Things I am missing before we even leave

hot showers, tap water, ice water,

lap swims

cheddar, muenster, brie, Havarti, parmesan, goat

Erica bread

regular mail service, driving, Halloween in the West End, 

Cheerios 

cold milk, friends, my mom, my washing machine 

and dryer

my neighbors, a nice mattress, screen doors, printer

the library

prewashed spinach, sushi, church, garbage service


What might you miss if you were going away for a year?


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Hard cheese, soft toilet paper

Two decades ago, Jessica, my nearest Peace Corps neighbor, made a significant discovery in the city of Quevedo: semi-hard cheese. At the time, Quevedo was over two hours away via bus and the closest place to access dial-up internet. That day, I received a special delivery via the bus driver as he passed through La Josefina: a chunk of cheese wrapped in an ecstatic hand-written note, " Try this! It is amazing!!! -JLH " Ecuadorians love cheese, but almost all of the cheese produced and consumed here is queso fresco , a mild, soft fresh cheese, often salted, made from local cow's milk. It is eaten fresh and served in many typical dishes including empanadas and bolón .  Queso fresco is tasty, but it does not really melt and bears little resemblance to the cheddar, gouda, and Havarti of our homeland. Even today, mozzarella is the only other readily available cheese in Ecuador, except in specialty stores and supermarkets in large cities. I sampled the semi-hard cheese from ...
Read more

From rationing to releasing

For the last 12 months, we have been rationing our resources. You name it, we have conserved it, apportioned it, and allotted it: from Skippy peanut butter, to Earl Gray tea, to cheddar cheese, to dark chocolate. From Crayola markers to Ticonderoga pencils to embroidery thread to temporary tattoos. From shrinky-dinks to jigsaw puzzles to body wash.  From maple syrup to soy sauce to Scotch tape. I am the chief control freak on this project, and I am afraid I have passed some of my neuroticism onto my kiddos. The thing is every little thing feels more precious when it is not readily replaceable, when Amazon Prime is a pipe dream, when the nearest Target is 5000 miles away. The truth is, everything IS more precious. And yet, now we find ourselves, at the tail end of this journey, and it is time to let go.  It is an admittedly sharp turnabout to go from rationing to releasing.  It is time to bake another big batch of chocolate chip cookies and use up that chocolate. Time to s...
Read more

An epidemic of loneliness

Image
Last week, US Surgeon General, Dr. Vivek Murthy published an important opinion piece in the NY Times about an epidemic of loneliness in the United States. In his essay, Murthy asserts that half of Americans are lonely, and he proposes a national framework to "rebuild social connection and community" in America. I have been thinking about his words ever since -- the raw disclosure of his own struggle with loneliness, the profound impact impact of loneliness on health and disease, its magnification of the polarization that already plagues our nation.  Murthy's words left me reflecting about what it means to be in community, what it means to feel loved. And how challenging it can feel to make meaningful social connections.  These reflections feel exceptionally poignant as we are currently living so far from our beloved neighborhood, church, school, work, families and friends.  I recall a soon-to-be-friend who once shared in a group, "I just really want friends. Why is ...
Read more