Twenty-five Things

Well the old blog over @ the Johnson's has been quiet for a while.

It's the 25th of the month and ...

There.has.not.been.one.post.

I'll make up for it now.

Twenty-Five Things We've done in January!

1. Rang in the New Year with a trip to Chitown on New Year's Day
(Zoo Lights @ Lincoln Park and Hotpot in Chinatown)
2. Endured the single digits
3. Relented and let the kids go back to school after a wonderful week in the Carribean,
followed by a week hanging out at home.
4. Packed Mr Johnson up for his bi-weekly jaunt to Milwaukee
5. Watched the mercury climb to nearly 50 degrees
6. Sent The Littles out to play on a balmy January day
7. Rushed The Middle to the ER when she bashed her head on the playground on said balmy day. (Which is also the Friday afternoon the Tai Tai came home and said, "Put that homework away, and go outside and play ... it's gorgeous out there!")
8. Middle got a warm blanket, and five staples, and admiration from the ER staff for her poised nine-year-old calmness. (She also got a sample staple to show her classmates!)
9. Felt the mercury plummet again. (Winter in the Chicagoland ... gotta love it!)
10. Two Basketball Tourneys for MGJ (Go #20!!)
11. Planned a Swimming party for 16 fourth graders. (Thank you Pinterest).
12. Had staples removed.
13. Hosted successful birthday party replete with pizza and a belly flop contest.
14. Coached The Littlest through her first mini chapter books for AR.
15. Urged her to read nightly.
16. (Received a note home from the teacher commenting that she thinks our first grader might be a little too competitive about the accelerated reader program.)
17. Said overly-competitive child looses the first of her top teeth.
Her smile is forever changed; her baby days behind her!
18. Hit the Aquarium and Millennium Park on MLK day
19. Celebrated EHJ's actual birthday with breakfast in bed and brownies for her class.
20. Attended Ortho appointments
21. Received pummeling of snow
22. Played in the snow,
23. Celebrated Chinese New Year with friends and family @ our favorite Sichuan joint
24. Basketball, Basketball, Basketball, Basketball (four games this week!)
25. The Tai Tai caught up on her blog ...

Repatration:: What I didn't say

A little over three years ago I began this blog as a way to chronicle our last days in China. What was supposed to be a nine month documentation became a journey much longer*. When we eventually came to the end of that international journey eleven months ago I debated whether or not to keep the blog alive.

People loved to see posts of places we traveled. They loved to hear of adventures in China and our 'lost in translation' moments. {My readership was largely friends and family from home, with a smattering of other expat bloggers.}

When we found out rather abruptly last fall about our looming repatriation, I was overwhelmed by the lack of good information available on repatriation. I pledged to document our transition for those who would be going through their own transitions upon repatriation. I would stand in that information gap, and let them know what to expect and what obstacles and challenges we faced.

I truly intended to explain our experience every step of the way.

But the reality of it all was too close to home. We were nonplused. It was an extremely emotional time for us. I couldn't write that life back in our passport country seemed mediocre or mundane compared to our China experience. I couldn't write that getting up and out the door five days a week exhausted us and literally left us feeling wiped out for almost a first semester of weekends.

And of course, there was the fact that Mr Johnson's company wasn't exactly sure where they would place him. Even before our belongings arrived on a slow boat he was already beginning his second team Stateside, which was scheduled to be short term. "Oh great," we were thinking in the back of our minds, "Our stuff will arrive and be unpacked, only to be packed back up again." We held in that holding pattern, and I didn't feel the blog was the place to vent or cry.

The kids, we knew, would face both gaps and overlaps in their education. We hoped that the pricey international school that incorporated both violin and a daily foreign language would have them up-to-speed with their Amercian counterparts. But there were certainly things we couldn't prepare them for.

EHJ had a crash course in the Palmer Method of handwriting. She had been working in the British style connected writing, and was unable to discern her teacher's script when she arrived in her new classroom. MGJ was plunked into an Language Arts curriculum that built upon itself beginning in the first grade, which was wonderful for kiddos who attended our small public school without interruption, but for our middle schooler and any other transfer student, there was an overwhelming amount to catch up on. Bei Bei, for the first time in her life was in an entirely homogeneous environment. Everyone in her class spoke English, fluently. They flushed toilet paper down the toilet (instead of placing it in the customary Chinese bin) and knew the difference between Teddy Grahams and Pepperidge Farm Gold Fish. (Bei Bei brought Korean seaweed for healthy morning snack!)

When we arrived the wide-eyed foreigners in China we were not expected to fit in to Chinese culture. Our differences were visible. Our cultural gaps apparent. When we returned to our home culture it was expected that there would be a smooth assimilation back into 'normal life.' And it is this assumption, I think, that causes all the hang-ups for repats.

After international exposure and travel, we found that our interests and tastes changed. There were things here that once held our interest that no longer seemed as stimulating. After living abroad we were some ways more open minded. And we found that that open mindedness isnt' always seen as an attractive quality in one's home culture where everyone is more comfortable when cultural mores are concrete. (This is most likely true in any culture, but our experience only involves North American culture.)

Expatriation gives you a unique look at your own culture. You see yourself outside the box, and where, in the grand scheme of things you really fit. A friend recently posted on Facebook that if the world was distilled down to global village of 100, 82 people would be of colour. Interacting in an international community and living abroad that 82% seems more realistic.

Repatriation gives you a unique look at your own culture too. Upon re-entry you see it face to face as an outsider. Assimilation back into your home culture comes when you either no longer see the differences, or you don't find them so glaring.

We are nearing the one year anniversary mark of repatriation, which puts us a little beyond the half-way point of assimilation. Eighteen months to fit back into your home culture is the general average. We have ups and downs and still miss our China days like crazy.

Repatriation is a process. It involves looking back and looking forward. Reconciling that it is both okay to miss the experiences and relationships we had abroad, while taking tentative steps to embracing the future here.

We are looking forward ...

to cutting down our first Christmas tree in years, to decorating the inside and outside for the season, and playing Christmas stations on Pandora. We are excited to hear Bei Bei's first ever Christmas piece in her Sunday School Program, and watch them rock out to Rudolph at their school concert. We are excited that a Christmas get-together with family won't include jet-lag, and we are so looking forward to using our passports and boarding a plane to the Cayman's over the Christmas break!

*Mr Johnson's gig was twice extended. Original exit dates from China included (but where not limited to) Summer 2008, Summer 2009, Summer 2010, Summer 2012. Actual repatriation date? December 2010.

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.

Back to the Blog ....

"Lisbon Rocks!" our resident Kindergartener announced this morning, after EHJ informed her that not only can they wear nail polish, they can also wear accessories at their new school.

"Are you going to put that in your blog?" EHJ asked. Noting the cuteness of Bei Bei's response, and perhaps also the paradox between their old and new school. (Which is not to say that their old school did not, in the words of my Nickolodean inspired five-year old 'rock', but that their dress code was much stricter, limiting jewelery to stud earrings and requiring hair to be pulled tidily back with red or black ribbons. Nail polish, as MGJ learned the hard way last fall, was strictly forbidden.)

But alas, I have not blogged. For weeks. February posts were meager. But here we are, thanks to spurring on by my middle (who often would ask for something NOT to be revealed in blogland), getting back on the proverbial horse ... preparing to ride this into the sunset.

I have composed hundreds of blogs in my head. Comparisons I, like The Three, could make. Thoughts about repatriation and the United States and our family and how all these things roll together. There are moments, like this fun and spontaneous one to share. And moments that can't be shared now, when emotions are still fresh, and when tears over where we are in our journey still fall more frequently than we would like.

We are not necessarily unhappy to be here, but we carry so many people and places in our hearts that the reality of settling down and settling in ... the permanence of it .... the putting down roots and putting away suitcases carries a sort of sadness. There is nothing easy about this part of the repatriation process.

And there is a house in disarray. Smaller in someways than we remembered. Tired in ways we had not anticipated. But our house none-the-less, and slowly warming back into a home. There is a mountain of cardboard in our garage, proof that we have gotten somewhere, made some progress, not been swallowed up, by the contents of a forty-foot high cube that arrived on the back of a semi trailer last Tuesday. Five men worked for seven hours unloading our possessions-- books, bicycles, beds, long lost toys and our raiments. On Thursday my parents arrived and with box cutters in hand, to help us unpack and unearth treasures from another land. They helped us organize book shelves and place Ming inspired furniture in our 1920s Arts and Crafts inspired bungalow. They pulled books off the shelves they had dusted and read to The Three, asked about their school, and encouraged three little hearts.

This morning, my parents are gone, The Three are at school. Mr Johnson is at his alternate office working on projects that are steadily picking up (the fact that the program we originally returned to the US for was 'suspended' in January his second day on the job is fodder for other posts with labels like 'stress', 'boredom' and 'you've got to be kidding me'). Outside the sky is dreary. It is raining, a slow drizzly rain. But, as MGJ announced as she stepped out the door and pulled up her hood, "it smells like spring." And indeed a new season is waiting for us ...

looking forward {how it's going to work}

I'm going to continue blogging. I've been asked by several friends to keep it up, and I feel an urge to do so.

But I'm facing a couple of obstacles...

Firstly... quite obviously... we are no longer in China and I dubbed this blog "The Johnson's in China"

My original plan was to document our remaining months in China, which when I first started blogging was going to be less than a year. Enter the recession and our renewed commitment and interest in the region and things changed. So whether or not the name was short sighted, it does present some problems.

Secondly... since we are no longer in China, much of the context of our blog, which was loosely defined as a documentation of our time in the Middle Kingdom, will be noticeably absent.

I am not keen to start a 'mommy blog', there are already a number of great and well read ones going. (And people probably won't be that interested in the great deal I found on boots at Target and what we're having for dinner, anyway!)

However, I do want to keep documenting our family's transition, and how our time in China has changed us and made us into the people we are today.

We are documenting a new culture -- our own.

Even if we are passport holding, amendment proud Americans, there are parts of our home culture we are no longer familiar with. (And this is certainly true for our children who left here so young.) It is important for our readers to remember that this documentation process is not meant to be offensive. We simply will note differences that we see after being abroad.We will sometimes quote conversations we've had, or misunderstandings that generate from our cultural gaps.

There are also issues that are concerning. American's are not often held in high regard in international circles, and if you consider the view points from outside it's sometimes not hard to understand why. Sometimes we will address those issues here too.

Because our focus is changing, there is a good chance our audience will too.

When we were living in China, the blog served as a great way for family and friends to keep up with our growing children and learn a little bit about the language and culture we were learning about. As we come "home", our emphasis will change to documenting repatriation issues, which may prove a little boring to readers who live in the US and don't find the presence of toilet tissue in public restrooms in this country amazing, or the amount of disposable items available here appalling.

And, that, in a nutshell, dear readers, is how it's going to work ....