It is a fact of Peace Corps service that your mood will swing widely, especially during the first year. It seems that if one can make it through those first 12-13 months, then the end flickers into being and each moment becomes more precious and fleeting. Plus you have the ability to converse with more alacrity and understanding; you have completed some significant work; have experienced a range of celebrations and seasons; and probably have traveled a bit. You’re settled in and beginning to think about what comes next.
For me, six months in with winter approaching and no meaningful work even embarked upon, some days can be a bit challenging. I feel like I am retracing the year of stasis I endured after I had lost my job and was sitting at home waiting for something to happen. Only now the something that I made happen is happening …
And yet. Yesterday, after posting my latest blog, I received a series of a beautiful haikus from my husband and one from a talented poet that I once knew in my youth who found me again through my blog. Her words of wisdom:
The worst has happened
a thousand times before, yet
here we are, in love
It brought me right back to “the light inside [that] is the steady keel” as she put it in her comment. I am in love with my life and my experience, each and every day, no matter how dreary or depressing or difficult some of them might be. In the timeless words of Victor Frankl “What is to give light must endure burning.” This is a time of burning and scrubbing clean the waste of expectation and desire, it is a time to be open and vulnerable to what the world brings to me, to listen without preconceptions or notions of how things should be. The worst has happened a thousand times before and yet still it never has; there is always a blessing to be found in the embers, somewhere.
And then my husband, who is making his own, separate journey, living alone after 16 years of marriage:
Love, stay faraway.
Life still ordinary here.
Strive for magical.
We sold our home, gave away most of our belongings and said goodbye to an existence that was replete with all the things one is supposed to strive for in life, at least according to our current cultural paradigm. But the magical is not often found in the predictable, the safe, the comfortable and ordinary. It comes alongside the burning, or in the embers, or in the light inside that still flickers strongly, despite the darkness outside.
I am blessed, in love, and still striving for magical….
From Now On I Live Mad 
Made me cry, Yvette, having left, having similar experiences, but knowing we’ll not get to the second stage. Take care.
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Leslie, your second stage is just taking place on a different continent. You are still an ambassador of Peace and Friendship for Moldova. Always. Miss you my friend
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Yvette, thank you for allowing us to walk with you through the ups and downs of your experience over there. I like what your poet friend said about the importance of that inner light that is the steady keel. Besides, something magical is about to happen.
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Sometimes I worry that my doom and gloom will discourage you Kathleen…but then I realize that yours is aperenniallyoptimistic and generous spirit. Moldova needs you. I so hope it gets you next June (me, too!)
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and it is so! The synthesis of love, art and life. Rarely comfortable – but brimming with possibilities.
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HI! The tea was hot and the wine cool. I am glad to call you friend. And Sissy, wherever you are, ya got one cool sis!
p of Hincesti
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and Buddha might say the magic IS the light and all around you, in you, your love, all, everything – there is something in you that was far away before you left – sometimes we have to travel far on the path to knowing ourselves. Once that process begins we are certainly more open to and aware of the light, the magic and the possibilities. I love you my friend and carry you with me daily. Beautiful share…thank you.
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Some chastise me for not being “positive” enough about my experience. You, my friend, always let me be and I know that you know that I am living this experience to the fullest and wringing every drop of wisdom from it that I can. Moldova is not what I expected. And that is the essence of its lesson for me….
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Sissy,
U would b disappointed if Moldova was what u expected. Please know that I think about u a ridiculous amount throughout my day. You are on a journey that someone/thing required you to take. I know u will emerge an enlightened woman. Can’t wait to absorb your wisdom. Love you!!!!
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I feel the love Andee! Believe me, it keeps me going many days.
Sent from my iPad
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