Safe...

Its pooring rain outside. It hasn’t stopped all day. Its cozy in some ways and dreary in some too.

I talked to Jesse last night and told him… it’s getting kind of heavy here.

I owe you amazing readers some deep down genuinity.. if that’s what I am searching for in this life.

Campo week was really amazing, and when I look back on it I see so much love, simplicity, happiness and just comfort.

Coming home has been a little hard. There has been a little lump swimming in and out of my throat since we drove up on Friday. I walked into Katherine and Emily’s room… Im in a funk I told them. We talked about trying to get back into this life, about being emotional and about being homesick but not quite knowing for what.

Both Friday and Saturday night we sat in the sala trying to understand what was happening in our hearts. What is this feeling? What does it mean to come back? To leave that family behind? To be here? To miss home? What is the future and what is now? How do we continue to make these wonderful special connections and than have to move on?  We all craved a good cry. The emotions in this life are piling high in our little hearts, every minute my heart fills so full almost about to overflow. Those emotions continue to explode in laughter, but some part of me knows that eventually the tears are gonna flow.

We see so much beauty and so much pain. Everyday the reality of this country seeps into our souls deeper. And the reality of our own individual suffering comes up out of us. For whatever reason in this context it just all bubbles up out of me.

Sunday we had our campo reflection. We started by listening to a song about walking hand in hand together in this life. Images of our walk home from the centro, holding Abuelita’s hand, talking about the luck of Juan’s life with him, jumping at the thought of a snake and everyone dying laughing and the last walk back to the center Mami grabbing our hands, el ultimo camino con mis hijas she told us. Images of the week flashed through my head, almost like it was a dream. So real, so much love, so nearly unbelievable in all its beauty. And now we are home.

When the song stopped my mind went blank, there were not words to describe the moments, thoughts, emotions flashing through my soul. Slowly people shared. About the stories they heard, the love they felt, the questions they found and the struggles they have had coming home. I teared up and then pulled myself together again and again. I don’t even quite know why, this life is just big.

Finally I opened my mouth to word vomit about the idea of meaning in this life. Why are we always searching and what for? Why isn’t it just enough like it is for them? And how come we have the opportunity to be searching for meaning while they don’t? Then I closed my mouth… not even sure if I made any sense.

I listened to everyone else’s thoughts, let them sit deep inside and questioned my own thoughts. Wondering if I was thinking the right things. Hurting at the idea of never seeing that family again. Looking around the room and feeling the love I have for every single person in this community explode out of me. Scared to let go of this understanding, scared to go back to a different life that in some ways is so distant from my bed in Mami and Papi’s house in Carasque.

Someone reflected on just trying to find the beauty in all this. The nature of this program is too short, but isn’t something better than nothing? Arent we so very lucky to be alive and here and soaking all this up. Exactly what I had been wondering if it was ok to be thinking. My heart was comforted. And again and again we all teared up as others shared. Then Laura shared… she talked about being safe. About feeling safe with Emily and Chepa and Felipe in the Campo… and what it means to not feel safe. And the tears fell and something in me was ignited.

I dunno if I want to put this on paper. But feeling safe is something we each have a right to in this world. And I’m sure each and everyone of us has experienced the feeling of safe and the feeling of unsafe. Some more than others.

Since I have been here I have spent so much time looking at myself. I feel like I have figured out so much about how I have gotten here. What it means to be Michelle in this life. But being here… it has been so easy to look at myself, to become more and more genuine and to let this world into what I’m finding. And already, I wonder how this Michelle will live in that life at home. Of course my heart and soul and so much of me is the same. I just know a little bit more about what makes me feel and have seen a little different part of this world. And I hope with everything I have that I can mesh it all with life at home.

So Ive been thinking about safety. About nights as a little one and even nights not that long ago crying myself to sleep. Trying to figure out the scary stuff in this life. And trying to find comfort. And then I think about this long long list of people and places that make me feel safe and my heart is the warmest. And then I think of here and try to figure out what it means to feel safe here, in a group of people I’ve known for 7 weeks, so many miles away from home. And so often I do, but every now and then I crave safe spots at home. Moments that are absolutely real with my mom and life chats with Hayley and days sitting on Susan and Jims couch or playing with Kamryn or at Young RYLA or on SCCAP retreats or at Cara’s eating dinner and dancing in the kitchen.

And then I think finding those spaces everywhere I go is the special thing about this life. That you can find them and create them. And then so appreciate them. I have those spaces here and I am so thankful for them. And just like no matter where I am in the world sometimes I crave those so familiar ones that with time have become the easiest. And my heart aches a little.

And then I hear “a cantar” and a group of hands waiting for me to come sing before dinner. And I feel safe.