Best. Commute. Ever.

A sunrise painfully beautiful greeted me on the way to work this week.

I had a lot to do to get ready for my day at CRMS — but the beauty and calm of it sucked me in – and the worry just melted away, as I, and my incessant drive to go,go,go – became tiny, and the world felt large, again, if only for a few minutes.

It’s easy to feel connected to whatever surge there is that is bigger than humans when you’re contemplating beauty like that.

And for those precious minutes I thought nothing about lesson planning, grading, soccer practices, making lunches, picture day, accelerated math, whether Garrett should get a phone, if I’m applying to grad school or not, what to make for dinner, if the laundry is done, if there’s a sale on pork chops at Hannaford and whether I can get there before it ends…

Anyway, the point is – the sunrise.  In difficult times, like when my father was dying, I was incessantly pissed off that the sun kept rising and the world kept turning and people continued buying gas and loaves of bread – as if my world weren’t coming apart at the hem.  Grief did that to me.  I wanted every person I encountered to stop and acknowledge that for me, the world had shifted and was unbearably heavy.

But on this morning, in the center calm of that sunrise, I was sharply reminded that it shifts for someone every single day.

I have a friend in California whose mother is fighting a massive battle with cancer, for example.  A little girl, age 2, who lives in the town next to ours, lost her leg to MRSA a few weeks back.  A 16 year old boy who attended John Bapst died last week in a car crash no one can explain.  My neighbor lost her beloved dog of 9 years this weekend.  Those are just a few local things; so, not to mention the millions of people living on our streets and in refugee camps all over the globe.  The ones who have no clean drinking water.  The parentless children eeking out their survival by picking trash out of dumps.  I don’t know, folks.  It can get to a person.

And the world keeps turning.  Somehow.

It’s worth remembering that I live in one of the most beautiful places on earth.  It is mine, and I belong to it as much as it belongs to me.  I want nothing more than to be right here, living this life, contemplating these life altering moments and situations with people I love the most.

I am glad I am home.

Lemme ‘xplain. 

There is too much. 

Let me sum up:  THIS BLOG IS NOT WORKING.  I may have to find another venue for communication about our year in Korea.  Stay tuned.

26 hours until we hop our flights that will take us to our new … life.  Not our new “home”, that’s not accurate.  We’re leaving home and we’ll be returning home.  Daegu will be a temporary … place to live.  That is all.

No, I can’t say as I’m sleeping all that well.  Here are the things that are keeping me up at night:

1.  Do they have golf in Korea?  I don’t golf, mind you.  I’m just wondering.

2.  Is there decent coffee in Korea?  What about beer? 

3.  Do Koreans keep their fruit out on their counters in a big ol’ bowl or do they stash it away in the fridge?  Or, maybe they are daily shoppers, with only enough fruit for the day you want that delicious banana.  Oh, this is a hard one for the middle-of-the-night me.  No fruit!?  The horror!

My during-the-day mind isn’t nearly as active with all this ridiculous worry about things I can’t control (and don’t actually care that much about.)  At 3am I have no sense of humor whatsoever.  Is the city a safe place to run?  Is it considered normal to eat salad with dinner?  How far to the beach?  Should we take the bus or the subway?  What sorts of crazy street-vendor food should we avoid in order to NOT end up with…you know…gastrointestinal distress? 

Good gracious. 

This morning Luke said “It seems like just yesterday we decided we wanted to go to Korea.  Now it’s tomorrow!”  Indeed, it is.  Tomorrow.  The house is clean.  Our bags are packed.  They are full to overflowing, not unlike all the hopes we have for our trip.  We hope we are safe.  We hope we are happy.  We hope that as we come to the edge of this massive cliff in our lives, and jump – that we fly instead of fall.  Here goes nothing.