a christmas passage to india...

(i have just discovered this in the draft pile, from Dec.2011! seems i forgot to post it. it is old news now, and things did not go quite according to plans. when traveling, one must be flexible! update to follow. soon-ish...) seems like my usual first sentence these days is: it's been awhile. sigh...

one of my struggles in writing, is that i am pathetically chronologically bound. i have a really hard time speaking about the present, and simply, will not write, if i have not caught up from what i have done. but i have just received the most lovely letter from a friend, walking me thru the flurry and wonder of a day in her new life in florence, with really, no need to catch up. just, what are you doing right now? so, it got me in the letter writing mood, i will take that example, and skip over my never-written-about summer and it's lovely florida days with friends and family, the new school year, sisterly visits to chicago, and jump right into the present, because i think there may be some of you who do not perhaps know: that we are going to India. we will be in chennai, formerly called madras, in one week...

greg had a work trip planned for january, and wanted us to join him this time. i didn't want to pull francis out of school for that long, (like we did for beijing a few years ago, the make-up work was brutal) and so we looked at our calendar, and an empty christmas break was staring us right in the face. this year, we were not going home for christmas, and the long weeks of gray and trying to tempt francis off video games was not something i was looking forward to. so i asked: what about christmas? he pitched the idea back to his work, and while i went to visit rebekah in chicago at the end of october (with charis, a wonderful sister's visit!) we did not know our status. we did not find out til the second week of november, that it was yes, we were a GO! and so...

things have spiraled into chaos over here:
it's hard to believe that in one week, we embark on our trip to India! it really is a bit sudden. and, now: being post-immunizations, somethin's got me runnin' ragged-- it's either the polio, the typhoid, the hepatitis A, the diptheria... or simply the flu...all mixed together with lack of sleep. and in one week, we get to add malaria to the mix! (there were no child-size pills for francis, so it will be horse-pills for us all for breakfast, every day.) not to knock science, i am in awe of the modern marvels, and immunizations are a gift, but i also keep close our daily prayers: Dear God- please keep us healthy and safe, in our travels, and every day. the two go hand in hand, i believe...

in hindsight, trying to plan a trip to India in under 4 weeks has been:...uh... crazy! what were we thinking? we have done so much traveling lately, i thought: no brainer. throw some clothes in a bag, get our shots, we're good to go...
but i have spent most days, entire days-entire evenings, researching hotels, reading reviews, planning itinerary, booking hotels, reading about the area and surrounding, etc, that come falling into bed at midnight, i can't turn my brain off and at 2am get up and get some nyquil with hopes of falling asleep. then i am delirious to take F to school, come home, and pass out in a deep deep making up for lost time sleep, til about 10am, and then spend a groggy few hours waking up and getting back to the same thing. research research research. the internet (when i like it) is an amazing thing...

it wouldn't be so bad, as generally, i have nothing better to do and getting my mind on something is good, and i enjoy researching, but i am desperately trying not to neglect the christmas season that is upon us!

but

i console myself with: christmas itself is usually most often, hectic, stressful, list-making and checking things off, things to do, buy, and see, parties, obligations, etc... that is is always an immense effort to focus and remember the reason for the season. i mean, i know it, but at night when i am ruminating it is usually not over God's love for us, it is over worries of what i have yet to make, send, buy, etc. ... so...i have to admit i am content to bow out this season. no gifts! we will be: "out of the country." literally!

so it will be a very different christmas for us this year, that's for sure: it will be our own little struggle to keep christmas alive in spirit, when we are surrounded by no outward signs of it. it will be intimate, small, challenging, and hopefully, spiritually focused. thankfully, christmas day is on a sunday, so greg will not have to go in to work. when he came to india last time, he just worked the whole time, didn't see anything--but this time, he has insisted we make some weekend trips to see a few things together. and at his insistence, (i was impartial, i thought it would be too far away to reasonably plan, but he really wanted to) i have booked us a "pilgrimage" to go see the Taj Mahal over christmas weekend. i say pilgrimage because of the long travel time to get there: first we have to fly to delhi-3 hrs, then hire a car to drive us to agra where the Taj is: about 4-5 hrs away. the town itself ---by all accounts-- is an undesirable tourist trap town housing hoards and hoards of tourists, many luxury hotels not even getting good reviews, basically people come to see the taj mahal and leave. so after reading reviews for days and trying to pick a hotel, i finally went the other way, and booked a homestay with an Indian family that rents rooms. kind of like a B&B. i already feel a bit like mary and joseph, making the long trek just for a census, and having no room in the inn. it will be simple, but it will be homey, (they advertise it as: homely, haha) with a home-cooked meal, and we can sit around a talk with a family and stay in a neighborhood rather than be crushed by the throng in the town. i have already googled-earthed the town to see if there are any churches in the area, and i did find some, perhaps we will be able to go to a christmas eve service after all? but for our christmas morning, we will get up at dawn most likely, (as per recommendation, best view, least amount of crowds) to watch the morning light rise over the white marble of that Monument to Love, and hopefully have a good and memorable time together as a family. (i say hopefully as francis is a bit moody these days. teenager. ugh. it's been rough) we will stay for a day. then the next day, drive the 5 hours back, and fly back to chennai. then for greg, it's back to work... and back to me spending all day, every day, exploring with francis...

a friend recently told me: you are only as happy as your saddest child...it put into words exactly where greg and i are at these days. not that he is sad, exactly... but... being difficult. and so we worry, are frustrated, doubt ourselves, etc... not so much fun these days.



because, just recently this fall-- has taken us by surprise in that he has entered that dreaded part of teenagerdom that i thought would pass us by unscathed, as he's always been our little buddy: --but we are in it-- he has good days and bad, but most of the time, he doesn't want to talk to us anymore. he is moody and wants to be in his room. alone. not with us. and it's hard for us to not take this personally. he seems to be fine around other people, though, it's just us apparently. we took him to a weekend wedding at a lodge 2 hours away, and he moped that it would take up his whole weekend, (he desperately values his "free time") and sulked most of the way there, and then, once there, he dropped us cold and had a blast: complete strangers were reporting to me what an amazing child i had, he had voluntarily started acting as waiter and taking people their food, he started watching the toddlers and playing with them and entertaining them, and even condescended to dancing with them the whole night during the post-wedding square dance, ring-around-the-rosie style. (he was the only older kid there, they were all 5 and under...). the little 5 year old became so enamored with him, and he tolerated her openly staring at him and wanting to hold his hand. he appeared to be genuinely having fun, some of them praised our obviously stellar parenting, that we were doing a really "good job"! hahahhaha--and greg and i were totally flummoxed. i'm not joking-- one dad came up to me and said wow-- what he wouldn't give to see us behind closed doors, that our living-room life must be so amazing, we must laugh all the time! apparently, we put on a really good show! hahaha. because much of the time, our coaxing for conversation becomes lectures, we're pulling our hair out, then afterwords, when he's in bed, we're like: arrggh--what were we thinking? he's just kid. and lament how much we suck...

hmmm...seems like i'm painting it kinda dark. ok, ok, it's not all that bad, we have our good days and bad, --we just feel it more personally, because we want him to want to talk to us, but we have been relegated as "the parents". we're feeling it keenly. he doesn't want us, he wants his friends, it's all good. normal. teenagery. i can remember that age, i do remember how difficult i was. (sorry mom and dad!) i am so thankful that my dear friend Lynne came into my life when she did, she was a mentor in my teenage years, and now a dear friend in my adult years... and i am praying that francis will take that step to confide in any of our friends, if he really needs to talk, if he doesn't want to talk to us (which i hope he will, but i'm guessing i'll be out of luck.) we have many friends here who have adored him since he was a baby. you know who you are...(although: they may not exactly adore him right now, but you know... )

when we travel, he's fun, or at least, he has been in the past, so we're fingers-crossed hoping for a good time with him in india, that he enjoys our company and we're not dragging around a moody kid by his collar, but that he's engaged and enjoys himself. that he is also pleasant to be around would be nice too, since he and i will have those long days to ourselves while greg is at work...

(i always start off writing with what i'm doing, where i'm going, but really, it all boils down to where i am. and where i am these days is: mother of a moody teenage boy, and basically, every day i am simply trying not to make a mess of things...)

my prayer has become that of the parent: that our good days outweigh the bad ones enough so that when he is grown, he will enjoy our company, call us, enjoy visits, and not want to ditch us the moment he is out the door. our dreams have been whittled down to the simple most important few.

wishing you all a wonderful christmas, full of many joyful memories with your loved ones...xo