Identity: “the sense of self, providing sameness and continuity in personality over time.

2.

the condition of being oneself or itself, and not another.

3.

condition or character as to who a person or what a thing is.”

The third definition “condition or character as to who a person or what a thing is” made me think about how we define what a person is. There is gender, age, nationality, and socioeconomic status. But, those are clear identifiers of what class of person someone is, but this does not encompass “who a person is.” So, how do we define it? In a lot of different ways…

For example, a friend of mine I have known for seven years (Shea) has worn a lot of “hats” since I have known her. She has been a sister, a high school student, a college student, a girlfriend, a teenage mother, a teacher, and a success story. All of these “hats,” or titles, or ways of classifying people into neat boxes are indeed all part of her identity.

Now, within the last year she has adopted the additional “hats” of stepmother and wife. Now that she wears these new “hats” is she is supposedly a different person. When someone who does not know her classifies her the change from “single mother” to “married mother of two” the change is drastic. For me, who has known her for years and knows her husband and children, who hugged her at her wedding, the change is no different. Now she simply has a piece of paper saying this family is legally hers. She is the same girl I knew eight years ago, with a little more life experience and a lot of decisions along the way.

In reality, sum of the parts do not make a whole. All these “hats” she wears are just a way for people to compartmentalize her by their preconceived notions of what each of these “hats” represent in regard to the population at large. But none of these hats define who she is. She is all of those things all at once. One person can not be defined by a collection of words.

The conclusion I have come to is that there is no way to define “who a person is.” People are complicated. There is no one to define and enclose a person within a single category. Individuals are complex and identity does not encompass just what we can infer from a few basic facts of a person’s life.

What “hats” do I wear? 20-something? Peace Corps volunteer? Nebraskan? Upper-middle class?

If we want to get really technical…First-generation college student? First born? Child of divorce? Feminist?

I wear all of these “hats,” but not one of these “hats” defines me or tells you who I am. These “hats” can give you insight into what kind of person I might be, but they do not define me.

Some of the “hats” I wear have come to mean more to me in these past two and some odd years I have lived abroad. Before, I never thought about my identity as an American. It never occurred to me to be proud or ashamed of what it means to be an American, but as I am viewed and judged as such every day I have taken a much more interested perspective of what it means to be an American.

As my college friends graduate and scatter across the country, and in my case and a few others across the world, my identity as a Nebraskan is one that has come to mean something more than the team I cheer for on Saturday college-football afternoons. It has become a point of interest, and sometimes criticism from those unfamiliar with the state. It has come to be part of my cultural identity of country music and weekend barbecues with my family and long drives on gravel roads and Friday night high school football games and the Huskers. It has come to be a more evident “hat” I wear. It is in the way I speak, the way I dress, and the way I treat others. The same way my coworker from California is a liberal who wears flip-flops, and my coworker from Michigan speaks like a Canadian and must love hockey, and my co-worker from Pennsylvania must have really nice Amish furniture…the girl from Nebraska knows a lot about corn and speaks with her own unique sort of accent, not Southern, but something akin to country.

It can try my patience when I feel judged or compartmentalized by the “hats” others expect me to wear. The “20-something hat” means I am immature, irresponsible, selfish, and poor. Well, I can be immature on occasion and selfish on more often an occasion, and I am definitely poor. However, I am extremely responsible and I work extremely hard. To other Americans my “Nebraska hat” means I am an uneducated farmer’s daughter. I once had a man from Florida ask me if I had electricity in my home in Nebraska…last time I was home visiting I saw there is a new Anthropologie store in Omaha…needless to say, we now have joined the civilized world. My “America hat” means I am consumerist, ignorant, privileged, and on vacation, and if not on vacation, one of those crazies who lives abroad.

That is the problem when we “expect” someone to be something based on the “hats” we know they wear. Sometimes they surprise us, and sometimes they don’t, but ultimately either way it is not a fair way to assume something. Since the time we are children we are told “do not judge a book by its cover.” As adults we still judge the book, we just call it “profiling” based on more advanced knowledge of social groups. Toe-may-toe, toe-mah-toe…still the same thing.

We all do it. We all make assumptions based on little information, and we all attempt to compartmentalize individuals. It is in our nature as humans. But it is important to take a moment to think about how someone “defines who you are” and what “hats” you wear. What do they say about you? And is that what you WANT people to assume about you? I am betting at least one of the “hats” you wear is not necessarily the most flattering portrayal of your character.

So, the next time you catch yourself doing that same thing, remember who you meet may not be who they seem, and a bit of gossip does not make you an expert on their character or life. You can’t change the way others think or act or judge, but you can always think for yourself….and “free-thinker” is a “hat” I hope to wear every day of the week.

When I came back from filling out my forms I climbed back into the car and he asked me if I had gotten enough sleep the night before. I chuckled a little, and told him I had, it was just I haven’t been used to this 8-5 pace for a while, and around 1:00 pm everyone in the little town where I used to live would be in a hammock enjoying the afternoon sunshine and breeze. I was longing for a nice breezy nap so badly….

Alas, one day we all must stop lounging in hammocks and get back to the business of working. Too bad that day came so soon.

But onward and upward as they say.  This week I was off interviewing families who received Habitat homes and writing a brief description about the families, homes, and their lives. It was really incredible to get the chance to see how people’s lives are changed by a few thousand dollars. While I was back in the office after a long day of interviews someone said to me mid-conversation (now I can’t even remember what it was I was complaining about), “I guess life isn’t fair.” This is a phrase I have heard a thousand times. My mother used to say it to me when I complained that the other children in my class were allowed to do things I wasn’t.  My father said it to me when he gave my brother the last piece of dessert that I wanted. I repeated it to myself when someone else ended up with the thing I thought I deserved much more. A phrase universally used and known…at least I know they use it in Latin America too.

This may be a phrase universally known but how often do you really stop to think about what it is about life that isn’t fair. For me that day in the office it was most likely that I couldn’t afford a new pair of shoes I saw while window-shopping, or that I had to come in at 7 am instead of the usual 8am because of the long car trip out to the building site or that I am living below the legal poverty line by US standards…

But really, are these the things that make life unfair? How about the fact that I have a job, which has put me through an exhausting first month, but which I really enjoy, and which challenges me and utilizes all of my skills, when very few people have a job at all? How about the fact I have great friends and great co-workers, and I feel supported and happy? How about the fact at any moment I, as an “American” can pick up and move anywhere in the world I decide to  at any moment? How about when someone tells you when you are a child you can be anything and do anything if you work hard enough, and for “Americans” it is actually the truth, while here most people born into poverty can not even struggle their way out of it? Why was I born into a world with 3-car garages, suburbs, shopping malls, Starbucks, and digital cable, while so many people were born into extreme poverty? Why did I draw the long straw, and what did I do to deserve it?

These are the questions that should be in the front of my mind when I tell myself life is not fair, not whether or not I can afford another new dress…

This week while I was out interviewing, my thoughts were with my family as they waited together at the hospital for my cousin to come out of surgery. He is a college student who recently discovered he had a large tumor growing in his neck. This week they removed three of his vertebrae and inserted a metal cage, after grafting some bone from his hip to grow and fuse together his neck. Here is a freshman in college who is playing basketball one day then looking at a terrifying surgery and extensive recovery the next. This coming just a few years after his mother (quite possibly one of the nicest women I have ever known) had a brain tumor removed and not too long after his father was nearly killed in a high-speed car chase (he is a police officer). How many trials is one family expected to face before they have had their “fair” share?

There are those who believe the struggles we face here will result in the eternal reward we receive from a higher power. There are those who believe in karma, or getting what you deserve and those who have wronged you suffering their own misfortunes in turn. Personally, I am not sure of either of those things. So those of us who have no assurance of some kind of retribution in one form or another, what is left for us? I don’t have the answer…

The reality is, no, life is not fair, but I know today, tomorrow, and the next day I will try to keep in mind that though there are so many people I know who do not deserve the easy path and gifts they have received in their lifetimes and though so many times there are things I wish I could have or someone close to me could have which they might more than deserve but never get, there are still amazing things in this world that I get to experience, and so far I have had a pretty good go of it.

It is easy during weeks like these where my perspective is dead on where it should be because I have blatant examples of why I may be blessed. The hard part is not losing sight of it next week, or the week after, or even tomorrow when I am feeling as if I am struggling an unfair amount.

I guess life really isn’t fair, but “fair” also has a lot to do with perspective. Through a certain light most things are probably all right. I challenge you to think about the things that are bothering you right now. Bad week at work? Lost your keys? Fight with your spouse/boyfriend/girlfriend? The electric bill came and it was more than you could really afford? Even simple things like too much traffic, waking up late, battery on your cell dying, can ruin a perfect day. Think about the things you forget to be grateful for everyday…

You were born into a world where you can afford to eat every day. You have a car and a home and phone and a job. You live in a place where your children can play outside and you don’t worry something will happen to them, other than falling off their bicycles.

Living in the developing world helps me feel grateful every day. So when I say I can’t explain why it is I can’t seem to leave here, here is a simple but really powerful reason why: When I am here I am happy to simply live my life every day. Whenever I start to think about what it is I haven’t done or haven’t gotten, on any street corner there is someone whose needs far exceed my own. I am busy with the business of living, and all that other stuff crosses my mind far less.

There is no greater gift, no blessing, no amount of money that can buy the happiness you have when you have a great perspective. Life doesn’t have to be fair for you to have that.

Today is the day I am going to change my point of view….

Last week I was back out into rural El Salvador to help with a huge a house building event…it was quite an experience! International volunteers came from the States and Costa Rica to donate their time (and money!) to help construct houses for Salvadorans who otherwise would be unable to afford a decent place to live.

I spent 5 days out in rural El Salvador helping with manual labor, sleeping on the cement floor of a community church, helping to motivate volunteers, and meeting a large number of amazing people….some volunteers (Salvadoran nationals and international volunteers) and some community members whose lives are being changed.

Day 1 event inauguration and cultural exchange...here are some Salvadoran youth dancing a traditional dance in traditional Salvadoran dress.

Day 1...Me and Emilio in matching "Habitat" t-shirts waiting to go out and get our hands dirty!

Pouring cement...day 3. Volunteers are tired, but spirits stayed up all week!

Day 1 was inauguration event in Auachupan. All the volunteers met for the first time and attended the celebration to begin the week of working. Day 2 was working on houses all day. Day 3 was working in the morning and an afternoon of eating Salvadoran food and a soccer tournament including an international volunteer team, a national volunteer team, and teams from the communities receiving the homes as well. Day 4 was finishing all the hard work and saying goodbye to the community. A small group of volunteers threw a farewell party and invited all the kids in the community to participate in knocking down some piñatas. Luckily, (because I am ever so charming) they invited me too and I was allowed to participate in the festivities. Day 5 was closing, cutting the symbolic ribbon to the final, completed house, and a thank you ceremony for everyone´s week of hard work.

After 5 days in the heat doing construction work, the first soccer game I have EVER played in my life, nights of sleeping on the floor and showering in a plastic bag covered structure, and one awful bug bite on my eyelid which caused my eye to swell shut on Thursday morning, I was exhausted. I crawled into bed on Friday night and slept until 11 on Saturday. It was an AMAZING experience! Stressful and tiresome, but so rewarding to get back to rural El Salvador, which despite 2 years of complaining, now feels like home to me. Not bad for week 2 at my new job.

Week 3 holds, 40 hours in the office, learning more about my job and what exactly it is that all my coworkers do as well, as well as a special welcome lunch tomorrow for me and my new coworker/work partner Justin.

Justin and Emilio at the inauguration event.

On another note…Happy late Easter to everyone! I spent Easter sunning myself on the beach and eating too much food…not the same without my family, but I think a long day relaxing on the beach is an okay substitute.

The past month has been one of the craziest months of my whole life! I ended my two-year long commitment to my small rural community in El Salvador with a heart-breaking goodbye, I moved home with no idea where the future was headed, then two days after I stepped off the plane in Nebraska, I got an email that set me sailing in a totally different direction…

As of Saturday March 24 I am now back in El Salvador and working with Habitat for Humanity. I flew back in on a mid-afternoon flight and stepped out into the sweltering heat with a freshly-stamped passport in my pocket, a couple of seriously heavy bags full of clothing and too many pairs of shoes, and a big smile…

It seems “my life far and away” will be far and away for a while longer. I signed a year commitment to working in the Habitat El Salvador office here in San Salvador, the capital city. I will be utilizing my passion for development work which I have cultivated over my last two years with Peace Corps, and will be working in the international fundraising and donor relations department, keeping me right in line with my passion for public relations as well…the more days I spend there, the more I think this job is a pretty perfect fit for exactly where I am in my life, exactly where my skill set lies, and with a challenging aspect that will drive me to perform better….

I just hung up the phone with my new landlord and he will be dropping the keys off to my new room this afternoon. I will hopefully be moving in this weekend! My rent is a whole $120 per month…breaking the bank aren’t we?

The visit home was a whirlwind of emotions, for me and for my friends and family too. It was a rough trip in a lot of ways. Don´t get me wrong, I had a great time, which culminated in an awesome trip to Las Vegas for St. Patrick´s Day to see some far away friends and family, but also includes a number of movie nights, long afternoons of shopping, and too much eating of delicious food (out of sheer embarrassment I will not tell you the amount of weight I gained in a single month). But despite all the fun, right away I knew I would be leaving, and when I broke the news I was met with mixed reviews of my decision. It was difficult for many to understand why I would want to continue living in a place that caused me so much pain during my first adjusting months. Why would I want to sacrifice all the comforts of life in the States when I didn’t have to? Why would I want to go back to living so far away?

Well, here is a little bit of a response for those who are wondering:

1) When I arrived back in the States in February, I had no intention of going back to El Salvador in the foreseen future.  When this job opportunity fell into my lap, I was not going to pass up the chance to work in my field, learning a job that I intend to do in some capacity or other for the rest of my life. It is an amazing opportunity to get great experience working with an amazing organization in which I will continue to hone my bilingual skills, which is important to me as a personal goal. Last night as I sat around the table at an ex-pat event in San Salvador drinking a margarita and telling many former volunteers about my new position there were  number of jealous looks and number of, “How did you snag that job?” questions. Right then I knew I made the right choice.

2) This commitment is a full year. It is basically an internship, so if I choose to move on to something new in a year, or choose to stay in the organization there is the possibility I could advance or change locations.

3) The job market is tough everywhere. For me to find this position is a miracle…or more like a sign I should be here. (Whether or not you believe in it, it is a pretty fortunate coincidence that I ended my PC service early and just in time to have a long vacation, and start my new job right when they wanted me too.)

4)  I like it here and it is what I want. It isn´t that I do not miss my home. I miss it every single day. I miss my friends and family. I miss root beer. I miss baseball games. I miss my dog. I miss driving down the highway with the windows down. I miss the feel of soft carpet under my feet. I miss the comfort of knowing that there are people all around me who really know me and love me…

But baseball games and root beer and cars and carpet will all be there in a year….and all those people who know and love me won´t give up on me no matter where I live (and neither will my dog). When will I have another chance to live abroad doing something I love with this kind of adventure and independence? Everyone with mortgages, spouses, bills, and full-time jobs can answer that question…

And besides, I also love long afternoons on the beach, licuados, Spanish music, painfully beautiful and perfect weather every day, and even in its own way I love the way the city is crowded and noisy and always moving like a living thing.

What can I say? I love this multi-dimensional world!

The bottom line is, I can not say if this is going to be the best decision I ever made or the worst, but I have the desire and the faith, so I  am taking a chance on something new. And to conclude, I would like to say, taking a chance on something new is one of the few things that makes my heart race, and head spin, but also puts a smile on my face.

This is day 5 of my new life, and day 5 is better than day 4 which was better than day 3, which was better than day 2 which was better than day 1….

And I have a sneaking suspicion the days will keep getting better…if I am lucky. And that feeling is something worth taking a chance on…

Today as I wake up I am contemplating exactly what that means. It means that the way I defined my life and work for the past two years is no longer applicable. It means the future I had been both excited to reach and dreading to reach has arrived. It means I am about to take the next step and start a whole new chapter. It means the world is full of endless possibilities and in this moment I can go anywhere and do anything, which is both a terrifying and exhilarating prospect.

It also means in the next few weeks I will be touching down in Nebraska once again. I will be driving down the familiar highway, taking the familiar exit, passing the familiar cornfields, and turning into my little neighborhood. I will pull into the driveway and set my bags on the tile laundry room floor, and call out for my dog who will come running up the stairs to greet me. I will pull my shoes off and curl my legs up under me when I sit down on the couch. Everything about it will feel exactly right, as if nothing had ever changed…as if this is the place I belong. And yet, everything will feel exactly wrong, as if it is a completely new and different place…as if I were a stranger here and I could not possibly be the same girl who sat in that very spot three years ago and decided to take this journey.

The journey is over. There were a lot of goodbyes, some heart-breakingly painful. Some that left me feeling proud and triumphant. Some that left me scared for the future. The papers were signed. The appointments were kept, and in the end I sit here this morning facing the rest of my life without a single clue where it may be going. But the single most important thing that being a Peace Corps volunteer has taught me is that life will come at you when it is ready and you must have the patience to focus on the now, instead of focusing on the next step. If you are living in the future you will miss all the wonder, beauty, and excitement of the now.

So for now I am going to close the screen, put on my shoes, grab my bag, and go out and face the rest of my life. Not bad for a Saturday morning…

I am down to less than a month left and a lot of loose ends to tie up. The mountain of tasks to complete in the next four weeks is daunting. Forms to fill out, packing to do, goodbyes to say, plane ticket to buy, interviews to do, and a future to decide. Wow…seeing it all written down like that makes me very nervous.  All this change at once is not exactly my forte.

I know from experience that everything will get done, everything will work out, and I will make it through just as I always do. The question I am asking myself right now is, “how painful will this be?” As I study the bare walls and the suitcases piled by the door I begin to let the reality of it all hit me.  I feel that sinking hollow sensation in my chest and tears begin to pool in my eyes blurring my vision. In that moment I have the answer…

It has been many days since I have written and so many things have happened I don’t even know where to begin.

Well, just a quick update on where I have been and what I have been doing. I am afraid to say that very little of it has been actual work. The holiday season is not exactly peak work-time, especially in a coffee-picking area where people are picking through the entire month of December.

Christmas I spent at the beach with friends (Adrianne and Peter…Ade is a fellow PCV and Peter is a Scottish engineer who works for an NGO here). We had a little international Christmas party with some backpackers from Wales and New Zealand, and made chicken with country gravy, mashed potatoes and my favorite dessert for Christmas dinner.

Our Christmas gifts all wrapped up...

Pete's Elton John glasses...Ade and I are great gift givers

A few short days later on my birthday a group of volunteers and I headed out to Antigua, Guatemala to celebrate our New Year’s Eve in style. The streets were filled with people as we welcomed 2012 under the yellow clock tower.

Birthday dinner in Antigua...with my special birthday hat!

Midnight!!!

The 2nd of January brought the arrival of my mother to visit! Yay! She flew into Guatemala and we spent a few days in Antigua, then headed back to El Salvador so she could spend some quality time learning how to bathe out of a bucket, sleeping in a hammock, and getting stared at by every person on the street…good times.

Local cuisine

Guatemalan women looming hand-made artisan crafts

Mom and I in front of the fountain in Juayua

Mom learning how to make tortillas

My mother flew out the 9th and the following Wednesday the 11th I was at the beach for my COS (Close Of Service) conference. That is right….I am getting ready to finish my 2-year commitment with Peace Corps.

In addition to all this good stuff happening, some bad stuff has been happening as well. Peace Corps Central America was hit by a storm of controversy as the Washington office has grown increasingly more alarmed by the violence and danger to volunteers in the countries of Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador.

The decision to pull all volunteers out of Honduras, and retain the groups of new volunteers that were supposed to be coming into Guatemala and El Salvador in the January training cycle came down from Washington in mid-December and since then there has been a flurry of rumors and speculations of what is going to happen.

For more information click here.

Right now, Peace Corps is saying the intention is NOT to close the posts in these three countries, but to do a very thoughtful and intense restructuring of the security policies, as well as, restructuring the PC posts here on the whole. In El Salvador, as I understand it, their goals are to eliminate travel on public transportation as much as possible, as a recent volunteer survey concluded that volunteers feel the least safe while traveling on buses. Whether that means moving our centralized office, placing harsher restrictions on volunteers leaving their sites, or forbidding bus travel entirely, has yet to be seen. In this current moment the future of the PC program here is unknown. At the end of the month PC El Salvador will be hosting an All-Volunteer conference to further discuss the direction they are intending to go in, and to get volunteer feedback.

So what does that mean for me? Well at our COS conference a few weeks ago we got some interesting news. They decided to move up the date for our departure by over a month. Also, they have officially closed San Salvador, the capital, to all volunteers not there on official pre-approved Peace Corps business.

So, that means by the end of February I will no longer be a Peace Corps volunteer. This day has been coming for 2 years, but all of a sudden it is coming at me at warp speed, and I feel as if I have gotten the wind knocked out of me. When I really think that the life I have lived for two years is about to change drastically, when I think about all the things I will miss, I can’t help but realize I don’t feel ready or able to tackle the task ahead of me. I have spent a lot of time eating my feelings this week (it is not a pretty site…cookies, chips, soda, and frosting right out of the jar, yikes).

As I sit and catalog my experiences I can’t even begin to explain what feelings overtake me. It is a mixture of heartbreak and happiness. It is fear and liberation. It is uncertainty and accomplishment. It is everything I have felt in the last two years rolled into one confusing blur.

All I know is that as I sit here, thinking about the letter I wrote to myself 2 years ago before this adventure began, I am realizing the adventure isn’t over. That is the beauty of life…every day is an adventure in its own way. Two years ago I wrote to myself that I hoped I would retain the things that make me who I am and learn to appreciate them even more. I wrote that I hoped I would never settle for being less than the best I could be. I wrote that I hoped this experience would change me for the better, but not so much as I would not be able to recognize myself. I wrote that I hoped I wouldn’t give up….

My final assessment is that I got exactly what I hoped for. I made it. I learned so much, but I didn’t forget too much either. I am proud of my work, and I think though the idea of what I thought I was going to do wasn’t where I ended up, but I still did the best I could. I think these two years were the some of the best years of my short life. These two years have also awakened a sense of adventure and longing to see more of the wide world out there, outside my little Nebraska world.

In short, this has been an experience of a lifetime and as the days tick away I count the hours until it will end. I have made some amazing friends, met some amazing people, and changed my life perspective in a way I will never be able to take back.

5 weeks from today I will no longer be a Peace Corps volunteer. I can’t tell you yet where the next step will take me, but I can tell you that I will never stop cherishing all the things I have learned in these two years. I can also tell you I will be crying like a baby pretty much daily for the next 5 weeks…I am still such a sap.

Just kidding….

I mean, I do want money, but if you do give some it will not be going to me it will be going to help make one very special 15-year-old girl’s future a little brighter.

This is Erika.

She is sweet, kind, and a good friend of mine. She is responsible, intelligent, and has a great sense of humor. She proves to me day in and day out that she is wise beyond her years and can always put a smile on my face when I am feeling down.

Erika had a tough year this year. She started the year in 8th grade, but less than halfway through her family realized they could not afford to continue sending her. The daily transport cost is $1.00, in addition to books, uniform, and miscellaneous costs. Her brother was also attending school as a 7th grader this year. The family could not afford to send both children to school, so they had to choose. They chose to continue sending her brother so that Erika could stay in the house and help her mother with the cleaning. It is generally accepted that boys are more likely to need an education, and girls often take a back seat when it comes to academic opportunities. Erika is no exception.

But, Erika is exceptional. She is a wonderful, mature, young woman, and I want to help her realize her dream of becoming a police officer. She says it is what she wants to do because she wants a job where she can help others. El Salvador has a rather progressive police force, with whole classes of female officers graduating annually. In short, this is an attainable dream, with a little assistance.

I am asking for your help in sending this girl to school. She wants nothing more than to study and better her life, but because she is the female child in her family without your help she will not get that opportunity.

The cost of a year of school here is around $250. So, for less than $25 you can send this girl to school for an entire month.

During this season of giving, think about giving back to someone who really needs it. In these difficult economic times everyone had a tough year, but if you can give just a little, for Erika it will go a long way.

To donate:

Via secure PayPal:

Follow link: http://www.aidelsalvador.org/donate.php Click the DONATE button and follow the instructions

Be sure to indicate the community name (San Juan de Dios) in the “send message to seller” field.

Via check:

Send to: Peter Rennard 2688 Pala Mesa Court Costa Mesa, CA 92627

Be sure to indicate the community name (San Juan de Dios) in the “memo” section

Thank you for your consideration and Merry Christmas.

Lindsey Weeks

Peace Corps Volunteer

Cantón San Juan de Dios, Juayua, Sonsonate, El Salvador

It is strange…there are no coats, no gentle snowfall, no gray winter mornings…there are only blustery, sunny days, where the sky is blue it hurts to look at it. It is deep into the month of December and I am swinging in the hammock in a tank top and flip-flops watching the trees bend and dance in the wind through the open front door…

It just doesn’t feel like Christmas…but my overly-pleasant weather will not stop me from celebrating. Though I long for snow boots and thick winter gloves, it looks like a fluffy beach towel and a bathing suit will have to suffice.

And it will not stop me from “decking my halls” to give my little home a Christmas-like feel…

Poinsettias and white roses from the garden on the table...

Ornaments, paper snowflakes, and ribbons hanging from the ceiling...

Homemade snowman ornament...

and a homemade star for the top....

My little tree...

It isn’t quite what I am used to, but I think it will do…and if not, there is always cheap rum and a 2-liter of Coke available at the nearest grocery store to help me forget…

Just kidding! I want to be sober at the beach so I don’t drown…

Merry Christmas!

I imagine my parents watching a movie and sharing a bottle of red wine on the living room couch…my mother’s eyelids will be become heavy halfway through the movie and she will drag herself upstairs and climb into bed, falling into an immediate heavy sleep…the dogs trailing behind her, the small fluffy white one will curl up next to her, huddled against her for warmth, while the big brown one plops clumsily down beneath a table…my father will finish the movie alone, and will not turn in until well into the night after the house is quiet…

I imagine my brother, maybe out at a friend’s house, or maybe him and a friend hiding out in his room, or playing video games, or whatever it is teenage boys do when they get together…

I imagine my grandparents…my grandmother sitting at her scrap-booking table, her hands moving slowly and steadily as she carefully and methodically cuts photos and shapes and arranges them artfully on page after page…my grandfather sits in the opposite room in his old chair, his feet propped up, his slippers waiting patiently on the floor next to him as he watches television, or maybe an action movie, or a western…

I imagine my best friend coming home from work, slipping off her shoes, throwing her coat in a heap on the floor, along with her clothes as she pulls on warm pajamas and curls up in her purple sheets to read a book she can’t seem to put down…she will read long into the night, well past her bed time, just so she can know what happens on the last page….

I imagine my grandmother…she sits at her dining room table in her familiar house…maybe she is wrapping last minute gifts….maybe one of her grandchildren is visiting for the night and she scoops them a bowl of vanilla ice cream and lets them add the chocolate syrup…I always added more than everyone else and my ice cream tasted like chocolate instead of vanilla….

I imagine all the people celebrating my cousin’s graduation today…maybe a party at their quiet home…I see friends and family filing in and out, laughing and exchanging stories…I picture the brand-new diploma, white paper inside a folding holder, sitting open on the table for all the guests to see as they pass…

I imagine friends bar-hopping…from one to the next…they huddle together in groups, trying to stay warm on a cold Nebraska night as they shuffle down the sidewalk, shrugging out of coats as they enter warm buildings…

I picture myself, driving in my old Pontiac, down side streets and through town…Christmas lights are up and the homes in the neighborhoods off the highway shine in the distance…my fingers skim the front of the radio, the screen has ceased to light up, and the markings have long been rubbed off the buttons, but each is familiar and I do not even glance from the road as I flip through stations finally settling on a country song I know by heart…

I close my eyes and I see all the places where I am not. I imagine the lives that are happening half a world away from me….I see my life as it would be if I were there.

But when I open my eyes I see my life as it truly is…and it is happening right here, right now. I feel the wind blowing in from the crack in the roof, making me pull my blanket tighter under my chin…I watch as my clothes hanging up to dry swing back and forth on the clothesline, their shadows swaying against the wall…I watch as a tiny black bug flutters around the single illuminated light-bulb hanging bare above my bed…I hear the fire-crackers the neighbors are lighting off as part of their Christmas tradition…I hear raised voices, singing, drifting up from the church near the street….

All this pulls me back to the place I am. That other place is only a memory…a dream that plays on the backs of my eyelids when I close them and let myself drift away…some nights when I pull myself back to the here and now, it feels as if I am ripping myself away from the vision of what should be…but some nights, like tonight, I open my eyes and if feels as if I just woke up from a pleasant dream, but a dream nonetheless…I wake up into my reality, and as I listen to the nightly chorus of crickets in my garden, a smile spreads across my face…

Though there is always a place inside me, and empty space, reminding me that at every moment life is happening elsewhere, there is also a place inside me that knows that to see that life happening all I must do is close my eyes and let my imagination take me there…tonight I will dream of fluffy snowflakes that catch in your eyelashes, the gentle breathing of my dog as she sleeps legs stretched out across the carpet in front of the fireplace, and the smell of pine coming from the Christmas tree as it casts a halo of light into the snowy front yard through the front windows…and in the morning I will wake up and shuffle bare-footed onto the porch and watch as wispy white clouds descend over the mountains in the distance, and I will stretch and let the morning sun touch my face…

I don’t have to choose. I can have both. One while waking, and one while dreaming…