Tag Archives: holidays

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Confessions of a Desperate, Writing Neurotic


Sara (my partner) has been saying for weeks that I should blog about this—this being what I wrote last summer about my struggle to write.

“I swear, it’s funny as hell,” she says.

Repeatedly—

So I gave in this morning, agreeing, maybe it is funny—

Or pathetic—

You decide.

But first a bit a background— how it all got started.

Just after the Christmas holiday, Sara returned to Haiti ahead of me.  And because of this, over the New Year’s weekend, she was doing what Sara does to relax.  What she calls “piddling,” what I would more accurately describe as “recreational organizing.”  This can come in many forms: straightening closets—obsessively earnestly rearranging items according to color, all clothes on wooden hangers only—ordering and reordering items in the refrigerator—neurotically enthusiastically arranging jars and bottles in tidy rows, like-items soldiered together according to kind rather than rank.

(a subject for another post, perhaps?)

At any rate, you get the picture—

Over this particular weekend, however, Sara extended her reign of organizing terror to the contents of my drawers, my closets, cabinets, shelves.

Now I have mixed feelings about this. 

Sometimes I don’t want my stuff touched—because in her cleaning frenzy, Sara is inclined, at times, to throw things away, pieces of paper she thinks useless but which are, in fact, important to me.  On the other hand, Sara is extremely good at organizing, really good, as you might expect from someone who behaves this way for sport.  So sometimes I agree to let her “piddle” with my precious possessions, but only if I can extract from her, my “everything-is garbage-gal,” the promise that nothing, absolutely nothing—not even the most seemingly senseless scrap or decades old sales receipt— will be discarded.

On this weekend in question, I extracted such a promise, and Sara came upon such a scrap—something I had scribbled on index cards—the contents of which she says I should blog about here.

But—before I lay my naked and neurotic writerly self out to me mocked and laughed at—I offer a disclaimer, of sorts—

Namely—that real writers, good writers, famous writers do indeed write about the kind of stuff I describe below.  I’m thinking specifically about Natalie Goldberg, who in her book Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within, outlines the basics of writing as spiritual practice and in Chapter 1, “Beginner’s Mind, Pen and Paper,” addresses the writers struggle to find the perfect pen, the even more perfect paper.

(And remember, as well, that this was NEVER meant to be read by anyone but me—so it’s bad, it’s raw, it’s, well, neurotic.)

So, without further adieu here’s what I wrote on 13 June 2010, what I scribbled in pink ink on unlined index cards:

When I have tried to journal recently I’m always bothered by the notebook I’m writing in—I know that sounds crazy—and surely it’s a mere excuse—but I truly believe I should be keeping my entries in another format—

Perhaps, typing them on my computer—if the paper is lined, perhaps, it should be unlined—if it’s plain—perhaps, it should be graph paper.  If I write in blue ink, probably, it should have been black or green or gray—any other color than the one I’m using.

So here I’m writing on an index card—knowing that it too will feel wrong—and using pink ink—equally incorrect, I’m sure.

Most everything about writing feels wrong—doing it—not doing it—doing it in the morning, in the evening, in the afternoon—equally problematic.

Now, these index cards feel too small—not enough space—I feel confined—God knows I’ve got it wrong again!

But I try to tell myself it doesn’t matter.  It’s better to get it wrong than not to have gotten it at all.

There you’ve GOT her folks—Kathy, the “Writing Neurotic,” evidence that she does indeed exist.

So laugh if you will.  Mock if you must.

But, where in the name of God’s good implements of ink, does Writing Neurotic come from?  Does she live in other writers?  Does she roam from writer’s body to writer’s body, circling the globe, imparting authorial insecurities across the entire planet?  Or does she only live in little old me?

Tell me—

Have you ever been possessed by Writing Neurotic?  Has she come to your country, your city, house and street, forced herself uninvited into your office, taken over your desk, borrowed into to the deepest and most secret corners of your scribbling-obsessed self?

If she has, I want to know.  I want to join forces with others who’ve been haunted—track her down—bury her once and for all, far from WordPress  and Freshly Pressed—ban her forever from the Blogosphere!

Please note:  I scheduled this piece to post yesterday before news broke that former Haitian dictator Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier  had returned unexpectedly to Port-au-Prince. 

To see an article from Yahoo News about this potentially ominous development, click here.  To see the piece I posted  as soon as we got the call that Duvalier was at the airport, click here.  To read an article from CNN click here.  ( Thanks to Mrs. H. over at “A. Hab.’s View of the World” for the CNN link.)  And finally, to see a helpful piece from MSNBC.com, click here.

I will try to keep you updated as the story develops.

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What’s up with Freshly Pressed?


Is it just me—or has it not been updated for anyone?  I’d HATE to think the editors at WordPress were only keeping it from me and other home-for-the-holiday-hanger-on-ers in Kentucky. 

Has the Obama administration sanctioned an extension of the New Year’s holiday?  Is there some new politically correct way to celebrate that makes it last a few days longer—go days and days without pressing  the premier of the blogosphere?

What’s the deal?  Is there something the gods of when we celebrate what are keeping only from us, from aid workers and their significant others, slogging it out in Haiti?

I know I’ve been sort of living on an island with no TV and only periodic access to electricity—but I’ve been back in the US for over two weeks now.  I should be up on these things—at least for the next few days—until Saturday when I return to my Caribbean paradise.

Somebody please fill me in!  Help me out!  What’s up? 

It’s January 5th already.  Are we not pressing new words in honor of the New Year?

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Here’s to Fruits, Funerals, and one Witty Nephew: a Post Revisited


(The piece below was originally posted in July of 2009.  I’m re-posting a new and improved version of the original as part of an ongoing holiday retrospective–not so much for the writing but for the interesting information it provides readers who have never traveled to Southeast Asia.  Hope you enjoy.)

In Vietnam I’ve been enjoying the most amazing  tropical fruits—not just the mango, which I adore and is available in the US—but also others I had never tasted before visiting Southeast Asia.

dragon fruit--not one of my favorites--but visually striking

During my first month in Saigon, I tasted the rambutan—which I’d describe as a fuzzy, strawberry-looking fruit—red leathery skin with soft spines, small oval shape, the size of a large seeded grape.

looks like a fuzzy strawberry

  The fruit inside is white, nearly translucent, sweet and slightly acidic—quite tasty.

a mouthful of deliciousness

Also in the last week, I’ve purchased mangosteen from a woman who operates a fruit stand at the end of our block.  These, I must admit, are the most amazingly succulent fruit I have ever tasted.  With a deep purple peel and large leathery leaves on top, the white pulp separates like segments of an orange and nearly dissolves into a nectar-like liquid in the mouth, undoubtedly divine.

tough outer skin of mangosteen

flower-looking shape on underside of mangosteen

inside of mangosteen

So, Sara, who should be pleased by my consumption of something other than bread, has been in Hanoi for more than a week, leaving  Lucy and I l alone in Saigon to deal with my neighbor’s funeral music. 

It all began in the early evening on Friday with what I thought was a band, one I assumed must have been playing at the micro-brewery beside my apartment.  Mind you, I had never before heard music from this establishment or been bothered by any noise from the place that remains open long after I go to bed.  But when the music began again the following morning around 7, I realized it could not be coming from my suspected source. 

Later that morning when I was finally able to communicate my question through a primitive form of sign language I use with my non-English speaking cleaning lady, the explanation came in two words, “Dead man.” 

But———–when the music continued incessantly on Sunday and resumed Monday morning  just after four—well before sunrise, I thought, “Dead man, indeed.”  I felt badly for my grieving neighbors—but good-god—I was becoming increasingly irritated by the clamor and close to homicidal in my mission to make it stop. 

Fortunately, however, as my nephew Johnny rightly pointed out, Monday indeed became “the day the music died.”

Johnny, my witty nephew!

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And I Thought Haiti was a Scary Place: a Tale of Forensic Failure in Kentucky


Why is it that I ALWAYS seem to have the weirdest of weird experiences—the wackiest—the most ridiculous?  Tell me.  How is this possible! 

I know what follows may be hard to believe—but really—how could I make this stuff up?

Here’s how it all went down:

Two nights ago Sara and I had just returned home from a crazed day of shopping—what we always need to do just before returning to Haiti, where we often can’t buy the kinds of items pampered and “all-too-accustomed-to-comfort” Americans require to maintain sanity and goodwill.

It was around 7 o’clock in the evening.  I was in the bathroom—brushing my teeth, if you really must know.  I was minding my own floss-focused, dental-hygiene-driven business, when suddenly a loud crash interrupted my serious teeth-cleaning efforts.

Holy Sh_t! What in the name of battling tooth decay had just happened?

I grab my black boots, head out the front door and around the house to find—

A brand new black Cadillac had just plowed into the side of our house—back bumper smashed against the foundation of my none-too-sturdy, 100-year-old jewel in the crown of Victorian architecture.

I wasn’t pleased by this development—

But not wanting to create enemies of neighbors who had seemed to move in during our last 3 month stint in Haiti and would likely still be there during our next three-month stay abroad, I tried not to over-react.  It seems the driver of the black Cadillac was visiting these neighbors when he/she accelerated in reverse off the snow-covered driveway, getting up-close and personal with my foundation. (I say “he/she” because neither the man nor woman seemingly associated with the vehicle was willing to take responsibility for being behind the wheel.)

But—living in a country where people burn tires is the streets for sport, I took this all in stride—got what information I could, which was very little but ultimately included a name and phone number—not likely as it all turned out the real name or real number. 

The house did not seem seriously damaged, so I didn’t bother to call the police when these folks refused to share information regarding their auto insurance—

Late the following afternoon, however, when Sara and I had again returned from a day of home-from-Haiti errand-running—

Another crash—

Same vehicle—

This time a rear end collision with our fence—

I kid you not!

In less than 12 hours—10 and a half to be exact—these owners of the black Cadillac had managed to careen into our property, not once, but twice. 

I wondered how this could all be real.  Had I entered some kind of Cadillac-crazed twilight zone?  Had I found myself on a really bad episode of Candid Camera in which Allen Funt runs cars into the houses of home-for-the-holidays-Haiti-aid-workers—all in the name of good laughs and family fun?

No—this was real and I have the fuzzy photos to prove it—

Thank God I had the presence of mind to run outside, not only screaming, “What is wrong with you people?!”—but also carrying a camera to document, a paper and pen to take down license plate numbers, and a mobile phone to call police.

I may have been borderline hysterical, but I, sure as hell, wasn’t stupid—though the police when they FINALLY arrived an hour later—were indeed the most idiotic this side of sanity one could ever imagine.

Not only did I have to dial 911 three times to get these crime-fighters to respond—I had to explain to dispatchers why this was, indeed, an emergency.

“These people have run their vehicle into my house twice in less than eleven hours.  Something is very wrong here.  Far be it from me to suggest there might be drugs involved—but, at the very least, I don’t think you want these folks back out on the streets.  If they do this from the relative safety of a driveway, imagine what damage they might do on the open road.”

And the two officers who finally arrived on the scene were equally clueless.  The man asked me—

“So your fence was always like that?”—though it leaned at a 120 degree angle with a car rammed up against it.

“You’ve got to be joking—that can’t be a serious question.”

“Calm down, lady.  Was your fence always that way?”  OMG—he was serious!

To say that these folks from our local police department weren’t firing on all 6 cylinders would be an understatement of epic proportion. They didn’t seem to appreciate the urgency of the situation or wonder why in the name of all things crazy that can happen on the road, one would drive a brand new 40 thousand dollar vehicle with NO auto insurance, if to protect themselves from all of the other crazy drivers on the road, if nothing else? 

They told the woman who seemed to be the owner of the car that they weren’t there to take sides or “get anyone into trouble.”  They were simply there “to file a report.”

Ultimately, the police did issue a citation for “not carrying proof of insurance”—an issue they assured the car owner “could be cleared up if they took proof of coverage to City Hall tomorrow.”

No sobriety testing—only a flimsy assertion that the officer “hoped” the driver had not been “drinking and driving.”

Okay then—if this blundering comedy of errors was detective work at its best, I’d hate to see second best—or god forbid—out and out forensic failure.

And it’s with this forensic failure that the story ends.

Anti-climactic—I know—but really that’s the crazy-making reality of how it all played out.  The police did nothing to deter or, god forbid, prevent these Cadillac-driving, fence-toppling Kentuckians from heading back out onto the road to wreak havoc on the highways of our state.

And I thought Haiti was a scary place!

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Babel-ed by it All: a Retrospective


(Another post from Vietnam as part of my holiday retrospective.  The piece below, written in the summer of 2009, describes my cultural and linguistic confusion soon after arriving in Saigon.)

I haven’t posted in over a week—not because I have nothing to say—but because I have too much.  I’m overwhelmed with stimuli.  Each time I try to write what comes out sounds silly or clichéd.  I’ve drafted but gotten nowhere—several starts.  Perhaps, I’ll post the pieces—these nudges toward nothing I can name.  I’d also like to post a few of the photos I’ve taken—several of Saigon—many of my trip South to volunteer with a building project for the poor–a good hour and a half drive into the country from Rach Gia.  It seems I’m struck most by the faces of children—the eyes of cows and water buffalo grazing.

children playing in sand at volunteer build site

the children's existing housing

squat toilet at build site--common in Southeast Asia

water buffalo grazing in rice patties

We carried bricks from where we parked, to the build site—balancing on narrow paths through the rice patties—shouldering heavy sacks—so god-awful hot we sauna-ed even in the shade.

rice patties at build site

carrying bags of bricks through rice patties to build site

 Sara seems stressed—works ridiculous hours—well into evening—early mornings—weekends.  I don’t see how she does it all—so many people, places, programs—details out the ass—the bulging bigness of it all.  It’s clear why she rarely shares with friends or family what she does.  You have to live it to understand, to appreciate the enormity of the task.

Like Sara, I have trouble pronouncing people’s names—so many sound the same to me–probably because my ear is unaccustomed to the tones—so many combinations of vowels—the words for watermelon and several other fruits differing only in the dipping, the sinking of the sound—or rising at the end.  I used to think I had an ear for languages but not anymore.  I can do European sounds—but the tones of Asia—it’s like I’m deaf to them—can’t hold them in my head.  I’m muted by a Babel I can’t untangle for the life of me.

I know next to nothing about Vietnam.  Only that I am pleased to be here—curious, eager to learn more, saddened by my own ignorance of the place.  I do know, though, that I feel a stirring in me, a creative impulse to make—what?  I don’t yet know—only aware that it’s there, nosing again my consciousness, like a cat marking territory, putting down its scent.

And it rains here every day this time of year, sunny in the morning with clouds thickening toward afternoon—the air heavy even in the early hours—first hints of light just after five, full sun by six.  It’s just now begun to drizzle again, the rainy season soon a downpour. 

I try to go out in the mornings when it’s still dry, before the heat intensifies, boils over into wet, one that doesn’t help to tame humidity.  It sucks all oxygen from the air well into evening, when I hear our landlady pull the garage door down, signaling a close of shop—a metal rattle rumbling our small stack of flats.

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Weighing in on Bangkok: a Retrospective


(Since the holidays have kept me from writing for several days now, I’ve decided to offer a retrospective, of sorts, hoping a peek at past posts would offer decent reading in the meantime. 

The piece below was written nearly two years ago–January 4, 2009–just after this blog was born under another name.  Sara and I were living in Kentucky.  I was teaching writing at a local university, and Sara was considering a return to disaster response work that was expected to take us to Bangkok.  Initially this blog was meant to chronicle that adventure. 

In the post below, I’m moaning about a diet I’d begun as part of a New Year’s resolution.)

Okay, I got on the scales this morning–big mistake!  It may be that we are about to embark on a grand and exotic Asian adventure, but, God knows, I can’t do it fat!  I simply can not walk the streets of Bangkok like this–all 173 bulging pounds of me.

This is how it all went down.  Sara and I had agreed we would weigh on Sunday.  I had begun dieting a week ago but was too afraid to step on the scales.  Sara is to start watching what she eats on Monday.  Sunday then seemed a reasonable day to determine what we weighed.  While I may be a chicken shit when it comes to actually quantifying my size, once the decision is made to put a number on the situation, I want to get the pain over with as quickly as possible.  So when we woke up at 2 this morning to take the dogs out for their middle of the night pee, I brought the scales into our bedroom, as the floor in the bathroom slants too badly to weigh accurately in there, and proceeded to strip naked, because God forbid I weigh even an ounce more than necessary.  I even removed my glasses and seriously considered doing without a barrette but decided it unwise to try reading the numbers both blind and with hair falling in my face.  Then, stepping on the scales like the most over-sized contestant on the Biggest Loser, I was told I weighed a mere 75 somethings or other.  Now I may not have a completely realistic sense of what I weigh, but I did feel fairly certain I hadn’t been 75 pounds since I was seven.  And, of course, being without glasses I was unable to get the stupid scales to stop reading in kilograms and begin weighing in pounds, as I stood shivering and blind in a drafty 100-year-old house–not able to weigh having made the big decision to do so.  This did not sit well with me.  So Sara, who knows my inclination for throwing fits and was herself sitting warm and fully PJ-ed under the covers of our bed–decided to intervene.  After playing with the thing for a few long and chilly minutes and asking me where I had put the manual–when in fact she is the manual keeping half of this relationship–got the apparatus reading in pounds again.  You know something is not right with the universe when a book of directions is necessary for figuring out scales.

To make a long blog a little shorter, let it suffice to say I weighed a good many pounds more than I wished.  So I am an Asian bound woman on a mission.  I will not walk the streets of a Thai city like this.  I may be willing to wear my glasses the next time I weigh, but I will not make a big fat spectacle of myself on the sidewalks of Bangkok.

(Sara returns to Haiti soon, so in a few days postings should resume normally.)

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Top 4 Things about Christmas 2010


Though the photos aren’t fantastic, I can’t help sharing a  few of my favorite things about Christmas in Kentucky this year–a holiday away from Haiti with the most precious people on the planet this side of Port-au-Prince!

#4  Hanging out with handsome nephews 

Johnny, Sam and Drew

#3  Celebrating with sisters

Lynn, Susan and Kathy

#2  Seeing my brother’s stocking stuffed with coal a toilet seat–no joke!

Tyce holding holiday throne (still in the box)

#1  Having my Baby home from Haiti in time for the Holiday!

Sara on Christmas morning

Merry Christmas from my family to yours!  And don’t forget to pray for Haiti  this holiday!

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Haiti’s Greatest Gift: notes on the nature of giving


It amazes me how often Haiti is a study in extremes, not only between the most obvious of oppositions: rich/poor, white/black, have’s/have-not’s—but also between the more subtle and insidious of extremes—the ones I notice once I’ve returned to the US and realized all over again just how much we as Americans have and just how much the people of Haiti don’t.

I understood this even more clearly yesterday when I thought about how well “we-with-the-leisure-to-read-blogs” have it, that one of our biggest anxieties during the Holiday Season is the worry over whether we’ve gotten Uncle Joe or Cousin Rita just the right gift—from perfect stocking stuffer to the most ideal of electronics—iPhone, iPad, iPod.  It’s i-ronic just how much “I” is in our gift-giving, how many “me’s.”

I realized that the leisure and disposable income gift-giving presumes suggest profound things about these two countries I now call home.  Namely, if we have the time and energy, not to mention the funds, to spend on gifts, then we obviously aren’t worrying about keeping our children safe from cholera, aren’t worrying where our next meal might come from, aren’t worrying how we’ll keep our babies dry during the rain at night, the torrential downpours that turn the floors of our tents into pools of liquid, dripping mud.

However, sometimes I think that my graphic, black and white drawings, even my poems, express something about the extremes of Haiti that these well-chosen words of explanation fail to communicate.  So in closing, I offer some recent, some not-so-recent drawings that try to articulate in ways these words do not—the kinds of graphic contrasts that keep me awake at night—not only in Haiti—but in other places, as well.  Below the images are used to punctuate a poem I wrote some years ago, one written in the voice of someone displaced, alienated, alone—someone struggling to climb up out of endlessly hopeless circumstances, someone not unlike the poorest of the poor in Haiti.

On Rattlesnake Mountain

At dusk we lock

                the iron gate 

                                                collecting bones

                bleached in tufts of matted grass

                scaffolding the bluff

I insist on picking them

                a carcassed bouquet

                                                of cow bone

                picketting our path

                back up the crooked slope

Eye sockets shape

                a separate ascent

                                                dead leaves

                thicken the air

                like smoke

The moths are tongueless

                it’s simple to blame

                                                the mothers

                their beaks vacant as stairs

                I climb a thicket ofdry sticks

(For a more light-hearted and truly hysterical look at the holiday, I suggest you read today’s post on “The Ramblings.”  Tori’s comment  helped me gain some of the insights I share here.)

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Happy Holidays from Haiti: a Christmas letter


Dear Friends and Family,

Sara and I, along with our dogs Ralph and Lucy, would like to wish you a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays both from our home-away-from-home in Port-au-Prince, Haiti and from our home in Lexington where Sara will join me on Christmas Eve. 

2010 has been a challenging year for us, as we have tried to settle in yet another international location, tried to create a home for ourselves away from the family and friends we hold so dear and miss so often.

Though last year we didn’t make it home for the holidays, Sara and I spent Christmas itself on a stunningly secluded beach in central Vietnam, playing in the sun and sea, eating food so delicious we salivate now even thinking about it. 

However, just two weeks after that lovely holiday in paradise, the January 12th earthquake in Haiti brought our life in Hanoi to a premature end.  By the first week of February Sara was on the ground in Port-au-Prince, having had a mere 18 hours at our home in Lexington to transition.   Since that time she has still not had more than 5 consecutive days in Kentucky, not more than a week in close to 2 years.  And though, of course, Sara loves her work and is passionate about providing homes for those displaced by the earthquake, she’s saddened that time away from her own home distances her from those she loves, forcing her to think about  from far away.

I, on the other hand, was fortunate to spend most of February, March, and April in Lexington, with only 1 week during March in Port-au-Prince and 2 weeks during May in the slums of New Delhi with 12 University of Kentucky students (completing in a service-learning project with Habitat for Humanity India).  It was not until June that I, along with our two dogs Ralph and Lucy, transitioned to Haiti more “full time” or at least as close to full time as risk management allow.  Security challenges abound in Port-au-Prince, where there is at least one kidnapping a day and we have two armed guards at our house around the clock.

However, we DO have a lovely, mountain-side home in the Port-au-Prince suburb of Petion-Ville—a home Sara’s left for only brief visits to the US and one longer trip to the Pacific Northwest, where we enjoyed 2 days in Seattle and a week with 12 other friends on Whidbey Island—a fabulous time of fun, feasting, and fellowship with a group of women we dearly love.

And though we feel fairly well-settled in Port-au-Prince by now, settled enough to have hosted a sit-down Thanksgiving dinner for 24, Haiti itself is far from peaceful this Holiday Season.  Not only did the earthquake last January kill close to a quarter of a million, but it has left, still 11 months later, more than 1.3 million people homeless in the city of Port-au-Prince alone.  Not only did the Haitian people suffer destruction again in the wake of Hurricane Tomas, but they are continuing to fight a cholera epidemic that has killed and sickened thousands more.  Not only did they face fraudulent presidential elections last month—they have dealt with the resulting social unrest, especially in the form of rioting by people who have suffered unimaginable losses in the last year, people who feel disenfranchised not only by the international community, but also by their own political leaders who would steal their right to a free and fair election.  It’s sad for us to see so much loss and suffering in such close proximity to our own lives of comfort, surplus, and blessing.

Despite all of this, however, the Haitian people are strong.  They are resilient.  They persevere.  Sara and I are proud to call the beautiful people of this tiny island our neighbors, our friends, our family, and we would ask you to not only pray for us this Christmas, but more importantly to keep our new Haitian brothers and sisters in your hearts and prayers, as well.

As the mountains that circle Port-au-Prince brighten on Christmas morning, the Haitian people will be left with little to do but pray—

But we ask that you too pray for peace in Port-au-Prince streets—for peace in those mountains beyond—those mountains beyond mountains—

Please pray those hills would be alive with the sound of peaceful music–

A peace that passes understanding–

May God bring peace to you and your family this Holiday Season!

May God bring peace to Haiti!

With blessings from Port-au-Prince,

Sara and Kathy

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A Holiday Match Made in Doggy Heaven


With Christmas only a few days away, I thought it might be a fitting time to reminisce romantically about how Sara and I met—not only because this is a part of our history I don’t think I’ve shared even in the Vietnam part of this blog—but also because I’m missing Sara, who has not yet returned from Haiti for the holiday, and writing about our shared past helps her feel closer—or at least helps Port-au-Prince feel a little less far away.

Sara and Kathy, October 2006

(If you’ve only just begun reading “reinventing the event horizon”—Sara is my partner.  We live together in Haiti, where Sara works in disaster response and I’m a writer/artist.  We also own a home in Kentucky—a house that’s more than 100 years old in downtown Lexington.  I have come back to the US a week ahead of Sara, who won’t arrive here herself until Christmas Eve.)

In 2006, however, Sara was still directing her NGO’s response to the 2004 tsunami that killed hundreds of thousands in Southeast Asia, while I was working in Lexington as an artist-in-residence, facilitating creative learning opportunities for disabled adults.  These employment realities brought us together, my needing to supplement my measly artist’s income by pet sitting and Sara’s needing to travel internationally while at the same time caring for her dog. 

One afternoon that summer my writer friend Kristy called to say her new neighbor Sara was looking for a dog-sittter and wondering if I could take on another client—something I was willing to do, since I was preparing to purchase my first home— was a starving, soon-to-be-home-owning-artist fighting for every dollar she could get.

So when Sara called several days later and we met a few days after that, I eagerly agreed to care for Ralph.  And ours was ultimately a match made, for all intents and purposes, in doggy heaven.

Sara, Kathy, and Ralph in October 2006

However, I didn’t fall for Sara immediately.  Though I found her voice intriguing, the first time I heard it on my voice mail, and though I recognized when she brought Ralph to me the morning she returned to Asia, how terribly attractive she actually was, I wasn’t looking for a relationship at the time and simply filed these sensual details away for later romantic retrieval.

Retrieval that came by way of a dream.

When Sara returned from Asia a month later, I was already in love with her dog, so much so that it pained me to give him up for the few weeks she would be home—that is, until a week or so later I dreamed I was in love with Sara and woke up the next morning with a passion for her that has yet to wane.

The realization was as profound as it was simple—that I not only loved this woman but also that I would spend the rest of my life with her.  Period.  End of Story.

Kathy and Sara in Thailand, March 2007

Sometimes things are meant to be, and though I’ll save the particulars of our romantic story to share in future posts, I will pass along now one surprising and seemingly important detail neither of us was aware of when we first met.

That our mothers had been dear friends for a number of years before either of us knew anything about  the other—had been friends until Sara’s mother died more than 10 years ago.  Both were elementary school teachers at Lexington Christian Academy.  My mother taught third grade; Sara’s mother taught fourth in a classroom across the hall.

In fact, I remember Sara’s mother being ill and my mother’s grief surrounding her eventual death.  My mother even spoke at Sara’s mother’s memorial service.  During the years our mothers were friends, Sara and I were adult women living outside the state, so we never met in the context of that friendship.

However, sometimes lives are linked in profound ways.  Sometimes lives are linked and love is forged against all odds, even with matches made in doggy heaven.  Sometimes there’s a cosmic rightness about a relationship in which lovers are not only star-crossed but mother-blessed, something precious to remember, especially during this sacred time of year.

Silent night.

Holy night.

All is calm.

All is bright.

May the brightness Sara and I share be yours, as well, this Holiday Season.

Kathy and Sara in Vietnam, Christmas 2009