Sabbatical, week 7
Weeks 3, 4, and 5: getting ready to go to India and traveling.
We got vaccinations for Hepatitis A and typhoid and prescriptions for anti-malaria medication. David also got a prescription for Z-Pak, azithromycin, just in case, which came in handy later. I got my phone unlocked so I could buy a SIM card in India and have phone service there. I added contacts in India to my list so we could make arrangements for rides--friends of a friend, who also came in more than handy later. I packed too many clothes but then we were going to be in winter in Munich for a few days and then variable weather in India, anywhere from 35 to 50, 60 degrees F, and I had so many hot flashes I'm glad I brought it all.
I was nervous about flying so far, first to Germany, then to Delhi. Both flights were uneventful, except I hardly slept. We landed in Germany on January 18, Friday morning, and we found our way to a train ticket machine, bought 2 to Neufahrn bei Freising, a small town where we had reserved an Airbnb, a comfortable finished basement apartment in our host's home. So glad we stayed in this quiet little town instead of Munich, which we easily reached with the train. There was a small outdoor ice rink where kids took skating lessons, played hockey, and adults played a kind of shuffleboard game and hung out by high-top tables and heaters and drank beer in the evening, plus small shops and a variety of restaurants.
Saturday morning I woke up with a barking cough but otherwise felt a little tired but okay. We took the train into Munich to meet my friend, Heike, whom I hadn't seen since I graduated from seminary in 1991. She had been an au pair for a family who attended the same church as I did and who happened to live on the same street as my parents. The summer before I started seminary, Heike and I met in the church choir, good-naturedly ribbed each other back and forth, and became friends. We went out together a few times that summer: the beach, Boston, stuff like that. I started seminary and she returned to Germany, so we wrote letters to each other (ah the days before the internet and email!). I still have them, tied together with a ribbon in a box somewhere.
I went to visit her my first year during Easter break and then again before graduation for a 10 day visit. We kept in touch after that, mostly birthdays and Christmas, and eventually lost touch. David and I wanted to spend a few days somewhere on the way to India, and David had never been to Europe. So I used the last email address I had for Heike (I still had the same one for 18 years) and it was like no time had passed between us. She said she was now living in Stuttgart, so either Frankfurt or Munich would be good places to meet up. She was also dog-sitting and brought Eddie, a cute little pup, with her.
We met at the train station and spent the day just walking around Munich. We had lunch together, went in search of chocolate, tried to stay in the warm sunlight, and just talked and talked, reminiscing and catching up. Even though it was a cold Saturday in Munich, there were tons of people walking, shopping, sightseeing, etc. And of course at noon we stood in the crowd at the Marienplatz and listened to the infamous glockenspiel and watched as the various life-size figures moved through their stories, the jousting knights and the coopers' dance.
We parted ways at the train station mid-afternoon, as Heike had a two-hour car drive back to Stuttgart. We had thought we might spend the weekend together but our Airbnb didn't allow pets and I didn't know Heike would be dog-sitting when we came to visit. I'm just thankful we were able to see each other and spend the day, even though it had been so many years since the last time.
I'm not very good about keeping in touch with friends who live at a distance. If you're one of them and you're reading this, I am deeply sorry. I've allowed social media to do the work for me. I confess I'm better at in-person, local friendships. It's the conversation, the back-and-forth, the eye-to-eye, face-to-face, the laughter, sometimes tears, the wrestling with what's real, the listening, the no-words-for-it, the companionship on the journey. And sometimes I'm crappy at that too.
One of my character flaws is self-absorption. And it happens most when I am tired, when I'm peopled-out, as we say in our family. And lately, especially since a certain person was elected president, I've been tired all the time, it seems. Today I was standing outside where I'm staying in Sedona, leaning against the back of my car, looking at Cathedral Rock and the snow clouds coming and the light changing, and I just started crying. That's been happening every now and then on this sabbatical. I realized even a few months before this time off began that there are times I feel like weeping over any number of things that continue to happen--mass shootings, immigrant children locked up in tent camps, people saying racist, inhuman comments to complete strangers who never did anything to them, people I love and people other folks love dying, name your own source of grief here--and I just don't take the time to cry, to grieve the last two years. Because it feels overwhelming. Because I don't feel like I have time to cry. There's so much hurt that needs healing. There's so much injustice that needs light on it. And there's so much good to not miss out on.
And yet I know, I know as a caregiver, that taking time to grieve is essential, non-negotiable, something you can't put off until tomorrow. It's also something that's not done perfectly, that it often comes and goes, when we least expect it, and it doesn't serve to try and control it. I think too that's why it's become so difficult to forgive, because there is so much pain and so much to grieve, that forgiveness is long down on the list of spiritual work.
I went outside again a few minutes ago to see the setting sun on those big red rocks. It's almost like I can feel those rocks on my shoulders, telling me that they weigh more, are much older than anything I carry and maybe, just maybe, it would be better if I just set everything down for a while.
Goodnight, friends. Tomorrow, India.
We got vaccinations for Hepatitis A and typhoid and prescriptions for anti-malaria medication. David also got a prescription for Z-Pak, azithromycin, just in case, which came in handy later. I got my phone unlocked so I could buy a SIM card in India and have phone service there. I added contacts in India to my list so we could make arrangements for rides--friends of a friend, who also came in more than handy later. I packed too many clothes but then we were going to be in winter in Munich for a few days and then variable weather in India, anywhere from 35 to 50, 60 degrees F, and I had so many hot flashes I'm glad I brought it all.
I was nervous about flying so far, first to Germany, then to Delhi. Both flights were uneventful, except I hardly slept. We landed in Germany on January 18, Friday morning, and we found our way to a train ticket machine, bought 2 to Neufahrn bei Freising, a small town where we had reserved an Airbnb, a comfortable finished basement apartment in our host's home. So glad we stayed in this quiet little town instead of Munich, which we easily reached with the train. There was a small outdoor ice rink where kids took skating lessons, played hockey, and adults played a kind of shuffleboard game and hung out by high-top tables and heaters and drank beer in the evening, plus small shops and a variety of restaurants.
Saturday morning I woke up with a barking cough but otherwise felt a little tired but okay. We took the train into Munich to meet my friend, Heike, whom I hadn't seen since I graduated from seminary in 1991. She had been an au pair for a family who attended the same church as I did and who happened to live on the same street as my parents. The summer before I started seminary, Heike and I met in the church choir, good-naturedly ribbed each other back and forth, and became friends. We went out together a few times that summer: the beach, Boston, stuff like that. I started seminary and she returned to Germany, so we wrote letters to each other (ah the days before the internet and email!). I still have them, tied together with a ribbon in a box somewhere.
I went to visit her my first year during Easter break and then again before graduation for a 10 day visit. We kept in touch after that, mostly birthdays and Christmas, and eventually lost touch. David and I wanted to spend a few days somewhere on the way to India, and David had never been to Europe. So I used the last email address I had for Heike (I still had the same one for 18 years) and it was like no time had passed between us. She said she was now living in Stuttgart, so either Frankfurt or Munich would be good places to meet up. She was also dog-sitting and brought Eddie, a cute little pup, with her.
We met at the train station and spent the day just walking around Munich. We had lunch together, went in search of chocolate, tried to stay in the warm sunlight, and just talked and talked, reminiscing and catching up. Even though it was a cold Saturday in Munich, there were tons of people walking, shopping, sightseeing, etc. And of course at noon we stood in the crowd at the Marienplatz and listened to the infamous glockenspiel and watched as the various life-size figures moved through their stories, the jousting knights and the coopers' dance.
We parted ways at the train station mid-afternoon, as Heike had a two-hour car drive back to Stuttgart. We had thought we might spend the weekend together but our Airbnb didn't allow pets and I didn't know Heike would be dog-sitting when we came to visit. I'm just thankful we were able to see each other and spend the day, even though it had been so many years since the last time.
I'm not very good about keeping in touch with friends who live at a distance. If you're one of them and you're reading this, I am deeply sorry. I've allowed social media to do the work for me. I confess I'm better at in-person, local friendships. It's the conversation, the back-and-forth, the eye-to-eye, face-to-face, the laughter, sometimes tears, the wrestling with what's real, the listening, the no-words-for-it, the companionship on the journey. And sometimes I'm crappy at that too.
One of my character flaws is self-absorption. And it happens most when I am tired, when I'm peopled-out, as we say in our family. And lately, especially since a certain person was elected president, I've been tired all the time, it seems. Today I was standing outside where I'm staying in Sedona, leaning against the back of my car, looking at Cathedral Rock and the snow clouds coming and the light changing, and I just started crying. That's been happening every now and then on this sabbatical. I realized even a few months before this time off began that there are times I feel like weeping over any number of things that continue to happen--mass shootings, immigrant children locked up in tent camps, people saying racist, inhuman comments to complete strangers who never did anything to them, people I love and people other folks love dying, name your own source of grief here--and I just don't take the time to cry, to grieve the last two years. Because it feels overwhelming. Because I don't feel like I have time to cry. There's so much hurt that needs healing. There's so much injustice that needs light on it. And there's so much good to not miss out on.
And yet I know, I know as a caregiver, that taking time to grieve is essential, non-negotiable, something you can't put off until tomorrow. It's also something that's not done perfectly, that it often comes and goes, when we least expect it, and it doesn't serve to try and control it. I think too that's why it's become so difficult to forgive, because there is so much pain and so much to grieve, that forgiveness is long down on the list of spiritual work.
I went outside again a few minutes ago to see the setting sun on those big red rocks. It's almost like I can feel those rocks on my shoulders, telling me that they weigh more, are much older than anything I carry and maybe, just maybe, it would be better if I just set everything down for a while.
Goodnight, friends. Tomorrow, India.
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