Word Blind

They say learning language is to use the same brain function as learning music.

We listen to a song, without knowing the words. Then we sing the words without really hearing the meaning. Then we begin to understand the meaning, but are unable to sing the song unless it is playing along on the radio.

Eventually, the song comes to us and we are able to sing it aloud, on our own, when the music isn't playing.

That's the theory.

The problem is the entire process of being "word blind," whether learning a language through immersion or struggling with learning disabilities has an overwhelming feeling of isolation. While admittedly the emotional separation can sometimes be self-imposed, there are moments enough when the isolation is real.

The language barrier can be an actual barrier. Any anthropologist will tell you that language defines our world view. It also defines our social mores, boundaries, cultural conversation, and general interaction between human beings who share knowledge of a given language.

One of my favorite observations about communication is from author Kevin Powers (The Yellow Birds). To paraphrase, what is thought is never quite what is said, and what is said is never quite what is heard. Even more so when two or more language barriers are involved.

The person who doesn't speak the dominant language is suddenly dependent on others to relate, interpret, and define a process that typically belongs to the individual alone. It's frustrating for all involved because our thoughts should be our own. Independent.

Even in the most committed relationship, the level of trust is challenged when we are forced to give over those processes for the sake of someone else's understanding.

So how do we break through? How to come to a place of understanding? Obviously, people do it every day. My son, and countless adopted children, transitioned from his birth language to English. My partner is fluent in seven languages. His son struggles with dyslexia, but is verbally fluent in three languages. These are just the people close to me. Life throughout this world is a constant journey of words and language, in myriad variations.

Yet, the process can be a bit like looking through a darkened window, trying to glean bits of starlight in the form of recognizable words. It's an unusual sensation for the independent minded, this listening too much. Constantly assessing conversations as puzzles to be decoded.

Casual conversation is a distant memory. Either I am all in, or completely disengaged. Finding the rhythm of a conversation is a constant act of contrition.

Sorry, I didn't catch that.
Sorry, what did she say?
Sorry, I don't know what that means.
Sorry, I am not understanding.
Sorry. Just sorry. Because I suddenly feel like I am drowning in words I don't understand, may never understand, want more than anything else to understand.

Until a moment comes, and suddenly there it is.

I catch one. Like a snowflake drifting into the palm of my hand; a butterfly landing upon the tip of my finger. An instant of clarity occurs, and I understand what was said.

Then I feel renewed, and filled with hope that maybe, just maybe, learning Danish is not beyond me.

My son, Georgie,
transitioned from Mandarin to English at age 4.

My bonus son, William,
struggles with dyslexia but is verbally fluent in 3 languages. 

Animal Magnetism

I am a horrible mother.

I was told this recently by someone I have considered a friend.

Maybe it wasn't said directly. But the meaning was obvious in the layered questions directed at my recent life choices, and in the individual's exaggerated concern about my children's well-being suddenly having great personal importance to them.

It's something I've heard implied several times since I ended my 16 year marriage.

While being married to a narcissist taught me to deal (reluctantly) with the push of criticism directed at the most vulnerable parts of my psyche, it doesn't lessen the sting. 

For me, I am most vulnerable about my kids, and whether or not I am doing a good job raising them. Am I giving them what they need to grow and thrive? Am I finding the balance between protecting their tender souls and letting them explore a world of ideas and adventures without fear? Am I helping them to understand that the world may be cold, but we find warmth in each other: in family, in friendships, in real love. Am I helping them to become who they want to be, are meant to be, deserve to be?

In young adulthood, I did not want children of my own. Dogs were enough. Books and travel were enough. Life was enough. But nearing my thirtieth birthday, I became aware that I carried a hole in my heart that could only be filled through motherhood.

My ache was not to become pregnant. As the poet Kahlil Gibran eloquently states, a child does not come from us, but through us. My children were somewhere else on the planet, and it became my all-consuming quest to find them. The invisible red thread drawing me ever closer.

From then until now, I have never stopped being a mom fully committed to the well-being of my kids. My current circumstance is no exception. Days or weeks apart does not lessen our bond. At worst, it is an annoying change in routines. At best, it is the process necessary to build a wonderful and amazing life together in a new place.

I do not leave them vulnerable and afraid. They are strong and capable, and joyous and smart. They have their father, and friends and family to take up where needed. 

A marriage ending is not always a tragedy. A mother bringing her children into a different life filled with emotional positives, cultural opportunities, and amazing adventures is not something to be disdained. Especially when the foundation of that life is a loving home, filled with shared respect, understanding, and mutual emotional support. 

In the end, there are only two people whose opinions truly matters. So far, they're good with all of it. 

Maybe their ease with my decision speaks to the strength of our bond. Maybe it speaks to the willingness of their hearts to choose love over fear. Maybe it's simply because my kids are remarkable, and the lives they have lived have never been typical or small.

Sun N' Fun Lakeland, FL- April 2008

Gracie, 5yrs - Georgie, 4yrs

Before birth they knew scarcity. At birth they knew abandonment, followed by raw hope when they were rescued. As toddlers, they learned the meaning of salvation.

So did I.

When I held each of them for the first time, I understood my purpose on this earth. They have me unconditionally.

My kids learned young that for every misery, there is equal part joy if we are willing to accept it or sometimes seek it out. Gaining something new does not necessarily mean we lose what came before. We carry all we are and ever have been within us. 

Circumstance changes. Real love remains.

This is what we three have taught each other.

All I Have

Life is not random. 

With clarity, we become aware that the threads of destiny have been woven through every moment leading to our current circumstance. We look back over the sometimes tumultuous, sometimes pristine landscape of our lives, and it is poignantly evident that every choice, every circumstance, for better or for worse, has led to this moment.

Purpose is subjective yet eternal.

It is an unremarkable conclusion, until we consider that if this is the case, within every circumstance we believed to be making a decision of our own volition, we were actually acting less on cogent thought and more on instinct. Like the salmon returning to their spawning grounds, we too are seeking the elusive yet tangible completion to our purpose. There will be many casualties in our quest, and if we survive to see it to completion, we will arrive bruised and exhausted.

The risks may outweigh the advantages, but taking the risk often holds the sweetest reward. It is a walk of faith to hear the purpose of our lives, a purpose that others may or may not understand. But our happiness should never be based on the expectations of others, To live fully, we must find our own meaning, our own life's rhythm. Most importantly, we must find our own joy.

There is always hope.

To live someone else's version of our life, at the expense of our own contentment, is no life at all. Love is not a prison. It is the ultimate freedom to be the best version of ourselves.

There is a time to fear and a time to ignore the uncertainty that creeps into our minds uninvited. Each of us must learn to decipher our own internal language, particularly when it is in conflict with the world around us, or with those in closest proximity to our lives.

When we are overjoyed with the possibility of life, that is often when others challenge us most heavily on the reasonableness of our decision. That's when we begin to doubt. We ask ourselves: why didn't I leave sooner, choose better, give less, wait longer?

But the answer is unknowable except in one regard. If we had done any of those things, hesitated a little longer or moved forward just a little quicker, explored a side road a moment deeper, lingered in a tomorrow that could only become an empty yesterday, then this perfectly serendipitous here and now would have been missed entirely.

Destiny is fluid, but meaning is constant.

Life is not random, but it is baffling in its complexity. 

More so that even in our most unseeing moments, we were actually listening to that still, small voice that led us to this moment. We never lost hope, even when we told ourselves we had.

Kronborg Castle, October 2016

Burning Witches

There are no winners in divorce.

I am not saying that divorce is never the right decision. Quite often, it's the healthiest decision a person can make. It certainly was in my case. But the process itself has no inherent reward. Every turn, every agreement, whether good or bad, right or wrong, reasonable or unfair, someone is getting hurt.

Divorce is a crucible. It is a trial by fire, and most who have weathered the process have the scars to prove it.

A midsummer tradition in Denmark dates back to the Viking era. Bonfires are burned near water to ward off evil spirits. As the Catholic church strengthened its foothold throughout Northern Europe, the festivities were appropriated by the church leaders and re-branded as the feast of St. John the Baptist.

From 1540 to 1693, the hysteria of witch hunting took hold of communities and congregations across Europe, and the bonfires were utilized to "cleanse" the community spiritually by burning persons accused of witchcraft, mostly women.

It is likely these individuals were burned because they displayed behaviors considered unseemly by others in the community. Personal vendettas, unrequited love, jealousy, all became basis for accusations.

I had never considered what those women must have felt, accepting that excessive judgment of wrongdoing. The day I received documents from my husband's divorce attorney, I understood precisely.

I did not recognize the woman described on the pages I held in my hands. Just as the women of long ago would not have recognized themselves in the descriptions of their accusers.

I was being led to the fire, and I instinctively knew that my kids were as well.

The only way to spare them, was to kneel down and put myself between them and the flames. Because nothing else I could do would be enough to protect them from the fires of accusations and misplaced derision if things were left unchecked in this mounting battle between me and my husband.

The last woman burned as a witch was in 1693.

I think about her now, about all of them.

She must have been terrified as the fire was lit. I imagine she also felt a great deal of sorrow, possibly as much for her accusers as for those she loved. Perhaps she felt a bit of amazement at the sheer lunacy of it all.

I like to believe some part of her was relieved. Not because she had won in any real sense, and not because she had been judged fairly, but because, despite their best efforts, her accusers could not take away the one thing they wanted.

Her soul was hers alone. It belonged to her and God, and to those with whom she chose to share it.

Nothing the others did or said would ever change that. Nothing ever could.

Sankt Hans Aften - Gentofte Lake, Denmark

Løve is Lion

My world has been changing in recent months. What began as a subtle crumbling of the earth beneath my feet, became an outright maelstrom of seismic activity toward the end of June.

Timing was strange to be sure.

After months of carefully transitioning and reworking an outwardly attractive life into a life that could also prove inwardly rewarding, the pragmatism of my thoughts and actions were suddenly infused with one superfluous yet overwhelming need...

I had to learn Danish.

No one was more surprised by this than me. Having only mastered travel Spanish and a smattering of Italian phrases up to this point in my life, I would not have envisioned learning one of the world's most difficult languages as top of my bucket list.

The first time I heard it, I was listening to a man speak to his son. As I listened to the rich tones and throaty expression, something shifted in my brain. I wanted to feel those words in my thoughts. I wanted to hear them issue from my own mouth.

Like all languages, Danish is unique in its nuances. The way words look does not necessarily resemble the way they sound. The way they are said does not necessarily reveal their true meaning. And because it is also a tonal language, the meaning can make subtle shifts depending on context.

Simultaneously forthright and subtle in its expression, the efficiency of the language belies its poetic center. There is a certain humor in its constructs, in the way the words come together: sometimes backwards, sometimes forwards, mirroring thought and action, word and deed.

But like most things that come with great difficulty, there is great reward in the process of learning.

Such as the moment I discovered the English word lion is spelled løve in Danish.

The intersection of these two words was more than happy coincidence in my mind. It signified the moment wherein the past and future I had been trying to reconcile for months successfully merged. That moment was not just about learning Danish; it was about my life overall.

The lion is regal and majestic, yet wild and untamed, and the lion's image symbolically empowers and edifies. The Danish word løve looks like the English word that describes the deepest and most intractable human emotion.

So if a lion is løve, then true love could also be a lion...an intimate protection against the pain of the world; a warrior-brother to stand side by side through everything; but mostly a friend and equal with whom to embrace what life is waiting to offer.

If such a connection between two languages could exist, then such a love might certainly exist.

Suddenly, the possibilities seem endless.

Orlando 2016

I left Orlando the day before the shooting.

My family and I had been trolling the usual tourist haunts for the week: the Disneyworld theme parks and Universal Studios. We took a ride in the Orlando Eye, and I made acquaintance with wax figure Tom Hanks at Madame Tussaud's.

It was a typical Orlando vacation, bittersweet only in the fact that prior to leaving we had declared it would be our last to the theme park capital before the kids are fully grown.

We arrived at the start of Gay Days, the annual LGBTQ community gathering across Disneyworld parks. It was a scheduling coincidence that was an anticipated curiosity, but a curiosity that faded quickly with more pressing concerns of the weather.

In between getting drenched by tropical rain storms, only to be steamed dry as the heavy clouds traded skies for blistering heat, we had the chance to interact with individuals, couples, and families of the LGBTQ community from across the globe.

As I look at the photos of the men and women who were ruthlessly murdered, I do not pretend to fully understand what members of the LGBTQ community might face in openly living the truth of who they are as individuals. I also do not pretend to understand the courage it takes to simply be in such contrast to the majority of society, and what it takes to live daily knowing that many, far too many in this supposedly enlightened age, still condemn who they are both collectively and individually.

What I do understand is this: every one of those men and women was a human being. Each one is someone's son or daughter, a brother or sister, husband or wife, a friend.

Every one of them had dreams and plans and aspirations that carried them through their days.

The twist of evil that frayed the murderer's mind into believing he had the right to do what he did is inexplicable to those of us going about the business of our lives. Whether it was religious dogma or political radicalization, or the decaying compost of hubris, arrogance, and latent hatred, the result was the same.

Innocents died.

Human beings going about their lives were murdered simply because someone didn't believe they had a right to exist. The zealotry that allowed this follower of Islam to commit murder is only the loudest repeat in the ammunition fired at a group of individuals desiring nothing more than to honestly live their lives.

So...Will you raise your voice in opposition? Or will you stand in silence?

Fear of Flying

Some say the emotional aberration is not the fear of flying, but rather the acceptance of flying as a sensible condition for the human body. They say that fear of flying is actually the primal voice of reason.

I disagree.

It is human nature to reach beyond what we are. Flying is just one example. 

Having been married to a pilot for some years, I am well aware of the fact that a fair number of pilots are scared of heights. These pilots train and learn to control not only their aircraft but also their own responses to precarious situations. They do this not because they are unaffected by the sensation of heights, but because they refuse to be enfeebled by it. They choose to act rather than react.

These men and women understand, through practice and tactile experience, that fear is a learned response, and it can only be unlearned by deliberate action.

It is a lesson that applies to all of us. Because we all fear something.

Every person will at some point or another hold back instead of moving forward; make an easier choice when a difficult one would have been better; turn away from a destiny.

Fear is the worst form of doubt, it extinguishes hope, trust, loyalty, honor. It destroys our potential for greatness, both collectively and individually. Fear keeps us standing still instead of moving toward our goals and aspirations, both big and small.

When this happens to me, I take a moment to remember that I have had the privilege

...of hearing thunder while it was snowing.

...of seeing rain fall through the fog.

...of hearing old men tell tales of fish falling from the desert sky.

I have had the privilege

...of glancing up into the jungle canopy, to find myself staring face to face with a spider monkey, our fingertips mere inches from touching.

...of witnessing flocks of grackles swarming the skies over my home, flocks of Red-breasted Robins scouring a field for worms after a rainstorm, flocks of green parrots flying higher than the rising sun. 

Fear does not dwell in these moments. Serenity dwells in these moments, and serenity is the exact opposite of fear. 

My Love of Travel

For a writer, reading and writing are two halves of the same breath cycle. Reading is breathing in; writing is breathing out. 

Yet, all the reading and research I can muster is, for me, a mere pittance when compared to the insight gained by travel. The experience of doing, of seeing firsthand how things work, how people live and thrive in other countries and cultures, how a certain road feels beneath your feet, how a certain fragrance wafts through a city at a certain time of day; it's irreplaceable.

Travel is both my hobby and constant aspiration. The process of preparation, the planning, the weighing of individual interests, the consideration of time and cost variables are equally satisfying. I love nothing more than thinking about our next great adventure.

My office bookshelf holds a variety of travel books. My favorite magazines are AFAR and National Geographic Travel. I have paper files crammed with articles ranging from quirky roadside statues, to enticing bistros on other continents, to historically obscure ruins, to contemporary technological wonders. My Google Favorites menu has a 'travel' file with subcategories divided by interest and country. 

Travel suits me. I am, by nature, a restless spirit.

But I am a restless spirit whose love of family has weighted the flightier aspects of my personality.

The idea of travel, as well as travel itself keeps me both enriched emotionally and grounded in my own life. While the fantasy of travel could be called escapism, for me it provides motivation to appreciate my daily life just that much more. Because the travel I envision, and most often experience, is a bridge into the unknown, but it's one shared with the people I love most in the world.

Travel opens us. It bonds us to greater humanity. It makes us better versions of ourselves.

Because of travel, I become a better writer.

When I am locked in my own head working on a project, I am far more likely to fret over the results than when I step outside my routine.The more I learn about the world, the more I learn about myself, the more relevant my writing is to those who might one day read it. 

And while my travel fantasies may find me hopping a flight to Paris or Mumbai, the reality of a busy household with two young teenagers, combined with the usual time and financial constraints, often keep my adventures much closer to home.

Still, the right attitude can turn the simplest adventure into a sparkling moment of serendipitous return. Art museums and libraries fill the gap between elaborate holidays. As do untried cuisines, new artisan shops, or simply meeting friends for tea. Spending active time outdoors never fails as a balm for this restless spirit. 

Travel, whether local or abroad, reminds me that my thoughts and stories are both my own and part of some greater conversation.

Travel is a window into the world. But more importantly, it is also a doorway that leads us straight into the heart of who we are as individuals. Stepping through that doorway, we learn what is most significant to each of us, and to those we love. 

                                                                                                        Bacalar, Mexico 2015
Be strong, and travel well. 

Friendship is Strange

I'm going home this summer.

I have visited my family every other year, more or less, since moving away from my hometown fifteen years ago, but this will be the first time in more years than I care to count that I will be seeing friends that I haven't spent quality time with since high school.

It feels strange. A good strange, but strange nevertheless.

Sixteen was a bad year. My parents divorced, and I lost my first real love, only to fall immediately into an unhealthy relationship that lasted nearly three years. By the time it ended, I had retreated into a tangle of self-doubt that took a long while to shake.

In my misdirected attempts at self-healing, I became an emotional nomad. I denied who I was at my center in favor of creating a version of who I wanted to be.

Along the way, I pushed some pretty amazing friends out of my life. Friends I'd had since I was in grade school. Friends I should have rightfully had well into adulthood, middle age, and beyond. Try as they might to stay with me, I became practiced at side-stepping, avoidance, being really busy or occupied with other interests, and generally moving in a direction away from where I had come from and everyone I had known.

Not an easy task in what was basically a large logging town in southwest Washington state.

Having lost my grounding, I gathered new friends, who hadn't known me early on. I married my college professor. I pretended that I was better than where I came from. I pretended I was worldly, and disinclined to acknowledge I was from working class beginnings. I espoused varied, sometimes conflicting, worldviews.

Insecurity wracked me as I made my way in the world; I felt like a fraud, because I was a fraud.

Eventually, I got it together. I finished my degree. I began really working at my career. I divorced my first husband, and remarried. I became a mom. I moved to Alabama, and became a stay-at-home mom. I'm working at being a writer, and best of all, I'm raising my kids.

I teach them: be authentic.

Don't be a chameleon. Pretending can't last, and no matter where or in what circumstance you find yourself, you are still the same person, and you are accountable for your choices.

In a world filled with chimerical personalities that shift and comply with whoever happens to be sharing their immediate space, I teach my kids to be true to themselves.

I teach them: don't shut out the people who really care about you.

The friends they've had since kindergarten, or first grade, or fifth grade: they matter. Even if they grow apart, those friends will always matter, because they matter now. The people they need someday, as they grow up and grow old, could very well be the people who knew them best when they were young.

So, this summer, you can bet I'll be celebrating the chance to reconnect with the friends of my youth. They're still here. Truly, they never left, even though I tried very hard to ignore their importance for a time.

Still apart, but always a part of me.

It's a Dog's Life

There are few moments that bring me more joy than watching our three Pembroke Welsh Corgis running to greet me. Those familiar with these short-legged, rabbit-rumped, big-eared wonders will attest that the Pembroke swaggering waddle (or swaggle as I like to call it) is its own flavor of exhilaration.

Whether I am gone for fifteen minutes or fifteen days, Riley, his half-brother Andrew, and the little one, Oliver, are the purveyors of a riotous frenzy of adulation generously bestowed upon this human object of their affection. The display may vary in its duration, but never in its exuberance.

While I know for a fact that being so highly esteemed has little to do with my own merit, and everything to do with the nature of these lovely four-legged companions, I willingly accept the gift and everything it represents.

Loyalty. Trust. Faithfulness. Unconditional love. Relentless optimism. Categorical forgiveness. Irrepressible happiness.

Recently, a neighbor shared the story that as a younger man getting ready for deployment overseas, he was faced with the dilemma of leaving behind his two dogs. Unable to find them homes, time ran out and it became necessary to turn them over to a shelter already overrun with animals waiting for adoption or death.

Rather than bringing his dogs to strangers to be euthanized, he made the heartbreaking decision to do it himself. He resigned to shoot them with his own gun and bury them in the woods near his property.

When it came time, he was able to put down one dog with little effort, but the second dog was rightfully spooked and reacted too quickly at the essential moment. When he fired his gun, the dog was injured, but not killed.

Instinctively, he called her back to him.

And the most incredible thing happened. She came.

Bleeding and broken, she willingly returned to his arms, wherein he immediately finished the horrific task.

It haunts him to this day because when his wounded dog responded to his call, this man was shown the truest meaning of trust. 

Children know this instinctively. When mine were little, they would practice spelling words by arranging plastic letters on the refrigerator door. One afternoon, my daughter announced, "Mama, dog is God spelled backwards!"

I shared the Native American legend of the Kato tribe wherein God did not simply create dogs; God Himself had a dog. So important have dogs been to the humans through the ages; they are both companion and counterpart to the human heart. 

My son, barely four at the time and still transitioning his primary language from Mandarin to English, listened intently to my words. He then reached down to pet our aging Corgi, Raleigh, who rested at his feet. As my son stroked Raleigh's fur, I could see him carefully forming his words as he leaned in close to Raleigh's ear. 

"Good dog," he whispered. "My dog. Your boy."

In those six words my son successfully described the intricate and complex relationship that has existed between human and canine for thousands of years. Six simple words to sum up the emotional interdependence of two very different species that has lasted across the millennium.

Raleigh on South Padre Island, Texas 2002

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