could we find freedom?

one of the greatest strains/most amazing accomplishments a missionary can accrue, is wrapping your brain around the time and location issue. i feel like i have little epiphanies all day long, each one revealing a little piece of the picture. as if this life i'm leading is a puzzle and i am missing several pieces. only when i forget everything else, and become immersed in the moment, can i find them, one at a time. this is the one moment when the goal is most clear, and one begins to develop more and stronger cravings for those moments as time progresses.

my time here is so different from the time i spend at home. for instance, when you want something, it is often not available. gas for the stove. bananas at 9 pm. food that doesn't require extensive preparation. to hug your god-daughters or niece. but it's the lack of those things that often make you stronger in the end. for one thing....no gas for the stove means no eating at bad times of night. same with the other two. and no hugs means more anticipation and more words about the times when hugs can be had. this is not a place of instant gratification.

i've seen some really beautiful pieces of the puzzle lately. today in particular, i received a rather large one. there's a really beautiful palace/giant house here called the palace of doors. palacio de portales. it's old. and beautiful. and full of history. there are gardens all around it, art and sculpture. i'd only been there during the day previously, walking in the gardens with nicholas, or on a tour of the house with the volunteers. tonight there was a concert, part of a festival of bach pieces to be played over the course of a month or so. the chamber orchestra played in the ballroom of the house, and the four of us (myself, nicholas, kelley, and amy) decided to attend.

sitting in the old wooden chairs, under the precisely maintained painted ceilings. the grand staircase rising up behind my head. the imported french damask silk walls shining in the light. a clavinette, viola di gambo, cello, flute, and violin serenaded us. bach or no bach, however one feels about baroque music, the weight of history and participation in something magnificent, was tangible. in the beginning i did not notice my surroundings and their call for my attention. i lost myself watching the colors dance and thinking of home. putting myself back in alumni auditorium. under the rose window. behind the black curtain. clarinets in my lap, reeds in my mouth. the smell of music and old ink.

i could have stayed there forever. evading the reality of my distance not only in space, but in time from that particular place. but the thought occurred to me at some point, that i was missing the silk. the huge wooden doors that the house was named for, opening to admit the fresh night air and the smell of the gardens. the grand staircase. the ballroom. something became terribly clear to me at that exact moment.

my life will always be what i choose to make it. i can attend chamber concerts at home. i can attend them here. i can read and enrich my mind at home. i can read and enrich my mind here. i can be myself at home, and i can, and really must be myself here. the time is too short and too valuable. too valuable to refuse to see the reality of what is happening around me, and truly participate in it.

we must be present. we must be grateful. we must choose to clear away the blinders of discontent and choose to make our lives something good and beautiful.

it's so very possible, it's overwhelming.