Dispatch from the front

Cold front, that is.

I'm sitting in my parents' living room listening to the sleet hit their huge windows. My mom got a new laptop and my dad rigged up a wireless network, so I'm typing away, connected to the internet world with no tangible connections. This please me to no end, but moreso because it's my parents' doing.

Driving over this morning gave me a couple of hours of alone-time in my car. I enjoy driving that route to Indiana because I know it so well. Today was even better since I got to slice through rain and fog, perfect melancholy weather.

My small group talked the other night about suffering. I was just reading A Circle of Quiet by Madeleine L'Engle and came across this passage descring a writing conference experience:

...

It wasn't long before we all knew each other by name, which meant that Una was Una first and black and militant second; that Jock was Jock first and privileged and Wasp second; that he could say, after hearing Una read a tragic story out of her own experience, "Una, I really envy you; that's awful, all that, but it makes me realize how sheltered I've been." Una, in her turn, for the first time saw some of her experiences as valuable in her understanding of herself and the world around her, saw and felt the extraordinary hope that comes from experience which comes from tribulation. We all asked, "Why is it that we learn from the things which hurt us? Why do we need pain before e can grow?" There aren't any easy answers to this one, but all artists know the truth of it, and not only artists: it was Jung who said that there is no coming to life without pain.

...
I could just retype the whole book here, but I'm not that patient.

It works that way, doesn't it? It takes pain and confusion to really develop a person. It feels so unfair and yet it seems to be the inescapable reality.

When I was younger, maybe 7 or 8, my family hosted our first exchange student. Over the years we had several, some for only a few weeks, some for an entire year. But a select few became members of our family and we all still communicate. Monica, this 17 year old girl from Uruguay, was our first. I remember driving down to the Indianapolis airport in January to pick her up. At that age, simply driving an hour to the big city was exciting.

Monica was ecstatic because we had snow. She'd never seen it before. For a little kid from Indiana that was inconceivable. We still have pictures of that snowball fight.

My mom had a long letter from her on the kitchen counter. Monica was writing about how she had heard from my grandmother some brief comment about marriage and divorce and goings on over the past few years. She was describing to my mom how difficult it is to imagine those little kids (my brother and I!) as adults going through all of these adult things.

It is interesting looking at your life through someone elses eyes.

I've always kept tabs on Monica through my mom, but now I think it's time for me to write a letter.

Once of my goals this year was to visit a new country. This afternoon I'm dreaming of flying down to visit this "older sister" of mine.