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Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Thoughts on a Fish

A great sorrow just filled me for a time. A sorrow that having stateside would have called for a glass of red wine on the porch with Janna on speaker phone, very good popcorn and a movie. Maybe a Wes Anderson. You know that mood?
However, here, in my mud hut with thatch roofing in the low hills of sub Saharan West Africa, none of those options exist and I will say that I’m better for it. Today I was pulled from this by jumping rope in my hut while trying to remember the words to “Our House” by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young (a definite wedding party song). This cleared my thoughts and simultaneously muddied them with thoughts of Fisher O’Brien. 2 ¾ years old, I’ve known him since before he was 1. I love and fear the thought that 4 nights a week I get to play with, walk with, talk with, feed, snuggle with, bathe and put to sleep this cool little dude. This little man who talks to me on the phone and tells me about his sleep and his hair and I can almost feel his beautiful, rosy cheeks rising when he laughs into the phone. He says my name like no one I’ve ever known and it is sends a genuine warmth my way, a warmth that directs blood from my heart to my hands and feet and eyes and makes me keep going and keep loving and keep living this beautiful (and surely tumultuous) life.
Fisher blesses me; although it is through the sweet guiding hands and the comfy blanket pulled up and the pillow perfectly fluffed and the light of nighttime dimly fading into sleep and the voice of his precious father, Ryan, I know that he knows what he is saying. The way small children do.
I find so much comfort and joy and true love in this.
I love knowing that I love Fisher.

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