Lemon Tree

A lifetime ago, the wife of our favorite bush pilot gave me some advice I have never forgotten. Her husband’s job kept him away from home sometimes weeks on end (especially when muddy airstrips grounded his plane or sporadic guerrilla wars meant he was on constant standby to get us people out safely). During times like this she was back in Nairobi with their three daughters who were sad that dad was off again hauling timber and boxes of dehydrated vegetables for some poor shmucks or evacuating them out one more time, even if it was Christmas Day (for which said shmucks are eternally grateful). She told me, “You know what though? When Jim is gone our biggest priority is to have fun. The girls and I miss him but we flip the script. Dad’s gone? Let’s play! It makes us dread the time apart less and helps the days pass more quickly.”

Over the years I’ve tried to embody this sage advice but it’s not always easy. There is one very clear fun parent in our household and let’s just say, ce n’est pas moi. The first time I left on a work trip from here, Russell and the girls were settling into a second rate traveling Italian circus before my plane left the terminal (which admittedly looked kind of fun once I unplugged my animal rights and children’s labor and education laws radar). They’ve gone to see Carmen at the local opera house, done the nighttime amusement park and celebrated Moolid with some local Sufis. The last time I left, he took them camping.

In the desert.

In Algeria. (Granted, mixing work and play on that one, but you get the idea).    

Perhaps it’s not so much that I’m not fun as much as, by and large, our family has that particular base covered. I think during solo parenting stretches, my contribution to the family ecosystem is something more in the category of cozy. Russell left Sunday evening for West Africa and after a round of glum goodbyes, we are settling into our familiar rhythms of girl house. The weather has been breathtaking lately – cool mornings opening up into days that feel carbonated with sunshine. We took sketchbooks outside on Sunday and doodled under the lemon tree while I was caught up on middle school gossip. We cooked dinner together tonight. We played cards after homework. Most evenings we watch an episode or two of Brooklyn 99.

Ramadan means that ordering delivery sushi to eat on the roof or walks in pajamas to the ice cream place aren’t as easy to pull off as usual (standard trademarks of our girls’ weeks). But we have enjoyed slow twilight walks around the neighborhood as the call to prayer marks fast-breaking. The entire world is silent in those moments; not a soul is out. I know full well every house for hundreds of miles in most directions is packed with families eating together. But it’s easy to imagine I and my three daughters are alone on the planet, tracing our way through narrow streets in an abandoned city of white walls under a lilac sky.

The simplicity that comes with solo parenting can be a gift. Zoom meetings get put on the backburner as laundry and school lunches step up to the plate. Co-regulation is a high calling for mothers in out-of-the-ordinary seasons and I don’t mind the slowing down.

The slowing down is a welcome opportunity to metabolize last week too. A lot of hard things are happening to people we love and lead. War is rumbling in the places that were once home and those who live there now are calling the pilots of the bush planes, stashing trunks in the ceiling boards of their houses, trying to explain to their babies why they have to go. In the messages back and forth, my friends say to me – You’ve done this before. How do you talk to your kids about this?

Another colleague had her phone ring in the middle of the night a few days ago, that call that makes us all sick to our stomachs. In it she learned that her baby brother on the other side of the world had taken his own life. I sat with her at the kitchen table while her babies watched cartoons in the next room and I felt the crushing weight of my own wordlessness while we wept. What do I tell me kids? she asked.  

It’s been a heavy week.  

***

I started this blog yesterday and cringe a bit as I click “publish” this morning, rushing out the door to all the waiting things. The thoughtful conclusion to my meandering words didn’t reveal itself in the night as I hoped it might. But I set out to write once a week, for my own soul as much as anything and if you are still reading, blessings as you ride the stream of my consciousness. Perhaps next week there will be more cohesion.

Rilke says only write if you feel like you will die if you don’t. That feels a bit heavy handed to me, even for a German mystic. But he’s probably on to something. So here we are. This space is one where my sorrows and memories, joys, mundane moments and deepening belief in the Beautiful scratch themselves out.

Blessings in your own scratching it all out today too. Whether working and resting, grieving or laughing, feasting or fasting, may you feel the roots stretching ever deeper.

There is only one way: Go within. Search for the cause, find the impetus that bids you write. Put it to this test: Does it stretch out its roots in the deepest place of your heart? Can you avow that you would die if you were forbidden to write? Above all, in the most silent hour of your night, ask yourself this: Must I write? Dig deep into yourself for a true answer. And if it should ring its assent, if you can confidently meet this serious question with a simple, “I must,” then build your life upon it. It has become your necessity. Your life, in even the most mundane and least significant hour, must become a sign, a testimony to this urge.

Beware of general themes. Cling to those that your every- day life offers you. Write about your sorrows, your wishes, your passing thoughts, your belief in anything beautiful. Describe all that with fervent, quiet, and humble sincerity. In order to express yourself, use things in your surroundings, the scenes of your dreams, and the subjects of your memory.