Restless Leg Syndrome

Been lurking too long... now I write...

Yes, take the opportunity to find out whether a new place will feel different, will be more fruitful. Yes, it's only for 8 more months, but it offers change and hope, a new start, a beginning to someone else's ending, possibly.

Sometimes our travels in life don't show their purpose(s) till some time down the line.

We will be in Philadelphia during your USA vacation, so if that is stop on your way West, our home is there for you.

Love,
Crissie

advice for restlessness

My dearest Julia,
I think I understand what you are feeling, based on your recent comments and our discussions while we were together last month. I wish that you could have a greater sense of fulfillment. I wish you could be here to comfort your friend. I wish that you had a strong sense for what direction your life is headed.

You should not however, feel dispare. You have in fact, accomplished much in your 15 months in Mali. The ability to move so far away from your friends, family, and culture and even consider taking on the life that you have is far beyond what the average young person could accomplish. It is a sign of your maturity and intellect that you are able to do what you have in adopting a new culture and language. At your age, I never could have done the things that you have done; I'm sure of this. The terror of the unknown would have overwhelmed me.

I once had the feeling of drifting without knowing my direction and a sense that my time in undergraduate school had been for naught. This was during the last semester of my senior college year. Had I not received an acceptance to medical school, it would have been a very difficult time. I believe that you are a stronger person than I was at the age of 21 or 22.

My advice to you? If a relocation to a new site looks realistic, go for it and immerse yourself. Every day spend hours reaching out on your Peace Corp initiative. Learn whatever vocabulary you are missing to communicate your interests. Commute to nearby villages and share your knowledge there as well. There is time for you to have a good experience with your service. Create the basis for a volunteer to
come after you and continue the project after your time.

If the new site provides no better situation for your service opportunity than Diabaly? Well then, maybe you will decide that you are done with Mali. If that is the case, then get on with your life. Maybe you will work for an NGO for a few months; maybe you will come home and launch your graduate career. In any case, you have no reason to be down on yourself. If you choose to leave Mali to facilitate your needs, than you have not failed in any way. It's just the way the experience turned out for you. We have to do what is right for our personal development. We try something not knowing for sure that it will lead us in the right path, but at least we were willing to take on the unknown and test ourself. You will have other experiences in life that will feel similar. We learn about ourselves, grow from the experience, and move on to whatever is next for us. If we are lucky, we settle into a rhythm that seems to direct us for a good while.

Well I'm really not old enough to be expounding on the meaning of life, so I should stop there. Whatever decisions you make in the next days and weeks, know that I love you and support you. I cherish my involvement in your life.

With love,
Dad

floating

Dear Julia,
After reading this I read the book Letters to Sam by Daniel Gottlieb, Nancy's choice for book group. Daniel Gottlieb is a psychologist who became a quadraplegic in a car accident. Sam is his autistic grandson.
Here is the grandfather's lesson/gift: "Those who float Dear Sam, Young as you are(4).....
Not long ago, I was talking with a woman who got me thinking about what faith really is. She was in her mid-forties, and in therapy she said she felt as if she had been "treading water" because she was fighting something inside herself. Some people do that.. They fight against fear of death, fear of being "found out," fear of losing their minds, fear of realizing they are not the people they should be, or fear of becoming who they are. But as this woman was thrasing against the water, deep down she knew she would lose the fight.
So when I suggested that she stop treading water, I realized the difference between those who sink and those who float. The very moment you give up struggling with the water, if you're going to float, you have to put your faith in the water-just lie back and let it hold you up...
Something happened to me aftera dream that... has to do with my own faith.... something in me went quiet. Not only did I know what my life was about, but also something deep inside me knew my place in the universe. I don't mean my role or my responsibility. I mean, literally, my place.
Outside the window across from my bed, I could see a big tulip tree I looked at that tree and the foliage around it almost every day. The tulip tree had been there for almost a hundred years, and it would still be there long after I was dead. That felt wonderful. In Tuesdays with Morrie there is a story ... about two waves in the ocean that are talking to each other. Ther front wave tells the second that it's frightened because it is about to crash into the shore and cease to exist. But the second wave shows no fear. It explains to the first: "You are frightened because you think you are a wave; I am not frightened because I know I am part of the ocean."
Lying in my bed those weeks and months, staring at my tulip tree. I realized that I was simply part of the universe. I could feel my ego, my sense of self, begin to shrink. If a person walked into the room-a nurse, a friend, a patient-I could almost physically fee that person's presence in my chest. It didn't feel like there were two separate beings in the room. It felt like my won being was actually changed by the presence of the other.
I felt the presence of a universal and divine natural companionship that, in a cerain wway, I had felt my whole life. When I was a child, that presence was my imaginary playmate. When I was a preadolescent, that presence was a primitive God. Then, from adloescence until my accident the presence was gone-I couldn't feel anything.
Now it was back, and I knew what it was. It was the kind of companionship I had longed for my whole life. And I realized that I had always had it. I knew then that I would never be alone again.
In Greek mythology, there are two gods who argue over a man's soul. The question is, which god will be in charge of it? Unable to settle the question, they decide to divide his soul in half and send each half to a different part of the universe. So, each human is doomed to spend eternity looking for the other half of his or her soul.
In my bed, on the day I had that dream, I discovered the missing part of my soul.
We wake up and fall back to sleep and wake up again. The things we discover don't stay as vivid or as conscious as they were when we first came to them. But I have faith-whether it is conscious or not, whether it is felt or not-that companionship is there. With that renewed faith, I feel lighter. I can float without kicking. Love Pop"
In this time of change and lag know that there are friends and family
who are routing for you!
Love,
Mom

It all comes back to i heart huckabees

I think that "i heart huckabees" never fails to be revelant, so here is the abbreviated (and over-simplified) version:

Bernard Jaffe: Say this blanket represents all the matter and energy in the universe, okay? This is me, this is you, And over here, this is the Eiffel Tower, right, it's Paris!
...
Bernard Jaffe: When you get the blanket thing, you can relax, because everything you could ever want or be, you already have and are.
...
Albert Markovski: Everything is the same, even if it's different.
...
Albert Markovski: ... I'm talking about not covering every square inch with houses and strip malls until you can't remember what happens when you stand in a meadow at dusk.
Bret: What happens in the meadow at dusk?
Albert Markovski: Everything!
Mrs. Hooten: Nothing!
Albert Markovski: Everything.
Mrs. Hooten: Nothing!
Albert Markovski: Everything!
Mrs. Hooten: Nothing!
Albert Markovski: It's beautiful.
Tommy Corn: It's beautiful.
...
Tommy Corn: I have no idea what you guys are talking about. I thought we were here to talk about petroleum.

lots of love,
Lena