Shock and Hope

It's a gorgeous day outside right now. Everything is blooming and it's a perfect 70 degrees with sunshine.

I actually have no recollection of the weather 17 years ago, except reading in retrospect that it was too windy for helicopters to fly in Blacksburg.

April 16th, 2007 was a Monday. I had graduated from Virginia Tech the spring before in 2006. In 2007 I was working on VT's campus in their corporate research center for a small pharmaceutical company start-up. That weekend, I had been at a family reunion in South Carolina. My mom had spent the night with me in my one-bedroom apartment (rent was $560 a month!) Sunday night and was driving home to Maryland on Monday morning. I was in meetings for the first hour or two of my day, and only when aimlessly checking CNN around 10:30 did I realize anything was wrong.

It's weird what your brain remembers during trauma. I remember the morning pretty well. We were on campus, so we were put on lock down. My phone was blowing up because everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, that I ever met, was calling to see if I was okay. This was before Facebook had that feature where you could mark yourself safe. I do not remember getting anything done at work. I don't remember when I left work.

I remember winding up in a bar with some friends. Not sure I could name exactly who. We ate some food and just stared at the continuous news coverage being filmed 200ft away from us. I remember having no idea how to go about figuring out if the hundreds of people I knew were okay or accounted for. Blacksburg is a college town. There was a possibility that anyone I knew could have been on campus.

I wound up at a friend's house at an impromptu church small group. One of my friends had lost a friend and was inconsolable. I wound up at another friend's house at almost midnight to check on them because they had also lost someone.

I wish people understood how something like a mass shooting affects an entire community. I did not personally know anyone that was killed or injured, but it seemed like everyone I know did. It affected me profoundly even though I didn't personally lose a friend. Everyone I know was in deep shock and grief. The entire community was under the scrutiny of the national and international media, their presence a reminder of just how bad this was. 

One of the main things I remember was the shock. How could something like this happen here? Honestly, I felt like the entire first year was our community processing that and trying to answer questions that have no answers. Only when we reached the first anniversary did it feel like we could  start to focus on healing.

I wonder today if I would feel the same shock if a place I loved was the scene of another mass shooting. I don't say that because I don't love where I live. I say it because mass shootings are now so common. 

I admit to having lost a lot of hope where gun violence is concerned. While the March for Our Lives in 2018 was a big step in the right direction, I really felt like we passed a point of no return with the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook. If murdered 6 year olds don't change things, than I really don't know what will.

That's not say I'm not supporting things like mental health awareness, and working with and supporting high school and college students, and gun control. But I guess I can't emotionally engage as much as I used to, even if I try to walk the walk. I am taking a bleeding control and Narcan class this week though- we'll see how that goes.

I hope that there will be change. I hope that people with profound mental illness get the help they need. I hope we can pass some common sense gun reforms. I hope gen Z, that has been through countless lockdown drills their entire lives, kicks ass and takes names when they get political power. I hope that we don't lose hope, and I include myself in that.

Every year I'm reminded that there are 32 Hokies I never got to meet. 32 people that aren't enjoying this beautiful weather we're having right now. So go enjoy the spring, hug your loved ones, and if you can, do an act of service for someone today. Our VT motto is Ut Prosim- That I May Serve. And today, we are all Hokies.

Adventures in Birding

 A medium adventure! My friend Carol and I went to Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge for the day on Saturday (2/10/2024). Winter is one of my favorite seasons for birding for a few reasons. One, its not beastly hot outside :) Two, its much easier to see birds in the trees when there are no leaves. And three, its weird duck season. Where I am on the east coast, we get lots of interesting ducks that migrate here from Canada for the winter. 

Blackwater is about 2 hours away from us, so we got there about 10am. 

Thousands of snow geese flying over the water.

Unfortunately I didn't have my good camera with me (it's trying very hard to die, I need to replace it), so I just have some landscapes from my phone. 

We saw lots of eagles, tons of ducks, several great blue herons, 3 different types of woodpeckers, and a Great Horned Owl peeking out of its nest. Also thousands of tundra swans mixed with Canada geese.

Canvasback ducks, ring necked ducks, and American Wigeons in Cambridge, MD, about 15 minutes north of the refuge.

We stopped for a yummy dinner at Fisherman's Inn on Kent Island on the way home. Yum!

Small Adventures

 

It's been a beautiful few days here in the mid-Atlantic. I'm unsure of the long-term weather predictions of rodents from last week, but we had a lovely weekend of sunshine and almost 50 degrees. That's a small joy for the beginning of February, so Luna and I took a hike on the C&O canal towpath at Pennyfield Lock.

I can take selfies of just me, but I haven't figured out how to do one with Luna. So you get Luna staring at probably a squirrel. We both would have had a slightly better hike if the squirrels had not been running DIRECTLY ACROSS THE TOWPATH IN FRONT OF HER. Suicidal squirrels is a good band name. So is kamikaze squirrels, if Luna had been able to chase them and pull us both into the Potomac.

There's a beauty in the starkness of nature in the winter, in the shades of brown and gray. It's easier to see the birds, and it's just a good time to take a walk or hike and think your thoughts.

Here's to remembering that not all adventures need to be grand. There's plenty of beauty, wilderness and adventure within 30 minutes of home.

 

Do people even read blogs anymore? I guess that's TBD.

What’s saving my life right now? This is a prompt from Modern Mrs Darcy, a book blog/podcast I like.

I’m not sure anything is particularly lifesaving, in that nothing seems dire at the moment. Maybe what’s lifesaving is that I’m not trying to crush January. I’m not hibernating, but I am leaning into the cozy. I’ve read 7 books in the last 4 weeks, including two children's mysteries today. I’ve taken lots of naps. I’ve enjoyed walks in the snow. I’ve taken walks in the rain, but those are slightly less enjoyable. I’ve started listening to a new podcast. Work is going rather well, and it’s the less crazy time of year for my particular projects. I organized a section of my attic and hope to declutter another section soon. I’m enjoying not having to worry about my yard for a few months. It’s not that I don’t have goals and lists of things I want to do for the year, but this has just seemed a good time to be curled up with books and blankets. And honestly, that is actually on my to-do list- read. And lean into the seasons. There are some seasons for hiking, and others for snowmen and cozy reading. This is mostly a cozy time.

I realized I haven’t blogged much for a few reasons. One, I’m not constantly traveling and having random adventures like I was in Peace Corps. Suburbia just has a different vibe, you know? Also, I’m posting a lot of travel photos and such on Facebook, and it would almost seem like double posting to put them here also. Maybe. Maybe I’ll do some back blogging on my travels from the last few years. Also, the world has been shitty in a lot of ways the past several years, at least politically, and I wasn’t sure, still am not, how much I want to write about that. I think I want to write about my values more than the shitty stuff going on, but that may remain to be seen.

I’m guilty in paper journals of starting a new one constantly before finishing an old one. This leads to me having like 20 journals lying around that are a quarter to a third written in. I’m trying not to the same thing with blogs, since this is already the 3^rd one I’ve made in my life. I don’t see the need for a fourth, even if my voice and life is pretty different than when I left for Botswana 11 ½ years ago.

So we’ll see what this becomes. I am of the mind that I still want to post about adventures, be they overseas travels or new hiking spots. But I also believe that adventures can be new friendships or rekindling old ones, tackling things you’ve been meaning to do for months/years and experiencing the satisfaction of completely something, figuring out how to put actions to your values. Radical self acceptance may be the biggest adventure of all. So we’ll see where this goes.

Where to put the flowers?

The subtitle for this post is, grief is weird.

Today was not the best day for several reasons. Unrest in Lesotho has me worried for the safety of people I know there. There's a giant hurricane aiming at a lot of desperately poor people on Caribbean islands, and let's be honest- I'm worried about everyone in it's path regardless of socioeconomic status, because that thing is a monster. [Side note: This is probably why it's a good thing I work full time in international development and not in full time disaster relief; my empathy would curl me into a ball and I wouldn't be very useful.] There's political storms in my own country that I wish I had the energy and spoons to do more about, although I'll always feel like I'm not doing enough, even as I do some.

But the real reason today has sucked is that it's been 14 years since I got to talk to my dad, and for some reason that's been on my mind a lot lately.

If there's one thing I've learned about grief, it's that everyone does it differently. There's no right or wrong way to grieve, which is weirdly comforting, I guess. For several years after my dad died, I wasn't a fan of fall, because it was hard. Fall was when he died, and his birthday, and major holidays just aren't the same with an empty seat at the table. Eventually though, I got to liking fall again- it was dad's favorite season, and I enjoy doing a lot of things that he enjoyed in the fall. For a while that stung, but it began to sting less. And I was all like, hey, I guess time has healed things like songs like to say. When you feel like you are back in elementary school because your favorite season keeps changing, grief is weird.

Sometimes songs are actually honest though. and say that time doesn't heal everything. It does usually make things easier. Grief does usually become more of a sting than a knife in your heart, and that's helpful for living everyday life. You can learn things that trigger you, and work on processing them (like, maaaybe not listening to country radio in the office right away, because holy sad songs batman).

But there's always the random things that blindside you. I remember being very anxious on the first anniversary of dad's death, and being relatively surprised that I made it through intact. Not without tears and remembering, but intact. Then I went to a Japanese steakhouse later that month and almost ran out of the restaurant as we were sitting down. I had completely forgotten it was where we spent my dad's last birthday, and the memory coming back and the music just set me off with no warning. Grief is weird when guys throwing flaming meat around makes you overwhelmingly sad. [Sidenote: This doesn't make me sad anymore. It was that particular steakhouse that particular time. I still like Japanese food a lot.]

Grief is weird when almost 14 years later, you go through boxes that have been in your storage unit for who knows how long, and start to make a keepsake box for things that belonged to your dad. Then you pause and stare at the box and get really angry that other people have dads and you have a box. And then you stop sorting boxes for the day and try to regroup. Grief is weird.

----

I feel like when you lose someone, you grieve the lost of the person, and also the role they filled in your life. You can grieve the loss of a certain friend, and also the fact that you don't have a friend that knows you really well that you can call at 2am.

This is the first time in a while I'm really grieving just... not having a dad. And I'm not exactly sure why. Nothing earth shattering is happening in my life currently that requires paternal input. And for the record, when lots of stuff like that did happen in the last 14 years, my uncles and other adults stepped beautifully into my life and helped me a lot. This is not me feeling fatherless because of a lack of family and friends as an amazing support system.

No, this is just me missing my actual, real dad. Wanting to be a family of 3 again instead of a family of 2. Wanting to discuss things- anything, everything, with a wise, kind, and funny dad. Wanting to plan a camping trip and learn how to make a Thanksgiving dinner over the fire. Wanting a good dad hug, that I've lacked for more than a decade.

And sometimes, I'm okay with the grief, even though it sucks a lot, because it reminds me of what an amazing dad I had, and that he's not replaceable. And sometimes I'm not okay with the grief and would really like to ask God a few pointed questions.

Currently I'm somewhere in the middle of that, debating whether to move the flowers off my dining room table, because they are from church 2 days ago, in dad's memory, and they are kind of making me sad. They are really pretty flowers though, including a lily, which was a sign to my mom shortly after dad's death that he was okay. And my whole apartment smells like flowers at this point anyway. When you're debating where to put the flowers, grief is weird.

And that's all I've got. God is good, I'm okay (I promise), and grief is weird.

Lesotho, Part 2

Yesterday I had the day off, so I visited Thaba Bosiu (Tah-bah Boh-see-ou), which means mountain of the night. The first King of Lesotho, Moshoeshoe I, settled his people on the mountain because it only had a few paths up and was easy to defend. People tried to attack them at night and failed, which led to the myth that the mountain got bigger at night and smaller in the day.

It was a nice climb, about 700 feet in elevation, but whoa. Starting the climb already a mile above sea level made me huff and puff a lot. So while I rested I took photos :)

 When I made it to the top, my guide took a photo of me :)

 

To enter the burial grounds and ruins of the chief's village, you put a stone on the cairn signifying you come in peace.

 This is where Chief Moshoeshoe I gave speeches to his people. My guide demonstrated.

 From Thaba Bosiu you can see this mountain, which is the inspiration for the Basotho hat

 I got to stand in the first stone house built in Lesotho, Chief Moshoeshoe I's house.

 

King Moshoeshoe I's grave. His warriors were buried with him.

 

 

This is the grave of the father of the current king.

The path up and down the mountain was a bit steep!

At the bottom of the mountain is a cultural village, set up by the Lesotho government for tourism. Part of the village is a recreation of King Moshoeshoe I's village on Thaba Bosiu, and the other part shows the different building styles and totems of the different clans of the Basotho people 200 years ago.

 A statue of the first king.

 Recreating Thaba Bosiu

Inside a compounds there are several shelters. 

 Most clans used thatched roofs, but this one has homes made completely out of stone.

This clan has chosen the wild cat as it's totem. Other totems include lions, buffalo, clouds, pumpkin, and the house cat. 

Next post: Into the Mountains

Lesotho, Part 1

I arrived in Lesotho on Sunday afternoon, exhausted from 2 back to back night flights. I skyped our consultant whose trip overlaps with mine, since we were at the same hotel. ‘Made it, but going to take a nap’. Um, I went to sleep at 4pm and woke up the next morning. When I met him for breakfast the next morning and apologized, he just laughed at me and said he knew when I skyped him that it wasn’t going to be a nap. 

 

The lowlands (which still have plateaus)

 Lesotho is beautiful. The capital, Maseru, is in what they call the lowlands, and on Thursday we went farther south into the lowlands so I could see some of the laboratories that my work project supports. I won’t bore you with tons of laboratory pictures, but it’s really neat to see how things work, and meet really dedicated, committed lab workers. 

 One of the labs we visited.

We went all the way south to Mafeteng and Mohale’s Hoek. The trip there and back, with several stops at labs and one for lunch, took a full business day. [Sidenote: There is a really good pizza place in the middle of nowhere Lesotho!] So last week was mostly spent in the Maseru office except for Thursday, catching up on administrative stuff and working with the technical team on data stuff. I also checked out the mall next to my hotel and felt very at home- all of the chain stores are the same as Botswana. 

I found my favorite biscuits (cookies) :D

Once you are outside Maseru, it’s mostly rural. There are shops and scattered restaurants, but few banks or job opportunities (that I could see) outside of agriculture and small roadside businesses. There are several large Chinese garment factories in Maseru, but still not a huge business district that I saw. 

 A garment factory outside of Leribe. 85%+ of the employees are female.

Houses are traditionally round and made of stone. Now there are more square/rectangle cement structures, but all seem pretty substantial and able to weather the elements. Which is important, because it snows in the mountains and apparently hailed in Maseru last week (!). 

 

A village about 30 minutes from the capital.

The language, Sesotho (pronounced ‘Seh-sue-too’) is very similar to Setswana, the language I learned in Botswana. Similar enough that most of the greetings are the same and if I speak Setswana, people understand me. And then tell me how to say that phrase in Sesotho :)

Next post: I climbed a mountain and did some cool stuff on my free day.