Rest

I like to be on the move. I like to have purpose, to have a goal that I'm working towards. 

Rest isn't easy for me. 

Blame capitalism. Blame brain chemistry. Either way, the reality remains - too much time in open space is hard for me. 

This inclination is problematic for several reasons, the most glaring being that rest is a necessary component to life. We are supposed to rest at some point every day, every week, every month, every year. Just like nature. We're supposed to follow nature's lead. The only reason that we have the harvest every year is because the soil rests in the winter months. The earth can't produce without rest. Neither can I. 

One of my friends once said how thankful she is for the night.  She said that nights are gifts that separate days from one another.  The wisdom in her thought didn't resonate with me at first, but then I imagined life as one long day with no restarts. 

She is right.

We need breaks. We need rest. We need restarts. 

I fight them, but I know I need them. 

Here's the irony of it all - the best things in my life have come after periods of rest. It's a bit of a paradox to be highly productive while being simultaneously highly reflective, in that reflection comes in the silence, but either way, the reality remains.  

My work in the Netherlands was a perfect reminder of all of this reality. We did two murals at two separate locations.  My plane landed and I hit the ground running. I went from the airport to meet one of our partners, then to the paint store, then I don't remember because I fell asleep in the car from not having closed my eyes in 30 something hours. 

Muscle memory took over. Years of muralling around the world has created a default pattern that I don't even question. I know the curriculum. I know the process. I know what to do. Autopilot. 

We celebrated the first mural on Saturday.  We cut ribbons and took photos and invited families. 

And then, a day of rest. 

I roamed Amsterdam on my own for an entire day.  I sat. I walked. I reflected.

I looked at the mistakes we made in the first project. I made a plan for the next project. 

I had time to stop moving. Time to analyze. Time to look at my mistakes and correct them. 

The next mural was better than the first, not in the final product, but in the process.

Progress through rest. 

A rhythm of life that I push against when all it is trying to do is bring me to a better version of myself. 

I won't say that the second mural was perfectly executed. There isn't such a thing  - but I will say that we made better mistakes the second time around. Mistakes that would have been the same as the first ones without the space for reflection.  

I was walking through the building at the location of the second mural when I saw a very literal sign that felt like it was posted just as a reminder to me. 

I will make better mistakes tomorr(ow)

That's the goal. Better mistakes tomorrow.  Better mistakes only happen if you take the time to look at the ones you just made, if you let yourself stop moving long enough to see clearly. 

Rest is a good friend to me.  It's a completely one-sided relationship, but she won't give up. 

Maybe I'll learn. Maybe I'll give in to open space.  Maybe I'll just be better at it tomorrow. 

Welcome.

We are all good at different things - it's true, I know,  I like to remind myself of that when I'm confronted with what I'm not good at.  I'm not good at being flexible in my routine.  I'm not good at administrative endeavors. I'm not good at being nice when I'm cold and/or tired.  I'm not good at speaking, really in any capacity, but particularly if I don't have time to process my thoughts first. 

And I'm really not good at hospitality. Some of my closest friends haven't been to my apartment.  I don't host people. My space is my space is my space. It's my little carved out area that I protect, even to a fault. 

Hospitality - not my gift. 

I'm better at other things. 

So many other cultures that I have had the privilege of experiencing are based around welcoming other people. To turn away the stranger is to bring disgrace to the family, to the country. 

I live in New York.  I swim through tourists anytime I go downtown. I squish my shoulders together and hop through the sea of people in frustration. My arms are not open to the stranger. 

Hospitality - not my gift. 

So here I am in Holland, a land that feels oddly familiar to me. The biggest shock I've dealt with has been the abundance of bicycles.  It's incredible. There are more bikes than cars.  I can't get over it.

Other than that, everyone knows English, fashion is similar, the food is the same, and the scenery reminds me of different parts of the Midwest.  I haven't had to adjust. 

The culture in the refugee center is obviously different. There isn't one nationality. There isn't one language. There isn't one religion. There isn't one fashion style. There are people that are learning to survive in a new land while still holding on to the values and customs that they have known their whole lives. 

Many, being from the Middle East, are really good at hospitality. Really good. Welcoming the stranger is part of their DNA. 

The mural that the boys are painting is in the passageway of a bike path. Bike messengers are passing us all day long. 

It's a highly trafficked area. 

People see us. People stop. People talk to us. People help paint. 

That's how I met my new friend.  I'll call him Munir to protect his identity. Munir was walking past and saw our group painting. He spoke only Arabic, but he knew he had to show me his own artwork. He pulled out his phone and tried to explain the detail work of a stencil painting he had done. I'm sure I only understood a piece of what he was trying to communicate, but it wasn't difficult to understand that this man was a talented artist. Like really, really good.

About an hour later his wife came to visit us.   She spoke English and showed me portraits that Munir had painted of his children. 

Then she said, this one is of our son the day he arrived here from Syria. 

The boy had one coat on his arms, no bags, and a tired look on his face. 

She said, "This is good day for us.  This is day we get our son back."

I looked at them and felt such love and compassion for them. Their eyes were soft and gentle. 

The woman then started speaking to me in Dutch (classic mistake because pass for Dutch quite easily) and so I told her that I'm not from here, I'm from NYC. 

Munir understood me.  He stopped the entire conversation, grabbed my hand, and said, "Welcome. You are welcome here."

My heart stopped beating. 

I just left NYC and my biggest concern is being withoug kombucha for ten days. This man fled war and prayed his family would be reunited again. 

He lives in a refugee shelter and may never see his hometown for the rest of his life. 

With joy in his heart, he reached out his hand to welcome me to the tiny plot of land that he was allowed to stay on. 

Hospitality is central to middle eastern culture, I get that, but this man has to know that I left a country that just banned him from being allowed in. Yet, instead of feeling anger and frustration, he opened his arms to me. 

He didn't hear me say that I'm from New York and pull back his affection. He didn't look at me and think, "You're from America, where my heritage is so scary to you that I'm not allowed on your land. America, where I am a terrorist.  Got it. I'll be on my way now." 

He didn't hold the sins of my country against me, even while my country holds his nationality against him. 

He chose abundance, even in a time of scarcity. 

He chose to be the bridge, not the wall.  An example of what I want my life to be. 

"Welcome.  You are welcome here."

His voice echoes in my heart. May in reverberate out of my soul, wherever I find my on this planet. 

Walking through Life

New York City was made for pedestrians. By design, the city was built for walking. From cars not being allowed to turn right on red, to entire sections of street traffic being diverted for designated public spaces, to a greenway wrapping the island top to bottom – walking was the forethought in planning this city.

When you think about traffic and parking, even if you don't care about the environment, walking just makes the most sense. I can say that with some authority in that I have lived here for over ten years and owned a car until recently. After years of using my lunch breaks to move my car from one side of the street to the other, I decided that my best bet was to buy a vespa, use the subway, and get by on my own two feet. Depending on the weather and the distance, I can get wherever I need at any time.

All things considered, if I can walk somewhere, I do. I walk everywhere even if it means adding hours to a simple errand. I can get anywhere in this city with decent weather, solid shoes, and a fully charged phone.

Walking is more than mere convenience. It gives me the space to reflect, to work through whatever is in my head, step by step.

I can't remember if I loved walking before I moved to New York, but I know that it's such an integral part of my life now that I have to intentionally find ways to walk when i'm not in the city.

At some point (the timeline is a little blurry) I decided that I wanted to walk the NYC Marathon. It took some planning, some might say conniving, but I finally found a way to get a bib for the 2016 marathon.

Having never competed in a marathon before, I didn't know what to expect. I had friends that could give me advice on how to run a marathon, but no one knew how to prepare me to walk for 26.2 miles in one stretch. In fact, when the subject came up with friends in passing most people tried to discourage me from even attempting. I heard every reason as to why my idea was ill-conceived, but as with most everything else in my life, I have zero interest in entertaining the voices that want to discourage me.

My intent was not to physically challenge myself. My goal was to push myself mentally. It was a deliberate choice to put myself in a situation that demanded full mental attention with no ability to escape. It was the work of the warrior.

I wanted that challenge.

I wanted those lessons.

Usually it takes me weeks, sometimes months, to reflect on life and absorb the lessons I have learned along the way. I'm a slow processor - proudly so, but this experience was different. Over the course of the eight hours that it took from start to finish, I very clearly realized the lessons waiting for me in my walk. With startling clarity I articulated this very blog to my sister when I was still walking through Queens.

For me, that walk felt like an embodiment of what my life has been so far – walking with people and walking at my own pace.

Let me explain...

Walking with people - I only told a handful of people about my plan, only inviting a few on the journey with me. I don't need many people in my life, just a handful of people that I really love. It was this handful that shared my journey with me.

Some of this handful, my handful that live in New York, walked with me along the way.  Literally.  My closest friends in this city met me as I walked through the boroughs, walking actual miles by my side. I had friends that planned their entire days around meeting me, around walking with me. In my life these very people walk next to me every day, sharing all the highs and lows.

My family and friends that live too far to meet me on the street checked in on me along the way, calling and texting as the day went on, letting me know that I wasn't alone as I walked.

There were spurts where I was completely alone, others where I walked side by side with my closest friends, and others where technology connected me to the faces in my life that I couldn't physically see - a balance of my daily routine, just like life.

I couldn't help but think about the people that I have shared my life with, even for a season. I thought about people that I walked next to in my childhood, in my teenage years, and into adulthood. I haven't talked to some of them in over a decade. I talk to some of them regularly. I thought about people that I've reconnected with after years of silence, about people that have recently moved out of the city and that I barely talk to anymore, about the ones that I have walked next to for the past 34 years without a break in stride. Regardless of how I interact with them today, I wouldn't be where I am without them, without the clip we walked together.

And for those people in my life, I am the one walking next to them in their races, whether in the past or present. I am a piece of their story, not just my own.

The point is this – we're all walking with each other, maybe for a season, maybe for life. Some of us were meant for the long haul, others for a New York minute. Either way, we are all meant for each other, for this tangled mess of relationships in the journey.

I'm happier when I walk with a select few, an intentional handful.

I always knew that to be true, but walking through the boroughs with the different faces in my life, with constant reminders of their presence making my phone ding, was the physical representation of my walk through life.

Walking at my own pace – I'm not a typical 34 year old, not even for a New Yorker. I've never heard the same drummer that my peers hear, not the ones I grew up with and not the ones that drive the rhythm of this city.

I walk my own path. I always have.

As I walked through NYC with 50,000 people running past me, I felt the truth of that reality.

I felt like I was walking through my life, start to finish, exactly as I have always walked – with my own vision, my own goals.

The rest of the world was competing, whether with themselves or with the person next to them. Not me. I had my own definition of victory. I wanted to walk every step, meditatively and intentionally, until the end. I mentally prepared myself for months and I was ready when the day came.

The struggle I had, just as in life, was in not justifying myself to the other runners - to the crowd.

Everyone was cheering for me, telling me, “You can do it! Don't give up!”, as if walking was indicative of defeat. As if I needed to be reminded to run, because that's what I was supposed to do.

I had to fight the urge to explain myself. I wanted to stop and tell every well-meaning person on the side, “Thanks for the encouragement, but the thing is - I'm not taking a break from running, I'm walking on purpose.”

My inclination was to turn to everyone and explain myself, just like life.

“No, I don't want kids. The thing is...”

“I'm ok with not being married. The thing is...”

“My five year plan? I'm content doing exactly what I'm doing for the rest of my life. The thing is...”

I have to fight the urge to explain myself every day.

The thing is, I know what path I'm on. It's not the same path as everyone else. I don't need to explain that to anyone.

My people, my handfull, they know. They know my story, they know my past, they know my dreams, they know my business. They walk with me along the way.

I don't need to validate my existence to the millions of people racing past me or to the ones on the sideline. I have to fight that urge every day.

I finished that race on my own terms, having completed my own goals in the journey.

By the time I made it back to Manhattan the race had completely shut down. Water stations had been disbanded. Pacing machines were removed. Onlookers had gone home.

I walked every step, even the final ones, without running one step.

I crossed the finish line with a few geriatric runners and injured competitors. There was no fanfare, no cheering fans, and no one waiting for me.

It was just me. I stepped across that line with so much pride in what I had done and with a renewed sense of confidence to be exactly who I am, to keep walking my own path at my own pace.

As I type this, my bags are packed for my next trip, the next chapter in my book. I leave for the Netherlands this afternoon to work with Afghani refugees.

For a brief window, in the middle of July, I will have the privilege of walking next to a group of young people that have more life experience in their 15 years than I ever hope to know. A group of people that will, no doubt, forever change my stride. I will go with the support of my handful, never truly being alone along the way.

For a brief window, in the middle of July, I will give my all of my time, resources, energy, and expertise to a group of people that have been despised in the West. Part of me will feel the need to defend myself, to defend my decisions, to every raised eyebrow along the way.

For a brief window, in the middle of July, I will walk another marathon. And I will remember what I was meant to learn in the first one, perhaps for such a moment as this.

I will remember the people that I walk with and I won't defend my pace to anyone.

I'll let you know how it goes.

Thanks for walking with me.