Baby, Baby, Baby Oh.....

You know how, when you listen to a catchy song, and it stays with you for the next seven thousand hours of your life? Usually just one phrase runs on repeat through your head, which winds up with you filling your gas tank and belting out something along the lines of:

"Baby, baby, baby, ohhhh, Like, baby, baby, baby, Nooo...."

And then when the person across from you gives you the stink eye, you end up vomiting forth a really lame excuse for why you are singing a Justin Bieber song while paying way too much for gas.

"Um yeah....my dumb sister. Totally obsessed with him, and now I can't get his DAMN song out of my head. You know how it is... HAH. Like I would ever listen to Justin Bieber....."

Well, tonight I felt the need for some dance worthy music, possibly because I have not been able to get warm for the past week, and needed to shimmy my way across the living room to get my blood flowing.

The song "Lady Marmalade" from Moulin Rouge came to mind as something I had to listen to.

Don't watch the music video.

You just did, didn't you? Slightly scandalous right?

But it's fun to dance to.

Dancing accomplished, a little warmer, I went to wash dishes, and found myself repeating one phrase over and over again.

Slowly, very slowly I identified the phrase that was stuck in my head, and therefore what I was actually saying.

All I can say is, this song better be scrubbed from my head by tomorrow.

I really, really, don't want to be in a French speaking country and find myself in the produce section of the local supermarket, repeating "Voulez-vous coucher avec moi ce soir?" over and over to myself like a broken record.

The cashier already thinks I am highly questionable since, today, I dared to venture into her supermarket dressed in sweatpants.

That, my friends, is a definite no-no and, since this is France, sweatpants are quite possibly worse than absentmindedly and un-intentionally propositioning the produce clerk as you pick over the apples.

Meaghen

Meaghen has proven herself the man in this relationship.

Yesterday, I lugged a Christmas Tree up the stairs and tried to set it up in the little log stand that came with it. After a few....seconds...of trying to wedge the trunk into the little hole carved into the log-stand, I gave up. My hands were hurting. I was covered with pine needles. I was feeling vaguely depressed.

"Meaghen, I totally can't do this."

She ambled over to inspect my progress. "......right. Ok....I'm not sure what you were trying to do here, but....there you go."

With basically a flick of her pinky, the tree was standing proud and tall.

Today, we thought it would be an excellent idea to get our fire going. Meaghen broke wood kindling apart like a champ, built the fire and got it going roaring quite savagely. Part of me wanted to help. But the other part of me knew I would be next to useless. Snap a board in half with my foot?

Oh please.

Try to light wood on fire?

Let's be honest: I would most likely light myself before the wood caught.

Instead, I made her tea and put out a plate of cookies to show my appreciation for her manly gifts, and then painted my nails as our living room warmed up and the sounds of crackling wood filled the air.

She also sweeps the floor, because she knows it makes me really queasy to even think about doing that.

During the violent parts of Prison Break or whatever else we happen to be watching, I cover my head with a blanket and hyperventilate until she tells me it's OK to look again. Occasionally I grab her arm and squeeze it until her circulation is cut off. She rarely complains.

She fully supports my chocolate addiction. In fact, her's might be worse than mine. She doesn't judge me when I have chocolate for breakfast.

What a friend, right?

Meaghen: Consider this a proposal.

Hunger

The Intermarche down the road from me is a fairly large, well stocked supermarket, which has all the normal supermarket amenities, including about 6 checkout counters. Very rarely, however, is more than one counter going at a time.

A string of about 6 or 7 customers with bulging carts can be lined up waiting patiently, and still, the man polishing the apples, the girl re-arranging the wrapping paper, and the woman counting coins at her (closed) till - all employees of the supermarket - will remain doing what they are doing, leaving one lone cashier to deal with everything.

No one seems to have a problem with this. A half hour wait to pay for your groceries? Not even a ripple of dissatisfaction. They all seem perfectly content to stare into space whistling softly to themselves.

A price check can take upwards of ten minutes. The cashier will pick up her phone and ask for assistance; until help comes, she starts an involved, highly animated conversation with the customer. When help ambles up at a leisurely pace, he proves to be puzzled by what is being asked of him, necessitating a mass exodus of the cashier, the customer, and any other interested parties, to that part of the store from which the item is supposed to have come.

And still, not even a whimper of despair comes forth from anyone in the line.

I, on the other hand, am basically shaking in an anxious agony. My thoughts start to spin out of control:

"Getting through the grocery store is not supposed to take this long. Haven't they heard of efficiency? Customer service? Oh dear Buddha I am going to DIE if I have to stay in the line a moment longer. Oh my gosh I might start SCREAMING. What if I fall on the floor, foaming at the mouth: would they let me through faster?"

A weirded out glance is directed my way, and I realize I am hopping from foot to foot in my complete anxiety to be rid of the place. I must look like I have to pee about three gallons of fluid.

"Deep Breaths, Mary. You can do this. You don't have to be anywhere. This is fine. Enjoy the wait. Smell the smells of the supermarket. Soak it in. DEeeeep Breaths....

"OH MY GOSH the damn hippy in front of my hasn't showered in about 500 days. This is disgusting. What is WRONG with him? Hasn't he heard of deodorant? I think my nostrils have to be fumigated. I bet I have some airborne disease now. He is probably carrying the plague. LET ME OUT OF THIS PLACE."

The anxious hopping starts back up, and I start to contemplate dumping my basket of food onto the floor in a grand gesture of self-righteous anger at European inefficiency.

Back home, even a 30 second fumble as I try to wedge my debit card out of its wallet garners grumblings of dissatisfaction, anxious glances at watches, and has the cashier tapping her nails against the register in an impatient staccato. And I get it, I totally get it; the number of times I have been behind someone and wanted to grab their wallet and get their damn card out for them are too many to count.

What is this terror of waiting?

If I am behind a line of ten people at Starbucks, and it takes the cashier more than two minutes to get all those orders and process all those payments, why do I start groaning as if death is imminent?

If I take my car for an oil change, and there is more than one car ahead of me, I will pull out and resolve to try again later - even if the oil needed changing about 1500 kms ago.

If I am in a line at the store, and the cashier is being trained, I don't even try to wait. I just dump my stuff and walk out. Too bad, amazing shoes that made my heart stop. You just better be there tomorrow.

It's not just me, either. I know very few people who are comfortable with waiting.

We live in a time where we have to wait for very little. Especially in North America, this is taken to extreme degrees: "If your pizza isn't there in 10 minutes, it's on us!" or "If your plumber isn't there within half an hour of your call, we pay YOU!"

We are encouraged to wait for very little; I can't really think of anything that we are told it is better to wait for - except for, perhaps, having children. Perhaps this is because children really slow you down....those little suckers really make you wait.

(At which point I stared at my laptop for 2 hours, drinking wine and staring into space, randomly answering emails. What did I start out trying to say? What is the resolution of this post - is there one? Where is my brain? Why am I so tired? Is it normal to eat chocolate in place of a balanced meal? Maybe that is why I am tired - my body is dying of nutrient deficiency. Is it possible to drink too much tea? What if there is no other way to stay warm? Am I drowning my organs? Why am I so neurotic?)

And then Meaghen grabbed my laptop because she wanted me to finish so we could watch more Prison Break together, huddled in the couch, screeching at the gross scenes.

From Meaghen:

And all of this just because you were dying of hunger and couldn't stand to wait in line for more than .003 seconds. I think we found the root of Western Impatience right there: hunger. In this case, physical. But in general? Spiritual. At least I think that's what you are trying to say.

Amen.

Thank you.

I'll be here all week.

Until March.

Just Listen

I have too much floating around in my head to pull out anything resembling coherent ideas, so I leave you with two songs. They will be more enjoyable and lovely than anything I could have written. Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsCCnpcGEWI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8pQLtHTPaI&ob=av2e

Insanity

SO.

So.

The Baths at Lourdes.

I gotta say. Catholics really must look insane to the outside world.

Catholics are the kind of people who, at least once a week on Sundays, and sometimes every day if they are trying to be especially good, eat something which looks like bread, but is apparently Body, alongside something which smells like wine, but is apparently Blood.

..........weird, right?

Catholics are the kind of people who go in a little box, kneel down, and spew forth their dastardly deeds to a man who then tells them everything is a-ok as long as they go say Hail Mary and try not to do any of it again.

And they actually believe him.

Catholics are the kind of people who have a dozen kids and seem to think nothing of it.

You can't make this stuff up.

Catholics are also the kind of people who travel to small towns in France in order to get dunked in ice cold mountain spring water that supposedly has healing properties.

I mean, who DOES that?

Well, this girl for one.

It was the craziest experience ever.

After about a 45 minute wait outside a low stone building, I was called into a curtained room along with 5 other women, and led to a chair where I was told to put my bag. I turned expectantly to my guide, eagerly awaiting my next instructions.

She started to help me take off my jacket. Fine, good.

That accomplished, I turned to her again.

She looked at me like I was an idiot. In a flurry of motion, and a flood of French sprinkled with bits of English, I was informed that she wanted it all off. Every last bit of clothing. And underclothing.

HERE? In a room full of STRANGERS?

I am a repressed Canadian girl. We don't do public nakedness. We are the kind of people who don't kiss others on the cheek in greeting; we gingerly stick out a cold hand for a brief hand shake. And then we surreptitiously dump hand sanitizer on our hands. For the germs. Obviously.

I just stared at her. She sighed and motioned to the cloak she was holding. She would hold it up as I stripped down. No worries.

No WORRIES? I was expecting a little change room, and some sort of disposable bathing suit.

Clothes stripped, wrapped in a long cloak, I was then pushed through another curtain. Three women awaited me there, smiling angelically....which did not prepare me for what happened next.

The cloak was stripped from me and there I was, naked as the day I was born, but without the benefit of being unaware that I was, shivering in front of three elderly French women. I felt like delivering some sort of tirade:

"What is this place? Why don't you get change rooms? Can't I just walk into the water with the cloak on? Only my doctor gets to see me naked, and then only in bits, never all at once. And we always deflate the situation by talking about traveling. He tells me where I should go, and I tell him where I want to go, and they are never the same place, but that's ok because at least it's a distraction. WE, ladies, don't even speak the same language!"

I talk when I get nervous. A lot. Even if it's just in my head.

I also laugh. So, I laughed.

"Shhhhhhh, Mademoiselle. Shhh......."

I was distracted by the towel they then proceeded to wrap around me. After that it was a blur. I was pulled into water the temperature of barely melted ice and told to say a prayer of my choice. I could barely concentrate because I was shaking so much. It must have partly been the cold, but it also felt as if huge amounts of adrenaline were coursing through my body. In spite of the frigidness, it felt as if a bolt of warm energy was pulsating through every fiber of my being.

The next thing I knew, I was sitting in a chair, wrapped in the trusty blue cloak, still shaking, but not at all cold. I put on my clothing in a numbed silence, and walked out into the brisk fall air.

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I didn't get exactly what I asked for; I think I got more. It is as if joy is bouncing through my soul, and peace has been abundantly bestowed on me. There is also a strong stirring of hope that while I did not immediately get what I requested, it will happen. The miracle is that I am ok with that. I am fine with waiting.

This from someone who gets really, really, punchy if she is made to wait for anything.

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A priest I talked to on Sunday morning told me that healing is not always what one expects.

God desires us to be whole, and sometimes the suffering we carry allows us to be more whole and contribute to his glory in a way that would not happen if it was taken away.

Healing, then, is when his will and our will collide in a joyful one-ness that breeds an inexplicable happiness.

What more could one ask for?

Pink and Gold Sparkles

It's been a very long day. But.... beautiful and amazing.

Lourdes is a gorgeous little town surrounded by the gently mountainous Pyrenees - it has all kinds of charm and story-bookishness to recommend it. This time of year finds it not completely besieged by tourists, and it definitely has a rather sleepy relaxed vibe to it.

Our train got in just before noon, and we spent the next...two hours trying to find our hotel. Technically this should have taken about half an hour. Max. When we did find it, we collapsed in relief, and barely stopped short of kissing the ground. Both of us were puttering to a complete halt after having gotten only about 4 or 5 hours of sleep.

We had even decided in our desperation prior to finding the hotel, that if we took one more wrong turning we were just going to give up and embark on a path of self destruction that would possibly end in our deaths.

"How should we go about it?"

"....I think we should start by ingesting our own weight in chocolate."

"Perfect."

"Followed by a 60 of vodka. Each."

"Done!"

At which point we turned a corner and saw our hotel. Fortunately.

I collapsed on my bed, put my ear plugs in and conked out for an hour, while Meaghen showered and tried to rid herself of the terrible stench she kept insisting her feet were carrying.

Sorry, Meaghen.

By the time we got our act together, it was late afternoon, and more than anything we wanted to see the Grotto.

So we did. (Not my own picture. Because guess who forgot her camera? And her cellphone? And extra underwear? And toothpaste?) <---- But none of this matters because....

What peace. What an overwhelming sense of heaven touching earth.

From the moment I touched the side of the Grotto and for the next, oh, fifteen minutes....all I could do was cry. And cry. And maybe also cry.

Not gentle ladylike tears either.

No no no. This was something more along the lines of one's soul being torn in two and emptied of woundedness.

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Tomorrow sees us heading for a triple whammy of holiness in various forms.

I don't know if I will be able to handle it. My soul might expand to a bursting point of monstrous proportions.

I just got a mental image of that: pink and gold sparkles. PINK AND GOLD SPARKLES is what my soul would spit forth.

.....my soul in a completely happy state is an Elton John concert?

Oh dear.

I think I need to sleep.

Lourdes

Tomorrow - listen to this - we go to Lourdes.

O.M.G.

*Girlish squeal of delight and excitement.*

Do you believe in Miracles?

Because I do, and am asking for one. Bold move? Perhaps. But maybe my Chutzpah will get me somewhere.

Can I use "Chutzpah" in this context? Or is that just way too ecumenical? Is ecumenical even the word I want in this context?

I don't even know. My mind is distracted by other things.

Send up a little prayer for me that it is answered, and in the comments leave me any and all prayer intentions YOU have, and I promise on my own mothers life, that I will place them at Mary's feet.

As Meaghen played for me today.....http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgAIwP5vpPQ

Accents

My pajamas did not leave my body yesterday, until about four p.m. At that point, I transferred into yoga pants and a sweatshirt.

I have a vague recollection of being driven to brush my teeth because my own breath was bothering me, but that was the extent of any attempt at personal hygiene.

I didn't bother to brush my hair at all.

Meaghen and I might have watched one too many espisodes of Prison Break. As in three. Perhaps four. In between, we fell into deep comatose sleeps.

In other words, we were both struck down with a bizarre and vicious flu. It was fatigue and aches taken to the trillionth degree.

Midway through the day, someone knocked on our door.

We really didn't want to answer it, and so pretended not to hear.

A few minutes later the knock came again, only this time it sounded as if the person trying to get our attention had keys, and was actually going to enter our sacred space.

In a moment of completely blind panic, we hurled ourselves from the couch, and raced into the bathroom. We stood there for a moment, by the toilet, clutching each other in some bizarre fit of fear, each telling the other one to shut up and stop breathing.

Suddenly our eyes met, asking an unspoken question: What the hell is WRONG with us?

Typically, we are not this incredibly strange.

I think vanity fueled our bathroom bolt. We really did not want anyone, anyone at all, seeing us slumped on the couch, under piles of blankets, gnawing on chocolate, sighing over Wentworth Miller.

Add to this pathetic scene the fact that Meaghen's hair looked like she had stuck her finger in a light socket and left it there for a few hours, and that I - beyond the fact that my sallow skin and dark circles were giving me a striking resemblance to someone from Twilight - was wearing bright pink pajama bottoms with white polka dots, and you can understand our panic.

In a moment of sanity though, I realized that it would be much, much, much, much more embarrassing to be found in the bathroom with my best friend, than to actually answer the door in a complete state of hideous disarray.

It was the caretaker of the property, eager to inform me that he had dropped off a pile of wood for our wood-burning stove.

He is very friendly and very talkative, and.............has this accent. British. Beautiful.

I stood there in the door, trying to look somewhat dignified in my gorgeous pjs, as he maundered on, until I realized that I wasn't actually paying attention to anything he was saying. I was just listening to the melodious sound of his voice.

At one point I heard the word "donkey," and I tried to focus, but I couldn't. It was like being hypnotized.

Donkey? Why was he talking about donkeys?

Every once and a while, he would pause, as if trying to assess my mental condition, and I would pipe up with one of the words I had somehow held on to "Donkeys? Tell me more about this!"

Since he likes talking, and seems keen about these Donkeys, he continued and I listened; I still have only a vague idea of what he was trying to convey.

Finally, the topic of firewood and donkeys exhausted, we said goodbye, and I stumbled back upstairs to Meaghen, who had forced her hair into a braid and was brushing her teeth, just in case Paul had decided to actually come in.

"What did he want?"

"Wood. He dropped some off."

"Ooh! Where is it?"

"Um......I'm not sure."

"Didn't he tell you?"

"Probably. I....can't really remember."

"You were down there for a while. What else did he have to say?"

"Donkeys. There is a trail ride with Donkeys."

"That sounds awesome! Where?"

"Ummm.......he told me. I think he spelled it out. G....something."

"That doesn't help."

"We could call him and ask."

"Nahh....I think email would work better."

"Whatever. More Prison Break?"

A Small Act of Usefulness

Today was one of those really weird days where you feel stuck in a giant bubble of sluggishness and unmotivation. The kind of day where you have a list of things planned, and not one of them gets done.

You know the kind of day where you sit on the couch drinking tea, with your laptop warming your legs, and you basically don't move for hours at a time, and when you do, it is only to go pee?

This was one of them.

It was the kind of day where you keep attempting to get up to accomplish something, but when you do the only thing that you can even remotely contemplate doing is to sit back down and watch another episode of Scrubs.

Or gaze into Wentworth Millers eyes via Prison Break.

It was the kind of day where, even though you are on a very healthy very strict cleanse for the next three weeks, all you want is chocolate. So you eat it, even though it is not allowed, and justify it by telling yourself that chocolate is very healthy. It possesses the most magnesium content of any food on earth. SO there.

It was also the kind of day where, in your random meanderings through the small alleyways and byways of the web, you find this and start bawling.

As my one useful act of today, I pass it on to you.

http://www.zenit.org/article-20956?l=english

Puppies

Yesterday, after Church, Meaghen and I walked to Espereza in order to partake of the fabulous farmers market that is held there.

It was like hippie kingdom.

People in organic cotton and scratchy hemp dyed all sorts of terrible earth tones sat around in circles playing instruments, or waltzed around in erratic circles, completely out of time with the music.

The smell of pot was pretty overpowering.

Since it was way past lunchtime we attacked the first food stand we saw, which happened to sell crepes and quiche. Perfect. We stood there arguing with each other about which one would attempt our order, until the guy behind the counter interrupted us. "I can speak English if you want."

*Blush*

As we wound our way through dreadlocks, drums, and nag champa incense sticks, we happened upon a lady seated on the ground, possessed of a lap full of puppies. We almost lost it, because we had made a deal on the way over that if we found a puppy at the market, we would buy it.

We often make deals like this.

This one didn't even have to be bought. It was free!

Meaghen was ready to scoop up the dog right then and there.

Suddenly though, the thought of so suddenly becoming a parent started to freak me out. I haven't read any dog parent books. We hadn't prepared a welcoming space for him. What was the best kind of diet? Low Carb? High Carb? Vegetarian? Paleo?

Should we give it shots - What if he has an allergic reaction to them? Is there a trusted vet in the area - How does one know whether or not to trust a vet?

What about haircuts? How often is that supposed to happen? Are their doggie hair style trends? And shampoo - what would be best for his skin and fur? Surely one has to be careful not strip him of all his essential skin oils.

This, you understand, was all for a mongrel puppy.

Imagine me with a human baby coming my way.

I told Meaghen we had to discuss it over lunch.

We did, and came to the conclusion that we would spend a week doing research on puppy care.

This is definitely is not long enough to figure out the majority of my questions, but it does give me sufficient breathing room to pull the idea of a dog into my psyche.

Truthfully, it probably will not happen. The logistics of who would keep it and how we would get it back to North America are a little sketchy. Then again, sketchiness has never deterred us from anything.

We even have a name. Just in case: Bomer. As in Matt. As in him:

Our puppy might not be that scrumptious, but we will treat him as if he is.

Grace

I have made reference to my love of Reality T.V.

It might be a part of my life that is here to stay.

Like dark chocolate. And tea. And heels. And Michael Buble.

The past few times when I have needed a minute or forty of downtime, I have ended up watching Millionaire Matchmaker.

Initially this was because I went "Millionaire Matchmaker? Yes please!" When it comes right down to it, I really want one of these:

This for the during the week:

This for the weekend:

And her, or possibly half a dozen of her, because I do not think you can over-estimate how much I loath cleaning:

Attaining all of that would just be way easier with my very own millionaire, right? My sugar daddy. My Mr. Moneybags.

So. OBVIOUSLY, Millionaire Matchmaker spoke to some small part of my soul. Or the majority of it.

I am just kidding. I have a lot more depth than that. I would be quite satisfied with these:

And him:

Even if we just lived in this:

It's not really much of a sacrifice, because....if you have Louboutin shoes and Ryan Reynolds........I dont think you need anything else.

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Let's get serious, though.

As usually happens, after the first episode or two of any new show, I started observe a few things and then mull over them for the next week. Or two.

Don't judge. Mulling is part of my melancholic nature.

One of the most interesting things to me is that at some point, it seems that there is a realization that comes up, which whacks people in the face. The men (and sometimes women) who come to this matchmaker have "everything." They have multiple houses, cars, a plane or two, and the ability to do whatever they want.

They talk about being able to snag a different girl every night, and partying it up at the best places in the world, with the glitziest celebs. Yet, they go to a loud Jewish woman who yells at them and makes them sign a contract before joining her Millionaires Club which insists on "no sex before monogamy (monogamy = at least three months).

Why?

Well, after re-capping their fabulous lives, after describing in glowing detail how amazing their lifestyle is, a cloud passes over their faces. They have "everything," but no one to share it with. They might party it up every night, never with the same date, but at the end of a tough day they have no one to talk to. Most of them admit that their life is just kinda empty.

These men, who until this point in their lives have been just great with being lone wanderers, can't run away from the natural human inclination to truly share yourself with someone. They end up realizing that it would be just awesome to have someone who really knows them, who they can trust, who actually truly cares. It might also be great to have a few little someones to play with their vast vintage toy collection, or in their pool, or on their basketball court.

As the Beatles, those great philosophers of the Modern Age have said...."All You Need is Love."

And that is precisely what these searching millionaires lack. The snag is that no amount of money can buy it - something which, in a darkly hilarious way, they seem to struggle with.

The one thing they want most, after years of building up fortunes so that they can buy whatever they want, can't, after all, be bought.

God sighs darkly at the irony.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

A team of therapists and life coaches is usually brought in, and these men are taught about how to truly connect with a woman and enter into something with her that lasts longer than a night, or - let's face it - a few hours.

At 40 or 45 or 50, or whatever age they are, though, their habits are so ingrained, their way relating to the world such a firm part of their character, that they seem to quite literally need to tear themselves down in order to build themselves anew.

It is really, really hard. Most of them fail.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

This is all very scary.

As a society, we are so far removed from that which would make us truly happy: connection, self-giving, family, vulnerability, openness - that when we realize that we want all of that, it is SOMETIMES TOO LATE.

Our habits are our character: how damn hard is that to change, especially after 40 or 50 years?

----------------------------------------------------------------------

I guess the good thing happens to be that Grace - that completely free and utterly unmerited outpouring - can make anything possible.

Good thing, right?

Discretion

There are so many awkward things about not being able to speak the local language

The Junior High years I spent poking away at French did a very minimal amount for me.

Yesterday, Meaghen and I stopped by the bakery around the corner to get a croissant for her. We thought this would be a great way to welcome her to Couiza.

France. Croissants. Local Bakery. Makes sense.

On walking in however, we saw this amazing PIZZA with goat cheese, mushrooms and toasted almonds on it. We decided we had to have that instead.

We pointed to it, while doing a passable job (or so we thought) reading out the name on the card in front of the pizza.

The girl shoved a pizza into the box, threw it over the counter at us, told us the total, and barely stopped short of telling us to get the hell out of there.

She had put the wrong pizza in the box, though.

Meaghen and I looked at each other. Should we SAY something? She was really grumpy. It did not seem like a wise idea.

However, the flute like call of the goat cheese, mushroom, almond pizza was too irresistible. Like the Sirens hailing Odysseus. Or something like that.

So, hesitantly, we tried to tell her that she had given us the wrong one.

She glared at us, spewed forth a flood of French that probably damned us to hell and in the meantime cursed us to a life of being around her, and then finally, with the air of a long suffering martyr, exchanged the pizza for the one we wanted.

We sneaked out apologetically.

---------------------------------------------

Then, there is the mistaken assumption that because you are in a foreign country where you do not speak the language, no one can understand the language you do speak.

Today we made a much needed visit to the supermarket and after wandering around, picking up absolute essentials like wine and chocolate, we ended up at checkout, trying to decide which line was moving fastest.

The checkout line to our left was filled with two women who seemed to be glaring at the world in general.

"Those women are kind of scary."

"I think they are lesbians."

"Mhmm. The one on the left is particularly butch."

"I just don't understand why they can't make an effort to actually dress well and have nice hair."

We moved into the checkout line across from the two lovely ladies.

At which point I heard them bitching to each other.

They were British. and quite possibly heard every word we said, judging by the death rays directed at us.

Whoops.

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This reminds me of the game I used to play with my friends when we were in Roma.

We liked to play "Gay, or just Italian?"

We would pick a man and assess his clothing, hair, skin, and the way he walked or sat, and from that point put him in one of the two categories. Or sometimes both. The glory of the game was that it was always SO HARD TO TELL.

One day on the bus, we picked a prime suspect a few rows ahead of us.

"Hmm. His clothes are pretty perfect. Look at the way he has tied his scarf."

"His hair looks like he spent most of the day on it. How did he get it to spike so perfectly?"

"I dunno though, those shoes are pretty ugly. I don't if any straight guy would choose those."

"True, but look at the way he has crossed his legs. And his hands. Look at the way he has folded his hands."

At which point, the gentleman uncrossed his legs, unfolded his hands, stood up abruptly, glared at us, and stormed off the bus.

We felt pretty bad about that one.

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I have no idea where I am going with this, except, perhaps, that life is easier when you know the local language.

Also, when analyzing those around you, discretion is always advised.

Friendship

Yesterday I almost fell down two flights of very steep stone stairs in my eagerness to open the front door, squeal in high pitched delight, and jump on a girl with wild curly hair.

The darkened street was filled with shrieks, there was jumping up and down, and the taxi driver who dropped her off might have stared at us with a completely slackened jaw, cursing whoever let such insanity into his beloved country.

That is right.

Meaghen has arrived.

She is the first friend I have seen in just over three months. I have made friends of course - but this is a FRIEND. The kind of friend who knows ridiculous stories about me, like when we made a pit stop at the ocean at midnight. I decided I had to go in the water right at that very moment, and so stripped down to my underwear. Only to have a lifeguard spotlight beamed on me.

I guess you now know that story too.

She is the kind of friend who has seen mascara running down my face as I struggle between hysterical laughter and desperate tears.

She is the kind of friend who has let me see her in the throes of an allergic reaction which made her eyes swell shut and made her lips look as if they had been pumped with a vat of collagen.

I might have laughed hysterically.

But I did not reject her, in spite of her profound ugliness.

I'm loyal that way.

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The other part of our trio is not here - unfortunately she has met a boy which, for some reason, means that she wants to be around him a lot.

What is up with THAT?

Boys. They get in the way of everything.

Thanks for the rejection MICHELLE.

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The three of us have no reservations about sharing our fears, no matter how absurd. This has turned out to be one of the best things about us.

"I saw this woman on the train today, and she was so gorgeous I stared at her for the whole train ride. Is that weird?"

"Why? Because she was a women? That happens to me all the time. Sometimes I wonder if I am a lesbian."

"......me too."

"Yeah. It used to worry me, but I've just come to the conclusion that there is a universal aspect to beauty that appeals to and attracts everyone, regardless of sex. So we are probably not lesbians. Plus we like guys too much. Like...Ryan Reynold's abs. They count as a separate entity all their own, right?"

"Ioan Grudffud. Michael Buble."

"Matt Bomer."

"Oh my GOSH Matt Bomer."

"Yeah. I don't think we are lesbians."

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The three of us, especially over the past couple of years, have marveled quite frequently at how our friendship has been one of the greatest growing experiences of our lives.

We have no qualms about informing each other when one of us is really screwing up and needs to shape up.

Our friendship has shown us that you can be open and trusting and absolutely vulnerable, and have that treasured and respected.

It has taught us that you can let down you defenses completely, and not get battered in the process.

We have unquestionably become better, just for being in each other's lives.

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Michelle, you better be constantly logged into video chat so you can keep up with the awesomeness that is going to go down.

Be who you are meant to be

Spending time in Greece, meeting many many new people, I had the unique opportunity of being amongst people who knew absolutely nothing about me or my family or where I have come from.

I have always, wherever I have been, come across someone who knew my parents, or knew someone who knew my parents, or knew one of my siblings, or knew someone who knew one of my siblings, or was a friend of a friend, or a relative of a friend, or a friend of a relative. The world is much smaller than we like to think it is.

Therefore, whenever I have been anywhere new and come across a new face, there has usually ended up being a small layer of vague familiarity somehow joining us together, and a gossamer layer of assumption already in place.

In Greece though, there was no thin bond from which to grow a friendship. All I had was myself: who I am. And that became a very interesting thing - because who are you? who am I? when the person across from you knows nothing, and you can choose what you want to reveal.

There is none of this:

"If you know Marcie, you probably know Bob!"

or

"Since you are a friend of Claire, you probably believe that...."

or

"I can tell you this, and I know you will agree with me, because if you hang out with Jim...."

Essentially, then, pulled out of any place of familiarity, you become who you say you are - who you want to be - and not who you are assumed to be.

This is, perhaps, why many people like traveling so much: you are torn away from the normal swing of things; quite suddenly the weight of assumption and obligation is pulled away, and only you are left.

This presents one with a beautiful opportunity. Stripped down, away from what others think you are, want you to be, need you to be, or think you believe, you can form yourself. Independent of outside influences - as much as that can ever happen - you can ask yourself who you are, what you believe, and what you want.

Travel then, or anything at all that takes you wildly away from your comfort zone, from what you are used to, is one of those achingly necessary events on the path of growing up.

At some point in every person's life, there has to be a separation, a move away from the security and knowingness of one's childhood. You must thrust yourself into the limitless abyss where you ask yourself if you believe what you have been taught, if you are what you are assumed to be, and if you want what it is hoped you will pursue.

If that separation doesn't occur, if that foray into self knowing doesn't happen, you live as a puppet - perhaps endlessly reacting to events in your past, never realizing how much they affect your present actions; following ideas that you were presented with but never chose, leaving you deprived of any ownership over them and therefore any real joy in believing them. You are but half a person if you don't know why you do the things you do, or why you believe what you believe.

I always vaguely wondered why an unexamined life is not worth living.

Wouldn't it be easier to just bumble along, unaware of and not caring about the intricacies of your own life and the lives around you?

Now, I don't wonder. The unexamined life is not worth living, because it prevents you from soaring to the heights of your own potential. It prevents you from stopping the cycle of habitual action that is purely a reaction to something - anything - but which is vast waste of your energies. It muffles the burning light in each of us which, if we tended to it, would grow into a great flame taking us down the path on which we will be most happy.

Honey, I'm HOME!

So. I landed at Charles de Gaulle at about 11:30 on Saturday morning. Once I had my luggage, I was accosted by a charming black man in a suit.

"Taxi?" he asked.

I followed him.

To a parking garage where there was a large silver van waiting. My radar went off, and I grabbed my bags from him, and told him I would find my own Taxi thank you very much. It was one of those scams - they take you to your destination, for about double the cost of a normal cab ride. I know - because I asked how much he was thinking of charging me.

I finally reached Gare d'Austerlitz, but then had to lug my bags - by this time extremely annoying - around the station until I found the luggage lockers. The attendant told me he had no change left in exchange for my bills, that I would have to go find some, and shooed me out.

By this time, my 50 kilos of luggage was pulling my arms out of their sockets.

Finally, after a hectic while, which probably would have been eased by more than a rudimentary knowledge of the French language, my luggage was safely stored away, and I was free to explore Paris for about 8 or so hours.

I wandered around until I felt hungry, at which point I stopped at a crepe place. I realized, when my crepe came, that I was actually too tired to really eat much, and I think I offended the very nice, very attentive waiter, when I left quite a bit on my plate.

Heading in the general direction of Notre Dame, I ended up in this lovely park-like place - I think it was the Jardin des Plantes - and I sat for a while to watch little kids racing after each other. So sweet.

At long last, I got to Notre Dame. I walked into the smell of incense and the sound of chant; it felt as if my soul had come home.

In line for confession, I was accosted by a four year old British girl who was waiting impatiently for her family to get through confessing all their sins. We played "the color game" which meant she would ask me what color her shirt/skirt/head band/coat/ boots were, and I would have to tell her. I told her all the wrong colors, and she told me I was obviously color blind.

But that didn't seem to turn her off, because she ended up on my lap, whispering secrets in my ear.

When I finally got in the confession room and started to talk to the very nice priest, I began to bawl - as I always do in confession - I am not sure why, but so it is. He was very nice, gave me a lovely wooden rosary, some very beautiful ideas to contemplate, and then set me loose after running my soul through the washing mean, bleaching it, and returning it snowy white. So to speak.

Vespers and Mass followed, after which I just felt.....uplifted. Refreshed. In love.

Sometimes I really like being Catholic.

By this time it was quite dark outside, and my night train was due to leave in a couple of hours. I meandered through Parisian streets, hoping I was going in generally the right direction, but too happy to really care if I wasn't. By a strange twist of magic, I ended up back at Austerlitz with plenty of time to grab a sandwich.

It was the best sandwich I had ever had in my life. I didn't realize how hungry I was until I bit into it. But when I did, all hell broke loose and my body went:

OHMYGOSHYOUHAVEN'TFEDMEADEQUATELYALLDAMNDAY.

Awaking from my sandwich ecstasy, I realized I really had to figure out where my train was, and actually get on it. I successfully found my car, found my "couchette" and climbed on in. And then I realized I was in a compartment with three French men.

This would have slightly bothered me at any other time, but I was too tired and too entranced with sleeping ON A TRAIN, IN A CUTE LITTLE BUNK, that it pretty much washed over me.

After I put my ear plugs in, I just conked out. For the next seven hours, I floated between sleep and wake, rocked by the motion of the train.

My bags and I were thrown out onto the platform in Carcasonne at 5:30 AM on a very misty Sunday morning.

I had about half an hour to figure out where to get a ticket for my connection to Couiza.

But I had to get into the station.

Which meant I had to tackle two flights of stairs down, a walk through a tunnel, and then two flights of stairs up. With two suitcases, a purse, and a laptop bag.

In the station, everything was in French, everything was closed, and no one was around to help.

I tried to figure out schedules, and finally ended up buying a few tickets, in the hopes that one of them would be the right one.

I lugged my bags back down the stairs, back through the tunnel, and back up the stairs.

And then I realized there were two platforms, and I wasn't sure which one I was supposed to be on, and my ticket did NOT seem to tell me.

I looked at the clock. I had five minutes to figure it out.

I looked across to the station and saw a man sweeping. He was pretty much my only hope. I left my bags on the platform - there was no one around at 6am on a Sunday morning to steal them - raced down the stairs, through the tunnel and up the stairs, and tried to make him understand that I wanted desperately to reach Couiza.

Understanding brightened his face. He pointed to a bus waiting outside.

Oh. I was supposed to get on a bus, not a train. And I had three minutes to get my idiotic bags and board it.

Back down the stairs. Back through the tunnel. Back up the stairs.

I basically threw my bags down the stairs, raced after them and somehow managed to get them up the stairs at the same time, and then race to the bus and board it before it left the station.

I showed the driver my assortment of tickets. None of them happened to be right. But that is ok - because he only had to look at my face once to know that I would dissolve in utter hysteria if he made me go back into that station. He sighed and waved me on.

A 45 minute bus ride, and a short cab ride later, I was in front of Gite des Cathares.

I wanted nothing but to shower in very hot water, wrap myself in a blanket, and climb into bed.

But I couldn't remember where the land lady said she was going to leave the key. And I definitely had not written it down.

For about half an hour I overturned stones and prayed to various saints-of-lost-causes, and swore viciously in my head, and hoped a bolt of lighting would just kill me.

At the point where insanity almost overwhelmed me, I kicked over one last rock, and there it was. The key.

I yelped in glee, and hurled myself into my new home.

Two hours later, I was in possession of tea and goat cheese from the supermarket, a loaf of still WARM sourdough bread, and some of the most amazing butter ever to melt in my mouth.

Some things are so worth it. Even man - handling excessive amounts of luggage, at unholy hours of the morning, in country where you can barely make yourself understood.

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There is a moral, I suppose.

Pack light.

Or, alternatively, make sure you have a strong chivalrous man around who doesn't mind hauling around bags packed with ridiculous shoes and one too many bottles of magical ointments for glistening skin.

One or the other.

Farewell, Greece!

I have been excessively MIA the past month।

I think, mostly, I wanted to just soak up my last remnants of Greece; secondly I have been entirely bagged, and the thought of stringing coherent sentences together was a no go.

And then thirdly, I was getting stuff ready to come here, to France: A village called Couiza, about 45 minutes outside of Carcasonne. I arrived here this morning, after a few days of chaos and hilarity, and am here for the next three or so months.

Let me start at the beginning.

I left "Villa Sunshine" last Tuesday morning, bright and early. It took 6 hours to get into Athens via bus, and I sat next to a lady who obviously had never heard about deoderant. Oh my gosh. Enough said.

I had three full days in Athens, since my flight did not leave until Saturday morning, and so among other things, I arranged a three Island cruise with a tour company. Basically, they pick you up at your hotel in a huge tour bus, cart you to Piraeus, usher you on board a cruise ship, and whirl you between Hydra, Poros, and Aegina. Midway through, they serve lunch in the glassed in dining room, and as the boat returns to Athens in the early evening, they have bouzouka dancing. Not bad for 99 euro.

It was magical. Hydra, especially, was an absolute fairy book. Unfortunately - and I should not have been surprised since I never keep track of these things - my camera battery died just as we landed in Hydra, the first Island. Oh the gods laughed
.

I got collared almost immediately by a guy traveling alone on business, and after about twenty minutes, I had predicted all the answers he subsequently gave me.

"I am spiritual. Not religious. I don't believe in the oppression of organized religion."

Check

"I am libertarian, I guess. But beyond anything, I seriously do not believe in elected government officials."

Check

"I refuse to eat meat. I am a complete vegan."

Check

"I could never bring children into the world. The world is grossly overpopulated."

AND check.

Could he be more of a cliche?

These differences of opinion did not prevent us from having a good time exploring Hyrda and Poros together, mostly because I just nodded and smiled, since he did not seem to expect or need a reply, and because I enjoyed making predications - and being entirely right - about what he would say or how he would react to things.

Beyond that, though, he was just a very well intentioned person - albeit misguided - as well as someone with a lot to say about pretty much everything. He actually, in some faint way, reminded me of combination of my two brothers next to me. So it was fun.

On the way to Aegina though, I ended up in a conversation with a man from the States, currently living in Switzerland.

I found myself embroiled in this discussion, which carried into dinner, first about traveling, books, and movies, and then about his two failed marriages, his current "partner," and, most importantly, as I kept trying to figure out: how you know when to end a marriage, and how, after repeated failures, you know when to begin another one. I mean, in his case, it seems that he is a) impressively hopeful or b) just really dumb.

He is a psychologist, and it was fascinating to get his take on commitment. By fascinating, I mean depressing. However, depressing can still be interesting. And interesting always takes the cake. Even if I can't sleep afterwards. He was floored that I was so interested, but when I explained that when I grow up I probably want to land in Marriage and Family Therapy, he was more than happy to oblige.

Oh the places you go.

On my last day in Athens, I climbed up to the Parthenon, was completely and utterly boggled and awestruck, and then headed back to my hotel in the early evening to work and pack and organize myself. At about 9:30 PM though, I realized I was so hungry that I was going to fall into utter collapse. This surprised me, since I had partaken of a big, rather late lunch.

Feeling sufficiently confident in the area, having wandered around it for three days, I headed out to find somewhere to eat.

I ended up at about 10 PM - the normal eating hour for most Greeks - at this Taverna with absolutely no tourists, but crammed with locals. Just what I was looking for. There was live Greek music playing, and if anyone heard a song they liked, up they would get to whirl around the tables. At a few points, almost the whole restaurant was waving their arms and kicking their legs and shaking their hips.

Yes, I joined them. But only after downing a glass of Ouza, and after intense pressure from the (god-like) waiter to "just try it." Oh my gosh it was so fun. And completely out of character. I blame the ouzo.

It was a perfect end to the Greek part of my travels.

Tune back to hear about Mary bawling in the middle of Notre Dame, sharing her sleeping quarters on the train with four frenchmen, being on the wrong train platform, and to put the icing on the cake, buying the wrong ticket for the bus to Couiza, but convincing the driver to let her on anyway.

I don't think I have had a more crazy twenty four hours in my twenty four years.

But what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, and always turns into a great story.

No Shoes, this is true.

On Wednesday I finally got my self back into Kalamata. I was going, I proclaimed to everyone, to see the open air market; in actuality, I really just wanted to go shoe shopping.

The market is everything a market should be: loud, chaotic, smelly, fascinating - a complete throwback to a different time.

Vendors yell at you as you pass, shoving grapes under your nose; skinned lambs are hung by their hooves just waiting to be basted with herbs and olive oil and cooked to perfection. Or, in my case, vomited on. Wheels of cheese are hacked into, and samples are waved in front of your face; dried figs array themselves in tempting piles.

I bought three perfectly ripe Persimmons, a bunch of glorious looking zucchini flowers, and a bag of cashews. After about 45 minutes, my introverted self was gasping under the weight of the sensory overload, and so I took myself off to the more sedate shopping district in the downtown area.

After wandering around for about an hour, weaving in and out of stores, trying on knee boots and ankle boots and flats and heels and pointy toed shoes, I gave up. All I wanted was a really comfortable pair of shoes, suitable for touring around in, that looked fabulous. How hard is that?

Nigh impossible. I can tell you that.

The only remedy for the situation was to take myself out for lunch.

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Scanning the menu, I noticed a whole list of very scrumptious looking salads. This excited me, because I truly love salads. I haven't had one in three months, though - mainly because I can't be bothered to clean lettuce leaves, after having become acclimatized to pre-washed organic greens in resealable plastic containers.

I was almost through lunch, when the table next to me became occupied by two men - one around fifty, one nearing thirty-ish.

Somehow - I am never sure how these things get going - a conversation was started, and they invited me to their table. I had nothing better to do, and so I hopped on over, they ordered me a glass of wine, and tried to get me to share their plate of spanakopita with them. I told them I had just finished my own lunch, and was quite full.

"I saw what you had. A salad. This is nothing."

"It was quite a big one. Very filling."

"This is not real food. If you don't eat enough you will lose, and this is not a good thing. Not at all. Eat."

The only thing to do, was to distract them by getting them to speak about themselves. Who doesn't like to tell their life story?

They were "sea men" - the younger one was some sort of Captain - and they were on a shore leave for a few days. The older one was Greek, the younger one was from Montenegro.

As the conversation spun off onto different tangents, something that struck me was how gentlemanly both of them were.

At one point, in discussing funny misunderstandings that can happen in translation from one language to another, the younger man started to explain some swear words that are popular on board his ship, that in his language are not offensive, but in Greek could get you involved in a fight.

Quite suddenly, the older man touched his younger friend on the shoulder, "This is a very lady-like woman. She doesn't need to be hearing this."

The younger one blushed, and quickly changed the topic.

I could have eased his conscience and told him that I have two brothers who are marines, one of whom in particular, can make me ears bleed if he sets his mind to it.

At another point, when the waitress brought our bills to us, they grabbed mine because, "A woman with men should never pay."

And finally, as I got up to leave and thanked them for a nice afternoon, they both shushed me. "It is we who are happy that you spent time with us. You made our lunch such a good one."

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This is something lovely that I have come across traveling alone. People are more apt to start a random conversation with a single person, than with two or more people traveling together.

Or maybe it is that men tend to prey on alone - looking females.

In any case - I don't really care what the reason is - I have had reams of interesting conversations, from one with a Swedish man about the European economy, to one with a British woman on the bottomless generosity of the Greeks, to one with a Canadian woman about hitchhiking through Europe during the '70s. OH - and one about how olive oil is produced. Apparently, if your olive oil is not a rich shade of green, it should not be touched, even with a 10 foot pole.

More than this though - and I am about to sound completely naive to the more jaded - is that through these encounters I have been able to observe such slivers of goodness in everyone - generosity, kindness, intelligence, cheerfulness, peace, courage, old fashioned chivalry.

Talk about financial crises and the death of Western Civilization all you want, but when I think of that burning flame of goodness - sometimes big, sometimes small, but always there - inside each person I have met, I am hopeful.

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I hopped onto the bus at the Kalamata Station with no wonderful shoes, true, but a surprisingly light heart.

Who needs shoes, when you can spend the afternoon being prevented from learning how to sound like a sailor?

Change Is In The Air

I am getting ready to leave Greece.

As usual, when confronted with change of any sort, I am hyperventilating just a little, and when I wake up in the middle of the night to pee, I continue the thought that I fell asleep with.

11:45 PM: Oh my gosh I really need too....

2:30 AM: ...go to the bank machine so I have enough cash to pay the cab driver on Saturday. (After a suitable interval for peeing, excessive hand washing, and crawling back into bed) I really wish.....

5:00AM: .... they used plastic here. (After a suitable interval for yet more peeing, excessive hand washing, and hurling myself back into bed) I swear, at some point I am going to just ....

8:30 AM: ...lose 500 Euro somewhere, or throw it out by accident. I hate carrying around cash.

8:45 AM:(As I put on the kettle for Earl Grey) My gosh I have to stop drinking so much tea before bed.

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In some ways, I feel as if I am entering the real world again.

Well, the world in which I feel obliged to make some effort to look semi - human.

I have been to the pharmacy, and had the Korres rep help me pick out various things guaranteed to make me look less dead and more alive.

"This, you need this, very much, for these," patting a heavy concealer on my dark circles. "SO much better. Much, much, better."

After three months of randomly slapping on the minimum of both clothing and makeup, it is almost like being 12 again, with one's first bulging makeup bag.

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After scoping out the three hair salons in the village, and polling any village women who speak English, I decided on the Wella salon on the main street in Harakopio. The owner, I was told, spent 14 years in Germany, where she was trained in the tricky art of hair.

When I stopped by to make an appointment, the superb cleanliness, the marble floors, and the beautiful wood paneling impressed me, so I felt confident in my choice.

Do not let the fact that I rarely ever brush my hair mislead you - (truly, I didn't own a brush until about two years ago) I take hair cuts very seriously. My theory is, if you have a really good haircut, there is no need to do anything but occasionally shampoo and condition.

But that's up to you.

You have no idea what a hot mess was spewing out of the top of my head. It had turquoise streaks. It has also started to curl in weird ways. Most days it looked like I had stuck my finger in a socket and then dipped random chunks of hair in blueberry jello.

I walked into the salon a few minutes before my 9AM appointment - I was early: that is how excited I was - and she ushered into a chair, at which point the hairdresser pursed her lips.

"So...."

"I know. It's terrible."

"Hmm......"

"I want to keep the length, so just thin it out and color it so the turquoise goes away."

"Thin it out?"

"Mhmm. Because it's so thick."

"Ahhh. Right."

So, she set to work. Her assistant offered me my choice of coffees, brought a selection of magazines, and I started to ride blissfully away on a cloud of hair dye fumes, frappes, and the October Vogue.

But...when she started cutting, my heart sank.

Miss German hairdresser had no idea what she was doing.

She was doing dainty little point cuts, basically just ridding me of my split ends. What I needed, though, was a full on attack, like the Allies invading Normandy. I needed someone to start razoring and texturizing the life out of it.

I needed to shed a bear's winter coat, not a tea cup full of hair. Seriously.

However, the color is fabulous - or, at least, normal - my split ends are no more, and I guess I just have to put a little more effort into grooming in order to make it look OK.

Plus, it only cost a third of what I would have been charged at home.

I just have to find my brush and dust it off.

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Even with all of these (vastly) important preparations though, I can't run away from the fact that I am very sad to leave.

It has been so nice walking through olive groves into the village. The mountains never look the same, and the whoosh of the sea is so immediately calming, and always immensely enticing.

It is lovely to get to know everyone - by face at least - so that when a farmer stops to offer me a lift, I accept it because I see him at my cafe every time I am there, throwing back a beer. Or three.

It is fun to walk into the supermarket, and have the friendly cashier make me practice my Greek, by repeating the phrase she made me memorize the day before.

I love the quick acceptance and welcoming among the various ex-pats here - our shared foreignness is a glue which binds us altogether, making immediate friends of people who might not otherwise spend any time together, if given more of a choice.

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There is an ache present when I think of leaving. But I am ready to leave and move on.

I have a very strong feeling though, that this place will call me back. A part of me has planted a small root in this dense clay filled soil, which will one day need tending.

If Your Heart Loves God

Walking along, seeing a gush of bouganvilla, my brain goes "Gee, that reminds me so much of Southern California." Watching a sudden burst of overwhelmingly torrential rain rush down from the sky I think, "Wow. This is so much like Florida rain storms."

Being buffeted around by waves on a windy day takes me back to summers at Pigeon Lake. I would wait breathlessly for stormy days, so that I could go into the water and experience with gleeful freedom the feeling of being thrown around by powerful gushes of water.

Stepping outside into damp - making mugginess, I am reminded of summers in Ontario with Grandma and Grandpa. The open air markets here remind me of the one in Campo de Fiori.

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For so long I convinced my brain of the impossibility, the impracticality, perhaps the uselessness of seeing all the things I wanted to see; so it keeps telling that I am in SoCal, or Florida, or Alberta, or Southern Ontario, or back in Rome - which itself was so dreamlike, I still can't believe I lived there. To actually believe that I am in Greece is too unreal a thought.

The fulfillment of a dream can almost be too heavy a burden to carry. The weight of happiness becomes so heavy that the fear of being sent a bolt of lightening from a jealous God becomes ever present.

Oh, the twisted recesses of the mind.

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As far back as I can remember, my day dreams were filled with Parisian streets, and Roman courtyards, Pyramids and ancient ruins, lions leaping through Africa, and the smells and colors of India. But they were only day dreams, and none if it was practical in any sense, or perhaps even possible. I would push all my mind pictures away, write a paper, and my heart would ache a little in protest.

People don't fulfill their daydreams.

I mean, except for my friends who dreamed about being married....and are married.

Or my friends who longed for children....and now have them.

Or those who wanted be lawyers/doctors/nurses/ teachers....and now are those things.

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My point: Perhaps, not always, but certainly sometimes, our daydreams - even if they seem impractical, or too big, or any other discouraging thing - are the whispers of God nudging us towards happiness. Perhaps in ignoring those whispers, and in saying that those dreams aren't good enough, or right enough, or even doable, we are slapping God in the face.

We are saying that who he created us to be, and the desires he placed on our hearts are silly. Maybe a mistake. At any rate, entirely ignorable. We are saying that the path he wants us to take is not possible. So we forge our own.

But those heart-throbs, those daydreams, might mean something.

Peter Kreeft says it best - as he often does:

"... surely it is God who designed our hearts – the spiritual heart with desire and will as much as the physical heart with aorta and valves ... So our hearts can be worth following too even though they are sinful and fallible. If your heart loves God, it is worth following. If it doesn't, then you're not interested in the problem of discernment of his will anyway." (read the whole thing here)

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So maybe, just maybe, the fulfillment of that dream deep in your heart can also be the fulfillment of God's will. And maybe, just maybe, to be afraid of happiness is to be afraid of letting God love us.

Oh Gulp

I made a promise to myself when I arrived on the shores of Greece: that I would forever leave junk t.v. behind me. I would move forward a better person.

It didn't last long.

At the end of a busy day when I have driven myself into a state of almost hysterical exhaustion, Real Housewives or Cake Boss seem to be the closest thing to having someone sit on me so that I stop moving. I slip into a comatose state, sip tea, and tension seeps out of me.

Of course - the goal would be not to get into that state in the first place; surely then (hopefully) the pull of terrible reality t.v. would slacken. I'm working on it.

I think part of the attraction, though, is that reality tv is an extension people watching - my favorite pastime. Of course, it is a highly dramatized, extensively staged, sometimes (almost always) unrealistic version of reality, but that does not prevent some very pertinent truths from escaping out of the woodwork.

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One Sunday, after a week of hiking around the area with a little too much intensity, when I truly needed nothing but to reach a state of absolute vegging, I stumbled upon a new show.

Made in Chelsea follows a bunch of upper class young Brits around. It's a smorgasbord of fabulous clothes, lovely parties, and extensive holidaying. Sprinkled with visits to bank managers to see about pulling out yet some more money, and random attempts at getting a job, it all makes for a show that no one should ever watch.

One story line in particular, though, seems to encapsulate much of current dating life in all its sadness. Playboy Spencer is in love with Caggie, and has been for about half his life. She kind of likes him, but for some reason won't actually date him. She encourages him, pulls back, crushes him, regains his trust, encourages him, pulls back....etc. In an effort to get over Caggie, Spencer randomly dates other girls, but never for long. All Spencer wants is Caggie.

Finally at long last, Spencer gives up on Caggie and finds a girl who he seems to really like. She is a "dancer" (yes, that kind) - definitely not part of the normal Chelsea crowd. They date for a while until one day, when Spencer lets his little dancer know how he is feeling. He tells her that more than anything, he just wants to take care of her. He wants to protect her, make sure she never wants for anything, make her feel safe and give her whatever she needs.

She gives him a disgusted up-down, curls her lip, and proceeds to beat him soundly into the ground. No one will ever, she says, take care of her. She will never be indebted to anyone. She has taken care of herself all her life and done a damn good job of it - why should she stop? She doesn't need Spencer. She doesn't need anyone. Dancing pays really well, and it makes her feel empowered.

So she breaks up with Spencer.

Spencer crawls back to Caggie, confused, but ever hopeful that maybe now she will go out with him. She does her typical flirting, then shoots him down when he seems too encouraged, and the cycle continues.

Spencer comes to the conclusion that he really has to change. He has to stop going out with other girls, and just wait patiently for Caggie, no matter how long it takes. He makes a concerted effort to be the man that she might go out with.

Finally, it seems as if he is getting somewhere. Things get to the point where once and for all he asks her if perhaps she could love him; he just wants to take care of her. She tells him - after two of her friends tell her that she is not being quite fair to Spencer by dragging him along all the time - that once and for all she never will love him "in that way."

Spencer, speechless, stumbles away, leaving Caggie to toss her hair, roll her eyes slightly, and muse aloud about how Spencer just wants too much. In the same breath she also muses on the lame-ness of men.

In the meantime, Spencer in a slightly bewildered way, is talking to his best friend. He is admitting that he is a throw back to a different time - a time when a man won a woman and cared for her. "All I want is someone to look after."

Whoa.

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A few things strike me about this. A woman can be such an inspiration to a man. She can move him to be better.

Women can also be bitches. With characteristic indecisiveness, instead of breaking off with a man or rejecting him with a nice clean cut, a woman will drag it out forever. I have seen it happen too many times, and it makes me feel embarrassed for my sex in general.

Most importantly though, I am reminded of a realization that made an impact on me a few years back.

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One of my favorite novels is Gaudy Night by Dorothy Sayers. It is brilliantly written with an absolutely swoon worthy hero.

The biggest thing though, is that it presented to me this crazy complicated idea of love, in a way that I had never thought about it before.

The love story between Harriet and Peter is a long drawn out complicated one, traveled by two overly intelligent, incredibly sensitive people. Many issues come up, but one of the biggest is from Harriet.

She holds Peter off because she has forged her own path for so long, and become so used to providing for herself, that to give it up means she is losing part of her identity and throwing away her independence.

The crux at the heart of everything is that, as lowly novelist marrying an aristocrat, Harriet believes she will become dependent on Peter, and forced into a position of continuous gratitude for all that he has brought into her life. She can not fathom that.

However, when Harriet can't hide anymore from the fact that she does indeed love Peter, what she also awakens to is that the best way she can love him back is to allow him to give her the world, and lay it at her feet. The biggest sacrifice she makes is when she consents to his generosity and accepts the weight of gratitude.

Contrary to expecting gratitude from Harriet for all he has to offer her, and something that she had ignored because she could not quite believe it, Peter is profoundly grateful that he has so much to give. It is he who feels immensely indebted when he finally attains the desire of his heart. It is Peter who feels bowled over and astonished and given the world, when Harriet finally consents to being loved.

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If your five year old presents you with a wilted dandelion as the supreme gift of her affections, you do not tell her to throw it away because it is ugly, you put it in a vase and exclaim over it, because it is a gift of love.

Sometimes then, love is not about how much you give, but what you allow yourself to receive. Women have lost touch with this, and as a result have helped mold a generation of young men, aimless and searching, with no direction for the boundless energy they possess and nothing to inspire them to greatness

Don't complain about the wimpy, aimless young men out there ladies: the solution lies with you, in the generosity of your hearts.

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Even from here, across the ocean, I can hear a series of gulps.

Rejoice with the wife of thy youth...

I was supposed to go into Kalamata today, to investigate the huge open air market they have on Wednesdays and Saturdays. I also wanted to buy some shoes.

Anyone who has seen my shoe collection is rolling their eyes. "Need" is surely an exaggeration, they are thinking.

Well, perhaps - but I would feel much better if I had a nice pair of comfortable, yet stylish flats at my disposal. I quite possibly should have packed a pair in place of one - of the three - pairs of heels I crammed into my already bursting suitcases. Oh well.

Hindsight and all that.

However, my shopping plans were ruined.

I woke up this morning with a pounding head, and when I got out of bed I kind of almost passed out. I found a wall before I hit the floor, and slid down it, which prevented me from busting my head open or breaking something. Which is good; but it did nix my goal of boarding the early morning bus.

With visions of knocking myself out and being eaten alive by spiders before I regain consciousness, I begin to reflect on the fact that the Bible should be paid more attention to. Man, as it says, is not meant to be alone. Small nuggets like that are invaluable.

Instead of shopping my head off, I ended up hopping around the internet reading a few articles. I came across this one, by Naomi Wolf, who I really like. She does her research, is honest about it, and writes really well.

I was first exposed to her a few years ago, when I read her book Misconceptions, which is a minutely researched book detailing the various erroneous practices in Maternal and Obstetrical care rampant in today's modern world.

I have no idea how I got a hold of it; all I know is that I was equally parts fascinated, disgusted, and traumatized. But don't let that deter you: it is immensely well written and eyeopening. Two things a book should be, if at all possible.

Today I came across an article by the very same Ms. Wolf, and I had to read it twice, so I think you should at least read it once.

Something to whet your palate:

I am not advocating a return to the days of hiding female sexuality, but I am noting that the power and charge of sex are maintained when there is some sacredness to it, when it is not on tap all the time. In many more traditional cultures, it is not prudery that leads them to discourage men from looking at pornography. It is, rather, because these cultures understand male sexuality and what it takes to keep men and women turned on to one another over time—to help men, in particular, to, as the Old Testament puts it, “rejoice with the wife of thy youth; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times.” These cultures urge men not to look at porn because they know that a powerful erotic bond between parents is a key element of a strong family.

Enjoy!

http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/trends/n_9437/