Wonders and Wanders

Despite this unstable world of ours, Abigail and I made it back to the Dominican Republic where we belong, papers in order (or so it seems. I’m still semi-struggling with the Department of Migration, but at least I’m here by my husband’s side and the siblings have been reunited). Latin music and Reggae is once again the soundtrack of my day, a billiards hall being halfway down the street from my house. At least they are respectful of the residential district and don’t play the music too loudly or late into the evening.

I’m convinced that music is inescapable in this culture. I was out at our land a few days ago, and one of the neighbors was hosting a DJ competition. There were cars and trucks with speakers stacked 10ft high on top of them all gathered in a loose circle, taking turns mixing beats and Spanish and American pop. The fiesta was at least a half mile from our property but the music carried perfectly over the low-growing trees that have garzas (like pelicans) nesting in them.

I don’t mind the noise, I usually just shake my head and smile. It’s a more vibrant way of life than I’m used to, that’s all. Music is communal, not something you keep stifled behind your own sound-proof walls.

In the morning, the only music I hear from my bedroom is that of the songbirds. The sound always takes me back to when I was 10, standing on the front stoop in a cotton dress in the early spring, ready to go to church with my family. But before getting in the car, even at the “I can’t wait to grow up” age of 10, I somehow knew that one has to pause sometimes and soak in a moment before it escapes like the smoke after blowing out the candles.

I turned 28 this month. It feels whole, more even-keeled than I was a decade ago. I still have as many psychological problems as the next, I suppose, but I’m thankful for the growth that has happened, the demons that have been conquered. The college years and early 20’s are not for the faint of heart, I tell you.

There is still one thing I can’t let go, can’t move on from. It’s the stoop of the house on that hill, the place that was home for 20 years. I read an article written by Annie F. Downs, and she compared growing up and leaving her family farm to leaving Eden. It’s an apt example, and I know exactly how she feels.

The only thing is, while Adam and Eve couldn’t go back to Eden, I could have gone back to the Lane. I could have replicated the story, raised my babies there, or someplace similar.

But sometimes God calls you out like he called out Abram. And sometimes part of the Christian journey isn’t just leaving wrong desires (sin) behind, it’s leaving good desires behind as well. We leave lying, bad attitudes, and lust at the cross, but, when called to do so, we leave nice places, and loving relationships, and healthy lifestyle preferences too. The key word there is “called.” You don’t leave good things flippantly. You leave in the name of something or someone important.

Just because we leave doesn’t mean we have to forget. I don’t want to forget. I keep going back to the past because I want it to matter. I don’t want my hill and my inner flower child to think that I left them because they weren’t good enough, because I didn’t cherish them enough. I want them to know that they are important to me and will always be a part of me, that they do in fact influence me every day.

The past matters.

In the Christian walk, we tend to harp a lot on Paul’s “forgetting what lies behind and pressing forward to what’s ahead,” and “old things have passed away,” and “we are new creations.” But have you ever counted how many times Scripture asks us to remember the past? I’ve never counted either, but I know it’s a lot. We are told countless times to remember the past and give thanks for what God has done. Indeed, Christianity is built upon remembrance, whether remembering God’s faithfulness to Noah when we see a rainbow, or taking the Lord’s Supper in remembrance of his body broken and blood spilled. We are told that even in heaven, the place where you’d think we’d be most present-minded, we will sing the Song of Moses (see Revelation 15 & Exodus 15).

We are called to remember.

We are not called to let the past debilitate us, or to dwell on sad things, I will add that. However, we are called to remember how God was strong for us in our weak moments, and present for us in our sad moments. And of course we remember the joyful and sweet times and are thankful for all the gifts that the Father of Lights has given.

So there is a balance, as there always is. But even as I walk deeper and deeper into this new chapter of my life—marriage, children, Hispanic culture, two homes in two worlds—I can let the memories of the other chapters come when they want to. I can cherish them and polish them. I can sip at them like a dry wine and know that God let whatever it is I’m remembering happen for a reason. And I can say, with the Israelites and everyone gathered in eternity,

“Who is like you, O Lord, among the gods?
    Who is like you, majestic in holiness,
    awesome in glorious deeds, doing wonders?”

(Exodus 15:11 ESV).

 *****

The Lord has done wonders, and will continue doing wonders. I’m thankful for his faithfulness in my life even when I’ve wandered in my wonderings. They are wanderings and wonderings that have been captured in this blog, which many times has been my space for searching for the truth and fleshing out my experiences. I’m thankful for all the readers who have encouraged me to keep seeking, keep writing, ever since I started this blog all the way back in 2005.

I have, however, found myself in need of a slightly more professional space, something to inspire me to give my best each time I write. So while I’m going to keep this blog open, I probably won’t be publishing here from now on. Instead, you can find me over at https://matteawilgo.wordpress.com/

 Onward and upward we go! The action shall continue to rise. 

 

North and South

One-hundred sixty-five cups of black tea. That’s at least how many I’ve drunk since arriving Stateside last August. It’s how I start every morning here in New York. At home in the Dominican Republic, where leaf tea (Camellia sinensis)is uncommon, I make “tea” from fresh ginger root and cinnamon sticks, sweetened with the island’s own cream-colored sugar. I wish it had caffeine, but it’s still a good drink for starting the day.  

One-hundred sixty-five cups of black tea, occasionally with a dollop of milk, never sweetened, equals 165 days separated from my husband. The separation was planned—I’d needed to update my passport, apply for my residence visa, catch up on monotonous paperwork, plus introduce our daughter to USA friends and family—but the duration was not. Even considering the pandemic it didn’t seem like everything would take more than 3 months. I had made two different extensive flow charts to guide me through the litany of legal processes (what do you know, my public health program planning classes actually prepared me for real life [also this gives you a hint at how complicated it is having a non-resident alien as a husband]) and 12 weeks seemed like a reasonable estimate. 

Yet here we are. 

I miss drinking ginger tea with my husband on weekend mornings. They are not leisurely mornings by any means (hello, Abigail, and all the work people who call my husband at home) but at least we are together, and at some point before noon we can agree that the tea was spicy and sweet and hit the spot. 

Usually, I make the tea myself. However, there’s a woman from church who sells it on her street corner a few blocks away from my house. She has thermoses of tea, coffee, hot milk, and a container of homemade biscuits (“arepa”) set up on a plastic table beneath a red and white umbrella. A few times before I left for the USA, Victor surprised me and came home at 9am between jobs to steal me away from the house and grab tea and biscuits with me. We roared over on the motorcycle, made our purchase, then roared back. He had to return to work right afterward, but it was little moments like those snuck into busy days that we used to say goodbye. 

Ginger tea is one of the few things Victor and I have in common. Yes, you read that right. The man with whom I am married to for forever is very different from me, and I from him.

He likes sweet, I like bitter. He likes one movie genre, I like another. We have different hobbies. I’m introverted, he’s extroverted. He likes rap, I like classical. He’s a night person, I’m a morning person. We have different tastes in fashion. I’m a planner, he’s spontaneous. 

He thinks and operates generally like a Dominican, whereas I think and operate generally like an American. This means we have different ideals, different ways of interacting with people and navigating situations, and even different ways of interpreting life and the passage of time. 

As you might guess, being opposites often makes us an unbeatable team. Where I’m weak, he’s strong, and vice versa.

As you might also guess, if we are not on our A-game, our differences create the perfect storm for conflict, or at the very least add a level of difficulty to every day that we have to navigate on top of everything else. 

But, by the grace of God, we’re making it. And not just making it—we’re doing well. In our 3 short years of marriage we have learned so much about each other and how to act as one in everything from choosing what to have for breakfast to discussing how to raise kids. I’m confident that we’ll continue improving as time progresses, and that one day we’ll look back and laugh about how clueless we were about each other. 

We will keep improving because we are not the ones in control of our relationship: Christ is. It doesn’t ultimately matter that my husband doesn’t think pizza is the best food in the world (I maintain it’s because he’s never had New York pizza). It doesn’t ultimately matter that we have different opinions on tattoos. It doesn’t ultimately matter that our perceptions of punctuality are different or that we have different levels of decorum. 

All those things may induce stress in the moment, but we live and die over only one thing: Jesus. We are planted on the same bedrock and reaching up towards the same goal. Because of that, I can always kiss him goodnight, and we always stay friends. 

I think marriage is potentially one of the hardest relationships on earth. You can move out of your parents’, drift away from your friend, and quit your boss, but biblically (barring a few exceptions) you can’t divorce your spouse. 

So I guess my overriding point, besides talking about tea and reminiscing over good times with the husband I’m quite in love with and miss, is that if he and I can be in a healthy marriage with all of our super-extra-mega-ultra differences, Christians in general should be able to be friends with one another and encourage one another. 

God has given us all the grace we need to be friends. Victor and I are in a healthy relationship precisely because we’ve grabbed onto that grace. As my pastor preached last Sunday, if relationships are failing, it’s because the parties involved have received the grace of God in vain. They are not using what is readily and easily available. 

So Christian, let’s believe in the power of grace and step across the church pew, the picket fence, the voting booth, the color line, the frontier—whatever it is—and be friends, okay? 

When the Sun Looks like the Moon

The sun looked like the moon. 

They told me it was a dust storm from the Sahara, that this was why the atmosphere was hazy, this is why the sun was a pale orb in the morning sky.

I had been sending off my husband to work and the boys to baseball practice, so it was there in the carport facing east at 6:15 AM that I became confused and wondered if I was seeing the sunrise or the moon. 

I went inside and closed the windows and doors we usually keep open. Someone had forwarded me an advisory via Whatsapp from the Red Cross warning of the danger of the poor air quality.

The dust storm took two days to pass through. When I investigated how it is exactly that a sand storm from an African desert could end up in the Caribbean, I learned that the African Easterly Jet wind that generally blows west had been rather weak in early June, so when a succession of haboobs--yes, that’s what giant sand storms are called--developed in central and west Sahara, the dust accumulated on the West coast of Africa until that previously weak Jet suddenly picked up strength again. 

Voilá, the dust pile was carried across the ocean to us. 

For those 48 hours, the air seemed still, the heat more oppressive. Perhaps I imagined it. What I didn’t imagine was the eerie lighting, the poor visibility that melted the horizon. I suppose it was like smog, though I don’t believe I’ve ever experienced smog. 

I had never experienced a dust storm either. That is, not a literal dust storm. 

The change in the climate put me in a mood, made me pensive. I realized it’s because the earth was mimicking the spiritual state of my heart; perhaps even the spiritual state of the world. 

In 1 Corinthians 13 Paul talks about love. This chapter of his letter is famous for that very reason. We read it at weddings. You’ll find verses from it on rustic plaques at Hobby Lobby. However, 1 Corinthians 13 is not, at the center, talking about love. That is to say, Paul is not talking about love for love’s sake. His reason for talking about love (in my opinion), is that he wants to explain what will last for eternity. 

Right now “we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known” (1 Cor. 13:12). 

Right now, we are in a dust storm. We can’t see clearly. We don't have the answers. We look at the sun and we don’t even know if it’s the sun. The sun contains 99% of all the mass in our solar system, and 1.3 million Earths could fit inside of her. It’s enormity should make it easy to identify. Yet sometimes, because of the dust storm, it looks like the moon of all things. The moon is even smaller than Earth.

It is frustrating to have such obscured vision. 

It is disheartening to live in dusty times. 

One might conjure up hope that there is resolution just past the horizon but where is the horizon, even?

The Word of God speaks into our tension: “Tranquila.” 

Or as we say in English, “Calm yourself.”

Paul says, you know what? Even if we knew all things and understood all mysteries it wouldn't matter because knowledge is going to pass away. 

This is not to say that knowledge isn’t good. In fact, even though the passage says that knowledge is going to pass away, that it isn't eternal, Paul explains that one day we will actually know fully, “as we have been fully known.” The importance of knowledge is given less weight, I believe, because it itself is not the answer to our dilemma of not being able to see. 

An example: 

It is knowledge, specifically higher mathematics that I can't get my mind around, that puts rockets into orbit. 

It is knowledge that could and will create a safe, functional vaccine against COVID-19. 

Therefore, knowledge is good.

However, it is not knowledge alone that will bring a person to choose the salvation from death that Christ offers. Even if I could prove the existence of God and the resurrection from the dead of the historical man Jesus, knowledge itself could not convince someone they need a Savior. Only love can do that. I have to fall in love with Jesus, with his sacrificial death on the cross, and believe that I need him, in addition to my cognitive understanding of Jesus. A person who knows Jesus but does not love him will go to hell. 

That is why, for as important as knowledge is, it is not important when compared to love. 

That is why, in the midst of our dust storms, we can relax. 

In a time when more than ever the world is screaming for answers to her problems, and we ourselves do not know what to do with our lives, we can relax. 

Because the one thing that matters most, that was good yesterday, that is good today, and that will be good for all tomorrows, that is the very point of being alive, is what we already have: love.

(And if you don't have it, it’s easy to get. Just ask me.)

So go love someone. 

In your daily crisis, love. 

Bonus points if you love someone who is unlovable, or someone who doesn’t agree with you, or someone who is hurting you.  

That--loving the people who don’t deserve it--is true love, and is the greatest love. 

It’s what Jesus did for us, it’s how he loves us: “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).

I know the sun looks like the moon. 

But love. 

Leverage Your Suffering

There’s something about the way the wind blows warm down our street. “You are here, you found it,” it says. It makes me feel satisfied, yet a little nostalgic at the same time because I’m not where I was. 
I remember walking snowbanked corridors, the way the wind whipped rapidly from one compass point to another, one moment stinging the left side of my face, the next moment the right. The most unbearable was when it sprayed snow into my coat collar. It was so cold. But there was Christmas, there was magic.

Here, it is so hot. I am writing this beneath my fan, Abigail sleeping (finally) next to me. Today she discovered power naps. Twenty minutes of sleep in the morning, twenty in the afternoon and yet she’s been going strong, all smiles and wiggles and what I like to think are kisses and not her simply biting me or slobbering all over me.

I am out of magic. I used it to get here. Abigail is made of fairy dust

 ————— 

Once upon a time, life was words written on a page. Life was stuffed chairs and blankets and cups of fine jasmine tea that Lia bought from a tiny, low-ceilinged corner-shop in Villach, Austria. I remember the store was near a skating rink.

Life was whispered conversations in coffee shops. We stood transfixed before paintings 800 years old like the artists knew what we wanted to know. I think they did. The artists, the architects, the playwrights, spoke of suffering. They suffered for what they loved, because they loved. That’s why I went. It was to press my ear to the paving stones and discover how to live.

I searched.

And I found.

I found a diamond.

It is brighter than I imagined a diamond could be. It is also harder.

It is love.

And love is sacrifice.

And sacrifice is death.

But take heart, because death in this realm—death of desires, of time, of health, of money—is life in another realm.

The days of just plain dreaming are over. The days of doing are upon me.

—————

Confronting suffering is uncomfortable, whether your own or someone else’s. Rembrandt painted his suffering in a self-portrait. He’d lost his young wife and children years before, to conditions that are easily curable with access to modern medical care. In the portrait, he looks grieved, untimely ancient. But the way his one eye is squinted slightly makes it look like he’s asking a question: “What about you? What are you going to do about it?”*

As Americans (or as anyone from a developed country) we always say, “I know I am so blessed.” I would read, or see something on the news, or go on a mission trip, and say the same. Running water and electricity 24/7 give us the freedom to do many things, whether work or play. But we tend to look at the material difference between us and the nations. What we don’t necessarily see is the way poverty changes the human spirit, changes the trajectory of life. In poverty, sometimes no matter how hard you try, there is no way out, your whole life long.

Imagine that. Imagine what it does to you. As Americans, we are taught in first grade that there’s a way out when they tell us we can be anything we want to be when we grow up. And you know what? Within reason, we can. Maybe we can’t be exactly what we want to be, and that hurts sometimes, but we can get the life we want outside of work.

We need to leverage that. Leverage our power for those living in poverty, leverage our suffering to help others who are suffering. Sometimes it’s our suffering that is our power. Rembrandt knew that, I think. Jesus most certainly knew that.

Christians, wake up from the American dream and love your neighbor—the one next door and the one in the next country.

I might be out of magic. My dreamy days of playing sleuth in cathedrals may be over. But I have found the meaning of life, the power of love and suffering.

Lord give me the grace and strength to live as I am called every day.

_________________________________________________________
*Painting analysis inspired by an art history teacher of mine, Dr. John Barber. Fall 2014.

Look, See Jane Run

I ran today.

It was one lap around the baseball field, with an 80 meter sprint at the end. Because I stopped running in the first trimester of my pregnancy*, and I’m now 9 weeks postpartum, it had been 9 months.

Nine months without running.

I’ve never been a fast runner, but since 2014 I’ve been a consistent runner and I love running. It’s for those two things that I let myself identify as a runner. Today, finally being able to run again, I felt like I was flying. It didn’t matter that my sprint was slow, that my legs were like anchors dragging through a reef; it was soaring.

I felt alive.

I felt like Mattea.

Nineteen days after giving birth safely to my sunshiney daughter, Abigail, I returned to the clinic’s emergency room with a 104 degree fever. That high fever was to last 2 weeks total and I was to spend 9 of those days in the hospital.

It was hemorrhagic dengue (stupid mosquitos) complicated by an amoeba (again) and two different infections. I never needed blood transfusions but the doctor told me I should be thankful to be alive. 

The hardest part of being ill was being separated for days from my newborn daughter (cue the tears). The best part was that my mom flew in. I’d missed that woman a lot.

The illness left me wiped out, paler than a New York winter. I lost all of my pregnancy weight and then some—though was left with the belly so we can’t market dengue and amoebas as the next post-pregnancy weight loss plan. Ha.

I felt incredibly weak, incredibly inept.

Running today, I felt strong and adept.

Víctor and Abigail were in the shade, looking on. I love seeing Abigail’s tiny form in her dad’s arms. She’s 22 inches of cuteness cuddled into 6-and-a-half feet of manliness. Abigail is our dream come true. In the midst of some trying circumstances her baby presence has brought such happiness. She is what I most wanted.

I’ve been given so many things I’d wanted for so many years: a husband, kids, a little baby girl.

In this place of contentment, of dreams fulfilled, I’ve been challenging myself to dream again. For all my life I dreamed of Abigail; now I need to dream with Abigail.

Like I said, dengue wiped me out. In the past, illness has always driven me to put the pedal to the metal. Something about a brush with evil makes you want to fight for what is good.

This time, however, I’ve found myself scared, sorely lacking in confidence. With simple, daily tasks suddenly so difficult while I was ill and recovering for weeks on end, how could I ever think of changing the world? How could I ever think of dreaming?

But I’ve decided to do it. I’ve decided to dream again, to crack open doors and peak inside. To even envision doors where there are none.

I want the people to say of me "look, here comes that dreamer."**

I need to show Abigail how it's done, how dreaming, seeing what´s not there, makes life incredible. 


*I know that if you are active before pregnancy you can stay active and many women continuing running until the bigness just gets uncomfortable. But this being my first pregnancy, I played it safe.

**Quote from Genesis somewhere, when Joseph´s brothers are referencing him. You google it and find the exact chapter and verse. 

It’s a Jungle Out There

We bought a jungle.

It’s more than six acres of bush, rocks, spiky plants and creeping vines. There’s a smattering of papaya and pineapple with tigers in between, as well as a few bushes of pigeon peas and a lemon tree or two.

When the sun sets, birds twitter and insects chirp. By day or by night, heat or lesser-heat, the air is fresh, and the breeze seductively whispers “breathe me.”

One day, it will be a farm. One day, it will be something productive.

The other night my husband and I sat on the concrete edge of the above ground swimming pool that could be filled with water only after digging up the water pump. The unfinished cabin was in the corner of our vision, the untamed land filling our view in front of us.

To me, the land looked like our lives: Victor is 6 feet deep in law school; I’m pregnant; we’re raising teens; apartment hopping; visa applications are open but nothing is submitted. Everything is wild and unfinished.

Everything is bursting with hope, if we have the eyes to see it. But also there’s the possibility of never arriving at where we want to be. What if we blow it? What if we should cash in now? I ask those questions of life. My husband doesn’t ask those questions. His spirit is indomitable.

So as we sat on the edge of that dry pool with its peeling blue paint, looking out over our land, it calmed my heart to dream with him, to see what this place can be if we work hour by hour, day by day. To also, metaphorically, see what our lives can be.

We hate the land enough that we want it changed. We love it enough we will put in the work to change it.

G. K. Chesterton said that is true patriotism: loving and hating your country at the same time. And though we hate our country for its things, we don’t love our country for its things. We love it for who it is, for its essence: its United States-ness or Dominican-ness or Italy-ness or whoever. If we love it for its things there could come a day in which our love ceases; if we love it for its essence, we will never cease to fix the things we hate.

We will have hope. We will see its potential.

We’ll walk through the change process well.

Victor and I could resort to chemicals and dynamite to change the jungle. Americans, conservatives and liberals alike, could - and are - resorting to hate and fear tactics to change the things they don’t like about the United States. But toxic methods, born out of fear, not hope, not love, destroy more than they create. They violate life itself.

They violate beauty.

They violate mystery.

This jungle that we own is full of mystery, like our lives. We don’t know what the ground holds, what trials and joys await. That’s why it takes hope to see the potential. That’s why, when I don’t have hope, I grit my teeth and look for the easiest way out.

We have to trust that the black space between the stars isn’t out to get us - that we can in fact move forward in love.

When you don’t see the path, tread determinedly, but tread softly.

Last week my woodsman-of-a father-in-law drove out to see the land and showed us which plants were beneficial and which were not. It wasn’t until we got his clear that we began to clear.

In the same manner, if you don’t understand the way a spirit enters the womb of a woman with child, tread softly.

Let’s not destroy our jungle countries, whether they are 6 acres big, an island, or a quarter continent. Let’s love their essences and act accordingly.

Inhales and Exhales

The first time I met my Dominican mother-in-law I was a sweaty New York gringa of a mess. The power was out and I wouldn’t have running water again until my husband got back after 5 from work and fixed the little orange engine that unfaithfully pumped water up to the tank on the roof when there was electricity. The sink had dirty dishes in it and I was in the middle of unpacking the life I had brought with me in two suitcases and a backpack. Given the circumstances, when I heard my name called from outside, I definitely panicked a little. Before going downstairs, I checked who it was from the balcony: my sister-in-law, who I’d met previously and who had called my name; and another woman I had only seen pictures of, my husband’s mother, Criseida. I greeted them from above, then ran down the two flights of stairs to let them in through the carport entrance.

I was embarrassed. My face was red, my hair was in a messy bun, beyond frizzy. I don’t remember, but my deodorant had probably stopped working.The first thing I did was apologize in very broken Spanish for my physical condition, and explained that I had no water. I couldn’t finish the explanation because Criseida gave me the biggest hug and told me not to worry.

The state of the house, the state of me, the state of my Spanish — none of it mattered. She understood. My mother-in-law bustled through my home, deftly hooked up a 4-burner camp stove that had been unloaded from her little red hatchback, remedying my problem of not being able to cook, and finally sat me down with her on the balcony where from her purse she pulled arepas, lightly sweetened Dominican biscuits, and we ate and chatted.

By “we chatted” I mean she talked and I tried to understand. Criseida is one of the persons to whom I am indebted for teaching me Spanish. In an immersion setting, it is critical that you have people who are not afraid to talk and talk and talk to you even though they know you are not understanding. It’s how you learn. Bit by bit, you do understand.

It was going to take me longer than normal to understand Criseida, though. She spoke fast, with a very Dominican accent, two things that still stumble me, even as I can understand a moderately paced academic lecture delivered in Spanish.

I did manage to gather that she was telling me her testimony of faith in Christ. I was able to reciprocate a little, and also gather some of her personal information. Though she had lived in San Pedro or Santo Domingo for decades, her life before starting a family had taken place in Miches, a little town in the north that was eventually to become one of my favorite places to visit. After giving birth to her second son, she and her husband, a pastor and successful fruit juice vendor, moved to San Pedro.

Lord knows what else she told me.

After an hour or two she and my sister-in-law had to leave. They were at that time living in the capital, a 45 minute drive west, and needed to get back to their own home and responsibilities. The visit ended with another hug.

That night, with water in the pipes and lights on, I excitedly “told” my husband (somehow — remember, we don’t speak the same language at this point!) that his mom had stopped in and I was quite convinced she loved me. Of course he was proud. Who doesn’t want the mother-/daughter-in-law relationship to start harmoniously?

That being said, given the language barrier and the fact that she lived in Santo Domingo, my relationship with Criseida, for as sweet as it always was, grew slowly. It was probably not until 6 months ago, when my Spanish really took off and Criseida spent a few nights in my home while Victor was in the North with the Air Force, that I truly felt like we were “gelling” as the cool kids say.

A few weeks after that stay, on Victor’s birthday, and after almost 10 years of living in the capital, Criseida moved back to San Pedro into the home she owned. Suddenly visits were easy to make. I stopped in at her home a few evenings a week, and Sunday afternoons she came to our place after we exercised together at the sports complex.

Criseida had some chronic health issues, but they were manageable. Things seemed to be on the up and up until, without much warning, a few days before her birthday in early March, doctors discovered one of her major organs was failing — and it was too late for them to do anything more than keep her comfortable. Of course we hoped for a miracle. I’ve never watched 4 siblings fight so hard, using their different abilities, for their mom’s life. They treasure her.

But like I said, there was really nothing that could be done. On May 2 we were forced to say goodbye. Criseida’s faith became her sight.

I knew my mother-in-law for 1 year and 7 months, far too short a time. But in that time she did care for me like I was her daughter. No matter the condition of her health, no matter if I was in her home or mine, she hosted me. She always made sure I’d eaten or had a comfortable place to rest.

She rejoiced always.

She was a strong-willed woman, a beautiful woman, one who made Christ her identity.

And can we talk about her sense of humor?

I miss her. When I walk into her house it is strange not to find her there.

— Exhale.—

I carry Criseida’s first half-gringa grandchild in my womb.

It is new life. I am so thankful that she was with us to receive our long-awaited pregnancy announcement Christmas week. I am thankful she got to see my belly swell to its current size. I’m thankful I got to tell her, the week before her passing, that I can feel the baby moving now, and that I won’t be surprised if baby is born with wings because it feels like there’s a butterfly inside of me. In a few short months our child will

 — Inhale.—

 Life and death, inhales and exhales. There is nothing new under the sun.

We are incredibly grateful for this baby life. This baby's been such a comfort to my husband and I and all of our extended family these past few weeks. Life lives on. It’s a miracle.

I remember to take my vitamins, drink liters of water every day to combat the heat, and try to rest and go to my doctor appointments on time. But we are dealing with a miracle here. At the end of the day what can one do except lie in bed full of wonder?

Full of hope.

Because though these bodies come and these bodies go, the soul — life — is forever.

Feliz Día de las Madres, mi Mami Criseida. Gracias por tu ejemplo. Gracias por darme un esposo maravilloso. Nos vemos.

11:45 Sunday Night

I went barefoot by choice and with pleasure around our home and grassy farm much of the time as a youngling, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t and don’t have a delight for shoes. Well made shoes, apart from being attractive, are a meaningful article of clothing. They not only protect our skin, they carry us to our destinations and hold us while we grow relationships with other people.

I have a tradition of burying my travel-worn shoes in far off places. The superstitious hope is that if I leave a piece of me, I’ll come back one day. It’s similar to throwing pennies in the Trevi Fountain. 

Speaking of that boot-shaped country, when you leave your sneakers in Italy, it gives you suitcase space for one more bottle of Imagredi wine. I still have that one more unopened bottle. The grapes were grown and fermented on the outskirts of the little village I lived in as a student, at the foot of the Alps that demarcate the border between Austria and Italy.

The first time I left a shoe somewhere was an accident. I was probably 5. We were staying at a rental house in Maggie Valley with my maternal cousins. Occasionally our parents would walk us to the nearby river to play, to swim. In the midst of my romping about, one of my shoes—a fruit-print, strappy, German Birkenstock slider with a green rubber platform—slipped off and floated away down the river.

Streams to the river, river to the sea.

Shoes don’t have to be lost or left to be remembered. On Easter Sundays as a little girl, I always put on what were called “fisherman sandals”—or what I prefered to call, a little proudly and indignantly, my “fisherwoman sandals.” They were made of white leather, maybe faux I don’t know, and so strappy that they were almost close-toed and close-heeled. I liked wearing them to church. For some reason, when I wore those shoes as a 6 year old, I felt more connected to Jesus’ first disciples, who were fishermen, and the call to be “fishers of men;” in other words, to share the good news of Jesus with others.

I tell you, shoes are powerful things. As a very young kid, this particular pair functioned as a symbol that drew me to the very heart of the gospel.

I converted to Christianity before I needed two hands to count my age on my fingers, but as any Christian knows, there are times when you are practicing the disciplines of your faith more than others.

I moved to a new culture, got married and adopted 3 sons in the same instant. Since then I’ve struggled to find a new rhythm in my practices of prayer and reading Scripture. Never have they been left in the dust, but the consistency of my single college years is a thing of the past.

The Bible is a big book. For several months I’ve found myself not knowing where or how to begin again. As someone who is familiar with the Bible and the many different reading plans, this was never a problem I thought I would have. But here I am.

Then a week or so ago a friend posted a video to Facebook in which he gave a brief overview of the Bible and its historical and spiritual context, and how the Bible has encouraged Him through the years. He encouraged his viewers to pick the Bible up and, if they were unfamiliar with the Scriptures, to start in the Gospel of John. When I heard that, I suddenly felt inspired. It was as if I’d been away from the Scriptures for too long and needed to start fresh, like a person approaching the Bible for the first time.

Every day since then, reading John has been like finding life. But there is one line that has resonated through my head over and over again this week. They are the first words of Jesus that are recorded by the apostle in the opening of the book:

 “What are you seeking?” Jesus is asking it of two men who have approached him.

What are you seeking?

As the book of John comes to a close, Jesus asks the question again, this time of Mary Magdalene: “Whom are you seeking?”

The same question is at the beginning and end of the book. It’s accordingly what I’ve been asking myself.

What am I seeking?

Who am I seeking?

I put on my shoes and walked out the door—for what?

To seek Jesus, the person, the God.

And I’ve found Him.*

Have you found Him?


_______________________
*Yet I continue to seek Him.

The Hunt's Afoot

When flying over the Dominican mountains, it appears that birds have built nests precariously on the ridges, and are raising their young in the heights, princes and princesses of a verdant wonderland with an ocean view.

When you are human eye-level, however, you see they are not nests. Rather, they are small corrugated steel or cement block houses hanging on for dear life to the mountain side, clutching a serpentining, narrow road. The view of the valley and watercolor shore is free, sans property taxes, but worth a million dollars.

The people who live here are poor. Every time we drive past, I am sobered by the poverty, even as I am overwhelmed by the spectacle of mountain, earth, water and sky. I don’t understand how these families came to be here. Perhaps the houses were originally built by the men who constructed the road? And afterwards, people came and settled in them because they were available? I’m theorizing. 

What is fact, is statistically speaking you are at higher risk of dying from natural disaster if you live here. Much higher. Hurricane Maria in point. What is more, you are a good hour from the private hospital, 2 hours from the regional government hospital that I’m assuming most of these people would be obligated to use. Emergencies aside, day-to-day is a struggle. Although food is available the variety is extremely limited from a Walmart perspective.

*****

And yet, the earth here is beautiful.

Tierra buena, tierra bella. 

*****

In some places, like parts of Haiti, the ground cries out with the people, hungry and thirsty. It is barren and ugly and can’t turn a carrot orange. The people are depleted too, of nutrients, of strength, of hope. The earth and the people are unified, and it births pure, simple emotions in your heart: sadness, anger, empathy.

But when hardship is set in the realm of natural glory, where every plant sings “life,” your heart compresses and bursts, compresses and bursts, until you are left in confusion, a melancholic state of wonder. You are stuck in a Shakespearean tragedy: marvelous prose, horrible story (sorry, my man Shakespeare).

I know that when Jesus took the punishment for all the sin of the world, all the horrible stories past, present, and future, giving His chosen ones the right to stand before the judgement seat of God and be declared redeemed, he also felt the pain of the world, of separation from God. He felt the pain of the poverty and hopelessness of those living in the rural mountains of the Dominican (or West Virginia, or Nepal, or wherever) and he gets this. He is not oblivious to their pain, or to my pain that I feel when I see it, live next to it every day. I also know that in this moment God is continuing to store up wrath which will be justly poured out on the causes of all this pain when the Day of the Lord appears. There is not one bacteria or amoeba or unrepentant dictator or demon that will not be duly punished. 

So I can rest. Of course help people whenever it is in my power to do it, but there is no need to be overwhelmed by cruel emotions. One can feel the breeze as the sun sets behind the mountain and enjoy it, trusting that the coexisting darkness is not something you should let get you down.

Easier said than done, no? Sometimes I am still brought to tears, or entirely frustrated, like when I was sitting in the hall outside the ER, waiting for a family member of my husband’s to be admitted to a room, and the electricity kept coughing, taking down along with it the nebulizers attached to crying kids, the desktop computers.

It’s everywhere, every day, inescapable, it seems: the poverty, the pain, dysfunction. All set beneath a cerulean blue sky, tall coconut loaded palms, and an ambient of Latino music.

In the midst of everything, you have to let yourself enjoy the beauty that there is.

When the beauty is not evident, you must search for it. It is an obligation.

So in the midst of my everything—a bunch of boys; cooking; the dirty dishes and laundry that I carried to our new apartment from the old one because I didn’t get around to washing them; sitting in the hospital with a friend or in the shop with a car whose hobby is breaking down; being present in broken lives; etc.—my hunt’s afoot.

Foreigner

Just because you feel called to be somewhere doesn’t mean it’s easy to be there, doesn’t mean your roots don’t tell you every day that the soil you’re in is not your own, that you’ve been transplanted.

There is something incredibly alluring about living in a foreign country. Your senses are in hyperdrive all the time, and you notice things that people who have lived in the place their whole lives do not notice. For example, occasionally throughout the town of San Pedro--in the university, the sports complex, my own lane, or a random street between the heres and theres--every other waft of air I breathe is sweet, similar to yellow sweet corn. I love it. It’s soft and mysterious.

It’s soft because it’s gentle, like the smell of rising bread dough. Mysterious, because nobody else smells it so they can’t tell me what it is. They’ve breathed it their whole lives, are accustomed.

It’s possible it is corn, but I am pretty sure it’s the smell of sugarcane being refined; or maybe it’s the factory by the river that processes beer. I don’t know. I’m American.

I’m American.

I’m a foreigner.

I’ve been transplanted.

When I studied abroad in Italy, I didn’t fit in either, but it was different. Once I got my fashion a little bit more under control people frequently thought I was German; and whether “German” or American, if I kept to myself, often Italians wouldn’t look twice, whether male or female.

But here, even as I speak more and more Spanish, and thereby unlock the house that is culture, the way Khaled Hosseini said it would happen in his book And the Mountains Echoed, I remain a foreigner. It’s my skin, my hair, and--more so--my blue eyes. I do not fit in with the dominant culture, the way Haitians do not fit in either; except their ethnicity, in contrast to mine, gets them very few favors.

I am a foreigner.

It would be lovely, for a few hours, to feel normal. To not feel like all of the cultural parts of me, all of the colors of me, are alien.

But is that my mission in life? Is that what I am pursuing? Is that what I was created for? To feel normal, comfortable, in place, supported, at home?

Like I’ve written before, I feel all those things in the arms of my husband. He is my Knight, my best friend. But we do not live in a fairytale. He goes to work. Sometimes he’s away overnight.

And I am left as who I am without him: a stranger.

I am an exile of Eden, waiting to be able to go home to a city fashioned of precious gems.

We are all foreigners, truth be told. But we feel it more in some seasons of life than others. For me, it’s especially poignant right now because my strangeness is palpable. People treat me differently for how I look, shining the spotlight on me whether to give me positive or negative attention, and my cultural habits are an oddity, whether it be my propensity to prefer text messages over voice messages in WhatsApp (and be terrible at responding to either right away because dang it, if it’s an emergency call me), or my desire to always be on time.

Some days I feel like my entire personhood is in opposition to Dominican culture (“I don’t belong here”) and those are the days when I need to spend a lot of time looking at flowers. Those are the days when I also need to talk to people and remember that our differences are beautiful.

As Riley Armstrong wrote in a song a long, long time ago, it’s what every welcome mat is saying: “welcome,” only welcome, without discrepancy, without asterisks or clauses. It doesn’t matter if you’re different; in fact, different is beautiful. My parents’ welcome mat even says “welcome” in 7 or 10 different languages. Riley would be proud.

I may be a transplanted flower, I may look a little different, and move with the sun a little differently, but that does not mean that how I look or move is inherently wrong. The soil feels different, but I can still grow, still form bonds with those around me. If everybody in this exuberant, tell-it-like-it-is culture wants to call me out, okay. That’s beautiful. The excitement they are feeling makes their lives better and I can learn to do the same or at least appreciate it. In response to their enthusiasm in the street, much of the time the only thing my introverted self has to do is simply smile and wave and there, my job is done.

When, occasionally, the attention gets a little negative, I just have to breathe and think rationally and be brave and everything turns out fine.

I’m sitting here, at the desk in my room, kind of laughing right now, honestly. Because in the US, for much of my life, I spent so much time trying to be different. In such a big population, it’s difficult. I started wearing bohemian clothes and digging more into my pseudo-hippie roots as a young teen, and then what happens? The next year American Eagle decides that’s what we should all be wearing and boom, I was no longer original.

When I was 14, finding the wedding style of the day claustrophobic, I knew I wanted an exclusive wedding with a lacy, short white dress, wild flowers everywhere, in a barn or in a field, or both, with subs as the main course and pie for dessert. And then a few years later, that’s what everyone started doing. Like, America didn’t give me enough time to get married with my original idea.

Ya’ll know the state of the story: I got married without a wedding and now I wear mostly jeans and t-shirts.

(This doesn’t mean I don’t ooo and ahhh over everyone's wedding photos, and that I don’t glance through Free People occasionally.)

I guess one could say that my fight to be different backfired. Because now, I am certainly different, without even trying. Maybe that’s what it is: it’s one thing to be in control of your difference (you can change your clothes) it’s another to be intrinsically different (my birth certificate will always be from the USA).

It is one thing to be an American in America expressing my personal freedom (something that is culturally celebrated), and another thing to be an American in a different country, period.

In the first, I’m still not that unique, and in the second, I am a foreigner.

It’s an identity to embrace, not one to run from.

And no matter what I feel, like I said in the beginning, I have a genuine sense that I am called to be here, at least during this time of my life. One is called until they are not.

It is a coward who backtracks out from under their call.  

True Love is the Greatest Thing in the World (except for maybe a nice MLT - mutton lettuce and tomato sandwich - where the mutton is nice and lean and the tomato is ripe)

“Why do you like it here?” is a question I hear frequently from people I have just met. I don't readily fit into their mental schematics, so they are trying to figure me out. In the minds of many, I am doing life backwards. For the majority of Dominicans, the end goal is to move to the United States, or at least secure a 10 year tourist visa. But here I am, the US citizen who has moved to the Dominican Republic. Because of my age—it's not like I’ve retired here in an Italian-owned penthouse on the beach—it makes me a bit of a curiosity.

My response is always on the tip of my tongue, “I like it here because my husband lives here.” The answer gives people a high, even though now they are doubly astonished. Not only am I choosing to live here, I genuinely love my husband, I am actually married to my husband, and my husband is not using me to immediately gain a green card. In the Dominican Republic, all of those concepts are uncommon.

First, if two people are going to get together, it is generally not driven by love, but by infatuation and by prospect, i.e., what can this person give me? Within the relationship, the two maintain their independence. He has his life and she has her life. They try not to need each other. Accordingly, second, legal marriage is also uncommon. People might more or less live together for 20 years, and have children together, but not actually be married.

A few years ago, the Dominican Republic was only on my radar because my sister was working here in a private school. I remember her telling me that occasionally the church she went to held, essentially, mass marriages for all the couples who had been living together for years but had converted to Christianity and realized they should make some vows before God and men. At the time, it seemed like such a foreign concept. “Mass marriages.”

Granted, marriage is becoming less common in the United States, and we all know how most relationships on the mainland end. But, believe it or not, love and fidelity are even more scarce on this island. If one wants to get scientific about it, it is probably influenced by the scarcity of financial resources. Money is arguably the thing that puts the most stress on relationships, and even though the Dominican Republic is more Diestic and Christian than the US, it is poorer, which I believe has resulted in the breakdown of the marital unit. In other words, despite the presence of religion, the values of love and marriage cannot get footholds in this economic climate.

So here, the love my husband and I share is a countercultural oddity. The strangeness of the deal is sealed by the fact that we are choosing to live here. When an American marries a Dominican, the two almost always move directly to the United States since the majority of Dominicans who marry Americans do so to win residency. The stereotype runs deep. Case in point, two days after Victor and I married, he was released from his full-time job. The owner of the company, who had never even met my husband, assumed that Victor would be moving to the US within a year or two, and he did not want to invest in someone who would not be with the company long term. Victor’s coworkers and managers were shocked by the decision and one even tried to get him reinstated, but to no avail. The take-an-american-bride-and-run-off-to-the-States-with-her stereotype is engrained in people’s minds.

(Happy ending to the story: even though the layoff meant 2 months of financial discomfort in our brand spanking new marriage, the free time gave us the space we needed to cultivate our friendship as husband and wife, and the new job that came along has better hours, better pay, uses his giftings, and provided the relationship that lead to a full university scholarship for Victor and a job offer for me, if I can get my Spanish up to a professional level. So the owner’s biased, ruthless decision actually helped us).

Or, take just last week, for instance. One of my husband’s athletes told us that a few of her friends were talking to her about us. These other athletes don’t know us personally, but they are watching us, watching the “odd” life we lead. Her friends were asking her why Victor has not sent me to the States to work, or why I have not gone volitionally. Knowing us well, my husband’s athlete explained to her friends that being together is more important to us than having a lot of money. Because that’s another stereotype: the American wife who lives in the US, working and sending money, while the Dominican husband lives the high life on the island, forsaking sexual fidelity to his bride at the same time.

If it’s not yet apparent, there are many stereotypes and they are all negative. This is not to say that perhaps one day I would not find myself working in the States out of necessity, but our lifestyles
would still break the stereotype.

But what about love in the US? Even if Victor and I both move to the United States in the future, like his former employer thought we would, I think we would still find ourselves living in a countercultural love. That being said, at least in my circles, I wouldn’t say our marriage itself is comparatively that strange. I am blessed to know a remarkable number of couples where the husband and wife are radically in love with one another. It’s true that abuse and unhappiness are easily hidden, but it doesn’t always prevail, despite what cynics (and indeed my former self) might say.

What I do know is that when you are in love, it doesn’t ultimately matter where you live. For this, Victor and I are somewhat ambivalent about which country we call home. Separation has been, and will continue to be, inevitable in our relationship. We are both citizens of different countries, after all. What’s more, life doesn’t go as planned, and jams happen. However, I am 100% confident that even in separation our love will prevail, and that we will continue to be given the grace (because it is only by God’s grace that it happens) to have a stronger, more pure love than the majority, one that makes people say, “say what?”



PS. The title is a Miracle Max quote from Princess Bride, in case it was lost on you.

That Ritmo Tho

I have a sofa and chairs here in the living room, but sometimes, like now, I prefer to sit on the tile floor. It’s cool.

A little bird keeps flying in through the open shutters of my window, and straight out again through the open sliding glass balcony door. The air is soft from the rain last night; good for flying, I imagine. 

It showers almost every day now. In the sports complex, the grass that grows in the ovular field circumvented by the 1000 meter track has gone from matted and brown to lively and green. In addition to a lot of rain, the days are now 12 hours long instead of 13. Night falls quickly, but it’s steady, mature, aged by a hot sun and salty breeze. It’s not finicky and girlish like in New York where night might come at half-past 4, or half-past 9, depending on the time of year, depending on her moods. She’s a pretty, wild, hippy child, though, so who can blame her enthusiasm?

Here, we are the children, and night is almost obligated to be wise, to try to control all the life that takes place in her regime. It’s a celebration that you’ve escaped the heat and toil of the day.

Just look at how we leave the complejo at night: boombox reverberating, spilling out colored lights that swirl with the stars. Music makes everything a celebration, even when you’ve got nothing else. Ask anyone, they’ll tell you it’s true. When we bought our Trailblazer, one of the first things we fixed was the sound system, even though there were supposedly more important mechanical items to repair. But see, any vehicle is gonna breakdown, and if you’ve gotta breakdown, do so in style, with joy, with music.

If at all possible, do it with someone you love.

It’s cooler weather now too, which makes hugs more enjoyable, less suffocating.

My mom always asks me what I mean by “cooler.”

It means that at night, it really does drop to 70 degrees Fahrenheit and the concrete walls of your house and the tile floors soak it up and hold it for you, and release it slowly throughout the new day, keeping your house relatively cool even though it’s still burning hot outside at 10 o’clock in the morning. Of course, no matter the season, our advantage is having a house that is “hembra”—a female. She was purposefully engineered to face East, and that makes her a girl, according to Dominicans.

When a house faces east, the main living space is being hit by the sun in the coolest part of the day. During the hottest quarter of the day, when the sun is shining directly into your house again, it is heating up the back. Thus, a “casa hembra” is designed to keep you cool in its East-West/front-back orientation, based on what rooms of your house you will be in at what times.

I am enjoying discovering the slight variations in the seasons—wether it’s the temperature, the length of day between sunrise and sunset, or the fruits that are ripe.

I think, after a year, I am starting to catch the rhythm (ritmo) of this country: her environment, her music, her heartbeat.

It’s so different from everything I’ve ever known, and when I am not literally in the arms of my husband I feel displaced.

That’s the trade off. There’s always a trade off. When you choose a life of adventure, of crazy love and faith, it comes with a lot of uncomfortable feelings.

Be warned.

But the discomfort, the displacement, in addition to the wonder-full moments, the vibrancy, is so much better than feeling nothing at all.

It is possible to catch a new rhythm.

A Year of Life in Yellow

October 17, 2017 to October 17, 2018.

I’ve honestly been dreading the anniversary of my arrival in the Dominican Republic. Anniversaries are a time for reflection, and in many ways I am not where I wanted to be in regards to a few significant achievements, making reflection depressing and frustrating. It doesn’t matter that simultaneously I am unexpectedly ahead of schedule in other categories—I have a human brain and it is going to focus on my insufficiencies. To try to combat the disappointment, I decided to take a few hours and not dwell on either successes or perceived failures of this year, and simply remember some of the highlights, some of the moments that left me feeling like the color yellow.

*****

1. Our trip to visit Victor’s dad in Santiago. This took place only a couple weeks after I arrived on the island, so I spoke almost no Spanish. Accordingly, I did not understand that we would be staying with his dad for not 1 but 3 days. Needless to say, I had to wash my underwear and t-shirt in the sink every night. Even though it was cool seeing the monument of Santiago and eating good food with extended family in La Vega, the highlight was riding in my father-in-law’s little pickup truck. First of all, it barely functions. Second, he barely knows how to drive. On the way to and from the city in heavy traffic one afternoon we literally bumped into or side-swiped 10 other vehicles at low speeds. Another night he forgot to check the gas gauge and he and the husband had to push the truck up an incline while I steered us to the nearest gas station. Besides all that, his dad is just the cutest person.

2. Sunday morning visit to the beach with both my families - the Wilber’s and Gonzalez’s. My sisters and the boys played in the sand and chased crabs along the rock pier like long lost cousins, and took turns jumping off my husband’s shoulders into the waves (ok, I did it a couple times too). Equally special was having my parents there to see with their own eyes how much their daughter’s husband, who they’ve just met for the first time, loves her. To this day I’m devastated that we can’t be more involved in each other’s lives, but I have hope for the future. Door to door, including layovers and drive time, when you have good flights it’s just 9 hours from my parents house to my house.

3. The military games. Those 4 days were fun, even though I felt out of place: too American, to white and blonde, too non-athletic, too non-Spanish speaking. My husband’s athlete won her event, qualifying her for the Central American games. The national anthem was played frequently to commemorate each event, of course, but the second to last night, after a moving speech by one of the champions, the crowd sang it with gusto. Maybe it was something in the breeze, but I suddenly teared up and felt like a part of this strong, vibrant country, instead of a foreigner.

4. The boys accidentally calling me “mami.” Doesn't happen often, but when it does...

5. Going to the church of my friend Neftalí - mi guarda espalda - one Sunday evening. Let’s talk about that music, baby. It was the sax that made the magic, with plenty of percussion backing it up. Doubly fun because I married a dancer, and he was next to me. I felt the same euphoria I get after running 3 miles uphill and finally cresting and seeing the mist rising up from the valley - except I didn’t have to sweat for it that Sunday night.

6. A week before my visit to the US. We made the drive over to Santo Domingo, the capital, so I could say goodbye to my in-laws. Victor and I bought chicken and mashed potatoes from the prepared foods section of the grocery store across the street from his mom’s house, and we all ate on the back patio with the rooster skulking around. Nothing eventful happened. But for some reason I finally felt like part of the family.

7. When my husband’s aunt died. Very sad event, and a low point of the year—but it resulted in our house filling up with relatives from Miches. For one night, we were all together under one roof, and it was incredibly comforting to have such wonderful family in such a hard time. We laughed, we smiled, we cheered each other up. It was a high point to discover such comfort in a low point.

8. The night before my conference in the university. We wrapped up practice in the complejo early, then drove the boys home and gave them dinner before hurrying out the door again just the two of us to make our 8 o’clock date with my translator, who I would be meeting in person for the first time. In Dominican fashion, we were late and my translator didn’t show. While we tried to get ahold of him by phone we bought sandwiches and batidas from a little cafe. A classic Dominican sandwich is a couple thin slices of sweet ham and mild cheddar cheese dressed with ketchup and mayo in a soft submarine roll that is hot-pressed panini style. It’s good (it's street food, it's like less than $1 US dollar), but it’s a hundred time better with a batida, or smoothie. Fruit, ice, sugar, and evaporated milk. What more could you want in this climate? When it’s available, we usually order batidas de zapote, which is a fruit related to the papaya. Sandwiches and smoothies in hand, we drove around San Pedro until we finally tracked down my translator a little before 10 o’clock. I don’t know why that loop around town is on this list of highlights, except it was an unexpected moment of just us, a sudden respite from presentation-prep and the glaring pile of laundry, and I do like Batidas.

9. Getting sick rather a lot. I have the immune system of an Appalachian. I now live on an island south of the Tropic of Cancer. Let’s just say there’s lots of bacteria to get acquainted with. Even though being unwell is awful, having my husband step into the mess and take care of me in ways he is not obligated to has brought me closer to him than days of “normal” ever could; especially in the first few months of our relationship when, even though I was deeply in love with him, he was still in many ways a stranger. I got to know him through my sickness.

10. Breaking out of the hospital. For reals. One of those times I was sick I landed in the hospital for 3 days. Technically, I should have only needed to be there 12 hours to get rehydrated and receive my test results so that I could start the most appropriate course of antibiotics. However, as confirmed by my trusted sources, it is notoriously difficult to get released from Dominican hospitals. Doctors like to keep you until you are practically 100%. Day 2 in the PM my doctor said I could probably go home the next day. But the next day, she never came to re-examen me, even though her nurses said she was coming. By 8 o’clock that night I was quite better, but anxious. One, I didn’t want to spend another night in the hospital. Two, I was still connected to my IV, receiving a solute of glucose and electrolytes—and dangerously at risk of developing problems associated with fluid overload. Victor, exasperated as well, looked at me and asked me how I felt. I said fine. He then asked, “do you want to break out?” I laughed, but when he didn’t crack a smile I realized he was serious. “Ok. Let's do it,” I said after a moments hesitation. We packed up as quickly as we could. By this time he knew the rounds of the security guards and we only had a few minutes—and not enough time to withdraw my IV and bandage me. So we just pulled the bag of fluid off the pole and stuffed it and the meter of tubing up my sweatshirt. I had to go downstairs first; he would follow at a safe distance so we wouldn’t be recognized as a couple (front desk security knew he was there with his wife, but they didn’t know what I looked like. Thus, I had to appear as a visitor leaving late; him as if he was off to run some errand). We checked the hall outside my room: coast clear. I walked downstairs quickly, heart flitting from the thrill. The personnel surrounding the front desk didn’t look up from their conversation, and the policeman I passed at the exit was preoccupied with some other mission. Outside, I turned left, searching frantically for our vehicle. It was on the other side of the street. I crossed, ducking around the SUV to be hidden on the other side. I tapped Victor’s name on my favorites list to ring his phone, letting him know I was ready. He arrived a minute later. I started the car while he slid into his seat. Checking the mirrors, he pulled out of park and we sped away, not breathing easy until we were a mile away and still unfollowed by sirens. (The next day Victor went back to settle our account, of course. We are not Bonny and Clyde). Once home sweet home, we finally got me disconnected from the IV and both slept soundly from our shenanigans.

11. One particularly fantastic trip to Miches

*****

But after all, this year never was about the accomplishments anyway. Trying to enumerate the highlights is almost an exercise in futility too. The end of the matter is this: I am loved and I have someone to love. Love is not quantifiable. It goes beyond time, shatters the very concept of an anniversary. It is a miracle (milagro) that I live in every day. It heals the distortions of my misfiring synapses, and magnifies truth.

No matter what does or does not get done, love is my reality.

Love tops all.

Us and his dad and the little pickup truck and sunshine