Stranded - with a new outlook
/
Life on the island is
different.
Different than I pictured and different than I expected. It's a really strange place to live. Down in our house we are RIGHT next to the ocean. The huge, wild, unruly ocean. Pounding endlessly on the black jagged rocks.
Take a little drive:
there's forests with towering, clustered cedars. Rich green moss and clover litters the forest floor and bottoms of the rust colored tree trunks. Dried river beds carve out the landscape. It.is.spectacular. Serene. Awe inspiring. National Geographic worthy.
And then you pull out of a forested area into an open meadow glowing a color of green like your eyes only dreamed existed. And there's cows. Milk cows everywhere with enormously swollen utters.
When you drive up there onto that mountain so often covered in clouds or fog, you take paved pathways lined with hydrangea bushes. They arent native to the island and the Portuguese islanders are trying desperately to rid their landscape of them. It's a lost cause. They've made this place their home.
So there's beauty. Incredible beauty everywhere you turn. White washed houses with terracotta roofs are all crammed together in chaotic patterns between skinny streets.
It's all so...
foreign.
The locals drive, in comparison to Americans, like bats out of hell. The way our American trained brains see it - they drive too fast, too dangerously and too carelessly. It's cultural. I haven't seen one wreck. Not one fender bender. They don't have traffic lights. They stand in the middle of streets to have conversations and no one gets plowed over. It's the strangest thing. "Common courtesy" has a very different feel here. They do NOT slow down when they see children in or near the road. That's been a very frustrating lesson to learn. We've had SO many close calls with Elijah. He's somewhat of an airhead in the streets. We harp, but it doesn't seem to sink in. And all it takes is him whirling around carelessly like he so often does - whirling straight out into the road without looking. They just drive so.fast! It works for them here - it doesn't work for our American brains - for our American habits.
I came peeling down a hill a couple days ago - doing the speed limit of course - and there stood, at the bottom of the hill just around the cusp of a mostly blind corner
a man, on a little motorcycle scooter cart. ON the road. With a friend chatting him up. Standing in the MIDDLE of the lane. Not FIVE feet away was a pull off. A pull off that would have provided sensible safety for them as they were engrossed in conversation. There was NO acknowledgement of my vehicle. Not a budge, not a look, nothing. That is normal here. I'm expected to careen out of the way of them - EVEN if there's a car coming from the opposite direction - in which case I am the one careening and slamming on my brakes - because they don't slow or move. It's.so.strange!
Mothers walk with their toddlers and babies in strollers - IN the lane. There's no moving over. There's no turning to see if the vehicle sees them. They just stroll along. And for the Portuguese drivers there's no slowing down. It's bizarre!
There's also no honking. Seemingly no road rage. No traffic jams (aside from the occasional "cow parade" as my kids call it. The moving of heffers from one pasture to another).
Life here is so different. Slower, minus the driving stresses for our American trained brains, but slower in almost every other way. There's no shopping. There's very few options for outings other than into the cedar forests.
Josh's clinic hours are, compared to residency, a dream. We knew it would slow. We knew life would be so different. Its a beautiful thing. As much as my heart still longs for Florida, for that life we knew there, I LOVE it here if only because our family dynamic has changed so drastically, just in the few months since the move. There's very little that demands our time. There's very little scurrying here and there.
There's time and so much of it.
Time for Josh to soak up his boys and for them to soak up their Daddy who was often so demanded of in residency that they would hardly see him for weeks on end.
Time for us to enrich our marriage. We laugh, we are rested. We are closer and understand eachother better.
We were just remarking a few nights ago about how we haven't had this much time to be just the two of us since BEFORE med school. Since our FIRST year of marriage when we lived in Maryland and had no children. It's been THAT long.
My relationship with the boys has changed, drastically. There's still the power struggles. There's still the fits and ridiculous bouts of crying. There's still the normal mothering challenges. There's still the exhaustion and me losing my temper and being constantly reminded that the ONLY way I can do this is by fully surrendering to MY Father. All that still happens.
But
my appreciation of them
I feel like I see them in a new light. I set aside many things when we moved here. I did it consciously and purposefully. I play with them more. I read to them more. I listen to them more. I love them more. I appreciate them more. I know their hearts better. I know their personalities better.
It's a beautiful blessing.
Island life is slower. The natural beauty of this island is difficult to put into words. And my amateur photography skills are inadequate to interpret it with a lens. But even with that, it's not a "comfortable" place to live.
But I love it here. I love that God called us away from habits and mindsets and schedules that triggered stress and exhaustion and rushing and arguing and not "knowing" each other.
We live on an island. In the middle of the Northern Atlantic Ocean. God led us here. He blessed me with foresight of just one reason why he led us here. And he's blessed me with the strength to obey Him. To slow down. To refocus. He knew full well that we needed island life for this year.
And for that, I love it here.
different.
Different than I pictured and different than I expected. It's a really strange place to live. Down in our house we are RIGHT next to the ocean. The huge, wild, unruly ocean. Pounding endlessly on the black jagged rocks.
Take a little drive:
there's forests with towering, clustered cedars. Rich green moss and clover litters the forest floor and bottoms of the rust colored tree trunks. Dried river beds carve out the landscape. It.is.spectacular. Serene. Awe inspiring. National Geographic worthy.
And then you pull out of a forested area into an open meadow glowing a color of green like your eyes only dreamed existed. And there's cows. Milk cows everywhere with enormously swollen utters.
When you drive up there onto that mountain so often covered in clouds or fog, you take paved pathways lined with hydrangea bushes. They arent native to the island and the Portuguese islanders are trying desperately to rid their landscape of them. It's a lost cause. They've made this place their home.
So there's beauty. Incredible beauty everywhere you turn. White washed houses with terracotta roofs are all crammed together in chaotic patterns between skinny streets.
It's all so...
foreign.
The locals drive, in comparison to Americans, like bats out of hell. The way our American trained brains see it - they drive too fast, too dangerously and too carelessly. It's cultural. I haven't seen one wreck. Not one fender bender. They don't have traffic lights. They stand in the middle of streets to have conversations and no one gets plowed over. It's the strangest thing. "Common courtesy" has a very different feel here. They do NOT slow down when they see children in or near the road. That's been a very frustrating lesson to learn. We've had SO many close calls with Elijah. He's somewhat of an airhead in the streets. We harp, but it doesn't seem to sink in. And all it takes is him whirling around carelessly like he so often does - whirling straight out into the road without looking. They just drive so.fast! It works for them here - it doesn't work for our American brains - for our American habits.
I came peeling down a hill a couple days ago - doing the speed limit of course - and there stood, at the bottom of the hill just around the cusp of a mostly blind corner
a man, on a little motorcycle scooter cart. ON the road. With a friend chatting him up. Standing in the MIDDLE of the lane. Not FIVE feet away was a pull off. A pull off that would have provided sensible safety for them as they were engrossed in conversation. There was NO acknowledgement of my vehicle. Not a budge, not a look, nothing. That is normal here. I'm expected to careen out of the way of them - EVEN if there's a car coming from the opposite direction - in which case I am the one careening and slamming on my brakes - because they don't slow or move. It's.so.strange!
Mothers walk with their toddlers and babies in strollers - IN the lane. There's no moving over. There's no turning to see if the vehicle sees them. They just stroll along. And for the Portuguese drivers there's no slowing down. It's bizarre!
There's also no honking. Seemingly no road rage. No traffic jams (aside from the occasional "cow parade" as my kids call it. The moving of heffers from one pasture to another).
Life here is so different. Slower, minus the driving stresses for our American trained brains, but slower in almost every other way. There's no shopping. There's very few options for outings other than into the cedar forests.
Josh's clinic hours are, compared to residency, a dream. We knew it would slow. We knew life would be so different. Its a beautiful thing. As much as my heart still longs for Florida, for that life we knew there, I LOVE it here if only because our family dynamic has changed so drastically, just in the few months since the move. There's very little that demands our time. There's very little scurrying here and there.
There's time and so much of it.
Time for Josh to soak up his boys and for them to soak up their Daddy who was often so demanded of in residency that they would hardly see him for weeks on end.
Time for us to enrich our marriage. We laugh, we are rested. We are closer and understand eachother better.
We were just remarking a few nights ago about how we haven't had this much time to be just the two of us since BEFORE med school. Since our FIRST year of marriage when we lived in Maryland and had no children. It's been THAT long.
My relationship with the boys has changed, drastically. There's still the power struggles. There's still the fits and ridiculous bouts of crying. There's still the normal mothering challenges. There's still the exhaustion and me losing my temper and being constantly reminded that the ONLY way I can do this is by fully surrendering to MY Father. All that still happens.
But
my appreciation of them
I feel like I see them in a new light. I set aside many things when we moved here. I did it consciously and purposefully. I play with them more. I read to them more. I listen to them more. I love them more. I appreciate them more. I know their hearts better. I know their personalities better.
It's a beautiful blessing.
Island life is slower. The natural beauty of this island is difficult to put into words. And my amateur photography skills are inadequate to interpret it with a lens. But even with that, it's not a "comfortable" place to live.
But I love it here. I love that God called us away from habits and mindsets and schedules that triggered stress and exhaustion and rushing and arguing and not "knowing" each other.
We live on an island. In the middle of the Northern Atlantic Ocean. God led us here. He blessed me with foresight of just one reason why he led us here. And he's blessed me with the strength to obey Him. To slow down. To refocus. He knew full well that we needed island life for this year.
And for that, I love it here.