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Almost one month in Amsterdam feels like three months. The days go by so quickly here, yet I learn so much and see so many things every day that 15 hours of being awake feels like an entire week. Have I said that before? Im sure I have, and the beginning of every entry into this little box will become something everyone can just skip over, "Oh, there Leah goes about time again..." Traveling does that to a person. I was counting today and I realized that when I leave here Ill have visited at least 15 countries within the last ten years-not bad
So many things have happened since I last wrote.........
Lennon once said, "Life is what happens when you are busy making other plans." That was one of my favorite quotes when I was much younger, maybe 12-years-old. Those worlds hold so much meaning for me now. Its not just some metaphorical observation by a great activist and musician, but they are the beautifully broken true words of a man who lived a lot of life. Im happy however that instead of just floating from event to event I can stop and
Celebrating Rosh Hashanah
At a Club where our friends mother was spinning records - helping some friends celebrate the new year
My Grandmother passed away which hit me really hard. The irony of this fact is that only a couple of months ago I was pouring myself into this course called "Death and Dying" I spent my 23rd birthday at a funeral home actually doing a group interview with a funeral director, I wrote sermons on Greif, I planned my own funeral. I wrote papers on what to say to someone who had just lost someone close to them. Maybe thats not exactly Irony, maybe its just unfortunate. But it was a good lesson in a way. I was talking (rather emailing) with a friend of mine whose in his second year of seminary and I said, "Its so much different to become the person you read about in these books." And it was, suddenly all that black ink on a white page came to life in my own skin, my brain was telling me one thing and my heart another.
I spent a lot of time with my Grandmother growing up - and every Sunday...I had volunteered at her Nursing home in Junior High and when I finally reached College I realized the importance of knowing and understanding your family in ways other than just how they relate to yourself and your life. I have taken the time in the last four years to truly know my Grandmother, which made me love and appreciate her life and the Mother she was to my Papa so much more than I ever could have hoped for. My last day with her before coming to Amsterdam was amazing. We laughed so much, we sat in the sun together with my Papa, I had taken her shopping and bought her gifts which I tended to do after I moved four hours away from her (quite the role reversal!) A part of me will always be saddened that I wasn physically there to be with her when she died, my heart will always ache a little bit whenever I think about getting that phone call and crying as I stood looking out over the canal and knowing at that moment that I would never see her again in this life.
But with any kind of death, whether it is metaphorical like losing a relationship, a small death like the loss of a job, or an actual death of a human being we are confronted with the fact that one day we will all die too and that life is not permanent. Death drives us forward and moves us along our paths differently - we become awake and vow to never lose this new feeling of air in our lungs, or the earth beneath our feet or the feeling of another persons hand in our own. We make promises to ourselves, and God and eachother and we begin to love again in a whole new way. In so many ways I am still sad, but more than that I am grateful and humbled-something I myself can always use a large dose of.
A couple days after the death of my Grandmother my Host-Father Antonio became very ill. Whether it was all physical or a bit of actual pain with mental perceived pain Ill never really know, but I ended up staying in the living room of the Assistant Director for the School of International Training for a few days and finding out her rich past. The people who run this program I am attending while sightly disorganized at times are some of the most interesting, highly educated and well traveled and lived people I have ever met. I have now moved in with a true family in a sense if you want to think of it in a Beaver Cleaver sort of way. A Mom, Els a Dad, Phil and their son, Tom - they are so amazing and have so much love in their hearts for a young woman who is almost a complete stranger. I feel so at home here and so cared for. I am truly blessed that they came into my life and allowed me to stay with them in their big, beautiful old house with a garden and chickens and cats.
Im off to have some dinner. Blog on Croatia coming soon.
Peace from my heart,
Leah
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