Decluttering house, mind, and soul {Part 1}

In anticipation of our Big Move this summer, this week I've been relentlessly sorting and pricing stuff to sell at the Kinderbasar held by our local Kindergarten this weekend. We've been hosting parties and giving away DVDs and books that weren't worth selling on Amazon, posting ads and getting stuff picked up. We've been stealthy; so far the kids haven't even noticed anything missing as we pare down their book selection, unused toys and outgrown clothes.

Where did all this stuff come from?  It wasn't always this way.

When I as 21, I lived in a tent in the woods for 3 months with only a backpack's belongings.

Here, in the raw, windswept beauty of the Îles-de-la-Madeleine (even their name is beautiful). It had been a dream of mine to visit this archipelago of tiny islands in the Golf of St-Lawrence since I had discovered their existence about 3 years prior. I've always had a thing for maritime culture: the boats, the fishing villages, the ocean, the céilidh kitchen parties of Canada's East Coast provinces, the fiddle music and boisterous singing. The smell of salt water in the air, the feeling of sand between my toes, and the ethereal glow of moonlight on the water.

Even better, these islands belong to Quebec and are (save two tiny anglophone communities within the archipelago) about 96% French-speaking. I was hooked. During my year studying at Université Laval I made some friends from the islands who kindly and generously invited me into their circle of friends, helping me to find a job and figure out the logistics of a summer in their islands.

So I spent 3 months that summer living in a tiny North Face 2-person backpackers tent. It was perfect. A colleague at the vacation center where I worked helped me (that is, I mostly watched him) construct a raised bed of sand under my tent, and we strung a large tarp from the trees branches above, meaning that no rain ever touched it all summer long. I had chosen an isolated spot in the woods down a barely-there path, not near any of the other summer employees also living in tents, as I prized my sleep and privacy.

I slept breathing in the crisp salty-pine air. Upon hearing this, Europeans ask me about animals (they are convinced bears stalk every Canadian's daily life); there are none larger than a house cat on the islands, so that was not a worry to me. My biggest problem was finding my nearly invisible path to my tent in the dark when I would return from an evening out and had, yet again, forgotten my flashlight. Stumbling over underbrush with arms stretched straight out, the glow-in-the-dark zip pull on my tent faithfully guided me home.

I loved the freedom of waking up in the morning, maybe going for a dip in the ocean if I had time, pulling on some clothes (my belongings, which could fit into a large hiking backpack all laid out beside my sleeping bag in the "second person" sleeping spot in the tent), walking up to the campground showers to freshen up for the day. Eating in the restaurant at an employee discount and being immediately at work. It was a little-to-no-makeup/jewelry summer, a few outfits, a few books and my journal. I caught rides to the main island with friends or we hitchhiked. A friend's family let me stay with them when I needed to, I must have done all my laundry there.  It was a simple life, and the lack of possessions to maintain and bills to pay was incredibly freeing (especially to a student-loan-debt plagued young graduate).

It was a summer of sun, sand, sea, and wind. When I returned to the City at the end of 3 and a half months, quickly, via a two-hour plane ride rather than the 24-hour drive by which I got to the islands, I was hit with culture shock. So many buildings. So many advertisements and billboards. So many things. To buy. To pay off. To house. To clean.
So much materialism.

Back then, I wished I could live in that simple, clutter-free island summer bubble forever.

Part one of a little series...

The Trail

Hiking those familiar trails
felt like coming home
to a place I had lived in thrice.

weeks, months, weeks

In a lifetime, short
but pivotal
times
of learning, growing, stretching, straining, singing
laughing, cherishing, changing, celebrating.

Moments on benches and paths
scribbled prayers
tear-stained journal
Surrender and new life.

The Alpine air filling lungs broad and clean
built strong on the spiritual heritage in this place.

I am reminded of lessons learned, mentors gone before, strangers-become-friends who shouldered packs and hiked for hours in front and behind me.
Incompatible tribe
different nations
different ages
different allegiances and preferences
different everything
but one God.
And the strong and fast took the heavy things from the weaker, slowed their pace, took the last place in line.
And we pressed on 
and we listened and we tore down borders and we let each other in and we learned to love 
in spite of it all.

They taught me that I too can love 
those whom I at first didn't like, 
with whom I had nothing in common. 

They taught me why Church matters, 
that I need others
to be fully who I am meant to be.
That those fruits of love, 
joy
peace
patience 
kindness 
goodness 
faithfulness
gentleness 
self-control 
only grow in the rich soil of community
Fertilized with annoyance and waiting and offense and hurt.

They taught me to go from this place 
and put down roots and let people in. 

And, eventually, I did 
and I am grateful for 
that motley tribe and what they teach me still, 
when I remember.

I am reminded that the trail 
is sometimes flat and open and comes easily. 
The ground springs beneath my boots, coniferous cushion.

But sometimes it is steep and arduous
and I have to put my head down
and need an encouraging word to get to the top.



The trail is sometimes muddy
and I have to slog my way through
and progress can only be made slowly.

Sometimes the trail is littered
with branches 
or it is closed 
and we have to find another way
and there are obstacles to overcome. 



Sometimes the fog descends and we can't see the peak 
or even the next bend
but 
there are trail markers, if you look for them.
And if I missed it someone on my team has spotted it 
and they show me which way to take
so we keep going
together.



I am reminded 
that I don't need to know what awaits today
or exactly where the trail leads
if I trust the Guide.

(And we never really know it)

I can see the next step, and that is enough

to follow.

On having no idea where I am going

It has been a little quiet around here, I've been tuning out of most blogs and social media lately. I feel a need to quiet my mind, fill myself with God's Word, to open my mouth and eat what he gives me. And it is "as sweet as honey in my mouth."

We're in a season of seeking, listening and planning. Looking back and looking forward. I dug out my journals and notebooks from a decade ago. Sometimes I shake my head at the folly of my ways, sometimes in wonder at my youthful boldness and wisdom, and mostly I bow it in thankfulness for God's faithfulness and all that He has done. He has led and guided when I was all confusion and striving and questions. He has done far more than I ever asked or imagined. I have so much peace going into this next season knowing who holds me, us, our little lambs. As our pastor reminded us beautifully in church this morning, the other disciples stayed in the boat while Peter stepped out bravely on the waves, thinking the boat was safer. But that little fishing boat in the storm was never safe. Either way, He has always been the one holding me.

Everything I knew and believed 10 years ago has been taken apart and put back together again since, through the storms of depression, changing continents and countries, culture shock and wedding planning in a foreign culture, moving, marrying, being student-poor newlyweds, planting ourselves in a church for the first time (really putting down deep roots), writing theses, graduating, first jobs, having babies, moving again. 

It's funny, even, to see things I wrote a decade ago still ring true today. To see many of the same truths and adages, now believed with even greater conviction of a bit more life experience.

I came across the prayer of Thomas Merton copied out in my journal, sent to me by my sister. I prayed it with all my confused little heart back then, and rest today in the firm knowing that he has led me by the right road, a good road and still, he leads me on.

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me.
I cannot know for certain where it will end.
Nor do I really know myself, 
and the fact that I think I am following Your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. 
But I believe that the desire to please You
does in fact please you.
And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.
I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.
And I know that, if I do this, You will lead me by the right road,
though I may know nothing about it.
Therefore I will trust You always though I may seem to be lost
and in the shadow of death.
I will not fear, for You are ever with me,
and You will never leave me to face my perils alone.

Required Reading {Engaging Culture}

As a child, I lived much of the time in the imagined 19th century of my mind, playing dress-up and reading hundreds of girl's novels about the olden days. Laura Ingalls and Mandie were among my best friends. 

It seemed more exciting, more romantic, more adventurous than my own farm childhood.

I often wished I had been born in another time and place.

~

At a recent academic conference, I was chatting with an acquaintance from another university, catching up on our private and professional lives. We discussed her past research in Canadian literature, and a novel both of us had read. She raved about this novel, while I expressed that although it was a page-turner I had read within the space of 24 hours, years ago in a tent while camping in Austria, I had found some scenes in the novel extremely disturbing. 

"Am I just overly sensitive when it comes to protecting children and abuse?" I wondered. The novel gave a stark and realistic portrayal of a Maritime community, a certain kind of life in a specific time and place. 

Knowing each other to both be believing Christians, we cautiously broached the subject of what is acceptable for a Jesus-follower to read, to research, to teach. 

Is there merit in fiction which portrays evil? In filling one's mind with images, stories which disturb, even disgust?

This is a topic I have wrestled with for a few years. On the one hand, I believe each reader must be discerning about what does them good and may cause them to have thoughts which are negative, unhelpful, even sinful. The Bible teaches us to "gird up the loins of our minds." To think about, to dwell on, that which is honourable, pure, just, lovely, excellent, commendable, praiseworthy. 

But perhaps there is a difference between reading, and dwelling on. 

I do not believe Christians should confine their reading to the sterilized "Christian fiction" (often taking place in a romanticized 19th century or among the Amish) of the Christian bookstore. This kind of reading seldom portrays realistic, present-day characters, with real questions and problems, real sin, real struggle, and real redemption. It rarely helps you to better understand your neighbour who is facing a divorce, your brother-in-law's alcoholism, your high-school aged son who feels lost and isolated, hiding a porn addiction, the bi-polar colleague with erratic behaviour, nor the homeless man you pass everyday in the street feeling guilty about. Rather, "Christian fiction" provides escapism from the realities of life in the here and now, the place God has pulled me out of eternity to live in. 

Escapism does not honour a God who determined the exact times and places where we should live.

~ 

As I've mentioned before, I found great encouragement in knowing that the prophet Daniel did a Bachelor's in literature. He was appointed to a place of influence in a foreign Kingdom after having studied the language and literature of the Chaldeans for three years.

Jesus hung out with people of all walks of life, from the despised prostitute to the hated rich tax collector, from working-class fishermen to the religious leaders of the day. He engaged with his culture, ate and drank and went to parties, and never shied away from a controversy. He cared about people. Messed up, broken, sinful people like us. He was not oblivious to the world going on around him, to the needs and struggles. He was not hiding in his holiness.

~

Literature - short stories, novels, poetry - is an amazing tool for understanding and engaging the culture we live in. Classic works of a nation's fiction, as well as current bestsellers, should be required reading for anyone hoping to impact that culture. Fiction gives us a window into understanding peoples' motivations, their world view, the history and politics which impact their way of reasoning, behaving, deciding, believing.

There will be things which disturb. You probably won't like all of the characters and wish you were like them, or even want to cheer for them. 

Fiction gives us eyes to see, ears to hear. It enables us to go where perhaps our own feet never will, to ask questions we are too embarrassed to speak out, to understand and give a frame of reference for starting a conversation.

Here. 

In the real world, with our real, broken, messy colleagues, family, neighbours, ourselves.

Now.

For such a time as this.

Stumbling Stones {Day of German Unity}

My eye watches for them
and catches their quiet gleam
amidst busy and rush and to-do.

Crowds push,
Swiss shoppers getting
a Euro bargain.

Children pull and run off,
prams heavy-laden.
Dogs snuffle for crumbs.
Spoons clink glass at outdoor cafés,
Air sharp with autumn.

For those with eyes to see
they quietly remind
of tragedies gone by.

Names not quite erased.

How many eyes really stumble across them?
Another century, a millenium from here.

People made in the image
of an eternal God
Taken.
Tortured.
Murdered.

Verhaftet.
Deportiert.
Ermordet.

These words stark and cruel
Interrupt my self-absorbed life.
Imprisoned. Deported. Murdered.

Is it enough
just to remember?
To pause for a moment,
then continue
empyting my purse.
Eyes never have enough of seeing.

Some fled.
Überlebt.
Survived.
A sigh of relief.
Does one cancel out the other?

No.

Here lived Max Braitsch
Born 1901
Arrested as part of the resistance 1939
1940 penal camp Aschendorfer Moor
1944 Pardoned
Survived

Today we celebrate the "Day of German Unity." We are so thankful. Reconcilation, reunification. East and West. One nation again.

Lest we forget what preceeded that division.

One of the things I cherish most about Konstanz is the initiative of artists to lay down Stolpersteine (stumbling stones), small brass stones integrated into the cobblestone in front of the houses (the last freely chosen home) where Jews and members of the resistance lived before the second World War. Their names, dates of birth and death, and what happened to them are straightforwardly stated. If they escaped. The names of the camps where they were taken. Whether they survived or were murdered.

I stop, I pause, I remember. I pray.
Lest we forget.

The school courtyard where my husband teaches.

Here taught
Dr. Hermann Venedey
Born 1904
Fled 1933
Switzerland
Survived

Here lived
Simon Alexander
Born 1901
Arrested 1938
Dachau
Deported 1940
Gurs
Rivesaltes
Murdered September 18, 1942
Auschwitz

These photos from the Stolpersteine Konstanz site: http://stolpersteine-konstanz.de/.

A sun-drenched, cappuccino & chocolate filled late-summer weekend

Saturday night I posted on Twitter my #onewordcheckin check-in "thankful" and went on to say, somewhat defeating the one word part "we've had the most restful, beautiful, adventurous, sun-drenched, cappuccino & chocolate filled late-summer weekend." 

It truly was a weekend for the books. The preceding weekend was exhausting, solo-parenting with my husband away from Friday at 5 to the wee hours of Monday morning. The kids don't like it, I don't like it. We went to several church services at our church where we could hang out with friends & I had help with the kids, and a dear friend, Sylvie, came over Saturday evening, but still, we just survived it. The weekend before that, we had just returned from Canada and were dealing with jet lag, taming the wild yard, washing and putting away, and sorting all the kids clothes: what's too small, too big, what can be sold at the upcoming Kinderbasar. 

So this weekend was much-needed and such a blessing. We had had one more glorious week of late-summer sunshine, temperatures around 27 degrees every day which is my sweet spot. Not too hot, not humid, just gorgeous skirt and t-shirt weather. I worked until mid-afternoon Friday at the university while my husband, on his final day of paternity leave, took care of the kids and grocery shopped. It is typical for many people in Germany to stop working at around 2 or 3 pm on Fridays. All official offices, schools, universities etc will basically be closed to the public as of noon on Friday. It is a busy time for all in the service industry, obviously, but many others start their weekend sometime before 3 or 4 pm on Friday. 

We decided spontaneously to visit a nearby city, Ueberlingen, which we hadn't been to in about a year. There were two main motivators for the trip - we wouldn't need to use the car, and Ueberlingen is on the other side of our lake in perfect position to catch all of the early evening sun. We put the kids in the Chariot, jumped on our bikes and rode the 3 km downhill to the sister-village Wallhausen. From Easter-October there is a passenger ferry which runs from Wallhausen to Ueberlingen. It carries people and usually almost as many bikes, as our area is the perfect bike-tourism destination. (We locked our bikes and Chariot on the dock and got a round-trip ticket.) The 15-minute ride is just right for kids, enough time to enjoy the view, the thrill of being on the water and exploring the boat, but not long enough to get bored.

We disembarked in Ueberlingen and enjoyed strolling around their Seepromenade (lake promenade), a long strip of restaurants, parks, ice-cream stores and places to access the lake for a swim or sit and enjoy the view. 

Then we all enjoyed gelatto and wading around in the fountain.

My only complaint was that the last ferry back home was at 18:30, another hour and watching the sun sink towards the horizon would have been just fine with me. But we did run into our friendly pediatrician with his bike and a huge ice cream cone on the ferry, and did an informal check-up on the way back home saving us a trip to his office.

The steep uphill bike ride home ensured we got our weekend work out in. At home we got the kids in bed and topped off the evening with white wine, a French cheese plate and Les Miserables. And some Swiss chocolate. Perfect day.

Saturday I got to sleep in a little while my husband took baby on an early morning walk to the bakery for fresh bread. After our traditional leisurely Saturday morning breakfast with a strong cappuccino to try to wake this night owl, we got ready and took the Chariot (this time in its stroller-function) downtown on the bus to the Altstadt (the old part of the city of Konstanz, where all the shops are in the large pedestrian only zone). The bus is definitely the most relaxing option on a Saturday, we loved avoiding the traffic and parking.


We enjoyed the city before it got busy, browsing in a few locally-owned shops and, especially, hanging out for an hour on our favourite street. The Zollernstrasse is only a block or two away from the busiest parts of Konstanz, which are overrun with tourists and street performers in summer. But this street is quieter, mostly-pedestrian and features a high-end but inspiring Danish furniture/housewares store. I'm not in the market for anything but dreams at the moment, but I love to browse there. Just out front there are 3 small pieces of kids playground equipment (how to call them?), which our city has installed in various locations throughout the pedestrian zone. Our son loves these, and can play on them easily for an hour, running back and forth between them. What a delight for a child amidst mama & papa's errands and being dragged from shop to shop, to find something just for them? Even if we only have 5 or 10 minutes we always stop to let our kids enjoy them. 

A chococcino from the real-deal Italian, standing-only cafe and dealer in espresso paraphernalia across the street made my morning.

We spent the next few hours at the annual Kinderfest put on by our city, with stands from many different Kindergartens and child-related businesses with free activities and giveaways for kids. A fire truck and ambulance to explore topped off the experience for our kids, who then both zonked out, one in the Chariot, one in the Ergo on my husband's back, enabling us to enjoy a quiet lunch date at our favourite gourmet burger restaurant. 





Today autumn arrived with the rain. Today was Sabbath and rest and a walk with my babe in my new wellies.



Thankful.

Border-crossers

I love/hate this university courtyard terrace with its postmodern architecture; I hate the dips, slants, precarious cobblestone steps and myriad potential for tripping, catching a heel, falling in front of a hundred students/colleagues/professors while trying to balance a coffee in one hand, lunch in another, and a transparent library bag of books slung over your shoulder. I love soaking up one of the surely last hot days of summer, trying to infuse the coffee directly into my bones after a sedentary morning proofreading an article in my north-side, shaded office. I love overhearing conversations in a handful of languages; a post-doc complaining in English to his silent colleagues about both his boss and his Hiwis (student assistants) "I said yes but then some minutes later I thought, I am not a secretary!"; a young female student exclaims loudly in German "It was on sale!!"; the Chinese man talking loudly to too compatriots at a picnic table; another group sitting cross-legged speaking Spanish. German students explaining how hard it was to get accepted to their program of choice; others, obviously all non-native-English speakers, getting to know new friends in Europe's common tongue. I am reminded it is September, not quite "back to school" time at German universities (the fall-winter semester begins in mid-October), but there are still plenty of people in the library, finishing papers, studying for their state exams, and a batch of new ERASMUS international students freshly arrived in town for their pre-semester German course.

I took that same German course 8 years ago when I first moved to Konstanz. It was the second German course of my life, after having providentially learned to count to 100, introduce myself (Ich bin Christina. Ich komme aus Kanada. Ich spreche englisch und französisch.) and sing Grün Grün Grün sind alle meine Kleider in an introductory German course at Université Laval in Quebec City three years prior. Back then I had no idea I would marry a German, move to Germany, and end up with German children with whom I would later sing that same children's song. Somebody else did. 

That month-long September Kurs back in 2005 equipped me with the simple past and future tenses and some key vocab to help me decode rental ads in my desperate search to find a room to rent in a WG (living community, that is, an apartment shared with other people who are often strangers at first). During my first month in Germany, my then-boyfriend now-husband was out of town working and I was thrown in the deep-end, alone in a new culture, going to apartment-interviews by myself armed with my vast knowledge of German and hopefully cute enough accent to get me a roof over my head (everyone thought I was French, with my Québécois-tinged German pronunciation).

During that month I crossed the Swiss-German border every day from where I was staying on the Swiss side to get to the university and to search for a German abode. In the evenings I would wander the streets searching for reception on my German cell phone so I could talk to my boyfriend on the phone, telling him of all my incomprehensible and frightening encounters with the German species. We'd often crossed that border in trepidation the preceding spring, when I was just visiting him and had technically overstayed my official welcome in the EU.

Why are border crossings always laced with fear, tinged with trepidation? Even in those with nothing to hide, with all the right papers and none of the wrong baggage, borders make us nervous. 

I grew up an hour and a bit away from the Windsor-Detroit border, between Canada and the United States. Approaching a border always was coupled with getting our story straight, rehearsing the most straight-forward way of explaining where we were going and why. As kids we sensed the tension in our parents voices, the command to "Quiet down!" At the border, the customs official is clearly in control and we must be polite, clear and direct to avoid any uncomfortable delays or random searches.

Although borders are invisible, they are felt. They are felt by those international students, new to this university, this culture. Flying over the ocean on my first few trips to and from Europe, I always spent some of the plane ride in deep introspection. [I chuckled to myself remembering this during our flight to Canada last month. Now our flights are consumed with trying to keep the kids reasonably quiet, amused, dry, fed, and hopefully at some point asleep. Now I juggle snack boxes and board books, soother and drawing tablet rather than staring out at the plane's wing having a metaphysical moment. These days I am excited if I get a chance to actually finish one in-flight movie after seventy-billion interruptions.] Back then, I would gaze out over the cloud-carpet and journalling what I was leaving behind and my hopes and goals for what awaited me. Crossing borders means transition, usually leaving behind one stage of life, one adventure, and passing on to the next. The liminal space of an airplane and a long flight allow time to take in the border, time to swallow the crossing and all its implications. 

Borders separate, they demarcate difference. Borders give security by retaining the power of exclusion.   Europe's borders are becoming more permeable, cities (and even villages) are ever more diverse. This university courtyard buzzes with border-crossers; many of these students and faculty have crossed borders and do so daily be they political, disciplinary, cultural, socio-economic, generational. 

I too long to be a border-crosser, one who erases the lines that separate a little more each day.

Sense of Space

"The sense of space might have triggered lighter emotions, less depressing thoughts, a sense of well-being."  Dionne Brand, What We All Long For (261)

Brand's novel refers to a downtown Toronto housing project lacking in any landscaping or foliage to ease weary urban eyes, what the sight of some flowers could have done to increase the sense of space the tightly-packed residents had. I find myself on the farm I grew up in in southwestern Ontario, Canada as I write these words. Surrounded by corn, soybeans, mown wheat fields, and no lack of native flora and fauna. Crickets and grasshoppers twirr in the humid night air. Earlier we were privy to a fantastic thunder and light show, the better part of an hour of torrential rain and skies repeatedly lit up like the day. It is 1:54 a.m. My late night imperative to write can not be blamed on jet lag. Our 6 hours ahead caused my little family to go to bed early and our bright-eyed baby to awaken us all at 4:30 a.m. for the first four days, eager to crawl and test her standing legs. But we've been in North America for over a week now, thus adjusted and truly I should be asleep. 

Yet I am awake and must write, writing has been pent up in my bones amidst days filled with children's games and squabbles, swimming pools and BBQs, steaks and corn on the cob. Traveling from one sibling's home to another, evenings after my generation's offspring are finally in bed spent catching up on two years of lives lived. We've been crossing borders; national, parental, traditional, faithful. How can four children of the same parents, living in one house on the same plot of land til their 18th birthdays, have developed so differently? We all share the Christian faith, a conviction of God as our Father, Jesus as our Saviour and the Holy Spirit as our Comforter and Empowerer. Yet we manifest quite a wide range of the expressions of that faith. This could lead to tensions and disputes, concerns and arguments, hurt feelings and misunderstandings. I want to choose to see this diversity as a beautiful, life-giving thing. There is space in this upside-down Kingdom for difference, for the beauty and complexity that we see embodied in each person, image-bearer of our beautifully complex, multi-faceted God.

Space, a sense of space in the family of Jesus-followers is what we all need. Space to be who we long to be, the deep calls out to deep inside us, to follow the nudges and Spirit whispers. Freedom from boxed in, pre-conceived ideas of who we ought to be, who others got used to perceiving us as, perhaps from what was inherited or passed down; free from labels, taunts, childhood insecurities.

A post card sent to my great-grandmother in 1906.

I love my family and am deeply grateful for them, for who they are, what they have given me and still give me. We have all settled geographically apart from one another, flung from west coast to middle America to Europe. The longer we live apart, the more we adapt to and are influenced by our cultures, be they national, church, political, or socio-demographic cultures. We find our place. The common bond of family runs deeper than this land on which we were raised, which our ancestors worked for inch by inch, struggling and straining to hold down the family farm, to keep the bank at bay. This hard-fought land may one day be sold to others, our generation having found our niches elsewhere. The family name may vanish and be forgotten from this farming community of which I, the youngest and last to go, have not been a part for almost 15 years now. But loss of land will not weaken the bond, will not change what makes us family, for better, for worse. Through email and Skype, rather than the leather post cards my great-grandmother received, we'll keep checking in, keep loving each other. 

A leather post card my great-grandmother received 1906

We do not have to think, act, decide, spend money, believe, play or work the same to be family. We do not have to be uniform to belong to this great, colourful, eclectic family of God, but if we give each other a sense of space to be who we are our lungs with fill, our chests will rise and we'll be able to fling our arms back in the warm summer rain, inhale the lush moist night, find our footsteps, and dance. 

Sand

We left the park's Visitor's Centre, where we had learned about the local flora and fauna, and crossed the road. Andreas has been in awe of all the new Canadian sites, the seemingly endless fields of corn, the forests, the boardwalks, the mini-golf, the massive windmills. He was baffled that there were no sidewalks beside the road. He still staunchly speaks German all the time, explaining that he simply likes German! I love explaining things to him and pointing out the differences. Questions like "Are we still in Canada?" remind me that he is just a little boy, not yet three. (On the 7 hour flight, he asked me several times, "Are we on a plane, or a train?") He has had a lot to take in over the past few days.

As we crossed a small stone parking lot I explained that we were going to the beach, just over there, pointing ahead of us as the trees gave way to beach grasses. I stopped and showed him how to pull apart a certain kind of beach grass and put it back together, telling him what I liked doing when I was a little girl.

His grandparents and Papa were walking ahead of us with his little sister on the path as we lagged behind. When the stones of the parking lot began to give way to white sand, Andreas stopped in his tracks and started piling sand up around his feet. A few steps in front of him were some garbage pails and a sign, beyond that the trail cut through a sand dune, getting softer and squishier with each step, and I knew, just over the rise, was a wide and mostly empty sandy beach and vast Lake Erie, spreading out as far as our eyes could see. 

"Andreas, you can keep going, there is a lot more sand on the beach!" 

He kept pushing the sand into a little pile. 

"Just follow Papa, we're going to the beach where there is a lot more sand!"

He kept working hard, intent on the thin layer of sand directly in front of his feet. Some strangers walked past us and smiled at his eagerness as he played in the parking lot.

The metaphor is easy to grasp. How many times do I stop and busy myself with that which is directly in front of my feet, easy to get to, instead of following our Papa God down the path, into the expanse of joy, goodness, plenty, that he has for me? The short-term, easily attainable happiness, rather than pushing on, trusting and following him over the rise into the unknown. What He has in store for us is always better, richer, deeper than what we can find for ourselves.

Out of the pond

"Only later would I discover that most other people simply floated in mossy little ponds labeled 'French and Catholic' or 'English and Protestant', never wondering what it might be like to step ashore. To be out of a pond is to be in unmapped territory." ~ Mavis Gallant, The Selected Stories of Mavis Gallant. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1996, 691.

There was a time when I didn't like Montreal. In my self-important, navel-gazing 19-22-year-old phase I was both too Ontarian and too francophile for Montreal.  I was living in Québec City at the time, and only traveled through le metropol on my way back to see my family in Ontario, changing trains in Montreal, or visiting some friends of friends from the islands for a party. I found Montreal to be a strange mix of the things I loved about Toronto and Québec City, neither one nor the other. A vast urban centre second only in size in Canada to Toronto, the city of Montreal is roughly half French-speaking and half Other. I found being greeted in English in stores or restaurants in downtown Montreal off-putting (and if someone detected my accent and switched to English in a conversation: downright insulting! I considered it one of my Major Life Achievements when people stopped switching to English upon hearing me speak.)

Montreal seemed to be a mix of too many other things that didn't fit into the image of Quebec in my head. Having always had an intrinsic desire to become bilingual, a life-long love of the French language and Quebec, I wanted to throw myself into Québécois culture.  During the two years I lived in Quebec City, the only times I spoke English were to my family on the phone once or twice a week. My only English input at the time was occasionally watching the news on CBC, unless it was one of the rare times my francophone coloc wasn't at her boyfriend's place, and she asked me shyly if we couldn't watch the news in French while eating dinner?

Having lived in Europe for the past nine years, I have loosened up about language. When I first came to Germany, I was shocked - shocked! - to hear English (read: American) music on the radio most of the time. To see English signs and slogans liberally scattered over the landscape. And nobody cared. We're not in language-law-territory anymore. 

Montreal is a famously divided city, The Two Solitudes and all of that. I am quite in support of CanCon legislation and measures to protect the French language in Quebec, and I'm not trying to stir the pot today. Living in Europe with its many languages, learning to survive/thrive in my third and being forced to teach business English to pay the rent in our early married days brought me back down to earth. I'm glad I can speak English, it is helpful and I'm no longer too cool or too Québécoise or whatever I thought I was back then to care too much what language people address me in. Whatever the language, it is the heart of the person I want to get to know, and whichever means helps me to do that I'll use. 

The I'm-back-in-Montreal-and-it's-snowing! face, 2009.

Somehow, whenever we have visited North America over the past 9 years most of our travels have brought us to Montreal, and my fascination with this enigmatic city has grown. I love Montreal, the diversity, the cold, the pastries; my old friends who have migrated there from St-Jo or Québec or the islands; the crazy, suicidal outdoor staircases; the code-switching mid-sentence and cacophony of franglais. The quote above is from one of the best short story writers on the planet, Mavis Gallant, born and raised in Montreal in the 1920s-30s. Rare for an English-speaking child at the time, she was sent to francophone convent schools, thus resulting in her rather unique perspective on Montreal, out of the pond, in unmapped territory.  

Many would say that this contact zone of cultures and languages, everyday bordercrossings and forays into unmapped territories is what makes Montreal such fertile ground for cultural creatives. Today I read that, among its many other illustrious cultural achievements, Montreal has been called "the spoken word capital of North America" (see Anglo-Quebec Poetry 1976 to the 21st Century edited by Jason Camlot and Todd Swift). Cultural geographers have a field day with Montreal, attempting to chart its the depth and width and breadth. 

What I love about this international life I've been called to, married to a German, having left chunks of my heart in Quebec and Ontario, Greece and Austria and Uganda and Konstanz, is being out of the pond. Out of breath and laughing on the sandy beach, exhausted but jumping back in again. Sloshing water from one pond into another, disrupting stagnant ecosystems, adding a little fresh water, a little salty. Bathing in alterity and resurfacing with new perspectives, wider range of vision, beyond any one cultural or linguistic group. Crawling back into my kayak and learning to surf the waves.

Narrative Saves Lives

So there is a new "narrative mapping" tool out there, touted as the "new instagram for writers." You (may have) heard it here first.

Story + maps = me happy! 

A lot of my research has to do with concepts of place and space and how the spaces we inhabit shape us and we shape them, and how all of this is represented in fiction. (I am working on my doctoral dissertation in North American literature and cultural studies, specifically focusing on comparative English-Canadian and Québécois fiction.) These ideas can seem very abstract, or even "obvious," to the uninitiated. ("You are writing an entire book about 'the North?'" Eyes glaze over.) I have always had trouble wrapping my mind around some philosophical concepts, and I am thankful for those scholars who have summed up and deconstructed Lefebvre, Soja and Bhabha for the rest of us.

It took me a long time to decide to pursue a Master's degree in literature because I struggled with thoughts that it wasn't "important enough." (I started in 2008 and finished my final oral exam in 2010, the day before my maternity leave with our first child began.) I always wanted to make a difference in the world, to do something of eternal value. I had a five-year break between finishing my Bachelor's degree (from U of T while living in Quebec, another story) and starting my Master. During those intervening years I got to travel and volunteer at two Bible schools in Austria and Greece, met the man of my dreams (and beyond what I had on my little checklist), got married and settled in Konstanz. I started, then stopped, another M.A. program that wasn't for me. (In Toronto, we used words and books to study political science, not the statistics and SPSS of the KN school of public policy and management! Numbers are not my friend.) Getting over the shock of not succeeding in my studies for the first time was a major life lesson in not putting my self-worth in what I do and achieve, but who I am in Christ.

I had often felt divided, pulled between a career in academia and serving in "ministry." I knew doing an M.A. would take time and hard work and thus would leave less time to be directly invested in other things. A desire to learn, research, study and write has been inside of me since I was an embryo (or, as we tell our son when he asks where he was when we got married, or when mommy lived in Canada, since I was "in God's thoughts, but not on Earth yet.")

So back in 2006-08, I took a long time to decide to do an M.A. in literature. My husband has always encouraged me, he has always supported me in chasing my dreams and fulfilling my potential. Finally, I found encouragement in Daniel's story. Yes, that guy with the lions, though not that part specifically. Daniel the man God used greatly in a foreign kingdom to have a place of influence in society, he did a B.A. in literature and cultural studies (check it out.) Good enough for an OT prophet, good enough for me. But before this epiphany, I struggled with thoughts that literature didn't "really matter." I mean, this isn't medicine, it isn't going to save someone's life. 

Or could it?

Could narrative save someone's life? Could telling a story, and telling it well, actually give hope to someone in the pit of despair? Actually resonate with a stranger on the other side of the planet and make them feel less alone? Could it shine light on the evils of forced sex slavery, motivate just one person to kick up a fuss, to spread awareness, to raise funds, to facilitate freedom for a victim? Could narrative literally save the life of a 13 year old girl who is at this very moment locked in a dirty room near Hamburg's port, handcuffed and brutalized up to 40 times a day?

Hot tears burn my eyes as I write these words but they must be written. I must tell their stories.

Freedom starts with us.

Join me in the fight against human trafficking, won't you? To learn more about the problem and see how you can be part of the solution go to the A21 Campaign, whose goal is abolish the injustice of human trafficking and sex slavery in the 21st century. They are on the ground in several European source and destination countries, working to rescue and rehabilitate victims as well as prosecuting perpetrators. Join us in spreading freedom in Europe. It isn't just happening “over there,” it happens here. In our city, our country. Freedom starts with us.