Life in Snapshots: Little Bits of December and January

The last few months have been full, and what always happens for me when months are very full is that I notice again the hard lines of my capacity. There is a limit to me. This is something that took me years to see and understand. I have a specific shape, and my brain has a certain amount of space. When one part wakes up, another may take a little nap. I have less time to write here, or less time for music. When homeschool is going well, I may have less time for Shekina Garden. Or vice versa. It is a part of being human. I wish I could always write exactly the same amount. I wish there weren’t so many stops and starts.

But I have been writing. I’ve been taking notes in little bits along the way. Here are some that I don’t want to lose. My notes. My little bits from the last couple of months, starting in December and January.

Every morning, Kai and I talk about the next steps for university, sorting out things like housing, classes, and flights. We found a good one, affordable, relatively. We were both pleasantly surprised by this. I haven’t traveled anywhere outside of Thailand since the pandemic started, so I imagine now that things are run by zombie mice, but it seems that you can still get flights to other places in the world. Hmmmm. (Start dreaming of travel again, my mind says, but can I? Really? Am I slow to this game? The game of leaving survival mode?)

“Have you heard from campus housing yet?” I ask, again and again. They have written that they are now working on cancellations and won’t know until after the semester starts. The email is brief. We look at AirBnb to see if there is a bunk bed somewhere. There is, and we book it. Soon Kai will be on those same roads I used to drive, in the city where his father and I met, taking classes and working and waking up to smell eucalyptus trees.

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I’m not actually sure who took this photo. Maybe Aya? Unicorns in a pine forest with picnic remains around them. :)

Ro gives us unicorn onesies for Christmas, a few days late because of shipping time. She hands them to us as we are all sitting beside a lake in the pines, on an adventure — close to home yet somehow in a place so different from home. It is the elevation and the trees, we have driven up, up into the mountains, and now we sit on little cushions of heaped-up pine needles.

Two of the kids’ friends have come along, and the teenage boys cross the lake holding onto a raft they have built out of fallen trees. The water is cold, and we hear their voices echoing as they cross, yelping over the temperature of the water, encouraging each other to keep going. Later, we Fords put on our unicorn onesies, and we run through the forest, making wild unicorn calls. Chinua and Leafy have dreadlocks, so their hoods are puffy. Isaac’s suit is too big and looks very cool, baggy and slouchy. Solo doesn’t stop dancing after he puts his on. These suits transform us, somehow—make us into something else.

We are missing our friends, Naomi and Josh and Elkie and Jasper, the original unicorns. They moved away, back to Australia. Life is joy and sadness, mixed.

Lilli, Leafy, Ro, and Kai on walking street in unicorn onesies.

Another day, we go out on the walking street, our village’s night market, wearing our unicorns. This time, Ro and Lilli have theirs on, too. Solo can’t bear the thought of all the eyes on him, so he doesn’t wear his, but he walks with us. Kai is with us this time, and my boys look so tall and strong, even wearing unicorn suits, and it is such a delight to see them like this.

Solo dances, getting sturdy. (He doesn’t mind people seeing this—it was really just the suit that was too much.) Some people tell us we are amazing. Some people pretend not to see us. Two Japanese hippie women are overcome. “Kawaiiiii,” they squeal (cute in Japanese). We also hear “narak,” (cute in Thai) and “f-ing awesome” from a young British guy.

A Karen woman in traditional dress asks if she can get a picture with us. She is half our height. We take a photo with her, and she is delighted. What will she tell her friends? Foreigners dressed like unicorns…

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Chinua goes away for two weeks in January, playing Irish music by the sea. While he is gone, we prepare for Kai‘s move across the world. We have last dinners together. We sort out the details of where he will land. On the day he leaves, we dance for him at the bus stop and he doesn’t even mind.

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I cook, and people come over for dinner and Bible circle on Tuesdays. We always have a little food circle before we eat, praying and thanking God for the constant abundance, the food, the rice in the barn, the friends. We call the kids out to join us. I’m still looking toward the house when I realize Kai is not coming. He moved across the water. My eyes tear up, but I try to keep going, praying with a full heart and a tight throat.

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I miss Chinua.

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Solo cooking dinner for us. I just like this photo- it doesn’t really make sense in the timeline of things 😅.

While Chinua is gone, there are two birthdays as well. Leafy turns seventeen, and Isaac turns ten. I remember, I remember. I remember so many birthdays. For Leafy’s birthday, we go out for pizza, and he invites three grown-up friends, Ro and Neil, and Lilli. We whisper-sing happy birthday to him, and it is more creepy and wonderful than we could have imagined. Isaac, the foodie, requests creme brûlée for his birthday. We go to our town’s fanciest restaurant and eat cheese boards and creme brûlée and Isaac makes a big deal of cracking the top with his spoon.

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Chinua returns, and we have another birthday party for the two boys, inviting tweens and teens over. I run out of cooking gas while making the food, and then our oven breaks as I am trying to bake the cake, and Neil tries to fix it for a while, but, well. This is a good metaphor. I am out of gas as well, my burners are no longer firing. There have been so many big things.

Leafy has a brilliant idea, and I make the cake batter into pancakes. We put cream cheese frosting and berries on top, eating them by the fire. I am more tired than I can express, but sitting by the fire with the kids— all wearing blankets and sitting close together, just a pile of blankets and teen snuggle, is beautiful.

The firelight is beautiful. My husband is beautiful. I text Kai, and he tells us about the place where he’s staying. One of his roommates is a Chinese author who makes beef fried rice every morning. There is a big bag of communal rice. I breathe a sigh of relief. These things sound familiar. At least there are small familiar parts. We find out that Kai has made it into university house. Another breath. Another day. My boy, across the world.

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The day after the party, Leafy, Kenya, and I leave to volunteer for the Shambhala in your Heart festival. Chinua and I hug and hug before I leave. This is a long time apart. We pack up the entire care full of things. Tents, instruments, sleeping bags, mats. Leafy is squished in among the pieces of where we will live for the next three weeks and he cracks jokes while we drive. The road widens and narrows, widens and narrows. Trees flash with light. We find the little village with the tall mountain that shelters it.

We set up our tents. It feels like coming home. There are so many homes. We make our temporary one under the trees and I feel my body start to relax. The river is nearby. I put up the hammock. We get to work.

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