The Imagined Life

My apologies that I didn't get a post out in March, but I'm sure you can understand. The world has been taken by storm! Or a virus, I should say, and we've all been in a tizzy trying to figure out what's going on and where to go. We rushed to South Africa in order to be with James' parents. We were planning on spending Spring Break with them in Malawi and Zambia anyway but due to unforeseen circumstances, that didn't work out. So we are here! Filling our days with what activities we can. (Our cat is busy making me jealous as he sits on my neighbor's laps back in Malawi and shares his love with people besides me. Traitor.) Here in South Africa, we are in lockdown. I mean real-deal prison lockdown, none of this light request of social distancing kind of lockdown. No leaving the house unless you need to: groceries, medical things. We can't even walk outside or buy alcohol! You will find me here slowly moving out further and further into the lawn trying

Ok, maybe February isn't quite blissful, but it is a far cry from the dark corners of endless January, which seemingly stretched on into eternity. Now, red wine is back in my life, and yet inspiration eludes me. Oh, my 2020 goals! My dear sweet goals! I cling to them and pick through them now and again and wonder how on earth I will accomplish them. I sometimes feel afraid in the morning before I begin to write. A fresh daily dose of fear. So unlike me, is it not? Thoughts swirl around in my head. Ok, what should I write? Will it be good? Will it make sense? Knowing the helter skelter world that is my mind, probably not.  I search for my inspiration in the lovely morning birdsong and the bottom of my cup of earl grey, and yet, I see only foggy ideas in front of me. But, perhaps, inspiration is just like that. I have these moments I see that I write down in my notebook, and they're lovely, excellent moments. Snippets of a story or a book or even a scene. And yet, what goes o

We have recently returned from our awesome US trip back HOME to Malawi. It's nice to think of Malawi as home. That's the only way one can do it. Embrace your new homeland! Currently, Malawi is in summer with daily rainstorms and beautiful greenery. It calmed and soothed our delirious jetlagged souls as we arrived out of the airport after our 52 hour journey (gross!), and we were happy to be back in our house with our cat who missed us greatly. Cats can miss people, you know! But, soon after our arrival, once at least a bit of the fog of travel had disappeared, we both started to feel that usual January slump. Sure, we're depressed about the holidays being over. I hated and always hate saying goodbye to family and friends AGAIN after such an awesome time. But, I think that with the new year always comes the push to be more reflective on our lives, and both of us are doing just that. We are considering whether our paths, mainly our career paths, are heading in the direc

Forgive me! I've been incredibly remiss in my posting of late, having missed an entire month! Although not too much has happened, I had such high hopes for my consistency. Let's see what I can update you with this time. FINALLY, the rains have come. That sounds so beautiful, doesn't it? And when they're African rains, why it's positively poetic! I am currently sitting on my famous veranda, with a glass of wine, typing away, and listening to the rain on the large green leaves. Still working on my tree identification. I feel like I have to have a thing. Everyone has a thing these days. And, since I absolutely refuse to be interested in birds, I thought trees would be a cool, yet youthful thing to get interested in. But, I have yet to begin my tree studies. Therefore, I call them large green leaves, but they could actually be banana leaves. Isn't this description of my garden fascinating? Either way, the rains have come and cut that horrible heat intensely, so

Everything seems to be falling into place in just the way that we'd hoped. I'm praying that James won't give me the old "I told you so." That would be just too annoying. When I had been crying maniacally at the beginning of our time in Lilongwe, I remember pleading with him to not say it when it eventually worked out. Because deep down, I knew it would. It always does, but that's not a convenient thought when you feel like drowning in despair. But, both of us feel like it's been a lot smoother and an easier transition than we had in Taipei. In Taipei when we first moved there, we were renting a bedroom, basically, for an exorbitant amount of money and had no place to escape from each other, and there wasn't really any English in our part of town. We still don't quite have a place to escape from each other in the evenings because the sun goes down at 6 and all evening activities we're involved in on weekdays end at 6. But, we do have two roo

Blog is back in business! Now you get to find out about my adventures from across the sea! And, it's fun to move to a new spot, since then I will have a lot more stories to tell you! Moving to a new country is a similar feeling to tapping a stranger on the shoulder and asking, "Will you be my friend?" It's definitely many different shades of awkward, but at least you meet a bunch of other people who are also doing the stranger shoulder-tapping, so it's some comfort. After a very long journey, we finally landed in dusty Malawi. The reason it was so long is that we took a long way around and had a four-hour delay. We flew to Qatar, were delayed, and then flew to Johannesburg, and then flew to Malawi. If you are among those who would like to visit, I would recommend the nonstop flight from New York to Johannesburg, and then you only have a 2-hour flight to Lilongwe, Malawi. Unfortunately, at each point of check-in (in Philly and in Johannesburg) we were questio