dinner with grandma

My grandma made a special vegetarian dinner for me last night. We sat around, eating and talking, for over two hours!

Earlier in the day I had told Zach that I wanted to print off my blog and let her read it. Not because I wanted to shock her or disappoint her but because I want to understand and also be understood by her. When we talk, I always know what she thinks and believes but to explain what I think or why, I would have to play catch up for two hours--explaining many things that have brought me to where I am now. Her reading my blog would just be easier; then we could start in the same place—now.

While we were talking though, she mentioned how she had fallen off her bike in Italy and she believed an angel had gently lifted her to the ground. Also, for over ten years my grandma had a dog named Sugar and she died last year. The dog had became an extremely close companion for her. Last night she told me that Sugar has appeared to her three times since she passed. She also said, in her own little way she used to tell Sugar about God and Jesus. She would leave the Christian radio on every time she left the house and tell her to listen to the songs about Jesus.

Sitting across the table from that white-haired grandmother of mine, I saw very plainly her sincerity. She wasn’t making those things up. She wasn’t trying to deceive anyone. She was floating along, on the island of her own paradigm, speaking her truth (which is based on the combination of her life experiences so far). Does everyone have their own versions of the truth?

My grandma sincerely believed what she was telling me just as sincerely as I didn’t believe it. I realized it felt like we were speaking different languages. I understood her because she was speaking the language I grew up speaking—believing in God the father, miracles, Jesus as my savior, etc. But I wonder if she could possibly ever understand me…

Maybe I don’t really need to be understood. Is it really necessary to push my grandma into the tumult of worry and fear for my soul? It’s probably just easier to let her think I’m a good little Christian girl. The only problem is that’s what I’ve let people assume for years and it has felt suffocating! Last night though, it didn’t feel suffocating. It felt like I was able to interact with my grandma in a peaceful way and observe her beliefs without threatening them. I knew within myself that I felt differently and it was okay that she didn’t know.

I don’t care at all that my grandma and I differ so completely in our beliefs. I don’t feel the need to contemplate if one of us is right and the other wrong. It seems to me we’re all working on our own part of a giant puzzle--one the size of a football field. Who am I to tell anyone the pieces they have put together don’t fit?

not afraid to share

With five minutes each and instructions to share a story, each person climbed the steps to the stage and attempted to sum up their summer. What a clearly impossible task! Tales of triumph, misfortune, laughter, and love spilled out into the ears of the audience.

Two girls drank full glasses of juice concentrate because nobody mentioned that they should add water. Two attempted to sing a slow hymn with the wrong chords and a techno beat being pounded out on a keyboard in the background. A few experienced the unrestrained love and adoration of children; they told stories of a three-year old with alcoholic parents in Ukraine, a five-year old whose mother abandoned him in Canada, and endless numbers of AIDS orphans in Zambia. One girl left a clinic in the pouring rain with a borrowed umbrella, only to have an old man come to her home a few minutes later, in the middle of the downpour, to retrieve the umbrella so somebody else could use it.

As I listened to the stories, my heart wept, laughed and felt deeply for each person. Only the most miniscule portion of their joys and sorrows would I ever know about. I’m continually blown away by the magnitude of the human experience and what a small part we are able to communicate to others.

The room was filled with family, friends, a few apostles and even the president of the church. But as I mounted the stage, it didn’t matter whose faces I was seeing; I’m not intimidated or impressed by power or position. Given five minutes, I would share the same thing with any person on earth. This summer I’ve been given a gift: I’m not afraid!

Not afraid to say what I think,

Not afraid to be wrong.

Not afraid of being judged or not liked,

Not afraid to share who I really am.

Not afraid to speak or listen.

Not afraid of not fitting.

Not afraid of disappointing or offending.

I’m not afraid!

I’M NOT AFRAID!

It’s hard to pinpoint who the giver of the gift was. I’ve been yearning for my own liberation for a while now but was never able to quite attain it. I’m grateful for the internet for letting me communicate myself, to Zoe for being so affirming, to my loving community for loving me with real love, to myself for taking the first step to sharing all of myself with other people, and to all the young men in Gorlovka because they listened in person and provided a safe place for me to share.

While I stood up there, painting a picture of my summer for all those people, I cried. How could I recreate the myriad of colors I saw, felt, tasted, and heard each day for two months? Can anyone paint a rainbow in black and white? So I confessed my former fear (of being judged or kicked out of my loving community because of what I did or didn’t believe) and focused on the beauty of the gift of having that fear released, and that was enough.

Afterwards, the father of a guy I dated for two years came up to me and bear-hugged me. He thanked me for sharing. He and his wife both work for the church and the whole two years I knew them closely, I was never able to say what I really thought about God or the church. He said, “Man Allie, you must have just been terrified of me.” And I cried again, soaking his shoulder, because it was true. I just feel so glad that it’s not true anymore.

I really am not afraid.

home again

It’s six am and I’ve been awake for two hours already…

A 3:50am I woke-up, lay in bed and listened to the voicemails that have accumulated while I’ve been gone all summer.

Some were old messages that I had saved because they bring me joy:

two raps from friends on Christmas day,

one from my mom that doesn’t have any words-- just hysterical laughter (which I think was response to a funny message I had left her…),

one from my boyfriend sounding like a giggly school girl and telling me he loves me,

one from my step mom asking if I’m pregnant and then laughing for a long time at her own joke,

and two from my six year-old sister Faith saying, “Hi Allie. I just called to say hi so…Hi Allie.”

 

At 4:30am my brother made me blueberry pancakes since I hadn’t eaten in twelve hours. He works the night shift and didn’t have to work tonight but stayed up anyways to try and keep a normal schedule.

At 5:45am Evan went to bed and I’ve been sitting alone in the dark by the window, listening to the thunderstorm outside and thinking about my summer.

 

So here I am.

I’m home.

Not because I’m in the United States again but because I’ve returned to a place where many hearts love me.

I was at home in Ukraine,

I was at home in Spain last March,

and maybe, wherever you are,

I have a home there too.