Month: July 2013

I’ve been neglecting my blog, but it’s been an intentional decision to spend the time that I’m here, being here and reflect on it later when I’m sequestered in my house back in Bahrain. We return for the second half of Ramadan where it’s illegal eat or drink in public during daylight hours and since it’s a million degrees out, it’s easier to just stay home rather than pretend that we’re fasting along with the rest of the country. There’s something about not being able to drink that makes me incredibly thirsty.

The boys went to Vacation Bible School on base for the two days before we left on our vacation. I went early to pick them up on Tuesday and Camille got right into the middle of things. She didn’t know the songs or the choreography, but when she saw her brother on stage, she wanted to be part of it.

I know people think our life is crazy — moving every 2 years (or less) all over the country (and now, the world). But on the positive side, we’ve come to find that home is wherever we are. It’s about the people we’re with, not our geographic location on the planet.

That’s how we could be at home in a city we’ve never been before — with family, we’re home. It’s how we could meet up with friends I haven’t seen since High School — picking up right where we left off. If it weren’t for the new wrinkles and the bunch of kids added to the group, I would have thought we were right back in Oakland. It’s how we could pop in on friends we haven’t seen in several years and we were received with tight squeezes and laughs and exclamations of how tall everyone has gotten and we were home again in the forest.

The gift is I can’t hold any location too tightly because it is going to slip through my fingers too quickly no matter what I do. My links to places in time become the people I meet and those relationships that last beyond our short time together. And while I’m loving returning to all of these “homes,” I’m already missing the newest links in the chain, those I have come to love while living in Bahrain. Soon enough we’ll be back in the heat, sweating it out together on our desert island, creating a new “home” that will last long after we’ve left the island.

I guess it’s the sign of a great vacation that I haven’t taken any time to blog since we arrived. Technically I was putting together a post on my phone from Chicago, but then Camille slashed her scalp open and all was forgotten after that. Don’t worry, she’s fine. I had her sitting on the counter as I was putting my purse and wallet together and she stood up into one of the lights that hang over the kitchen island. Glass everywhere, the smell of burning hair, baby screaming, and blood gushing. All that I dreamed my vacation would be.

Fortunately it turned out that there was only one big piece of glass embedded pretty deeply that I was able to pull out with my fingers. Since it was the really thin glass from a halogen bulb it was a thin, clean cut and I was able to get the bleeding stopped quickly. Then I rinsed the other particles out of her hair and Josh found a few extra ones with the tweezers. Like the good parents we are we opted not to take her to the ER because
1) The bleeding had stopped, the wound was clean and closed, and when Josh pushed on the wound a bunch she didn’t even flinch (meaning no leftover shards of glass trapped inside).
2) She had already calmed down. If she thought the guy trimming her bangs was traumatizing, I can only imagine what she would to to the ER doc who would pull open and irrigate her wound.
3) Who wants to waste a vacation day at the ER if it’s not absolutely necessary?