Wrap On

Wrap On

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The wrapping station has moved downstairs this year. No more bending over a bed or spreading the paper on the floor. I’ve (mostly) cleared the table behind the couch and will wrap at waist height with a Christmas-tree view.

So far, only a few gifts done … but looking forward to more soon.

Every year I remind myself that the days before Christmas are the best, that as much as I try to enjoy the week between, there’s often an anti-climax about it that requires pushing through.

This requires a two-fold approach: enjoy this time as much as possible … and the days to follow, also.

Hmmm … sounds familiar.

Lighting Our Way

Lighting Our Way

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Last night, Copper and I took a walk after work. I slipped on my reflective vest and we trotted off into the dark evening. It was chilly but not frigid, and Christmas lights made our way much brighter than it would have been otherwise.

Each year I need these lights even more, need their candles in the darkness, their collective fist shaken at the void.

I have my favorites—the classic white-bulbed colonial with the graceful fir swag, the spotlit front door with the fruit-studded wreath, the house with lights around the entire perimeter of the backyard. That house also has a star perched high on its chimney.

I wonder if the people who live there ask themselves, “Do we really want to do this again?” It must be a lot of work, tacking up hundreds of feet of lights. But every year they do it anyway. I hope they know that their lights, their effort, lifts the heart of this pilgrim, and, I imagine, the hearts of others, too.

(Pictured above: outdoor lights of a different sort.) 

Deluge!

Deluge!

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This weekend the Washington, D.C., region broke a 130-year-old record: It became the rainiest year ever here, with 63.62 inches compared with 61.33 inches from 1889. (The record-keeping started in 1871.) And who’s to say we couldn’t pick up an inch or two more before it’s all over. We have two weeks left, after all.

There were flooded roads throughout the region, including one of the two that leads to my neighborhood, with yellow caution tape strung across the intersection at the top of the hill.

As if that wasn’t enough, we also experienced the greatest three-day winter rainstorm ever: 3.44 inches from late Friday through late Sunday. It wasn’t a weekend to go caroling or drive around and look at the holiday light displays.

In fact, it was mostly a weekend to stay inside, sleep, decorate, cook and write Christmas cards. Or at least that’s how I chose to spend it.

Now that the workweek has begun, we have a clear day with a splendid sunrise. It’s been that kind of year.

Battle of the Blues

Battle of the Blues

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Putting up a suet block makes me feel a little like the teenager with a private-entrance basement and hands-off parents. Yeah, everyone parties at your house … but it isn’t because of your sparkling personality.

So yes, the birds are flocking to my deck, but it seems like cheating how we lured them here. On the other hand, bird-beggars can’t be choosers, so I’ve devoted a few minutes of my morning to observing the drama unfolding outside my window.

I first spotted the downy woodpeckers, who cling to railings and politely wait their turn at the suet block. I love their jaunty red heads and their ability to queue.

The bluebirds aren’t so patient. A flock of them must have moved into the area this morning, and they’re hungry. They’ve been flashing their brilliant tail feathers and just generally entrancing me since I saw them.

Unfortunately, they have rivals at the feeder. A band of bluejays are guarding the block, wielding their considerable bulk in a futile effort to keep their fellow blue birds away.

Though the jays are larger, the bluebirds are more nimble. They can contort their little bodies (showing off their lovely orange breasts) any which way to get at the suet. The bluejays, on the other hand, are hampered by size. Yes, they’re big and loud, but the bluebirds are making out like bandits. I’m pulling for them.

To Long Bridge and Back

To Long Bridge and Back

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I finally hit the neighborhood streets yesterday for my first fast walk in almost two weeks. In part it was the trip that made walking time scarce  … but this time of year it’s also lack of light.

As we approach the shortest day, I look for times to slip away and pound the pavement. When I work at home, I can work in a stretch at lunch time, but when I’m at the office, it’s a quick walk to Long Bridge Park and back.

It’s actually a pleasant stroll. Not enough time to work up a full head of steam, but enough to stretch the legs and clear the head.

This time of year the sidewalk is often empty, especially if the temps are below 40 and there’s a brisk wind.

And with Bach in my ears and a pile of work waiting back at my desk, I make the minutes count.

To Long Bridge and back. It’ll do.

What Remains

What Remains

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It’s no secret that I love to travel. What’s becoming increasingly clear to me, though, is travel’s long-term dividends. Even trips that seem difficult at the time pay off in the strangest of ways.

I’m thinking of my first trip for Winrock, an around-the-world extravaganza with a prima donna videographer. Even though there were moments I’d like to forget — being told we’d not be let into Indonesia unless we ponied over $5,000 U.S., for instance, a “fee” that the prima donna videographer negotiated down from $1,500 (proving that prima donna videographers are good for something, besides shooting beautiful videos).

What I remember from Indonesia, though, is the beauty of Sumba, the smiles of the schoolchildren there, the bumpy road to Kataka School and a late-night swim in a humongous Jakarta hotel pool.

These details are all wrapped up with the sights and sounds and smells of that country, with its crazy traffic and its friendly people. They are a part of me now, just as the red clay roads and rocky peaks and singing school children of Malawi are.

I’m one grateful lady.

Rainy Season?

Rainy Season?

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Rainy seasons have been arriving later in Malawi. I was prepared for torrents, but apart from a couple of downpours (one with hail and thunder), it was sunny and beautiful the whole time I was there. This was good for traveling but not so good for the crops that Malawians need to stay alive.

The maize they grind into flour that becomes nsima, a thickened porridge served with chambo, a popular fish from Lake Malawi. The tobacco that’s just being transplanted now.
As I waited to board the plane on Saturday, dark storm clouds gathered and lightening flashed in the distance. Not auspicious flying weather — but a good sign for the parched ground and empty rain barrels. 
I just checked the forecast: rain is predicted every day from now till Christmas. I’m imagining the red clay soil drenched and drinking. I’m imagining the land greening and exhaling. I’m imagining the end (at least this year) of a parched Malawi. 
A Working Beach

A Working Beach

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My one-week trip to Malawi was so packed with experiences that some of them are bound to overflow into the week that follows … and beyond. So as I sit here in front of the Christmas tree with Copper curled beside me, I think about the walk I took on the beach Saturday.

Lake Malawi is ocean-like in its long beaches, and I walked as far down as I could in one direction and almost as far as I could in the other. It was a “working beach” with only a few tourists. I saw fishermen mending their nets and women washing their clothes. I saw children carrying bowls of silvery sardines for sale. I’m squeamish about dead fish but these were beauties.

This hour-long walk Saturday was some of the only free daylight time I had during the trip, not counting the lovely hours staring out the car window at scenery as we drove from village to village. But it was so full of sights and sounds and activity that it sent me home with (almost!) a skip in my step.

A Night at the Lake

A Night at the Lake

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I leave Malawi today after a quick and jammed-pack trip. During the last five days I’ve interviewed school children, teachers and a village chief.  I’ve listened as staff members outlined their programs and families shared their dreams.

I’ve seen women knead clay and shape it into cookstoves that will provide them an income for the first time in their lives. … children act out the perils of child labor with plays and dance … tender new corn and tobacco plants in red soil with craggy mountains in the background … and everywhere the energy and drive of a country full of young people.

I’m ending this trip on the humid shores of Lake Malawi, which consumes more than a third of the country’s area. Tomorrow we drive back to the airport in the capital city of Lilongwe.

I’ll take home what I often do from these travels — the knowledge that the world is a big place and there is more under the sun that we can possibly imagine. It’s heartening to me, this knowledge. It brightens my days.

A Walker in Malawi

A Walker in Malawi

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I haven’t walked much in Malawi. There hasn’t been time. But as I’ve bumped along unpaved roads and zoomed along paved ones (in one memorable trip catching up with the Malawian president’s motorcade and pretending we were part of it), I’ve seen many people walking.

Walking in Malawi isn’t done for one’s health. It is done simply to get from one place to another. It’s riding shank’s mare, using one’s legs for transport.

Not to in any way glamorize the poverty here, nor go back to a time when most travel was foot travel, it still does my heart good to see these peopled roads. They aren’t just ribbons of vacant asphalt as far as the eye can see; they are alive and vibrant.

Today we drove through some of the most dramatic scenery I’ve ever seen, the southern end of the Riff Valley, with majestic views that went on forever. But the best moments were when we strolled down the road from a cookstove demonstration to see a woman’s poultry business.  It was just a few steps, but it made me feel, for a moment, like a walker in Malawi.