments
smell beautiful
(like redemption)

the shiny dryer sits
abandoned

and I worship you
with this small kiss for creation
hanging my laundry
in your good sunshine