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.

For the Love of Starbucks

I’ve embraced a lot about the European lifestyle. I get that a proper café au lait should be consumed sitting down with a ceramic cup and a biscuit. That cappuccinos aren’t ordered after noon in Italy. That the espresso closer comes not with but following the dessert and before the after dinner liquor. But sometimes you just need a strong Grande filter drip coffee TO GO before 9am. And after four years of dating around it’s probably ok to admit you prefer the familiarity and personality of Pike’s Place Roast.

So … I may have a habit of occasionally driving unnaturally long distances on a motorway to one of the only two Starbucks in Luxembourg, specifically the one AT THE AIRPORT because it opens at 5am. As far as I can tell it’s also the only place in Luxembourg that isn’t a hotel or gas station serving coffee before 8:30am. The excursion takes both commitment and courage. You must park in the short term parking lot, jog lightly to the terminal, pray for a short queue and not be distracted by the Duty Free Shop or the fact that you are mingling with passengers in their traveling finest while you’re barely one degree past pajamas.

As a straight up filter girl without the need to burden the coffee bar, I usually can get ‘er done before my €5 filter coffee all of sudden jacks up to €7.50 at exactly minute sixteen. (There is no grace period where parking lots, parking meters or parking dials are concerned here.) But I’ve also learned to abort mission when the line is too long or there are obvious SBUX rookies ahead reading the menu or trying to find the tea selections. I also know I’ve been in line too long when I dare to want to try the pumpkin bread or muffin again, hoping for a better (butter) outcome.

This morning I made the trek through traffic – for the love of Starbucks - after I dropped the boys off at school. There was no queue which means I had time to have my beans ground and because I was dressed presentably even pop into Duty Free for a squirt of perfume. Now awake and smelling lovely, I situated my Grande drip in my car cup holder for the journey back across town for some errands at a local mall. I drank slowly, savoring every sip, extending my TO GO pleasure into the mall.

I know this may sound like an exaggeration but this was my first time grocery shopping in Luxembourg accompanied by the green and white Siren cup. It was such a little pleasure and reminder of home. But in a culture where coffee is a ritual and not something to be multi-tasked, grocery carts don’t come equipped with handy cup holders. As it turns out, navigating a cart and a hot cup of coffee requires more coordination than I’ve been gifted so I shortened my list and persevered all the way to the cash wrap.

One of the funny things about Luxembourg is that in the big hybrid grocery/homeware stores like Target you must do a bag check at one of the two main entrances before entering. They aren’t looking for weapons, they’re looking for openings. Whatever bags you’ve accumulated while shopping at the mall are either stapled shut or vacuum sealed or put in another bag that can be stapled shut. And while it doesn’t happen every time, they also mark any plastic bottle you walk in the store with. They are very serious about this business which presumably is intended to prevent theft and for whatever reason(s) has spilled over into water bottle vigilance.

Without any consideration that I could have possibly broken any rules, I show up to the cash wrap with this cup. It doesn’t take a close inspection to conclude:
a) This paper cup with a well-protected US based logo has not been been stolen from this store.
b) It has clearly been through an ordeal to get here.
c) Someone went through the effort to put on lipstick this morning.
d) It cannot be stapled.

But it wouldn’t be a story if the cashier didn’t inspect my cup. She did. I didn’t follow everything she was saying because it was in Luxembourgish but it was clear I had missed the mark in understanding this cultural norm of bag checking extended to paper cups. It wasn’t a big deal – and it made me laugh a little – but I left feeling a mixture of how stupid a rule and how embarrassing to be called out. Four years after moving here.

I can’t help but think of others living in places as visitors like me, especially the refugees, where the cultural norms are drastically different and therefore the potential for misstep and embarrassment even greater. How when we have grown up in a place that like the cashier we would be quick to point out, with justification and in our language, what the rules are. The lengths I went to for a silly cup of coffee, a piece of home, are small but what the cashier missed – what I wonder if we all can sometimes be guilty of missing is that embracing a new place takes time and patience on both sides.

Yes, we need to follow the rules. We also need to give THE OTHER the benefit of the doubt. Most people other from us aren’t trying to lift what isn’t theirs. Anyone who has left their homeland has been through an ordeal to get here and if that move was forced upon them, chances are good that ordeal has come with a lot of cost, sacrifice and suffering. Lipstick may signal that I’ve shown up ready for the day but effort comes in a million different forms. You had to be looking closely to notice the lipstick just like we have to look closely for how people are putting their best foot forward. Staples may be a strategy to try to keep things contained but some things – like a sloshing cup of coffee or a messy soul in a constant state of being emptied and refilled – cannot be stapled shut.

E-Bikes and Marathons

This summer I rode an electric bike for the first time. Are you judging me? Because I was judging me in the same way I’ve judged every mall cop and city tour group on a Segway. It sounded gimmicky and dumb when a proper, human-propelled bike would do just fine. Not that I’m some kind of biking purist but please … does everything really need a motor?

As these things often go – doing something you swore you would never do – it started with a need. I was staying out in the French countryside alone with my two younger boys and without a car for several days. The nearest town with services was 10 kilometers away. Though I love walking, it seemed prudent to have a transportation solution in case of a baguette or other more pressing emergency. I therefore went in search of a bike rental as there were no close car rentals. The only rental option I could find was an electric bike. Why there wasn’t a single road bike or run-of-the-mill cruiser bike with a cute French basket to rent in the host country of the Tour de France remains a mystery.

But c’est la vie. At least I had a workable solution. I could cover ground quickly if one of my children needed stiches or I needed a bottle of Rose.

For those of you not familiar, electric bikes have an electric motor and rechargeable batteries but unlike a Segway or moped what makes them unique is that the rider retains the ability to pedal. It can be a free ride but they aren’t designed with that in mind –the expectation is that you will pedal. So the experience is exactly like riding a conventional bike except you have the option to turn the battery on when you want an extra boost. You can set the battery to low, medium or high. It’s best to save high power – which drains the battery fastest – for when you really need it. After a certain range, like an electric car, the battery needs to come home to be plugged in and recharged.

Funny thing is I expected the E-bike to look different but really it looks like a normal bike that makes a little whirring noise. My E-bike rental even came with a cute French basket. It wasn’t so different in appearance and yet its performance was well … totally awesome. Zero-emissions. Minimal sweat. Major help getting up hills.

I confess. It was like switching from US butter to French salted butter. One spread is all it takes to never want to go back to the old stuff. On the E-bike, you could cover more ground in shorter time, move at the speed of traffic on country roads and through intersections, take short breaks from pedaling when you wanted to take in the view, but also get a workout when and if you wanted to. It was the perfect blend of assisted and unassisted riding where you set the tempo and were in control but your range was limited by the need to recharge.

I think the spiritual life is a little like riding an E-bike. Before you try it, you might judge it as gimmicky especially if self-propulsion has worked just fine. In my case with the E-bike a seed was planted weeks before by a friend – an extremely able-bodied, fit friend – who surprisingly gave the E-bike a thumbs up. She didn’t seem like the E-bike convert type. So when the E-bike turned up as my only option, I was slightly more willing. I wouldn’t have given the E-bike a chance had it not been because of a need. In the same way, true religion only has a chance when it is entered into out of need. It can be abused as a free ride but the intention of true religion is that it be a mix of sustained effort with divine bursts of power. So while we have free will to control our own bike we also have the invitation to pedal with or without assistance.

I thought again of that E-bike when I was running the Berlin Marathon last weekend. I had done by part by putting in the miles and the training up to 20 miles but the last 6.2 miles were uncharted territory for my body. In the end it was those last 6.2 miles that were my favorite to run. Not because they were the easiest or fastest but because that’s the place where I felt my effort mingle with something outside myself. Often I find that outside myself is the divine working through other people.

The burst of power that wasn’t related to the power GU or sports drink came from remembering my Dad fight on with his Parkinson’s Disease and remembering the Syrian refugees for whom the money I raised was going to support. It came from the first 5 miles with my running partners who encouraged me to start slow so I could finish strong. It came from being surrounded and in the fellowship of other runners who were at the exact same place in their journey as I was. It came from my son with 3 kilometers left running alongside me on the course saying, “Mommy, you can do anything for 15 minutes.” And it came from hearing the lyric of a song shuffled on my playlist with 1 kilometer left: “When the waves are taking you under, Hold on just a little bit longer, He knows that this is gonna make you stronger, the pain ain’t gonna last forever, the things can only get better, believe me this is gonna make you stronger.”

And with that lyric and a last celebratory cheer from my husband and son in the final stretch, I crossed the finish line …. not entirely to my surprise … 15 minutes faster than my best hoped for goal.

Berlin Marathon Weekend is Here!

Finally! The Berlin Marathon is this Sunday. I’ve done the training with Maureen and Holly but now all sorts of pains – both real and phantom – have been creeping in. A course of Advil is helping as is thinking about this:

My dear Dad has been living with Parkinsons for over 12 years. David Olmsted, the strong Army Officer who was always in PT ready shape my whole growing up. Though he is resilient and still playing some respectable golf, there are many, and increasingly more, hard days. Recently he has been having trouble walking and more specifically, stopping. He tells his brain he wants to stop which causes his legs to slow to a shuffle but his upper body doesn’t seem to get the message, intent instead on keeping the forward motion. It’s like a freight truck discovering too late the brakes don’t work.

But as people who love you do, before I could swallow the latest devastation of his disease, he brightly told me he found a work around. He said as long as he tells his brain to “stride out” instead of “stop" his lower body keeps from shuffling and he is able to stay upright through a stop. This simple instruction to his brain has made a huge difference. It reminds me that our brain is a powerful thing with more connection to our bodies than we will ever understand.

If my heroic Dad can find a work around surely I can too. Conventional wisdom might suggest that short choppy steps of a shuffle might be more cautionary and appropriate when you see a road block ahead but the upper body – the residence of the head and heart – have other ideas. Whether it’s a progressive disease like Parkinsons, a task beyond your capability like a marathon, a dream with no discernible progress -- when stopping is all you want to do – the better thing to tell yourself (assuming you are not directly facing a brick wall – “the imaginary wall” does not count here) is to stride out. It just might be the difference between a graceful finish and a broken rib.

Thanks to all those who have supported me through donations for the awesome cause of World Vision, friendship runs and encouragement. It means so much! And Daddy, I’ll especially be thinking of you as I stride out those last miles on the pavement.

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I'll be running with Team World Vision! 

Our big boy is off to college!

As this space has become my journal of our life abroad, it would be incomplete without mentioning the monumental event of our first born leaving for college.

Graduation Day: June 4, 2016 @ International School of Luxembourg

International School of Luxembourg Graduation Day, Part 1: The Ceremony. 94 graduates representing 25 countries. Well done on completing the IB program graduates! Part 2 Dinner and Dance to follow.

Father/Son Weekend: June 19, 2016 @ Austrian Alps

I think he's having a good Father's Day.
In the mountains (somewhere in the Austrian Alps) on a bike with his son right now.
Thank you Brett Ballbach for giving us this life of adventure.
We ❤️ you.

Drop Off Day: August 18, 2016 @ University of Southern California

Move in day for Quinn.
We are all here.
The sublime work of parenting is a steady diet of letting go but this release takes your breath away.
Even when you know they are ready.
It's like having their past, present and future all come into sharp focus and auto play at the same do-not-blink moment.
Diapers to diplomas to discoveries.
And because of that overactive sense of time, you try to keep it together with small talk and too many questions about what they still need for their room (a coverlet?)
But ... Because your 18 year old child's heart has been shaped by you, and you them, they won't be fooled and will know to smile at your nervous questions, hug you really tight and send you off with a short Amazon shopping list.
And you will also know to not, under any circumstances, add a coverlet to that list.

Re-entry Day: August 24, 2016 @ Luxembourg

Here's what not to do when you get home jet lagged without your husband less than 18 hours before your children start school: walk into the room of the child who has just left for college.  It was the Steph Curry posters that did it. An ugly cry so loud it traveled the apartment.  But then there appeared my sweet, freshly showered 9 year old at my side. Gently he wiped the mascara off my face and said, "It's ok Mom, you still have me. And you're only half way done with me."  I may not have back to school supplies yet or clean laundry or well rested kids today, but our long group hug and conversation in big brother's bed last night was maybe the best way to kick off a new school year.  And it's a bonus that I'm up at 5am. 4th and 8th grade start today and both have found a clean outfit.