Kangaroos and Quiet

October 10, 2017 / cdncarolina / 2 Comments

Shhhh…do you hear that sound? It’s the sound of no one yelling “MOMMA!” It’s the sound of no one watching football. It’s the sound of no one packing, or unpacking. It’s the sound of a neighborhood far from the beep, beep, beep of walk signals, and the sirens of a busy downtown. It’s the sound of my first day alone in our new house with nothing to do but sheepishly return to my blog.

I’m going to be the first to admit that I’ve struggled over the last few months. I have grieved the loss of Kinshasa, the Congo, and the people who made up our life there. The fact that I’ve been deep-in-my-core angry at the “new” State Department and the lack of respect it has shown not only to me and the other thousands of EFMs, but also to its own officers, has not helped to get me back in a writing/blogging state of mind. I’ve wanted to come back, but I have not been able to write without ranting and that’s not what this blog is about.

But today is a new day, on a new continent, in a new hemisphere and it’s time I make my way out of my funk.

It’s hard to describe to people what it was like to live in the Congo. For those who live comfortable lives in the first world, it defies description. But it has been even harder to make anyone – even B – understand how profoundly unhappy I was to leave a place that is, in all possible descriptions, a place of hardship. Even now, sitting here in my new and lovely kitchen, with every possible convenience within 10 minutes safe and beautiful walk of my door, I am teary-eyed thinking of the life we left behind.

Maybe it is because, as our first post, I was determined to make Kinshasa a good experience and so my attitude from day one was designed to make me as happy as possible. Maybe it was the fun I had speaking French and reviving a long dormant skill that let me use my brain in ways that are rare once you inch toward a half-century of life. And maybe it was simply the people –American, international and Congolese – and the fact that I had not prepared myself as well as I should have to leave them behind. I miss them. A lot.

Foreign Service life is designed as a revolving door. You rotate into a place, spend a few months, and then rotate back out. Just as you are headed out the door you realize where everything is, and what everyone’s name is, and how to navigate the world and streets you live in. And then, just as suddenly, you are in a place you don’t know how and you have to start all over again. This is where I am now, though admittedly learning how to navigate Canberra – a planned city designed for ease of navigation – will not be akin to learning to manage the chaos of Kinshasa.

My first impressions of Canberra are of calm. The streets are bizarrely empty and the quiet is almost deafening. The only noise is the magpies and the parrots calling from the trees. We arrived during a school break and for the first few days I drove around and rarely shared the road with more than a couple of cars. It was eerie.

C’s school is literally a stone’s throw from the house, and just past that are a couple of great coffee shops and a small IGA. There is even a gym, so when I get inspired I can get back to working out.

We haven’t seen too many (live) kangaroos yet, though B spotted a few while we were driving around over the weekend. Apparently they are everywhere, and they are certainly common enough to be the road kill of choice, but you must have to get accustomed to seeing their brown against the brown of the end of winter grass and brush because we have been peeling our eyes to no avail.

Since we left just as fall was gearing up in Virginia, it is also odd getting adjusted to the upside down-ness of things. The dogwoods and azaleas are blooming here. There are wisteria vines everywhere, and the cherry trees are decorating the roads with their pale pink petals. It smells like my grandparents’ garden in England – rosy and fresh and spring-like. But, it’s still chilly and I want to put on my dark sweaters ready for falling leaves, rather than light jackets ready for spring showers. Lord knows I love a good heat wave, so I am not sad to be following the sun for yet one more summer season, but I am definitely going to be ready for my boots and wooly sweaters (or jumpers if you are Australian – C has already told me she needs a jumper, not a sweater!) in April (see, weird, eh?)

The fact is, no matter how beautiful and utopian Australia is compared to the Congo, I am still going to miss the life and people we had there. But, I’m ready to accept this new reality and work toward making it as joyful an experience as the last two years were for us. And when the door revolves again in 2019, I’m sure I’ll leave with sadness and grief as well. In the meantime, there are new people to meet and make “mine,” adventures to have, and kangaroos to spot.

Ode to North Carolina (and the joy it brings me)

May 11, 2015May 11, 2015 / cdncarolina / 1 Comment

My love affair with North Carolina began like many love affairs – I was drawn in by looks.

I went to university in Louisiana, but my family lived in Canada, so four times a year, once in summer and once in winter, I got in my trusty Chevrolet Celebrity and drove the 1,300 miles between those two places. A little over halfway through that journey – 12 of the 24 hours in, I’d hit North Carolina. In those days (the late 80s/early 90s) North Carolina was the only state I drove through that had wildflowers planted in the highway median. The program apparently started in 1985 – so by the time I was making my yearly treks in 1987 the flowers were pretty well established and were beautiful.

My journals from those days are packed away, so I can’t quote myself exactly, but sometime in 1989 during one of those drives when the flowers were particularly beautiful, I wrote in my journal that I had “a new favorite state: North Carolina.” I’ll never know whether my pronouncement then influenced my choice of law school later, or whether it was predestined that I end up at UNC, but 20 years later – most of which were spent in that state – I still consider it my favorite.

The funny thing about moving in 2015 is that it is not terribly difficult to keep in touch with people. There are phones attached to our hips all day long – and we can not only use them to call the people we love and miss, but we can use them to text, email and facetime those same people. But it is impossible to keep in touch with a place you love, other than through sporadic visits. C and I made one such visit recently – spending 4 lovely amazing days in Charlotte, the place that will always be our “home” even when we are half a world away.

We were in Charlotte in March and it still felt like winter in D.C. It was cold and damp and I spent a good part of every time I was outside reminding myself that I wouldn’t have to endure a full winter again for at least two years while we are in Africa. To know me is to know that I am ALWAYS cold in the winter. I feel like I spend months just trying desperately to warm up. I can’t tell you how many times people say something to me like “but you’re from Canada, how can you be cold here?” Seriously though – I’m cold EVERYWHERE that it isn’t over 75 degrees. And besides, I’ve done winter, folks. Nineteen years of living through Canadian winters was enough winter to last a lifetime. I’m done with it – a yearly Christmas vacation of snow, skiing, skating and tobogganing is great – but a week of it is enough.

So we left D.C. where it was 36 degrees and we arrived in Charlotte, where, on our first day there the high was into the 70s. And the trees were budding. And the daffodils were blooming. I swear I almost dropped to my knees in joy when I saw those daffodils. We were outside without winter coats. My hands did not feel like Snow Miser was clutching them all the time. It was heaven.

Am I wrong or does Snow Miser look a little like B’s boss’s, boss’s, boss…

Then we started visiting – places, people, friends, restaurants and my heart was both a little fuller – and a little emptier. We stopped and looked lovingly at our house that B and I built – arduously picking fixtures, colors, layouts, making nooks and crannies where there were none, and C asked me if we could stay there. Then I had to say “No, because someone else is living there now.” It solidified my belief that we have done the right thing by keeping the house for now and renting it out, because I am not ready for it not to be ours – not ready to shut the door on the possibility that one day we can stay there again.

Charlotte, because it is a “young” city – with lots of transplants who are also young – is an ideal city for a child. I’m convinced that there is more to do with a 4 year old in Charlotte than in D.C., which, with its depth and breadth of history, is more suited to a 10 year old, or 15 year old. Charlotte is full of museums and parks and places that are geared to small children and we tried mightily to visit as many of those places as we could.

And, perhaps most importantly of all, Charlotte is full of people who mean the world to us. So, despite what I said above, and despite the fact that it really is SO much easier in this day and age to keep in touch with people, there is nothing quite like hugging the people you love. Sitting with them on a back porch, with the warm (WARM!) sun on you, drinking wine while your children, who were once the dreams you talked about, and then infants together, play in the yard and start the next generation of friendships which will endure through time and, now in our case, space.

I am going to miss our friends and family without a doubt, but I hope that I will also get many opportunities over the next couple of years to chat with them, talk to them and visit with them. I know I won’t get that opportunity with Charlotte or North Carolina. The feeling of peace and belonging we feel there will have to travel with us, in our hearts, to deepest darkest Africa, and wherever else this adventure might take us.

Rekindling

November 2, 2014November 2, 2014 / cdncarolina / Leave a comment

The summers I spent at camp were spent sleeping in tents in the woods, not, as seems to be the norm today, in cabins. The younger kids were grouped together, but as we got older we became more and more isolated until, as CIT’s (counselors in training), we found our tents a good distance from the main lodge and all the other campers.

We would often have campfires in our isolated little area and sit around until the fire died down and the embers glowed, but barely cast any light. We would lie in the dark and talk and watch the stars above us. Inevitably though (we were teenage girls after all) there were nights when some topic or other jump started our desire to be fully awake again and we would bank the fire and do our best to rekindle it so we could get back in its warmth and light.

I’ve been thinking a lot about that rekindling lately. The isolation and stir-craziness I sometimes feel being in our apartment pretty much all the time (living and working) has prompted me to get out when I can to do lunch with old friends who, at some point or another, have found their way to D.C.

Love reconnecting with old friends – 10 years later (hello 1994!)

A couple of weeks ago, I went to lunch with two of those friends and we had such a lovely time that one of them promptly invited us both (and our “entourages” (B & C for me)) to dinner at her house with her family. As we drove home that night it felt like that rekindling of the warmth and light from a fire and I wondered how I had managed to let these people get away from me and fade into soft glows over the years. I am feeling a tremendous sense of loss for something that I haven’t had for about 10 years (the number of years since these people left Charlotte). These are fabulous, interesting people who I can talk easily with, who I share some history with, who are, despite our lack of contact for many years, dear to me. And now, just as I am rekindling them and our friendship I am realizing that I’m going to leave. Suddenly, despite our desire to get on our way, 9 months doesn’t seem like long enough to be in this city. It doesn’t seem like long enough to bank these fires and get them roaring again.

Add to this the (almost) equally strong desire to build up the new friendships we have made through B’s A-100 class and our calendars don’t seem nearly large or open enough. Now that B is in language training (in a class of 3 people instead of a class of 84) there are not as many opportunities to hang out with all these new fascinating people who are also contemplating their new lives in the FS – and some of whom are only weeks, not months, away from moving to their first posts (one person in B’s class has already left!) So we find ourselves juggling the rekindling of past friendships with the building of new friendships – and, while I recognize that it’s a good problem to have, it is, nevertheless, a problem. Perhaps I should go back to my teenage days of believing that a good conversation with my friends lying under the stars was worth the sacrifice of a good night’s rest, and hope that once we get to Kinshasa we’ll have plenty of time to catch up on our sleep.

Whole Towel Living

August 24, 2014 / cdncarolina / 1 Comment

Ok. So it turns out that maybe I spoke too soon. The packout itself, both day 1 and day 2, were pretty painless and easy. It was the post packout panic that was problematic.

If you have ever moved you’ll understand (and remember with no fond feelings) the packing of all the leftovers after the furniture is gone. And the cleaning. The never ending cleaning.

I, in typical fashion, bit off more than I could chew and opted to go back to work on Wednesday and Thursday leaving B to clean and pack, and sending C back to school. Only sending C back to school was the right decision.

Since I’m staying with the firm I actually had work to do when I arrived back in the office, so I didn’t really get a chance to properly say goodbye to anyone, and I was frantically trying to fit in calls to Duke Energy and AT&T to cancel utilities in between discussing discovery responses with my clients. Luckily I’ll be back in the office in a few weeks for depositions, so maybe I’ll have time to wander around and say farewell then, but somehow I doubt it.

When I arrived back at the house on Wednesday evening there were two huge piles of STUFF in the middle of the dining room. B informed me that one was going to get packed in the cars and the other pile was going over to a friend’s house to be stored until I drive down for those depositions in mid-September. What was that about spending quality time saying goodbye to folks? Looks like I’ll be packing the car instead…

What is doubly unfortunate about this is that, as noted previously, we ended up with about 230 lbs of additional UAB space that we didn’t use. I’m pretty sure a good amount of the STUFF would have fit in the left over UAB space. We’ll be remembering that for next time and doing our best to get our UAB weight up to 599.9 lbs before we start loading the cars.

For all our worries about how C would react to the empty house, the teary goodbyes and the random moving men driving away with our furniture, she never stopped being our hilarious, laughing, dancing, singing little girl. She sang while we packed, she danced in the empty rooms, and she laughed at all the hugs she was getting from everyone we know.

Protecting our home – in NC and in VA

She insisted that we were staying in a “whole towel,” despite our equally insistent response that it was, in fact, a hotel.

She pressed every elevator button, and told every random stranger we met that she was moving to Washington. We could have learned a lot from the laid back way she accepted every change without question or complaint. The only times she wasn’t happy was when she was hungry or tired. Totally understandable.

So tonight we have made it to our new home. There are boxes everywhere, and we need to figure out how to fit all that STUFF into a much smaller space. Tomorrow afternoon is the first “meet and greet” for the 179th A-100. We’ve been checking out the bios from B’s classmates – they look like an impressive bunch. I’m looking forward to meeting them, and their families, though I’m also, frankly, petrified about how it will feel to be the “spouse” and nothing more. I’m hoping I can take a lesson from C and accept each change that comes without complaint or question. Change is what we signed up for. And change is good…

These are the boxes of our lives…

August 19, 2014 / cdncarolina / Leave a comment

It’s PACK OUT DAY! Well, actually, it’s the end of Pack Out Day 1, and B, C and I are sitting in our living room (furniture has not yet been packed) relaxing among the boxes.

Today was surprisingly ok. Last night was not so ok. I was teary, sad and overall unhappy. We had a fabulous dinner with our friends T & A (yeah, yeah…) and their littles (their son W is about 3 months older than C and they love each other), we cooked steak, drank wine and enjoyed a lovely, lovely evening. Leaving their house was hard. Really hard. Harder than I expected given that I keep reminding myself that I’ll see them again in about 3 weeks when I’m back in town for depositions.

But then today dawned bright and early (particularly after the wine) and our movers arrived, and things since then have been pretty good.

They’re heeeeere…

The movers started with our UAB (unaccompanied air baggage). We had an allowance of 600 lbs. Anyone out there know what 600 lbs looks like? Nope? Well, me neither, because despite our worries our UAB ended up coming way under our limit at 366 lbs. Here is what 366 lbs looks like.

UAB for BCD.

There weren’t a lot of surprises today, but one of them was that the “tri-fold” box that is used for UAB turns out not to be triangular as I was expecting. I suppose if I had looked at the dimensions in our papers I might have realized a “tri-fold” box had 4 sides, but in my head I was imagining a tri-fold box that had three sides. It seemed like it would be pretty inefficient, but since we are talking about the government I wasn’t about to put it past anyone. So the mysterious “tri-fold” is a decent sized very sturdy box, three of which are now full of clothes and other things that will be delivered to our apartment next week.

A tri-fold box! With 4 sides!

Security sealed for your protection.

Rooms full of stuff became rooms full of boxes and here we are with our lives in boxes ready to ship them off and head to DC in a couple of days. B and I mostly stood around feeling useless and making ridiculously detailed lists of everything going into each box. I’m glad we knew to keep such a detailed list since the descriptions of the packers leaves a bit to be desired. Watching them pack the kitchen I watched them load vases, roasting pans, muffin pans, salad spinner and half a dozen other things into a box and then write “pots n’ pans” on the box. That would not have been very helpful in a few months when we are trying to figure out what boxes to call for when we go overseas.

We also knew (from reading other posts – thanks FS bloggers!) to have a “Safe Room” (or 3) where we could put things that we didn’t want them to pack. We shoved a LOT of stuff into those rooms and kept throwing things in as we went along. Once the movers leave we’ll have to pack all of that into our cars to take with us to DC.

We’re having a picnic in the living room tonight then going to stay with good friends. Then we’ll be back tomorrow to watch them load and drive away. Let’s hope Pack Out Day 2 goes as smoothly as Day 1 went!

Living room with stuff.

Living room with boxes.

Spare bedroom with stuff.

Spare room with boxes.

B with notebook…packout is hard work!

Off limits!

Do not enter!

Waste not…

August 17, 2014August 18, 2014 / cdncarolina / Leave a comment

Looks like we’ve been having a going away party, right?

Nope – found a case of beer with a “drink by” date in 2012. This is, sadly, not the only food/drink item I found from 2012 and had to toss. Given the reason for our move this aspect of packing has been eye opening.

I stood over the sink pouring out the beer so I could recycle the cans and I was struck, as I have been again and again in this move, by how incredibly lucky we are in North America.

I’m contemplating moving to Africa, Asia, or South America, places where the things I’ve discarded in the last several weeks would have been, for many people, welcome, and even life sustaining additions to their lives. I packed C’s clothes today: they filled an entire adult sized suitcase, and that is just her summer 3 year old clothes. She could, quite literally, wear a different outfit every day for months on end.

I’m trying to give myself some slack. I did pour out the beer to recycle the cans rather than throwing them away. I have made trips to the Humane Society, the Homeless Shelter, ReStore, the Salvation Army, and Beds for Kids to donate things to the most appropriate charity. We’ve tried hard to eat everything in our freezer. But when it comes right down to it I have discarded food, clothing, toiletries, toys and just about any thing else you can think of that couldn’t be donated, eaten or used without much more than a pang of guilt.

I’m falling asleep on the couch now, so I must go to bed and slip into my lovely soft high end sheets, and drift off to sleep without any fear for my safety or that of my child and family. I hope in a few months, if my bed is surrounded by a mosquito net to keep off the malaria carrying mosquitos, and my house is surrounded by security guards supplied by the Marines, I can remember this feeling of abundance and luck that I’ve felt while I’ve packed and know that even then I will be one of the lucky ones.

Pack out is Monday, so more to come when I am awake and sitting on the couch. For now, I’m going to take my lucky, lucky self to bed.

Time is inexorable

August 14, 2014December 26, 2014 / cdncarolina / 2 Comments

Twenty (or so) years ago, my journalism professor Wiley Hilburn wrote “TIME IS INEXORABLE” in the margin of a piece I wrote for my weekly column as the editor of our college newspaper. The column was my last before graduation. In it I talked about my attempts to freeze moments of my last days on campus in my memory. Now, Mr. Hilburn’s words keep floating to the surface of my brain. I thought I had TONS of time to pack, purge, go to lunch, go to dinner and generally be ready to move. Suddenly all the time I thought I had seems to have caught up with me.

I no longer have open days for lunches, evenings for dinners, or afternoons for playdates. The days and nights are filled. All the food in my freezer will not get eaten and I have to resign myself to that fact. I have five more outfits I need for work in Charlotte. I have five more nights in my dear house.

What happened to all the TIME I thought I had!?

Does this look like the desk of a girl who has 5 days left in this office?

Mr. Hilburn was right about time. It is inexorable. It moves without stopping. No amount of wishing or hoping or ignoring (I’m quite expert at that) will stop it. I’m just running trying to catch up with it. Like the quintessential movie character running, hand outstretched, to catch the last handle on the train caboose before it chugs off into the distance without me.

And yet…what am I doing now. Writing, certainly, but more importantly, watching the Property Brothers. See what I said about ignoring…

They moved our Packout date to Aug. 18 (yes, that is Monday) so we have one less day for packing, sorting, purging. Kindly the USG will pay for us to stay for up to 10 days in a hotel, so we had a hotel in Charlotte booked for the 19th-22nd – somewhere within walking distance to both my office and C’s daycare. But now we need a room on the 18th too and, wouldn’t you know it, the hotel hasn’t got a single room open for Monday night (bizarre, right?). So we can either move hotels which, needless to say is not my first choice, or spend the night in C’s room using the blow up bed and her trundle (it is built-in, so it is staying).

I’m leaning toward “camping” in C’s room. After all, we’re going on an adventure – why shouldn’t it start in our own home?