Feelings? What Feelings?

How does WHAT feel?

Are we talking about graduating a second son with his degree and everything that accompanies this season of completion and launching? Are we talking about what it feels like to look at him and contemplate the man he has become? Or are we talking about the suspended time and reality of being in the States for a couple of months instead of being in East Africa? Might we talking about trying to figure out how to celebrate life in the midst of painful realities when my little niece gets pregnant, then married, then has a baby at just barely 17? Are we talking about having a total hysterectomy (ovaries, tubes, uterus and all) when I wasn't expecting one? Perhaps we're talking about that I'm still getting frequent notes from readers about "my little book"? Or are we simply talking about me being home sick for my dusty ramshackle town and the friends I share life with there?

These things have all been happening on top of each other in the last couple of weeks so it's all a jumble to me.

I will say this about surgery... I'm thankful. I've received incredible care and expertise. My doctors and nurses were tender and smart and good. Always the joker, God gave me a West African doctor who spoke with humor and wisdom and called me Sleeping Beauty when he stopped by my hospital bed. While we have to wait 2 weeks for the lab report, he didn't feel anything looked more ominous that benign fibroids and cysts. I can't say I like the waiting, but I trust the gentle God who thought it was funny to take me out of Africa to be treated by an African elder.

Do I feel weird about missing some significant parts of me? No. I'm extremely pleased with the work we did together. Together with God and with Byron, my bits and I made four amazing people and I'm now well retired from all of that. African through and through, Dr. Ajilore asked if I was certain I was done having children. I'm 48 but, hey, thanks for thinking to ask.

Recovery is Madeleine L'Engle to the fragrance of lavender and roses. It's Egyptian Licorice tea and "Say Yes to the Dress" with Heather. It's trying desperately not to laugh when my mom's stories are shaking my sore abdomen with giggles. It's a warm duvet and time to ponder.

And as for graduation, I'm still kind of speechless. This I can say: Trevor Byron Borden, I am astonished by who you are.

Yes, that's how it feels.

(Photo credit: Jasmine Guerrero)

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 :-)

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.

Of fire and loss and people far away

It's never good to wake up to several emails saying things like, "Just want you to know that your boys are O.K." or "The fire is approaching campus but they are all in the gym."

Don't get me wrong. I am tremendously thankful for a handful of people, (most notably Tanya, Jenelle and Kjaere) who went into over-drive to give me frequent news of Jesse and Trevor's safety, mood and whereabouts.

But I am ahead of myself.

On Thursday night at about 6pm California time, a wildfire broke out in the hills above Westmont College in Santa Barbara, (Montecito, to be exact.) The cause of the blaze is unknown at this time. What is known is that the 70 mile per hour winds took the fire and whipped it into a fast and furious inferno that engulfed the college and destroyed 14 faculty homes as well as a significant portion of one of the residence halls and several smaller buildings.

Within moments of smelling smoke and then spotting flames, the student body and everyone else on campus, was in the fire- proof gym where they ended up spending the night. The blaze ripped through campus and then up into the Riviera area of Santa Barbara and has (so far) taken at least 70 homes down in its 2,000 acre path.

Westmont students are off campus now, scattered here and there. They are waiting to hear if classes might resume by next Wednesday.

Those are some of the sparse details.

It has been 16 years since we lost our home in Loita to a fire.

I remember the surreal feeling of knowing that the house was gone. I remember the oddly pleasant feeling of lightness when I pondered the fact that I really didn't HAVE anything. (Painful but strangely good at the same time.)

Of course, I had everything that truly mattered. I had Byron, Jesse and Trevor and the 4 of us together made a wealth that nothing else could touch.

But all the little things were gone... The ring my mom gave me when I turned 11... The letters from my grandfather who lived in West Africa for 40 years... The baby blankets my grandmother had made for the boys... The note Byron wrote me on the night Jesse was born... The stuff of life, no more.

The loss of place is a more elusive feeling to deal with. There is a sacred nature to the shelters we call home. This is where we live and breathe and laugh and kiss and have our arguments and welcome our friends and make our tea and lay our tired selves down in the cool of night. This is where we grow and where we find the safety to dream tomorrow into being.

This space called home is nothing less than a holy place.

Today, I am thankful that no lives were lost. I am thankful for a well-planned emergency response and a dedicated crew of courageous fire-fighters. There is just so much I am thankful for.

But I am also sober and mindful of tender things. I don't know who all lost home Thursday night. I do know that my friends, Russell and Allison, lost theirs.

I know how much loss they have already experienced in the last few years. I know that cancer took their lovely teenage daughter and then raged in Allison's body as well. I know that they have been rebuilding life as a three-some with their son, Travis.

And now home is gone. The place where they tended gently to their dying daughter and escorted her as far as they could go as she slipped away from them has "gone with the water" as the Maasai would say.

My Maasai friends came to sit with me when my house burned down. Over the next couple of weeks, my friends would arrive with a bag of sugar or a bowl and spoon or some other gift, and sit quietly with me. If I was busy with the work of living in camping mode, I would pause to receive their companionship.

Jesse and Trevor said they saw Russell working hard all night to help the evacuated students. When they passed him on their way out the next morning, they asked after his house. It hit them hard to realize that he was serving others while his own home was burning down.

I guess I wish I could sit with Russell and Allison today.

No need for words. "What good are words now?"

Just the unglamorous gift of presence.