Seems like, lately, everything is a precursor to my eyes becoming watery and my head telling my heart, you'll be back, really, you'll all come back every few years to see people you've come to know, walk the obscenely curvy, narrow streets you now are no longer afraid to bike on, and catch the # 7 bus into town.
And yet.
Almost three years ago, Jennifer and I and Tyler--then not yet two years old--boarded a plane at Boston's Logan Airport wondering if, in fact, the apartment we'd leased on nothing more than a phone call and a York, England address would in fact, well, be real. We carried pretty much everything we owned, which by the time we boarded the plane was, well, whatever we could fit into three suitcases. We had enough money to make it a few months and then, well, then--
A few months turned into a few years and Jennifer finished a draft of her PhD thesis on human trafficking.
Tyler went from almost-two to almost-five and in that span concocted analogies that made my aspiring-poet / bathroom-humor-loving dad-self rejoice, such as: "Poops are like thunder; pees are like rain."
I worked as a dad, writer, night-teacher, and morning-paperboy.
Together, we all learned something we didn't expect to be the point of this journey. (But then again, what we learn from the adventures we choose to traverse is seldom what we think we'll learn them beforehand.) We learned that gender roles are tough to reverse, no matter how progressive a family is. But they're worth murkying up and seeing what results.
We learned that living without a steady salary is tough. Really tough. But the freedom to experience what an entirely different class of life is like is priceless. We learned that no judgment is ever warranted--no matter how well we think we might understand someone else's situation. (Or, as Mother Teresa put it much more succinctly, "If I am judging, then I am not loving.")
We learned that life is about learning. There is no getting it right the first time. Period. No one gets it right the first time. (And if they did get it right the first time, they probably just hid their earlier attempts!)
We learned that it's really, really hard to set one's heart on something, and then be rejected from that vision again and again.
And again.
And again.
Until finally, the dam breaks and--!!!--rejection, again.
And again.
But we learned that--trite though it sounds, I'm sure--this is where authentic love happens. In the seemingly endless caesuras after defeat, rejection, almost-but-not-quites, there is an incredible and breathless space for love. The kind of love that doesn't come easy and doesn't feel easy but that, when chosen, feels like your heart is, quite literally, bursting open.
In that openness, it seems there is space for the whole world to fit.
We learned that perfection is a ploy. And even if it weren't, we wouldn't choose it anyway. Perfection leaves nothing to imagination, mystery, depending on others, vulnerability, risk, joy, pain, hope. We learned that choosing the latter is much more fun.
We learned that people are remarkable. I mean, remarkable. People! We learned that people will stop and talk and invite you in to show you their pictures of America back when they lived there fifty years ago, laugh as your son plays with the cat, cry when they remember their own adventures, then ask you if you'd like tea.
People--old people--will smile at you and give you the thumbs-up on a morning paper route, totally disregarding the fact that you are a fully-grown man who didn't have time to shave that morning.
People--little people--will hug you and show you pictures and tell you stories and the light in their eyes will look to the light in yours and will beg, beg, beg for that connection of no words but kindness, seeing, really seeing.
People--regular people--will surprise you with a knock on the door, an offer to join in a basketball or football game, a pat on the back, a phone call or a text message checking in, a sunflower seed that will grow taller than you and next to which your whole face glows yellow.
People of all shapes and sizes and colors and faiths and no-faiths and languages and cultures will look at you and will be willing to connect. If you are willing to connect. And then everything that is assumed to be accurate and aligned and just-the-way-it-is is, well, no longer is.
We learned that it's true what the African proverb says, "If you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, go together." And, man, it's fun to go far.
We learned that laughing on the couch in the living room when one's wife is Wonder Woman and one's son is Superman and oneself is Lex Luther provides two hours of fun that is free, ridiculously giggle-filled, and utterly exhausting.
We learned that watching the Queen ride through the streets of your city is a powerful experience, but just as powerful is talking with the man a few streets over who hasn't eaten in a while and of whom no one is lining the sidewalks to catch a glimpse.
We learned that having family who loves you--family that saw all your many imperfections growing up, knows you underneath the grand visions and the big dreams, loves you still, and always will. And the thought of going home to their arms is thrilling.
We learned that adventure isn't one big choice to do something wild. Adventure is a thousand small choices to lean towards things a little unlike what you always thought they would be like.
We learned that we know a lot less than we did three years ago, yet feel more full.
In two weeks, we'll board a plane (preferably the absolute cheapest plane that flies across the Atlantic) and head back to Boston's Logan Airport. And in the next two weeks, I'm going to cry a lot more. Because I'm grateful for the chance to have seen life from a different angle. And I'm grateful to the thousand teachers I have had over here in York--teachers of all ages and cultures and walks and perspectives.
Success, in its raw definition, didn't necessarily happen over here the way I'd thought it might. We're not going home wealthy and prestigious and as bestselling authors. But in that caesura that follows suggested defeat or rejection, there's a kind of success that burns inside of me deeper than anything else I have ever known or felt in my entire life.
It burns so hard and, were it to explode, I venture it'd be big enough to let the whole world in. The success being over here has taught me, in the simplest articulation possible, is this: to say thank you, and to mean it.
Showing posts with label England. Show all posts
Showing posts with label England. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 24, 2013
Sunday, September 30, 2012
Choose the Spoon: Reflections on Imperfection after Two Years Dreaming
Two years ago today, I had my first and only panic attack. Jennifer and I and our almost-two-year-old, Tyler, had flown red-eye from Boston to London, then taken an hour-and-a-half taxi ride from Heathrow Airport to the Kings Crossing train Station that cost us about half our savings. Then, the train ride into York cost us the other half of our savings.
We had chased down a dream of ours, and we arrived (finally) into York amidst cascading waterfalls from the skies (some people call this "rain"), a massively overtired toddler, basically no money, and a whole heck of a lot of hope. We were changing roles, changing countries, changing cultures, and we were (to be honest) pretty naive about the whole thing. My mantra was, It'll work out.
When the panic attack arrived that night at three in the morning two years ago, a question had arisen in my mind responding to the mantra--simply, this: What if it doesn't work out?
And, as it turns out, a question like this at three in the morning doesn't exactly bring peace. Or hope. or trust. Or really anything good. Finally, Jen helped soothe the attack, and I fell asleep. But the following weeks were filled with that nagging question, What if it doesn't work out?
Fast-forward two years. Jen and I are standing in the kitchen our our little rented home, and fireworks are going off. I'm not talking figurative fireworks; I'm talking a real-live firework show occurring a stone's throw from our kitchen window. Reds, yellows, blues--all sparkling and blasting and booming. And Jen and I can't think of any occasion.
So we decide something: it's our two-year anniversary of chasing down a dream--even though it may have seemed half-baked at the time. Because it had to be half-baked. If we had fully baked that dream two years ago, we would have pulled it out of the Oven of Reality Checks, stuck a fork in it, and remarked, Whew! That baby is toasted! No good!
Two years later, life still hasn't afforded us much more certainty--except, maybe, a line that Atticus Finch constantly told his children: It's not time to worry yet. The more practice we have trusting, waiting, hoping, and believing that things will be alright, the more we learn to, well, trust, wait, hope, and believe that things will turn out alright.
In her stunning novel, Middlemarch, George Eliot shares this quip: "Even Milton, looking for his portrait in a spoon, must submit to have the facial angle of a bumpkin." Maybe the greatest English poet of all time can't withstand the force of certain reflections, and would have to deal squarely with his own imperfection. I guess this is true of all of us: in one way or another, we're all bumpkins. And we either accept that fact about our experiences, our dreams, our views, saying, It's not time to worry yet, or we don't.
After two years of this adventure abroad, I choose the spoon. Because when all is said and done, I think the spoon prevents a panic attack much better than a crystal clear mirror. Sometimes, we don;t need to see and understand everything perfectly; rather, we need just enough to get by, just enough to keep taking one step of faith after another. And maybe, we bumpkins can laugh a little while we walk.
We had chased down a dream of ours, and we arrived (finally) into York amidst cascading waterfalls from the skies (some people call this "rain"), a massively overtired toddler, basically no money, and a whole heck of a lot of hope. We were changing roles, changing countries, changing cultures, and we were (to be honest) pretty naive about the whole thing. My mantra was, It'll work out.
When the panic attack arrived that night at three in the morning two years ago, a question had arisen in my mind responding to the mantra--simply, this: What if it doesn't work out?
And, as it turns out, a question like this at three in the morning doesn't exactly bring peace. Or hope. or trust. Or really anything good. Finally, Jen helped soothe the attack, and I fell asleep. But the following weeks were filled with that nagging question, What if it doesn't work out?
Fast-forward two years. Jen and I are standing in the kitchen our our little rented home, and fireworks are going off. I'm not talking figurative fireworks; I'm talking a real-live firework show occurring a stone's throw from our kitchen window. Reds, yellows, blues--all sparkling and blasting and booming. And Jen and I can't think of any occasion.So we decide something: it's our two-year anniversary of chasing down a dream--even though it may have seemed half-baked at the time. Because it had to be half-baked. If we had fully baked that dream two years ago, we would have pulled it out of the Oven of Reality Checks, stuck a fork in it, and remarked, Whew! That baby is toasted! No good!
Two years later, life still hasn't afforded us much more certainty--except, maybe, a line that Atticus Finch constantly told his children: It's not time to worry yet. The more practice we have trusting, waiting, hoping, and believing that things will be alright, the more we learn to, well, trust, wait, hope, and believe that things will turn out alright.
 |
| Tyler: Looking UP! |
After two years of this adventure abroad, I choose the spoon. Because when all is said and done, I think the spoon prevents a panic attack much better than a crystal clear mirror. Sometimes, we don;t need to see and understand everything perfectly; rather, we need just enough to get by, just enough to keep taking one step of faith after another. And maybe, we bumpkins can laugh a little while we walk.
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
Departure Eve
After nearly a month back in the states, we're preparing to head back to England tomorrow on a red-eye flight that will land us in Manchester at the crack of dawn.
And when I say "preparing" what I mean is: gazing at the mountain pile of clothes on the bed, letting Tyler stay up late to dig in the sand with Poppa and whisper secrets with Nanna, taking note of every single American thing we've missed and making sure to savor it (i.e. free refills on drinks at a restaurant, green road signs, the political fix from CNN, the warmth of family, the laughter of summer nights, and watching Tyler reconnect with grandmas and grandpas and aunts and uncles after two years abroad).
Today, in the car as we left the Cape Cod Potato Chip Factory, I started to cry. Not because of my all-consuming passion for potato chips, but because I had been watching our son giggle as my mother-in-law, Susan, ticked his toes. His laughter touched that part of me that spoke of the importance of watching our own children grow up connected to that web of creation that helps them exist in the first place.
And I'm going to miss it.
This isn't to say we aren't looking forward to Lesley Avenue in York, and the dozen of so children that live on our street, the kind neighbors who always seem to have something odd they no longer need and are kind enough to pass it on to the American next door (a bird feeder, a bottle of wine, a T-shirt, a Gruffalo suitcase). And we're looking forward to our last year abroad as a chance to reflect on all we've learned, the obstacles we've been facing, and the way Isaac Newton's claim about knowledge has really rung true for us. Newton once responded to someone who asked what his years of scientific research had taught him. Paraphrased, his reply was: Everything I have come to know is like a single grain of sand on the shore of knowledge.
This time away from England has afforded not only a lovely reprieve as parents (read: our own parents and brothers and sisters have performed countless changing of the clothes with Tyler, explorations and adventures, and bedtime book-reading), but it has also bequeathed us a chance to reflect on what two years abroad with no money has taught us.
And essentially, our grain of sand is this: grace trumps everything. Grace with our son, with with one another, grace for mistakes, grace for misplanned possibilities, grace for failures, grace for countless imperfections. England has been both beautiful and hard for us, and the synthesis of these necessities of life has been teaching us that what creates sustainability is grace.
As we embark upon the return flight tomorrow, our fourth passenger, we hope, will be grace. And if he allows Tyler to sleep for any percentage of the red-eye, that would be about the most stunning gift in the world about now. But if not, I hope to be able to redeem the way we first arrived in England two years ago: rather than a panic attack, I want to able to look out at the dawning English day and say, with faith, it's all going to be okay.
And when I say "preparing" what I mean is: gazing at the mountain pile of clothes on the bed, letting Tyler stay up late to dig in the sand with Poppa and whisper secrets with Nanna, taking note of every single American thing we've missed and making sure to savor it (i.e. free refills on drinks at a restaurant, green road signs, the political fix from CNN, the warmth of family, the laughter of summer nights, and watching Tyler reconnect with grandmas and grandpas and aunts and uncles after two years abroad).
Today, in the car as we left the Cape Cod Potato Chip Factory, I started to cry. Not because of my all-consuming passion for potato chips, but because I had been watching our son giggle as my mother-in-law, Susan, ticked his toes. His laughter touched that part of me that spoke of the importance of watching our own children grow up connected to that web of creation that helps them exist in the first place.
And I'm going to miss it.
This isn't to say we aren't looking forward to Lesley Avenue in York, and the dozen of so children that live on our street, the kind neighbors who always seem to have something odd they no longer need and are kind enough to pass it on to the American next door (a bird feeder, a bottle of wine, a T-shirt, a Gruffalo suitcase). And we're looking forward to our last year abroad as a chance to reflect on all we've learned, the obstacles we've been facing, and the way Isaac Newton's claim about knowledge has really rung true for us. Newton once responded to someone who asked what his years of scientific research had taught him. Paraphrased, his reply was: Everything I have come to know is like a single grain of sand on the shore of knowledge.
This time away from England has afforded not only a lovely reprieve as parents (read: our own parents and brothers and sisters have performed countless changing of the clothes with Tyler, explorations and adventures, and bedtime book-reading), but it has also bequeathed us a chance to reflect on what two years abroad with no money has taught us.
And essentially, our grain of sand is this: grace trumps everything. Grace with our son, with with one another, grace for mistakes, grace for misplanned possibilities, grace for failures, grace for countless imperfections. England has been both beautiful and hard for us, and the synthesis of these necessities of life has been teaching us that what creates sustainability is grace.
As we embark upon the return flight tomorrow, our fourth passenger, we hope, will be grace. And if he allows Tyler to sleep for any percentage of the red-eye, that would be about the most stunning gift in the world about now. But if not, I hope to be able to redeem the way we first arrived in England two years ago: rather than a panic attack, I want to able to look out at the dawning English day and say, with faith, it's all going to be okay.
Saturday, September 4, 2010
Leaving Home
Feels scary.
Feels downright different.
Is right.
That is, it's right for my wife, Jennifer, our son, Tyler, and myself. We've lived in New Eng;and and Arizona during our marriage and parenthood thus far, and for the past six months we've heard the whispers beckoning us to an adventure overseas.
At first, we weren't necessarily sure where, for what, and why. After all, I had a great job teaching 7th grade English at the public middle school in Hudson, MA. Jen was an artist as a stay-at-home-mom and writer, and Tyler seemed to be growing strong, learning lots, and loving life.
However, as I type this words during the early morning, our flight is scheduled to take off for London at the end of this month, and after spending gobs of money to apply for visas, plane tickets, and tuition, we're finally making the leap.
Jen will be pursuing a PhD at the University of York, where she'll study for Sociology--specifically, how to stop human trafficking, Meanwhile, I'll be a stay-at-home father and work on writing (and perhpas try and teach part-time if we can find somethign available).
This new direction has us both scared and yet thrilled. We have asked ourselves in the last weeks and months: why uproot from our lives here, with a toddler, and do the exact opposite of what Anmerican culture tells us we should be doing right now? Why not rather put a down payment on a little home, build a retirement fund, climb the salary ladder, and save up to buy an SUV?
We found two problems with this plan--a plan we almost decided to take. The first was that it seemed like we couldn't find very many American families who pursued these things and we actually happy with their lives. Everything our culture tells us we shoudl be doing, in other words, seemed to us to bring very little lasting joy. Instead, we saw people counting down to retirement, when they could leave jobs they don't really like and find a pool or some other body of water where they could sit and drink alcoholic beverages.
Those who were buying homes as quickly as possible seemed ever anxious about payments, repairs, and other necessities of home owning.
Not that we never want a home, or a retirement fund. And yet, we sensed that the time wasn't quite right for us to dive into such pursuits--or, at least, that it wasn't right for us to pursue them blindly, merely because our culture was waving big flags that said, "Open! This Way!"
Jen's sensed the call to work to stop human trafficking, I sensed the call to be home with my son and to write, and the rest, as they say, is history.
We don't know this path. It's certainly not the path that has been preached to us by countless television commercials and classrooms. Yes, we're scared. But we're also thrilled by what this adventure will teach us--about ourselves, our family, and the world in which we live.
Feels downright different.
Is right.
That is, it's right for my wife, Jennifer, our son, Tyler, and myself. We've lived in New Eng;and and Arizona during our marriage and parenthood thus far, and for the past six months we've heard the whispers beckoning us to an adventure overseas.
At first, we weren't necessarily sure where, for what, and why. After all, I had a great job teaching 7th grade English at the public middle school in Hudson, MA. Jen was an artist as a stay-at-home-mom and writer, and Tyler seemed to be growing strong, learning lots, and loving life.
However, as I type this words during the early morning, our flight is scheduled to take off for London at the end of this month, and after spending gobs of money to apply for visas, plane tickets, and tuition, we're finally making the leap.
Jen will be pursuing a PhD at the University of York, where she'll study for Sociology--specifically, how to stop human trafficking, Meanwhile, I'll be a stay-at-home father and work on writing (and perhpas try and teach part-time if we can find somethign available).
This new direction has us both scared and yet thrilled. We have asked ourselves in the last weeks and months: why uproot from our lives here, with a toddler, and do the exact opposite of what Anmerican culture tells us we should be doing right now? Why not rather put a down payment on a little home, build a retirement fund, climb the salary ladder, and save up to buy an SUV?
We found two problems with this plan--a plan we almost decided to take. The first was that it seemed like we couldn't find very many American families who pursued these things and we actually happy with their lives. Everything our culture tells us we shoudl be doing, in other words, seemed to us to bring very little lasting joy. Instead, we saw people counting down to retirement, when they could leave jobs they don't really like and find a pool or some other body of water where they could sit and drink alcoholic beverages.
Those who were buying homes as quickly as possible seemed ever anxious about payments, repairs, and other necessities of home owning.
Not that we never want a home, or a retirement fund. And yet, we sensed that the time wasn't quite right for us to dive into such pursuits--or, at least, that it wasn't right for us to pursue them blindly, merely because our culture was waving big flags that said, "Open! This Way!"
Jen's sensed the call to work to stop human trafficking, I sensed the call to be home with my son and to write, and the rest, as they say, is history.
We don't know this path. It's certainly not the path that has been preached to us by countless television commercials and classrooms. Yes, we're scared. But we're also thrilled by what this adventure will teach us--about ourselves, our family, and the world in which we live.
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