Ganges – Marilyn R. Gardner

Hospitality—a changed fuse, a restored gift

Published on January 30, 2015January 30, 2015 by Marilyn10 Comments

Ganges

Hospitality—a changed fuse, a restored gift by Robynn. Follow Robynn on Twitter @RobynnBliss and read the rest of her posts here!

Hospitality is a dying art here in the West. Martha Stewart and Pinterest have made simple gatherings with friends seem too small or insignificant. There is some invisible pressuring force that perfection is a prerequisite to hospitality. If our homes aren’t impeccably decorated, if our housecleaning isn’t at a professional level, if our cooking isn’t gourmet we dare not invite someone in. This says nothing of the personal pressure we feel. Our children must be great conversationalists, extreme servers, polite passers. Our spouses must be engaging. Our marriages should seem as flawless as the table center, as wrinkle-free as the tablecloth.

When we lived in South Asia we continuously had people in and out of our home. There were those who popped in for a cup of coffee and a conversation. There were others who came and settled into our guest room for weeks at a time. If Lowell met travellers out in the city who seemed to need a place to unwind, or the comfort of a home cooked meal, he didn’t hesitate to issue them an invitation. Colleagues, teammates, friends often joined us around our supper table. A tray of tea, a plate of biscuits or cookies, a bowl of spicy numkeen snacks, cane chairs under the mango tree were all the ingredients for many an impromptu tea party! We had this wonderful roof with a broad expansive view of the Ganges river. That was also the perfect spot for coffee, or later in the evening, with the sky darkened and the stars out, for drinks with friends under the Indian moon.

Somehow in the move back to North America I lost my capacity for hospitality. As I think on it now, I wonder if it wasn’t a combination of burn out, deep weariness and culture shock. At the beginning I was simply too tired. And then I was too intimidated. I had no clue what the rules were here. How did you invite someone over? What needed to happen for it to be a successful moment? What food should be served? On what plates? What time? What date? It seemed too high of a mountain to climb. It seemed to risky. I couldn’t manage it. My years of hosting seemed over. My hospitality fuse seemed blown.

In the first seven years we’ve been back I can count on one hand the number of people we had into our home—and those mostly family and friends from our India days. I knew what the expectations were for those friends. I knew how to do that type of hospitality.

I’m not sure what changed. Suddenly last Fall I had the random idea that I might like to have some people over for dinner. There’s a man in our community, a teacher, a father of two sons—one grown, one yet at home, a kind-hearted man, with whom Lowell and I have both enjoyed conversation. Bless his heart; unbeknownst to him, he became our first victim! I sent him an email and asked if he and his son would like to join us for dinner. He seemed pleased by the invitation. That felt like a good sign. I forged ahead. I planned a simple menu that I thought his son would appreciate. I cooked the food and set the table. It didn’t seem terribly different from a normal night. I was doing what I knew to do. When Roger and his son showed up they brought flowers. My stomach betrayed the confidence I feigned. I pretended we did this all the time.

At the end of the evening I felt such joy. It had gone well. We had enjoyed stimulating conversation and wholesome food. The guests seemed to feel welcomed and valued. I had done it! And it hadn’t destroyed me! My unease and discomfort were made smaller. I had a growing sense of accomplishment and pleasure.

In December we had our youth pastor’s family of six for dinner. As the pasta bowl was passed around I couldn’t stop smiling. There was community for supper and happiness for dessert. It felt right and good. Not long afterwards we hosted a couple from Chicago, with their two young children, his sister and their sixteen year old Pakistani exchange student! That was an incredible evening. Less than a week after that we had dear friends from Louisiana and New York join us for supper. Our friend Roger and his son came too. Looking back on that evening still brings me joy! We laughed and told stories. We talked about books and good movies. We shared thoughts on politics and Kansas, on spiritual direction and liturgical services. It was a wonderful night.

Last Saturday evening we hosted our first party since leaving India. For those who knew us there these admissions will likely seem fictional and untrue! Those years in India were punctuated by many a celebration and party: birthdays and Thanksgivings and Christmas. We hosted many such events and we did it with joy! But none since we returned to this side of the sea. Last Saturday I felt extremely nervous! We were hosting a Corner Gas party for a small group of friends that have come to enjoy the Canadian sit-com set at a small gas station and restaurant at the heart of a small town, Dog River, in the vast Saskatchewan prairie. The show hasn’t run for several years, but they recently released a movie! We ordered it on line! It seemed like the perfect excuse for a party.

I made my to do list several days before the party. Clean the bathrooms, sweep the kitchen, move the TV, change the kitty litter, vacuum the living room. Make brownies, make layered dip, set out carrot sticks and chips. On Saturday morning Lowell suggested we should have chili cheese dogs (it’s the food of choice of one of the main characters on the show). I nearly panicked. I didn’t know how to make those. And they weren’t on my lists. Lowell slowly talked me through the “recipe”. But how much chili for each sausage? How much cheese? What were the ratios? Lowell calmly offered to be in charge of this last minute addition to the menu.

Our friends all came—good people with years of shared stories and shared snacks! We loaded up our plates, crowded around the tv and watched our movie. It was an enjoyable evening sprinkled with laughter. It was a good time.

Later I confessed to my mother in law how very nervous I felt hosting this party. She was surprised. She reminded me of the dinner parties and the gatherings of people I’ve recently hosted. Some how the party felt different to me. But she was right, really it was an extension of this recovered gift, this restored grace.

To me December’s gatherings and January’s party seem like marks of healing. I’ve unpacked another piece of me. I’ve found again, a part of my true self, the other self, that lived far away, and I’ve brought her here. I’ve dusted her off, and I’ve found, much to my delight, that she still fits. It feels right and good and whole. It brings me joy.

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Picture Credit: http://pixabay.com/en/steps-river-side-ganges-ganga-bank-314190/

Taper, Trim & Snip – A Journey Around the World Through Haircuts

Published on May 3, 2013May 6, 2013 by Marilyn7 Comments

Today’s post By Robynn was originally published in 2011. Today we offer it to you again as there are far more readers than Communicating Across Boundaries had at that time – Enjoy!

One of my ridiculous claims to fame is that I’ve had my hair cut in 9 countries. It may seem a silly thing to say at a dinner party or over coffee with a friend, yet remembering those nine countries keeps me connected to my story while at the same time holding out hope for a trim in a tenth country somewhere, sometime!

Pakistan

Growing up in Pakistan meant many childhood haircuts. The ones where I’d sit on the edge of a charpai (rope bed) in our courtyard so mom could cut my bangs, or perch on one stool on top of another outside Utopia house in the summer with the wide expansive views of the Himalayas and my chin tucked into my chest so the back of my hair could be trimmed by Auntie Carol. Then there were the boarding school haircuts in dorm rooms—some quickly and surreptitiously done by friends by the light of flashlight, others by dorm mothers with proper plastic sheets and the hair cutting tools to taper, trim, and snip!

Canada

Returning to Canada for college meant inexpensive haircuts for a dollar downstairs outside the student lounge by college girls anxious to earn extra pocket-money. After graduating and moving to the big city I could afford a haircut by Blair at Blessings and Co –a stylish, extravagant salon with warm lighting and classical music in the background.

Mexico

One Christmas my cousins and I travelled down to visit my aunt and uncle who were staying in Southern California. On Christmas day all 5 of us descended on friends wintering in Yuma, AZ in their RV. Vera cooked up a turkey in her miniature oven and prepared the fixings on her tiny stove. We ate Christmas dinner around the picnic table outside. On Boxing Day we decided to cross over into Mexico. I had needed a haircut so why not in Mexico? The back alley beauty parlour proudly boasted 4 women in floral aprons all sitting around gossiping in Spanish with nothing to do. They were thrilled for the business and for the distraction. “Haircut?” I enquired. Off they prattled an excited affirmative. They decked me out in a green sheet and started in. “Taper?” one asked. “Yes, taper it up in the back but then keep the longer layers in the front. Don’t cut my bangs! Cut it short over the ears.” I made my wishes known. “Taper?” she repeated, it was apparently the only English hair word she knew. She kept saying it as she cut and primmed and pranced all over my head, “Taper?…. taper?… taper?…” I kept smiling and nodding, “Sure!”

India

Lowell and I eventually married and moved to India. After a futile attempt to grow my hair so as to look more like my neighbors, one of my most notorious haircuts involved a four star hotel in Delhi, a friendly beautician, an excellent haircut and, at no extra charge, a terrible case of head lice! There was another memorable haircut from a friend who had a beauty parlour in her home. When I got home, Lowell, who isn’t particularly observant about things like hair, asked, “Is it supposed to do that in the back?” My sweet friend had hacked a chunk of hair out of my style. It took several months to grow it out!

England

One year as we were headed back to the US for meetings, I emailed ahead to ask my friend Dianne in New Jersey to please make me an appointment for a haircut immediately after we arrived and before the meetings began. Our route had us going through Kuwait City. There we encountered technical difficulties and were put up in an airport hotel for 24 hours. Next stop was London. Because we had missed our ongoing connection we were once again graciously given a room at The Edwardian Airport Hotel –the nicest hotel we’ve ever stayed in—for another 24 hours. Knowing I had missed my appointment in NJ, I walked down to the lobby of the hotel and discovered one of the best haircuts I’ve ever had at one of the highest prices I’ve ever paid!

Thailand

There was a haircut in Huahin, Thailand. Actually there were two. The first one, where the hair cutter (again) chopped off a little too much resulting in a hole on the side of my head. This was directly followed by another where a fellow traveler and tourist made a brave attempt at correcting it with a towel over my shoulders and a pair of nail scissors in the hotel lobby!

United Arab Emirates

A trip to the UAE to visit friends resulted in a luxurious experience in a posh beauty parlour. The Arab women, free from their black robes and public restraints, were chatty and outgoing. The latest fashions were uncovered, beautiful black hair was let loose. There was a vibrant intimacy in the air. Nails were painted, unwanted hair was waxed off arms and legs, faces were massaged with fragrant creams and oils, eye brows were shaped with dancing threads and of course hair was washed, cut and coiffed. It felt to me like I had entered a strange new mysterious world. It was a sensual and sizzling place. And I had my hair cut there!

Nepal

Kathmandu provided me a haircut at a funny little roadside parlour. The walls were covered in laminated pictures of lovely Chinese women with modern hairdos and Bollywood movie stars. The hair cut was inconsequential but I remember my senses being blasted with poignant incense burning, the garish vermillion paste and grains of rice on the forehead of my hair cutter and loud raucous blaring of those same Bollywood stars blasting their tunes.

Years ago a group came from Kansas to visit some others in Varanasi, the city in North India where we lived. When I heard that one of the visitors was a hair stylist I begged for a haircut! Judy popped by our house and there in the middle of our dining room on the banks of the Ganges river she cut my hair, another friend’s hair, and our girls’ hair. It was such a treat: a good haircut right in our own home.

United States

Now that we’re in Kansas that same Judy cuts my hair monthly. Coming from my world, it seems shamefully extravagant to have a good haircut that frequently. I pop over to her house and she cuts my hair in a room tucked off her dining room. Judy previously worked in a high-end salon and now works out of her home. She massages my scalp with a conditioner that smells expensive: all coconut and pineapple lather. She massages my soul as we talk about significant things: marriage, and grace and God. When the cut is done, she styles and spritzes and sprays and pretends that I’m a wealthy client.

Pakistan, Canada, Mexico, the UAE, England, Thailand, Nepal, India and of course here in the US… mine is a story punctuated by interesting haircuts in far off corners of the world. I wonder if and when the 10th country will be added to the list. On occasion I regret the places I’ve been where I failed to get my haircut! Even as I settle into the Midwest, my soul and my hair long for an adventure somewhere in a far off corner of the world sometime soon!

Where have you had your hair cut? Would love to hear through the comments?

Kebabs in Jalalabad (Communicating Across Boundaries)
For the Love of Mangoes (Communicating Across Boundaries)

When the Sh*t hits the fan!

Published on February 22, 2013 by Marilyn14 Comments

We love to watch the show, MythBusters. On MythBusters Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman and their team use the scientific method to prove or disprove movie stunts, YouTube videos, rumours, myths, news stories, idioms or even their own personal curiosities. They tackle seemingly impossible hypotheses to see if there is any truth in them at all. My personal favourites are their attempts to test idioms. In season 9, episode 3 they tested the plausibility of the English expression, “When the shit hits the fan”! A series of ridiculous experiments revealed something quite unexpected and it certainly made me laugh and gave me pause to think.

According to the online urban dictionary “shit hits the fan” when ‘things get chaotic or uncontrollable’ or it’s ‘the point at which an already unstable situation devolves into utter chaos’.

Our family has a long-standing attachment to the word ‘shit’—I know it’s shocking but true! My mom and dad never permitted us to use swear words or foul speech when I was growing up. The word ‘fart’ was even off-limits. In our home we passed gas. At the very worst we “tooted” or “cut the cheese”.

We never farted. That was crude and crass and completely unacceptable.

The only exception was the word “shit”…and that only if we said it with a Pakistani accent. Something about that combination made my dad start to shake. The little lines around his eyes would start up first and eventually his convictions would melt off his face into complete laughter. It never failed. Dad would laugh and mom would say his name, “Gary!” with as much as sternness as she could muster as if dad himself had used the offending language!

Later when Lowell and I moved to India we had other opportunities to use the word. In our experience in North India, shit is the expletive of choice for anyone who speaks any amount of English. It’s not really a cuss word. Shit is used to denote poop, plain and simple. The ancient place we rented on the banks of the Ganges River provided ample opportunity to use the word. Frequently the sewage backed up on our bathroom floor. Using the word was a way to secretly let off some frustration but it was also a way to communicate to our landlady what was going on! She understood that word.

The word shit isn’t just used to talk about sewer– it has a variety of uses in India. It was a word that sympathized. When I told our landlady that my dad had been in the church that was attacked by terrorists in Islamabad in 2002, her first response, with her hand quickly coming to touch my arm and her face contorting in sadness and sympathy was, “Ah shit!” When I told her that Lowell had dengue fever, I got the same face with the same concern and the same word of choice, “Ah shit!” When I told her something funny that had happened in the market she would laugh and say, “Oh shit!” When I showed her the bathroom floor where the sewage had backed up she’d groan and appropriately exclaim, “Oh shit!”

So you can imagine my intrigue and my amusement with the episode on MythBusters where they try to prove the validity to that interesting expression, “when the shit hits the fan”!

The funny thing is after Jamie and Adam had gone to the work of creating their own blue simulated poo, making a testing site, setting up a fan and then throwing the blue poo into the fan, not much happened. It was so anti-climactic! The blue poo just sort of hit the fan’s protective grate and then fell with a disappointing thud to the ground. They made some changes. They made their blue poo more gooey, they increased the size of the fan, they removed the grate. Eventually they were not disappointed. The blue goo flew! The anticipated results were finally actualized.

It made me stop and think.

Sometimes we expect our stresses and our strains to be far more grand and far-reaching than they are. Our imaginations move into our fears and we become anxious and over-wrought. We dream up horrors and hells and we allow them to paralyze our souls. These fears keep us awake at night. They force us to the edge of our calm. We live in dread of the “shit hitting the fan”.

But what if the shit just sort of plonks against the grate and nothing much happens? What if our worst fears are never actually realized? Or when they are realized we see it wasn’t as we thought it would be? Perhaps we’re stronger than we thought we’d be. Perhaps God was more Present than we thought He’d be. Perhaps our support structures held more than we thought they would.

I think about all the time I’ve spent dreading, fearing, and imagining the worst. (I’ve written about some of them: Better Widow than a Wife, When Fear Proves Love). I’ve spent hours blowing up my anxieties, like balloons for a funeral. I’ve wasted more hours trying to think up ways to protect myself from those same dreaded outcomes.

Like Jamie, on Mythbusters, I’ve donned perfect protective gear to safeguard against the flying poop. More often than not, it never hits.

I’m not entirely sure what the answer is. I do want to live more fully in my now, in my here. Hopefully the pathetic results of Adam and Jamie’s test will remain with me and tutor me. What they worst feared didn’t actually happen! Jesus didn’t use the expression, “when the shit hits the fan”, but he did teach on imagined future dreads. He wanted us to live today!

So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today.

The Broken Suitcase

Published on September 28, 2012 by Marilyn8 Comments

Fridays with Robynn

I was on my way to Turkey to speak at two back to back women’s retreats with my friend, and the coauthor of Expectations and Burnout, Sue. It was the first time I had travelled internationally in four years. For someone who has had a passport since she was eight, who’s traversed the globe multiple times, who’s childhood was expended overseas and who’s birthed two babies on the banks of the Ganges river– this was a really big deal.

And I was excited.

I think because travel is built into my DNA and I love it, I’ve always had this quirky but simple fantasy. I long for the day when I can travel with matching luggage. We’ve always had mismatched pieces. We’ve scrounged them at yard sales and thrift stores or we’ve found them on sale racks. Most of the time they’re sturdy pieces, hardy little things that carry the weight of our burdens on their little wheels. Often they have a slight warble to their frame, or a snag in a zipper. But we make do. They work. And when they no longer work we replace them quickly, easily, cheaply.

But I would love to have matching luggage. Streamlined and floral perhaps? Or I’ve seen some interesting pieces in unique colours. Luggage that says “Travel is my priority. It’s what I do”. Bags that wear the Panera Bread name tags that declare, “My passion is Travel”. That’s what I’d love. I think I would look impressive pulling such bags behind me. I would look calm and collected, ready for the world and whatever it might bring.

On this particular trip to Turkey, matching luggage was not to be. I had two small bags packed and ready to go. One was black and tidy, the other flaming red and flamboyant. The red one housed copies of Sue’s and my book to sell at the retreats as well as gifts for the attendees. It was a heavy bag. I had probably asked too much of it. To make matters worse, as Lowell was loading it into the back of the car, one of the wheels fell off! The timing couldn’t have been worse. We were on our way to the airport. There was no time to stop and buy another bag, or to really even repack. Lowell ran back into the house and brought out a bag that was bigger. He cleverly set the red bag inside the bigger bag zipped it up, threw it in the back of the car and off we raced.

When we got to the airport and weighed my babooshka Russian stacking doll suitcase it was too heavy. We took the red one out of the bigger one and Lowell advised trying to purchase another bag en route at the next stop. It was annoying to say the least, to have this gimp bag, but I really didn’t have any other immediate solutions.

Of course the first flight was delayed which meant my opportunity to replace the broken suitcase was gone. I checked it in, through to my final destination, and hoped for the best. I also ran a prayer tape around it asking God to please, at the very least, hold it together. It seemed to me that copies of Expectations and Burnout would do better in the hands of the women than strewn from here to Istanbul and back! We needed those books and treats for the women.

Please God protect my little worn out suitcase!

When I reached Ankara, I couldn’t find my bags at all. Neither one of them. After some limited exchanges in English and sign language, I discovered a whole other terminal with a whole other set of conveyor belts. There, forlornly, going around and around were my two bags, one black and the other red. To my shock and great amusement (it was either laugh or cry at this point!), both the wheels were now off the red case. In their place were the two spiky attachment posts. The case was too heavy to carry and I couldn’t find a trolley so I dragged the case toward the exit.

Turks take their travel very stylishly. Matching suitcases are a given. They also wear fashionable clothing and amazing footwear. I was surrounded by beautiful men and women wearing beautiful things and carrying beautiful bags. It seemed no one had travelled very far…no one had the glazed over fog of jet lag in their eyes. Everyone laughed and smiled glamorously. There were reunions and joy and beauty all around.

Meanwhile, feigning confidence, I dragged my bags to the exit, successfully carving out two parallel scratch marks in the Ankara arrivals hall.

A couple of days later while Sue and I were preparing to teach the retreat, I had a wave of thick insecurity and raw paranoia. Suddenly it struck me: who did I think I was to come to this place to teach on burnout? I am not an expert. I am not educated in these things. Expectations and Burnout was born from Sue’s Masters Thesis. She is the expert. She is well read and researched on the topic. She has read the surveys and she has studied the materials. It was natural that they would invite Sue. Sue is the obvious candidate to speak on these painful issues. I am not Sue. I shouldn’t have been there.

And then we got word that one of the women had decided not to attend. She said she wasn’t well enough to come.

I knew the real reason she cancelled….she decided not to come because she heard I was speaking.

As ridiculous as that sounds, that was the “logical” conclusion my soul came to. I was beside myself with nervous self-consciousness. I was tying myself up in knots of fear and insecurity and self-pity and inferiority and shame and embarrassment.

I excused myself early from lunch to go to my room to pray. I needed the Outside Voice of God to speak calm and reassurance to my soul. I needed to cast my cares on Him. I needed to hear loudly from Him that He did still care for me–as ridiculous as I was being.

As I sat on my bed, I looked down at my little red suitcase. There was a bedraggled bag, worn out from use, broken from being mistreated. If God could use that little suitcase to successfully deliver books and treats, truth and love to these women in Turkey….surely he could use me. I am worn out. I’ve broken and been misunderstood. I’ve carried too much for too long. I’ve barely held it together. I have disappointed people and I’ve been disappointed by people. I’ve fallen apart repeatedly. I’ve obsessed. I’ve given into self-pity many times. I often don’t match the suitcases I’m travelling with. I’ve felt lonely, and sad, insecure and miserable.

Graces of graces, God has still used me to bless others. As mysterious as it is…He has used me, in my brokenness to deliver truth and beauty, love and laughter, hope and encouragement to my kids, to my community, to the sisters surrounding me.

Like my suitcase, I’ve often left two parallel lines behind me, as I’ve dug in my heels and dragged my feet, stubbornly resisting where I’m going, or what I’m carrying. God mercifully keeps letting me be involved in what he wants to deliver. He keeps using this middle-aged case… He keeps me together!

I’m a case alright…..But I’m His case.

Taper, Trim and Snip: Nine Countries, Nine Haircuts!

Published on December 7, 2011November 10, 2012 by Marilyn23 Comments

Today is a guest post from Robynn Bliss. Robynn has written other posts and beautifully articulates the complexity of living between worlds as it relates to normal life events. In this post she takes us on a journey through something common to women and men everywhere, haircuts!