It’s Been a Year

There is nothing quite like a Minnesota summer. Enduring the less-than-ideal winter is richly rewarded with a perfect summer. I’ve been here a full, solid year. A year!

Today I drove south of the cities to spend the morning with a dear friend, and I rode with the windows down the whole way. The sky is that perfect cloudless blue that I just adore, and I couldn’t stop smiling and reflecting on my life and how much I love where I am.

A year ago, just after arriving in Minnesota once again, I wrote, “Africa, especially East Africa has worked itself into my heart and dirtied my lungs with its sweet, raw dust....But I can breathe just as deeply here as I do in Africa. I can allow my lungs to be filled with the dusts of Minnesota and let it work its way into my heart. I can commit to it. I can allow it to be my new home.”

I’ve done this! My eyes and heart are wide with amazement. This needs to be celebrated because I can’t remember the last time I stayed in one place for a full year. (Well, I can, but it’s been a long time.)  I have committed to Minnesota and I do call it home. (At least for this stage of my life.) I’m thankful for God’s blessings and ever-present kindness and redemption in my life. I have developed beautiful friendships and learned how to forgive and love and smile genuinely. I have learned that life doesn’t always need to be so perfect; in fact, life is better when it’s not.

The longer I am alive (which, granted, hasn’t been that long) I’ve learned that life is like a classic Rwandan staircase. Allow me to elaborate: each Rwandan staircase is completely unique and completely uneven. The steps are not measured. Some steps require giant lunges and others only take the smallest lifting of your foot. Sometimes you can take the step in one movement and other times you need to walk twice before advancing to the next step. (For the record, I love Rwandan staircases.)

When I was first thinking about this analogy I was picturing this stepping-stone path through a field. But not all the steps we take are the same. In a lot of ways life is an uphill climb. We’re always supposed to be taking steps forward (although we do have the option of turning around and going back down the staircase, but that’s anti-climactic - literally). Some steps require deep strenuous lunges and other steps are a no-brainer. And sometimes you get to hang out on a step for a while because it’s so wide.

I’m in a really good place right now. I’ve just finished one of those monstrous lunges and successfully made it to my next step. However, every time I make it to a new step I have this tendency to believe that my staircase has ended. This is not true. Our staircase is as long as our life. We’re always faced with new steps with varying levels of difficulty.

But taking it a step further (pun intended), maybe life isn’t one continuous staircase. Maybe the staircase is in a skyscraper (or whatever type of building you want it to be) and we just keep climbing up to new floors. With each new floor we have the option to hang out for a while or keep climbing. That’s how life is: we do have options and we are, in fact, not always climbing. And it’s important to remember that every staircase is different.

Google images coming through for me once again

I would say I’ve made it to a new floor and I’m going to chill here for a while. There are good things on this floor: relationships and college and my nanny job and my life in Minnesota. God will let me know when it’s time to start climbing again. But for now, I’ll rest here. I rarely take time to rest. I love to move and do; in fact, I think I actually function better when I’m moving and doing. But I need to learn how to take a break from climbing. I need to relax on this level and enjoy the people around me and take a moment to notice the beauty.

I’m always looking for beauty in the ugly grunge because I believe that is where a lot of beauty lies. But beauty lies in the easy and relaxed as well. We are meant to climb and we are also meant to take a break from climbing. We are meant to smile. And love. And for heaven’s sake, we are meant to get out on the lakes and enjoy the Minnesota summer because it will be snowing again way too soon.