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While my parents were here, our friend Nancy took some wonderful portraits of myself and my mother for a photo class she was taking. Here are some of my favorites. However, I still don't see a similarity so stunning that you can immediately tell we're mother and daughter.
I'm editing [by adding the one below]: I think this one is actually my favorite, although the first one I like for more artistic statement type reasons. If I had to title it, I think I'd title it Eye Am.
There has been a lot of talk about writing recently. Violetta is prolific {Mendon, if you get bored, just visit her blog!}. Not only is she prolific, but very, very soon she should put pen to paper and start shipping those ideas off to publishers. Anyone who can't tell she's an amazing writer is illiterate - that's their only excuse.
She is currently in the Congo Republic. I don't know about you, but I didn't spend my childhood pining over a trip to the Congo. Violetta is currently residing in Paris, but visiting her parents in the Congo. I've lived in Paris. I love Paris - especially when I have friends there to share it with. I have some amazing memories from my time in France, and when Violetta writes about Paris it brings it all alive to me, all the stuff I enjoyed, and I yearn to go to Paris and share her experiences with her.
That said, when she writes about the Congo - well! - what can I say? I feel like I'm reading a good fantasy novel. I'm swept away into an alternate universe, where everything is beautiful, lush, purposeful and appreciated - especially by V. I feel an overwhelming urge to buy the next available ticket to the Congo and be apart of these experiences she's describing. She's suddenly made the Congo a high priority - smashing my top five [places to visit] to smithereens. I know it'll pass - when she leaves the Congo, probably. I doubt I could appreciate the Congo as much without her loving and appreciating eye to guide me. But that's okay. She's not going to evaporate - she'll be writing about somewhere else, and I'll fall in love with that place all over again. What's great about her writing (for me) is that I can keep this stuff - and hopefully her published stuff as well - and even if she's not near me when I have children, I can share her writing with my children and maybe help instill in them a similar sense of wonder and appreciation in them. I'd like that. A lot.
p.s. note: I know I made her writing sound sweet and appreciative, but she's also very real. Take her most recent entry, about some of the darker sides of Africa. She chooses to make her writing appreciative, she's not blind to the bogey men. We need more people who can dwell on the positive. I'd certainly rather have children, grounded in reality of course, who dwell on the positive rather than the negative!
A personal aside to Mendon, is this prolific enough for you?
You best be prolific in your comments, otherwise, is it worth my while? Hmm?
As I sit here at the computer, looking out my window at the gray warships in the Haifa harbor, I know that my father has forever changed how I look out my window at the Haifa Bay. While he was here, every day he would point out the different types of ships in the harbor and bay. I hadn't even realized there was an Israeli navy contingency here! I think of him every time I look at the ships now.
I'm so happy that my parents were able to visit us. They changed my perspective about serving here, and helped me renew my excitement about serving here at the Baha'i World Centre. They did some service while they were here and they just beamed with the thrill that it brought them to be a part of our community here. They also made wonderful connections with a number of people here - many of whom Mark and I know and are friends with. It was such a wonderful feeling to have my parents fall in love with my friends - and vice versa. Any time my two worlds connect (family & friends), I have a moment of apprehension - will one party find the other odd beyond comprehension? To say that did not happen would be a gross understatement. My parents left on Sunday and people are still talking about them - a number asking whether my parents will consider coming to serve here themselves. That to my is the highest praise they can give my parents - saying they'd like to have them around on a more permanent basis. I had no idea my parents would become so integrated into our community so quickly. I imagine that, along with the great memories, my parents are also experiencing some pain of loss. I'm kind of glad. That means that when Mark and I leave, my parents will have an inkling as to the readjustment we'll have to make to the States.
Every once and a while, I show up at work with a suit coat on and people say "wow, Mara, you look so professional today!" I won't comment on how silly I think that comment is, just know that I think that's silly.
The other day, I don't know, I think I was wearing some black/white plaid pants [that don't look as bad as that sounds], a purple sweater & a scarf of various muted pink hues. In fact, I had pink barrettes in my hair, too. Someone commented that she thought I looked professional. I smiled and thought "even with these silly pink clips in my hair?!" And then she added, "I feel like you should be carrying a violin case."
She made my day. I think I started channeling beams of sunshine throughout my body. I was glowing - a professional violin player? - I'll be happy to look like that any day. From now on, I think I'll just assume everyone is saying that I look like a professional violin player every time they tell me I look professional!
I live on the side of a mountain. I have a terraced garden as a backyard. I have at least 3 olive trees in aforementioned backyard. Now picture this: those three trees are nearly perfectly placed so that only that really tall guy in Middle America could actually REACH said olives. They're not just out of reach in that if I stood on my tiptoes I could reach the branch, hold it and pick the olives. No, they are about 2 - 3 feet away - just close enough to see every luscious olive that is completely, totally, 100% out of my reach. And remember - it's terraced, so after a few feet it becomes twice as far away... sigh. Today Mark and I tried to pick 4 pounds of these olives. We might have gotten one pound. Mark tried shaking the tree, at one point he stood on the steps and gently hit the branches with our broom - plunk, plunk - so much expended energy for such a miniscule return! By the end I was laughing so hard. Here he was, with the broom straight over his head - bobbling it up and down - to get _plunk_ one olive... At one point I was picking olives and because of the angle of the sun I couldn't see what I was doing really well - twice I got branches stuck in my glasses. What geeks are we?!
This was sort of my parents idea - they really encouraged us. We really should have done this while they were here. I know they would have thought of some crazy successful way to get the olives. But we didn't. I guess I felt like I'd be disappointing them if I didn't try.
Well, we tried. And I'll be first in line to pay for premium olives in the future. We will try to do something with the olives we picked; however, I don't think we'll try again next winter. Unless we get really desperate for exercise or something :-)
Is that a disturbing thought for you? It is for me.
Mainly, because I don't like to write. I certainly don't have a flair (Violetta has flair, so does my sister, Rachael). And yet, as much as I encourage others to write, and swear up and down that I can't write well - okay, I can but it it sheer torture to all involved - I get the sneaking suspicion I have a book in my head. And every day is a step closer. Granted, at that rate I figure I still have about 10 miles to go. Let's see... 1 step a day x 10 miles = a really long time. We'll see where it leads. I wouldn't stay tuned or anything, as I said, it's not developing quickly, but on occasion I feel like I'm on the verge of something big and I just happen to be in one of those moods. Mental and spiritual growth spurt, I guess.
On another note, we took my parents around Israel this weekend. As I mentioned earlier, I don't have the flair of Violetta to describe the trips we took, but we had a good time. We covered probably the entire north of the country (okay, not the Golan Heights), but we saw ancient Greek & Roman ruins, Christian sites around the Sea of Galilee, visited Akko, ate good food, went to a Druze village (don't ask me about the Druze - even they don't know who they are), saw the Jordan River valley (WOW) and enjoyed good company and great music. The feeling of history is inescapable here. Being from the States, where 200 years is old, seeing something from 2000 B.C.E. is exhilarating - nearly incomprehensible. All I kept thinking was "I learned about this in history class!" When I learned "American" history, we frequently toured fully intact sites of our history. The thought that I could view something like that 4000 years older, well, was just out of the realm of comprehension - and some of it amazingly intact. This country is so beautiful, and yet so wretched at times - such an agonizing experience.
Kristen is the newest Baha'i in our family. My mom just called me, and at first I thought the line had gone dead - she couldn't speak she was so moved. All our love to you Kristen, as always. When we're in the Shrines next I imagine we will all take a moment to request that Baha'u'llah, the Bab and Abdu'l-Baha guide and assist you.
My parents are in Haifa! This is their first visit to the Holy Land, and it's a sneaking suspicion that they are in the process of some profoundly moving experiences. However, just my suspicion. Mostly because when I'm in that mode I neither realize I'm going through it nor do I want to talk about it.
On verra.
Violetta just left - this picture is from her farewell. I miss her, but I don't think I've really figured out she's gone yet. On the other hand, it was time for her to go, and I recognize that. Somehow, I think that if she hadn't left it would have been hard for me from the standpoint that if she couldn't leave, it was less likely that I would. I love this place, but I have other plans.... I'll be ready to go when it is my time.
Vi, I wish you all the best in the whole wide world, you know that, and nothing I could say could truly express my feelings for our relationship. I know it is one that will always be there, whether we're in constant contact or not.
The reason I feel this way is that we went through tests together. What this finally made me realize is that, although I may be reluctant, I am much more open to friends testing me than strangers, enemies, people I just don't like. Fortunately, they're open to being tested by me, too. I think the friends that I struggle with through a test, and come out together on the other side, are the ones that are most likely to last a lifetime. Perhaps it's because we've invested in each other; we worked on ourselves to be better friends to them. We're committed to each other. And they've watched us do it, so they appreciate our growth - and struggle. With strangers, even if they're right, I largely just write them off as nutcases and ignore them being mad or frustrated with me - or even if they give constructive criticism. I think "what do they know?" and forget about it. With a friend, it's like a grain of sand in the oyster - it grows, is irritating, I'd love to get over it, ignore it, etc., but really I just have to deal with it. And once I do, then good things happen.
I love figuring out a test. Of course, it doesn't stop happening, but hopefully in the future I will be better behaved :-)