City Living: The Joy of the High Street

George at the Camden Coffee Shop

Last time I shared a post on the Joy of Not Having a Car.   This week I share a complimentary post on the Joy of the High Street. 

The High Street is the British shorthand for what we Americans call Main Street, the precursor to shopping malls.   As the center of a neighborhood’s commercial and social life, it’s where you go to get life done and get a few people to know your name.  

It’s fun to occasionally go destination shopping on bustling iconic streets like Oxford Street or on pedestrian streets like Carnaby Street in Soho but for the day to day, you need your local High Street.   Yes, there is online retail (thank you Amazon for Prime and employment of my husband), but you still need the High Street for drugstores and haircuts and groceries and take out and pubs and fresh flowers.  Every neighborhood's High Street has their own vibe which makes them more personal.

But the High Street isn’t only for a retail fix; it’s also the place you might bump into a neighbor or where you’ve put in enough foot miles to notice new growth.   In the last two months, I’ve been out and about enough to notice and stop in on three different shops on their opening day.  I was there when the deliciously decadent Crosstown Donuts opened their bricks and mortar location in the Camden Market North Yard near the Amy Winehouse statue, when Guy Gold opened his coffee bar & osteopathic treatment rooms (I don't know if I need treatment but I always need coffee) around the corner from us last Friday and a new bakery I sniffed out but didn't get the name of the Camden High Street only hours after it opened.  I need to go back another Saturday when I haven't already stocked up on hand rolled New York bagels from Bowery Bagels or the fluffy English muffins and sour dough bread from Jamie Oliver's The Flour Station.  These are dangerous streets for carb avoiders.

The High Street is also your best hope for when you’ve dragged your kids along to do some errands and promised it won’t take too long.  Promise delivered!  Last week we got haircuts, stopped at the ATM, picked up lunch (trying our 12th or so stall at the KERB Food Market), bought some new shoes (at Vans) and made it for the matinee showing of “The LEGO Batman movie” (at Odeon) in less than 90 minutes.  And even more beautiful: because it was so close, I dropped them at the theater door and they walked themselves home.

One of my favorite things living in my neighborhood is that I can flip through any cookbook and source every ingredient and related kitchen tool within a 10 minute walking radius.  Yesterday when my husband asked me about my plans for the day and I mentioned going to local bookstore (Waterstones) to skim through some Mexican cookbooks, then to a local cooking store to find individually sized skillets (either going upscale to Richard Dare or downmarket to a seconds store on Camden High Street which can't be found online) and then to one of several local grocery stores for ingredients, he lovingly gazed into my eyes and said (the truth): “Every day I’m with you is another day for you to buy a single use kitchen apparatus.” And I can-nacho lie, this neighborhood makes it easy to accomplish that.

Speaking of cookbooks, I have a collection from my chef hero: Yotam Ottolenghi.  Ottolenghi is originally from Jerusalem now living in London with several very popular restaurants (four Ottolenghi locations and Nopi) and a huge following.  He also writes a regular online food column in The Guardian.  With a city-sized Whole Foods and the fabulous fruit and vegetable grocer called Parkway Greens around the corner from me, I’ve been cooking a lot from his cookbooks.  The boys now ask for a sprinkling of zatar on their eggs.  Pomegranate molasses is my new balsamic vinegar.  Barberries save me from having to chop dried cranberries.  I’m all about finding new uses for preserved lemons, sumac and rose harissa.  And there isn't a dish that a refreshing yogurt sauce can't make better.

So imagine me reading this in one of Ottolenghi's columns:  “It’s easy to get stuck in our ways with apples. A granny smith is sweet and tart enough to work here, but why not try something new for a change? My local grocer, Parkway Greens in Camden, gets some of its apples from Brogdale in Kent …” His local grocer is my local grocer!  This has me more star struck than any celebrity sighting.  I have no idea what I will do when I see him there one day but you know I’m looking … every day.  I will get to know those apple varieties.

Another favorite spot in the neighborhood is the Camden Coffee Shop.  They don’t sell brewed coffee only coffee beans.  George, the owner originally from Cyprus, has been roasting and grinding coffee on the same premises for 40 years.  The equipment, even the old school scales, hasn’t been upgraded in that time.  George does all the work himself telling me there’s no room in the shop for another employee.  I visit George once a week (when he's there as the hours are "roughly" 9-5) for the best 500 grams of Ethiopian coffee for my paper filter and 250 grams of Costa Rica coffee for my stove top Italian espresso maker.   He’s taught me a few things about espresso.  It’s a weekly joy to feel part of something with that much history.

As a tourist, you might notice a few interesting restaurants and pubs on Parkway, our closet street for services.  As a resident, I can tell you this one street has two dry cleaners, a record shop, a musical instrument shop, four Japanese restaurants, three coffee shops – two chains and one independent, a tea house, three nail and beauty salons, two Indian restaurants, an Italian restaurant, a pizzeria, a fish and chips place, a Spanish restaurant, a French restaurant, an upscale modern European restaurant, a charity shop, two hair salons, an electronics store, a running store, a lifestyle/accessories store, a mailbox center, a movie theater, the Gap, Whole Foods and Parkway Greens (a second mention because I love them so much), lots of real estate offices, two pubs and three live music venues.  And that’s all in two blocks and before turning a corner. There's more too but it was making me hungry writing them all down.  I won't frequent some of them.  Moobo for bubble tea or Chicskin for sheepskin coats for example, but I like their names and I like knowing they're there for someone to enjoy.

A vibrant High Street is one that has services by day and a robust evening economy which I’ve heard referred to as “alive after 5.”   This neighborhood has the evening economy in spades.  Not all of it pretty.  We have yet to explore the music scene of Camden appropriate for the over 40 years of age crowd but on Parkway alone there is the famous Jazz Café, the Dublin Castle for a cheap beer and weekend live music, and Green Note - a vegetarian café bar and acoustic live music venue voted "London Venue of the Year 2015" by Timeout.  That high praise was enough for me to get our first tickets for the March 8 show at the reasonable cost of £10 per ticket.  About the same price as the Batman Lego Movie with a trade of popcorn for beer.  If you are local, meet us there?  If not, expect to read a City Living: The Joy of Live Music post soon.

City Living: The Joy of Not Having a Car

I was hopeful but uncertain about how much I would like being car-less in our new city.  I wondered how we would manage family life without a trunk full of sports equipment, crates of water bottles, on-demand pretzels and snacks, mobile phone chargers, Kleenex that doesn’t run out and a healthy supply of bags (the dry cleaning bag, the returns bag, the donations bag, the dirty shoes bag, the "left by another kid at your house" bag, the barf bag.)   I imagined a life without IKEA or worse, going to IKEA and only coming away with tea lights due to space constraints. 

I was excited about shopping with my cute trolley until I pictured walking home with a one-wheel-gone-missing trolley and a 24 pack of toilet paper balanced on my head.  (I know from recent experience that a one-wheel-gone-missing trolley is really just a very heavy, very awkward bag.)  Then I reminded myself I was returning to the land of Amazon and online grocery stores to take care of the relentless toilet paper needs even if it couldn’t solve for how to carry a large houseplant home.  (Answer: cute trolley gets dirty.  I cut off circulation to my right arm.)

Many of my concerns were about convenience and moving “freight” but I also wondered if I would miss the sanctuary of the car.  I wondered what it would be like on a rainy day after school and not having the comfort of a warm car to usher your kids into.  I wondered if the free-flowing conversation that sometimes happens between parent and child in the safety of a car would still happen on a noisy bus.  I wondered if I would get as much out of a podcast played in my ears instead of over the car speakers. 

But as it turns out, after six weeks of living in London, hope has beat out uncertainty.  Big time.  I do not love being wet and cold and packed in like a sardine on a crowded subway but I actually love not having car.  It’s definitely not always easy (ie, taking your feverish son to the doctor) but I’m confident that being on foot and on public transportation has been a major contributor in accelerating our sense of belonging to our new city.  I say the belonging bit with confidence for a number of reasons:

First, there is plenty of online shopping to solve the moving stuff around issue.  So many places deliver in London.   Having well-stocked backpacks and children old enough to pack them is another adjustment. We simply take more care when walking out the door knowing that we won't be returning for a long time.  And if there is something we would have had in our trunk but forgot to bring, we pick it up along the way.  (Shoes excluded.)  Our stuff now feels like the responsibility of each of us not just the one behind the wheel of the car.

Second, not having a car takes you out of the driver’s seat.  Ceding control, where you can, is healthy for all of us.  You are at the mercy of a bus driver or train operator and try as you might, you won’t be invited to ride shotgun.   Nor can you “make up” time by leaving a few minutes later.   You have to leave with plenty of time to get where you’re going (in London anything that crosses town usually means 45 minutes) and then surrender the rest of the ride to someone else behind the wheel or the upper limit of non-perspiring, speed walking.   Plus, until you exorcise it from your life, you have no idea how much traffic, terrible drivers and the teeny tiny number of available parking spaces causing 40% of the traffic intrudes on your sense of well-being. 

Third, not having a car means regular exercise just got a whole lot easier.  It also means that when confronted with an able-bodied but tired child, you can say “this is our only option” and they will know negotiation is futile.   So yeah, sometimes you have to dodge a few piles of dog poop on the sidewalk or suffer through a hail storm in the wrong outerwear, but you are burning calories while at it.  And when you’re (and they’re) burning calories instead of eating empty ones like stale car pretzels, the endorphins send you “well done” messages that make you like your life way more than you liked your leather seats.   

Fourth, after a few goes in the car, you know the way.  But when walking or taking public transportation, there’s always something more to experience because all your senses are engaged.  You are not just getting from point A to point B but you are creating a detailed mental map.  You see tucked away shops you wouldn’t notice from a car window.   You smell the coffee shops that roast their own beans.  You hear a wide range of voices, sometimes exuberant off-key singing, instead of the monotony of road traffic noise.  Your body begins to know where the wind tunnels are and where to expect a late afternoon sun beam.  My children might also mention not having a car improves the odds of stopping for a proper snack.  

All your interactions are closer and because you don’t have to keep your eyes fully on the road, you are free to notice them more.   Depending on the time of day (ie commuting hours), you might only be able to notice the dandruff on the guy sharing your personal space on the subway which isn’t awesome but still beats risking your left bumper and sanity trying to find parking where there is none.

And finally, if belonging is about community, mass transit can be a way to enter in to it.  Sometimes that means conversation (which I enjoy) but I’m finding that sitting or standing with someone in silence is a kind of solidarity.  I love not having mobile service when I go into the subway which forces me to engage with my thoughts or a book or the London Evening Standard.  It’s a wholly different kind of sanctuary than my car was, and I have to share it not just with my family, and yet it feels like one.   I doubt my children would agree on this point (they would say they prefer the car because there is more room) although they don’t seem at all hindered by sharing their day with witnesses.  Their sanctuary is wherever you are.

Not having a car isn’t viable in a lot of places but if you live in a big city, you might be surprised how much more at home you feel in your city without one.  So far it’s been one of our joys living in London. 

Do not withhold good

Anger towards injustice can be a useful emotion. It fuels us to rise up and act. It helps us to turn a Facebook rant into a telephone call. It compels us to get out of our seats and onto the streets. It causes us to open our wallets and front doors.

There is a Proverb in the Bible that says: “Do not withhold good from those who deserve it when it is in your power to act.” Believing it is necessary to have an immigration policy that is both safe AND fair, this week – like many people -- I have been signing petitions against the ill-conceived, not so hidden religiously intolerant Travel Ban and its authors, sending emails to politicians, and donating to charities serving refugees. You may disagree with me but that’s not the point of this post.

Nor am I saying that immigrants and refugees are the only people who deserve our action. You might have another. [I’ve also been looking for a good charity that supports our Veterans – particularly those who served in Iraq and Afghanistan - with job retraining as they are another marginalized group of people that I believe deserves the attention of those with the power to act. If anyone has a suggestion, please pass it on.]

I’ve been thinking however that while anger is useful for getting us out of the chair, as it did me this week, it is not sustainable on its own. If we want to really serve those who deserve our action we need to positively feed our faith in the long arc of justice enough so that our anger will be starved. We should love our world enough to engage with it, including in the public square, to want to see it as it was created to be. We need to surround ourselves with historians to lengthen our lens and believers to restore our imagination of what healthy interdependence can and should look like in a world full of color and differences.

For me, part of feeding my faith in justice is joining together with the people of my church here in London who believe and live out the invitation that: “This is a church that loves and accepts everyone … you are so welcome here.” Every Sunday I look out over the congregation which is full of people from every race and dozens of countries, so many of them young, and it brings me to tears every time. Every time. I’m trying to hang out with them more. I recently heard someone say, “The coals in a campfire burn bright and put off heat when huddled together but if that coal were to jump away from the fire, it would die out.” Action from the privacy of your home can only do so much. Action together, in whatever form that looks like, burns bright.

The other way I’ve been feeding my faith in justice has been a very small thing. On my regular runs in Regent’s Park, I make it a point of looking every Muslim woman I see in the eye and offering a smile. So far, every smile given has been returned with a smile that is somehow deeper and more beautiful than a courteous one. It seems to be saying “hello and thank you” at the same time. That too is a kind of fuel to remind me there is nothing different between white eggs and brown eggs - no difference in yoke or taste. You only know a bad egg once it’s cracked.

I was recently asked to do one of those online tests to find your strengths. I don’t like doing those tests and yet it confirmed for me where I should be investing myself. In some ways, this post is me trying to build on one of my strengths: positivity. This is a time in our country (and others too) where we all need to be exploiting our natural strengths. May you therefore use your time, resources, and even the platform of FB to take your strengths – which are uniquely yours and desperately needed - and work them out for the public good.

The Naturally Nervous First Year Parents Crop

Closed groups on Facebook can be sources of good information and sometimes, awesome entertainment. This fall as my son was entering his first year of college we joined a FB group for the parents of his incoming class. We 700 members are the cream of the Naturally Nervous First Year Parents Crop.

The posts contributed by the moderator around school events, housing, campus safety, etc have generally been helpful as have some of the parent questions and comments. Most parent members passively receive information. And then there is the smattering of …

1. Questions that Google has an answer for. As in: “What time does the football game start?”

2. Questions that Google has an answer for AND that you really should not be figuring out for your man child. As in: “Is there a Fedex or post office on campus. My son needs to ship something.”

3. Lost and found questions better directed toward campus security than parents in the off chance they have the kind of relationship with their student whereby they talk about other people’s missing things. As in: “My daughter lost here watch near X over the weekend. Did your student find it?”

4. The needle in a haystack questions. As in: “We are going to be on campus and while there, we need access to a marimba for our high school son to practice. Any leads?”

5. Delivery questions that Amazon can’t handle and therefore no one but a roommate or friend is likely to handle. As in: “Is there a delivery service that could deliver cold medicine and a vaporizer [in the next 2 hours] to my daughter who is sick during finals?”

6. The safety-first parent questions. As in: “Where we can find earthquake safety info and plans for the dorms.”

7. Delivery questions that make you feel guilty for only sending snacks from Amazon Pantry. As in: “Has anyone ever tried successfully to have birthday balloons and/or Edible Arrangement delivered to the dorms?”

8. Questions that make you want to cringe for the parent/student relationship. As in: “Does anyone know where grades will be posted?”

9. The parent/student selfie upload. Cute on your FB page. A little weird on the parent page.

10. The 100% school spirit post that includes no question or comment just an overuse of the school slogan, emojis and hashtags. It’s all there. Sometimes with a band video clip. Fight On!

God bless us as we Fight On letting go of our children. We are a funny bunch.

We are family

There are 20 minutes in each week I dread. From precisely 7:15pm to 7:25pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays. It’s the 10 minute walk my 13 year old son takes from basketball practice back to the Tube stop, far from home and in the dark.

Just now I pulled up the thesaurus and replaced “fear” with “dread” as if shedding fear, an emotion experienced whether a threat is real or imagined, is as simple as a search and replace. It takes more than that – often a communal effort – which, in this story, actually happened.

Now I came to these 20 minutes of weekly dread by choice. We want to honor our son’s desire to play competitive basketball which for him, in London, means a long transit. But we don’t have a car and it is not practical for my younger son and me to spend every Tuesday and Thursday from 4-8pm accompanying him to and from practice with a stop for falafel or fried chicken in between. I made the commute with my son until he felt comfortable doing it on his own. It didn’t take long for that to happen.

His basketball club is far outside the buzz of central London. It is not a destination stop. There are no tourist attractions. There aren’t even many street lights. If I’m being honest, the source of my fear wasn’t only because of my son’s age, the distance from home, the change of Tube lines, the dark and a general feeling that the area isn’t the safest. At a deeper level, I was scared because my child is white in a neighborhood that isn’t.

Did I just say that? I have no evidence, no experiences, and no hard data that should make me fearful. And it should be noted, my son is not afraid. And though it would be convenient, I can’t chalk it up to maternal instinct or unease because this is not my home country. No, that confession comes with a heavy dose of guilt. I know there is racism and stereotyping in my heart to even feel that way. I am ashamed to think that my 20 minutes of neatly scheduled discomfort is what a mother of color would feel EVERY time her child walked out the door, except hers would be grounded in a blanket of real – not imagined - experiences he and I will never have.

I would prefer to bury this confession except something happened to mitigate, though not completely erase, that dread. I didn’t “solve” the problem by hiring an Uber to take my son to and from practice which I could have done practically speaking but not without a cost to my son’s developing independence and him appearing even more entitled to his teammates than his latest Nike shoes already do. Something much more beautiful happened.

After the first practice where coach recognized I wasn’t there, he gathered the team around and told them to walk my son the 10 minutes back to the Tube stop. The entire team did it without question or complaint. (All of them except for my son live in the neighborhood.) I considered it a nice gesture of welcome to the team except that he’s asked a group of boys to do the same thing after every practice. When my son told his teammates recently it was ok he knew how to get to the Tube stop, they said: “No, we have to walk you. And if Coach finds out we didn’t, we’ll be running all practice.” Last practice Coach drove by to check on them, where every guy he asked to escort my son was there. Coach got out of the car to make sure my son understood: “Since you aren’t from around here, it’s better for your teammates to walk you. We are not just a team. We are a family.”

When I emailed Coach this weekend to thank him, he said it again, “You’re welcome. We are not just a team. We are family.”

You see I was kicking myself for seeing color but they saw it too. But where my instinct was to push down the reality of the color differences, their instinct was to face my son’s vulnerability as “other” and encircle him as you would any family member. I am humbled by how this team has embraced our son both on and off the court. It was so immediate and not because he is a star player. He is among talented players, many already towering over 6’3” at 13 years old. I know their model of familial love has instructional value beyond what I can grasp just yet.

It reminds me too what while I will never know when it means to move in the world where we are judged by our skin color, those brief flashes of discomfort we all experience from time to time – even the “managed” kind like my 20 minutes – can be openings for us to enter into a conversation we actively try to avoid. I found it interesting when I turned on my favorite podcast yesterday, “On Being” and the latest episode happened to be “Let’s Talk About Whiteness” by Eula Biss. I guess it was something I needed to hear. Maybe you, my white friend, do too.

Are you ready to eat? KERB Camden Market

One of the things we missed living in Luxembourg was the access to cheap eats.  I’m not talking fast food but good, inexpensive tasty food.  We hit the jackpot here in London as we live down the block from a street food market called KERB Camden Market which opened in August 2016.  It’s a 3 minute, 55 second walk from our front door.  (I timed it today.)  Open 7 days a week for lunch, there are 34 of London’s best street food vendors selling their signature dishes for mostly around £5.   Like who knew there was a thing called a Taiwanese Lunch Box or a Korean burrito? 

KERB has other pop up food markets around London but only the one in Camden is open every day.  We’ve sampled several of the vendors already (Venezuelan street food, halloumi fries, gourmet mac and cheese, salted caramel brownies) – without a single miss but a lot of napkins – but it will take weeks to eat our way through all of them.  So if you stop by over the lunch hour and I suggest you keep your coat on, you’ll know why.  And if I invite you round for dinner and serve you re-heated crispy squid, you have full permission to call me out.   

I have no tips except to say: a) go hungry and preferably without caloric judgment, b) go when you can’t decide what you want to eat or your kid has decided that the only thing he will eat is a hot dog because Oh My Dog!, c) go with a friend who likes to share and d) watch out for the pigeons.  It was quiet right at noon when it opened today (but there is also an overblown fear of “snow flurries” today) but typically the queues do pick up throughout the lunch hour.  The market stays open until 5pm Monday-Friday and until 6pm on Saturday and Sunday.  And if you overeat or the BBQ was good for your soul but not so much for your stomach, know you can get to a private toilet in 3 minutes, 55 seconds.  

This is (My) London

It’s been 19 days since we moved to London.   With something new and wonderful around every corner, I’ve been struggling with how to capture these first days and experiences in any opening post from our new home.  And so rather than attempting to compile the volumes of impressions (and food and restaurant heaven!) thus far, I’ll share two experiences that I hope have sway on the way we live out our next two years here. 

The first experience came this Thursday when I was in a coffee shop in Marylebone (Curators Coffee which I recommend by the way) after dropping the boys off for their first day of school.  There working was a barista who I recognized from ten days earlier in a totally different part of the city.  She was the first person in London, a city of over 8.5 million people, who I had seen twice.  Something in me swelled with that recognition – perhaps a feeling of connectedness in a city so big – that I went up to ask her if she had been where I thought she was ten days earlier (she had and only by chance) and then (awkwardly) told her she had been a kind of welcome gift to me in my new city.  She beamed and her co-workers ribbed her as I walked out the door:  “You’re famous in London!”

Our words can’t make someone famous but an unexpected reminder to someone that they have been noticed can make them feel that way.   There is so much to see in London but is there anything more lovely than connecting, however briefly, with another person?   I think not and so while I’ve been rather preoccupied with shopping and setting up a new house, I am overjoyed to be back on soil where English is the common language and opportunities for conversation – and potential for connection- will never run dry.   

The second experience came this Friday when I arrived 20 minutes early to pick up the boys from school which is on a beautiful street in London filled with embassies.  Rather than stand in the rain, I popped over next door to the bookstore at the Royal Institute of British Architects and indiscriminately bought three niche books on London (none of them on architecture.)   One of them, “This is London” by Ben Judah, is a collection of real life stories of the world of London’s immigrants – more than a third of the 8.5 million people who live in the margins of this city, far away from embassy row.  I haven’t been able to put it down.   The people I am reading about did not receive the same welcome as I.

And so the headline is: “We Love London.”  Of course we do.   We are privileged.  We have a picture perfect set up.  Truthfully we will never know what the non-expat immigrant experience is like in London but I hope that we have experiences that push us out of our comfort zones.  We’ve taken some small steps.  Like Colin traveling to Zone 3 on two Tube lines for 45 minutes to play on a basketball team of non-white British boys where he’s the odd man out (and I am kind of freaking out that he will soon be doing this on his own.)  We all need our own regular odd man out experiences to tenderize us for empathy.

It dawns on me with my serendipitous stop at Curators Coffee and the bookstore at the Royal Institute of British Architects; the London I will curate in my blog will both grossly oversimplify the diversity of a rapidly evolving city and sometimes forget the lonely in a city known for its energy.  Of course it will.  I will therefore do my best to tell you about the London I come to know.  Forgive me in advance for when that seems to come off as either entitled or food focused or awkwardly preachy or obvious.  Obviously no one needs another good reason to visit London … This is London ...and you will make it Your London.

Tis the Season

It’s easy to get preoccupied with logistics when you have a big life event like a m-o-v-e on the horizon. So many of you have asked how the boys are doing with the upcoming move to which I’ve consistently answered, “Great!” It’s true they are excited but also…

My 10 year old told me this week: “At school we were talking about if we won a prize and could have anything, what would it be? My answer was a week in Luxembourg with my big brother, my cousins and all my (extended) family. I thought that would be better than a mansion, a Lexus, or a lifetime supply of fruit.” Because who wouldn’t consider a lifetime of fruit? But much more than the punchline, Lawton understands that when we leave a place we want to savor it with those we love so they will know the backdrop for the stories we will tell long after we’ve gone.

And tonight my 8th grader told me: “I’ve been thinking about how I’m going to be different – like how I am going to change my personality - at my new school.” And when he spoke it I had this flash of a memory that somehow hadn’t surfaced until now. I too moved in the middle of my 8th grade year – moving from White Sands, New Mexico to Norfolk, Virginia – and had that exact same conversation over and over with my 13 year old self. I had no idea what logistics my parents were dealing with but I was acutely aware of the fact that I was being handed a golden opportunity to redefine myself (or so I thought.)

Ohhhhh. To really understand your child, my Colin, exactly where they are - even for a moment - is such a gift.

And because I have walked the path he will be walking so very soon, I was able to suggest that there is a gift waiting for him too. That while he will be able to make a new first impression and emphasize or de-emphasize certain parts of himself, it is impossible to rewire a personality (I tried it and failed.) We are who we are and not only are we beautiful but we’re also equipped in a certain way for the work only we can do. When I told him I didn’t think he needed to change anything about his personality he responded with a multilayered, “Thanks.” Because when you’re 13 years old, your insides are raging and awake while your outside self is working hard to keep it casual.

To know your child is on the brink of an experience that will mean more than your inadequate words ever could … is yet another gift.

Tis the season to behold all that is good.

Visas and Other Setbacks

Have you ever had a setback where the thing itself has been discouraging but your ungraceful, arms flailing response to it has taken you even further down the rabbit hole? Where you thought you were engaged in an interior practice to prepare you for moments like these only to discover that freaking out comes more naturally to you than breathing in?

That was my week. It started in Paris of all places. At the UK Visa office. It’s a long and complicated story and not worth rehashing here except to say that we’ve had a major setback with my Visa after weeks of preparation and a 70 page application because I didn’t have one extra page in my passport. My husband tried to problem solve. I freaked out and only freaked out. Significantly enough for the woman at the Visa office to offer me a cup of water while a room full of people looked on. [Here’s where I’ve written and deleted the rehashing I promised not to do.]

Suffice it to say it was (and is) a legit setback that comes with a lot of rework, time, trains, money and risk to our scheduled move date. Plus cancellations of good things like my Going Away Brunch next Friday which I was so looking forward to. But here’s the thing: in the end, my problem is a paperwork problem. Chances are good that a few of the people who watched my freak out will have more than a paperwork problem. And yet.

Knowing that you’d think I wouldn’t have to move through the stages of grumbling but there I’ve been on the lookout tower waiting for strike two, three, four … finding them (of course!) and counting very loudly. For example, we were called to present ourselves at the Local Police Station at 2pm yesterday for an unpaid speeding fine that we never actually received … but that’s a story for another time.

We like to think we are sufficiently geared up to weather a storm so when we find ourselves unsteady in a rain shower it can be really discouraging. The discouragement can be strong enough to keep you sloshing around in sandals or hidden in your lookout tower. We seem to think if we didn’t have our big girl rain boots on when the rain started our lack of preparation has ruined us until this shower has passed.

It’s still drizzling over here but I’ve traded my sandals for big girl rain boots by doing a few things. I remembered how certain life events – the birth of a child, a marriage, a new job, a health crisis, a MOVE (ding, ding!) – are natural stressors and so our responses to big and small events around them will be understandably exaggerated. These are the stretches in life where it’s best to keep your rain boots on at all times and double down on your commitment to give yourself grace. Telling myself I’ve already made one international move and so this one should be “no big deal” or telling yourself the second kid should be easier because you’ve already had one is like trying to claim immunity from life.

I’ve also experienced how when we unload our frustrations (and failures in dealing with our frustrations) to our friends it’s like coming under their umbrella for a brief respite. Not only are they happy to share their umbrellas with you but many will offer to go puddle jumping with you. It is reason enough to get down from your lookout tower. Friends also are the best spotters of silver linings. We need each other all the time but especially when we are uncertain and discouraged.

Finally, I’m thinking we put too much stock in our first response and that we should be less surprised when we don’t live up to our unrealistic mantras. Our raw, sometimes profane littered reactions may need improvement but if life is about growing in maturity then we can narrow the gap by recovering more quickly. Opps goes a long way. Sorry opens the door you just slammed and others you didn’t even know were closed. If you believe (as I do) that we are a work in progress until our last breathe then we should really expect an imperfect response to every problem. We might be 80% on target but there is always room for improvement. So rather than looking for the next strike we could choose instead to look for the next opening.

It’s only been 24 hours since my visit to the Local Police Station and already I’m seeing the story in new light.

It's Election Day

I’ve been wondering. How, practically speaking, do you give your all to something? Not a physical or temporal goal but a principle you’ve decided is missional for you. If you say you are All for Love or All for Justice or All for Freedom or All for Jesus or All for ________ , how do insure that you are in fact ALL IN in a loud culture full of distractions? How do you not get overpowered or keep from skimming the surface?

I think most would agree that anything worth being FOR requires both a full commitment and the long view. It needs to be strong enough to move you across the line from belief to action. It should cause your eyes to fill with tears at one moment and a steeliness to do the impossible in others. 50% Love or Most of the Way Justice lacks the aspiration needed to make any meaningful impact. It has no staying power. And, more importantly, if we want to be ALL IN for something that endures it also means we probably won’t be around to see it come into fullness. We have to be ok with being bit actors.

I don’t know the complete answer for how to truly give your all to something that matters but I read something recently from CS Lewis that suggested a good starting point: What you choose to fill your mind with when you wake up.

“The real problem comes where people do not usually look for it. It comes the very moment you wake up each morning. All your wishes and hopes for the day rush at you like wild animals. And the first job each mornings consists simply in shoving them all back; in listening to that other voice, taking that other point of view, letting that other larger, stronger, quieter life coming flowing in. And so on, all day. Standing back from all your natural fussings and frettings, coming in out of the wind.”

Many of us, me included, have a habit of picking up our phones first thing when we wake up. As habits go, it seems rather benign. And yet, it is in effect blindly turning over our first thought to something we aren’t actively choosing. Even if that thing is good or neutral it probably isn’t that bigger thing we want to align ourselves with. The danger is that what we expose ourselves to isn’t simply a matter of getting informed or being entertained. Its fuel for how we will act. It therefore makes sense that we ought to buffer our intake first with the reference point we claim to be central in our lives.

I had an experience in Spain last week. It was warm and so we slept with the windows open. It was also windy and so the sound that woke me most mornings was the wind rustling through the palm trees. It was loud enough to both get my attention and still the other voices that weren’t as demanding. It wasn’t until I choose to listen past the wind that I heard a rooster in the distance, birds in cheerful conversation, pans coming out for service in the kitchen. The simple exercise of re-tuning to those other, sweeter voices didn’t still the wind but it pushed it to the back of my morning symphony.

They say you only have one chance to make a first impression. The good news is that we have a new chance each morning to decide which voice we will listen to first. What our morning symphony will be. If what we eat (or don’t eat) for breakfast sets our energy for the day, how much more does what we choose to fill our minds with set not only our mood – but our motivation and action – for the day.

The wind in the US will be howling loudly today and tomorrow. No matter the outcome, we need the ALL IN people – on both sides of the political aisle – to come in out of the wind for a moment and listen to those quieter, enduring voices that promise to speak hope into and well beyond the next 4 years.