If I Knew I Could, I Would {Another Five Minute Friday}

Write for five minutes on the following prompt

If I Knew I Could, I Would ....

Start

This one is easy ... Jump on a plane. I'd grab up the girlies and Mr Johnson, pack our swim and travel gear and Lonely Planet guides for a number of countries and jet set. If I knew that pulling the kiddos out of school for six months would work out okay in the end; and Mr Johnson could come back to a stable career; if somehow we had the luxury of unhindered travel for six months I would do it ... in a heart beat.

We had friends who took a mid-life gap year, with three kids in tow and a sea shipment of their life's belongings waiting for them in the port of the next city they would move to. It's a bold move ... daring. And in this day, age and economy almost impossible, but if there was a guarantee that it would work out {which is then nice safety clause in this prompt} we'd be off.

Stop

Another prompt from the Gypsy Momma {http://thegypsymama.com/2011/04/five-minute-friday-if-i-knew-i-could-i-would/}

Easter in Minnesota

I've spent much of my life heading north for Easter holidays and spring breaks. And although the pay off of seeing family and friends made it worth it, I was often the one bundling up in a parka and mukluks, to head to a colder climate for spring break, while my college buddies were shod in flip flops and headed to the beach.

This year, however, heading north for Easter paid off weather wise. We had an absolutely gorgeous day on Sunday, complete with a GPS guided (geocaching) egg hunt. The girls spent an enormous amount of time throwing a tennis ball to their second cousin, a whimsical chocolate lab named Miss Wilma. It was a perfect spring day!

Being with family (my sweet 85 year-old grandma, my sister, and my auntie and uncle, cousins, their spouses and meeting the new baby) was wonderful. For all the trips we've taken and places we've seen, sometimes nothing beats a good old fashioned road trip to see family for the holidays!

• Sitting corporately in a long row of relatives for an Easter service
• sharing conversation over a ham dinner
• watching as generations spend time together
• (and being a part of that time) was especially special this year.

Hope your Easter was as happy and Sunny!!

Spring is Here!

Although someone should probably inform the thermometer, spring is here, and we're seeing it everywhere in the yard around The Bungalow.

Do you see that fabulous blue sky?

It made a brief appearance this morning before disappearing behind rumbling dark clouds.

The girls think this blue, blue cloud filled sky looks like the wallpaper in Andy's room in the Pixar's Toy Story trilogy.

After living in foggy and overcast Qingdao, where we only saw brilliant skies in May and October,

we are thrilled with all the blue we're seeing in the Midwest!

Halus Obama

With so few articles coming without a charge from the NYTimes these days, this lengthy magazine piece on President Obama's Indonesian upbringing, and reflections on his mother is worth reading!

I liked this paragraph:

“I think this is one reason he’s so halus,” Bryant said of the pres­ident, using the Indonesian adjective that means “polite, refined, or courteous,” referring to qualities some see as distinctively Javanese. “He has the manners of Asians and the ways of Americans — being halus, being patient, calm, a good listener. If you’re not a good listener in Indonesia, you’d better leave.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/24/magazine/mag-24Obama-t.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&hp

{First} Five Minute Friday

ON DISTANCE

{Distance} A Skype call last night to my friend in QD reminded me that even a half a globe a way that distance can be broken. That we can sit in opposite time zones, me with an evening glass of malbec and she with her morning cup of Joe, and really connect. Hear the words and updates and thoughts. See each other over grainy footage sometimes interrupted by a child sneaking out of bed (on my end) or a toddler needing a snack (on hers).

{Distance} Could it really be that Monday of just this week our sweet old collie girl stood on the sidewalk and watched, for the last time, our girlies walk across the street to school? How long ago that day now seems, and yet how very fresh and real. She would have loved today. She loved standing in the wind, the gusts rippling over her slim dark body. We think of her all the time. We cry. We wonder if time ... distance from the event ... will lessen the pain we all feel.

{Distance} Parents in Canada, Sis in MN, Sis in Canada, Brother in Japan, Us back in IL. Spread out all over the globe. Yet connected. Making our together times more poignant, and our moments more treasured. Despite the distance.

{It's a bloggie challenge. A linky tool event. Five Minute Friday, with the jet-setting mommala over at Gypsy Momma (http://thegypsymama.com/2011/04/five-minute-friday-on-distance/). Link up with other bloggers. Write for five minutes. She'll give you a prompt.This week's Prompt: On Distance}

Someone Else's Thoughts

Anne says it beautifully today in words, pictures and music ...

http://www.aholyexperience.com/2011/04/when-youre-wondering-why-youre-here-in-this-place/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+HolyExperience+%28Holy+Experience%29

(love that her counter is dirty and her dishwasher splayed open!)

Meloncholy Moments

I originally wrote this several weeks ago. But, I couldn't hit post. It seemed yet again whiney. I was concerned that my feelings would be misconstrued to those around me who read my blog.

But I know there is another readership out there too... my friends and former fellow expats who ask what repatriation is really like.

It's busy. And things are both new and old at the same time. It's often mundane, this life of ease in North America. It's wonderful to be around friends and family. It's challenging after being entirely independent, to come back to a sense of corporate community where people belong to clubs and communities and churches, and there is an expectation that you will do the same. We loved the autonomy of being 'just the five of us'. And we are experimenting with where we belong what our level of involvement will be. We are still moving slowly. We are just 13 or so weeks in.

With the loss of our dog this week there is the opportunity again to cry. To mourn. To show outwardly what we are feeling inside. In so many ways we are mourning more than just a faithful pet. (But she really was a sweet old gentle soul.) She was also an anchor of familiarity throughout this move. And, although she only joined us in China for a semester, she was there for the girlies as they prepared for a transition they were hesitant about.

We are a little over three months into our move. Month Four is usually the low mark. There is a sine curve we expect to follow... of highs and lows as we adjust to a culture and surrounding. There are going to be melancholy moments. And although I was reluctant to share this a few weeks ago, I share it now anyway, because it's on my heart, and a part of our life, and I've committed to saying what I need to say.

From late March

A friend in QD recently emailed and said that after reading our blog she thought I seemed melancholy.

And she's probably right. (Although whiney might have been another good descriptive for my drivel about the suitcases ... Of course we will travel again, just not every three months ... I can't wait to come visit my friends all over the globe!!)

There is a certain level of melancholy hanging over us. We're slogging our way through it. Anxious for spring and green. For a new season, a new phase, a new time in our lives.

A quick google search yielded this definition of the noun:

n.

1. depression, grief, sadness

Another read this way:

–noun

1.

a gloomy state of mind

2.

sober thoughtfulness; pensiveness.

Melancholy allows for a time for reflection. For ruminating.

I think I like description 'somber thoughtfulness' the best.

(But there are days when 'grief' and 'sadness' must each run their course too.)

And so melancholy it is.

And yet we know, this Lenten season will wane ... and life will become new and fresh and perhaps we will even gain a quiet strength that is developing even now, through these melancholy moments ...

Goodbye Sweet Guinnea Girl

Our sweet Guinnea Girl, who came into our lives and grew into our hearts when MGJ was just a toddler died last night. She was nearly 11. She was bumped by a car, and went immediately. She was in good health for an animal her age and breed, and amazingly more puppy like in the last weeks than in the last year.

There is a terrible sense of agony and loss ...

and there are reminders of her everywhere ...

The still full food dish, her leash on the back porch, her notable absence when I look out the kitchen window thinking I'll see her looking back at me ...

We got the call just after the girls had fallen asleep and we made the agonizing decision to get them up. To let them see and feel the fullness of death, up close and extremely personal, in the hopes that it would help them grieve more fully. And, so they could say good bye.

It was a harsh reality.

They cried, and then after waking fully and with more clear minds, sweetly prepared their good byes. We took off her collar and tags (one from the US and one from China). They crouched over her on her bed and wept, and petted her, their tears dripping on her still warm body. We clipped some locks of her hair. We thought of things that we wanted to bury with her.

Then Mr Johnson prepared her grave under the budding magnolia tree. And he placed her, paws crossed (the dainty way she often kept them), and buried her.

We are so sad.

We loved you

Miss Guiness, Guinnea Pal, Good Old Wet Nose, Puppins, Guinnea Girl.

We loved you all the way to China and back.

Phone blog ...

It's late. And I'm trying, for the first time, to blog from my phone. 

The tiny screen seems impossibly small as it glows in the otherwise dark room. 

My 9 year old breaths rhythmically beside me, unruffled by the backlit screen or the annoying automated click of each key tap.

I have checked on The Bookends, locked doors, & checked the dog's dishes. 

Its time for bed ... but it's hard to fall asleep with Mr Johnson somewhere over the Atlantic, hurtling through timezones with his extremely efficiently packed carry on, preparing to stumble off a plane at what feels like 2am (cst), but what will actually be morning in Europe.