my life's journey: Thankful Thursday

For much of my childhood, I wanted to grow up to be a doctor. A pediatrician. I have always loved children, even when I was a child, so I thought that being a doctor for children would be a good calling. I went off to Williams College with pre-med studies in mind. Biology 101 and 102. Chemistry 101 and 102. Physics 101 and 102. Screeeeeeech! My pre-med studies came to a grinding halt in the physics building. I couldn't understand any of it. ANY OF IT! I went to extra help every week. I met with the professor. I reread my notes and my textbooks. Over and over. I just didn't get it. Mass. Volume. Pulleys. I shake my head just thinking about it.

But one day it clicked. The professor explained whatever the concept was in a way that actually made sense to me. I listened. I cocked my head to the side, then to the other side. With great glee and a renewed sense of hope, I whispered words of encouragement and support to myself. I took copious notes. I nodded my head. I smiled. I felt a wave of absolute bliss roll over me. There was hope that I would get back on track in physics.

The following class, the professor walked to his place at the head of the class and with a drawn and sad look on his face, he explained that in the previous class, the one I had understood so well, he had made a mistake in the way he explained whatever the concept was. He had made some miscalculation and therefore everything he had taught us should be disregarded.

I'm not joking. Everything I understood was wrong. How disheartening is that?

Well, my hopes to be a doctor slipped away at the end of that physics class.

The professor gave me a passing grade just so he wouldn't have to deal with me again.

I'm convinced of it.

There was one topic in physics class that I did manage to come to some sense of understanding about. Not a complete mastery, not even close, but it was a topic that mattered greatly to me, so I was determined to come to some grasp on it. That topic was: flight!

How do those huge steel tubes, full of people and property, get off the ground, stay off the ground and cross large swaths of land and huge oceans of water? Speed, volume, mass, pressure, lift, friction. Don't ask or expect me to explain it because I cannot.

What I do know is this: I love to fly.

Being up in the air is one of my favorite places to be.

On an adventure. Across the sea.

The view from my seat.

A week ago tonight, I returned from a ten day trip to Spain. To Madrid. My favorite city in the world.

I stayed with my dear friends, Eduardo and Leticia, and their two wonderful sons, Alvaro and Jaime.

I walked. I prayed. I journaled. I ate. I drank. I prayed some more.

I caught a cold. I fell in love with watermelon flavored cough drops.

I had what felt like an anaphylactic response to something - I still have no idea what I was allergic to.

I managed to avoid a trip to the ER only by the grace and mercy of Almighty God.

I spent most of the trip praying prayers of gratitude that I didn't die alone on the street, with my throat, eyes, and mouth swollen shut.

Look at that wonderful, funny, huge statue of a frog.

How could I not love a city with such a great sense of humor?

These photos were taken at a Nativity scene at one of Madrid's main cultural centers. The figures are approximately eight inches tall. I went to see it three times in ten days. I saw more than 150 Nativity scenes in one exhibit - all from one person's private collection. Building nativity scenes is a big deal in Spain. A very big deal.

This is the view from Eduardo and Leticia's kitchen window.

There was the full moon. Greeting me.

I shopped. I walked some more. I took hundreds of photos.

I visited several museums. I bought postcards and scarves and seasonings and candy.

It was another beautiful, heart-strengthening, tear-producing, faith-deepening trip to my favorite place in the world.

It was also an anniversary trip - 30 years ago this fall, I went to Spain for the first time. I met a young Spaniard back in the fall of 1986 who became my boyfriend and is still one of my dearest friends. I had no idea that I was beginning a love affair with a city, with a country, with a people, an affair that would shape the rest of my life. Because of that trip, I became a Spanish teacher. I became a translator. I found a love of and a facility for learning language that I didn't know I possessed. I began to attend the Catholic church that fall, the church I could see from my bedroom window all those years ago, and learned a whole new way to love and worship God.

Can you see the church tower above the roof line of the house? That's the house I lived in, the one with the glass front. And that's the church I attended - with the woman who owned the house.