Many joys in life but much sadness too

Alot of our focus since moving here has been to keep my stress level as low as possible to help me recover from health problems that have plagued me the past five years, figuring that they were stress-induced. It was with that in mind that we took the job of caring for Ben while Maya and Eder are at work. What a nice job to have and we get to stay at home to do it. And Courtney and I get to do it together. It's good for everyone.




Another tactic for stress reduction has been to avoid looking at the news. I know it's bad out there but I haven't been able to face the details. I've been focusing on our garden and our home and my family and that seems to have been really good for me. But this week the outside world came back into focus and sadness set in on many levels.

First Kerry Sissem called to tell us that our friend Katharina's son had been in a boating accident on a lake in El Salvador and his body had not been found. Twenty-one years old and about to start his senior year at the University of Colorado in Boulder. Katharina's only child.




It's scary these reminders of how fragile and fleeting and unpredictable life is. Here one moment and gone the next. Everything is growing and flowering and producing, and then there's death.



Another source of sadness for me was Aaron leaving this week for home and school in Monterey. He won't return here til October for his two-week fall break. Though the quiet and stillness are probably good for my physical recovery, there's a hole in my heart and I miss him. With all the new scare around flying and airplanes and airports it seems especially scary to be putting an 11-year-old on a big old airplane by himself and sending him far away.



A few days before Aaron left a cockatoo showed up in our yard, obviously friendly to humans and looking for food. We fed him some millet and gave him water and he let Aaron get quite close but not actually touch him. The next couple days we heard his call and saw him in the trees but he hasn't made another visit into our yard. For a moment there we thought we had inherited a pet from who knows where. I guess we'll wait and see if he returns.



The last sad point I'll raise is the war in Lebanon. It's a strange feeling to look at Ben and all our other blessings here and feel so lucky, at the same time knowing that so many in Lebanon (including thousands in refugee camps) are suffering so. Especially the children.

In honor of Katharina's son Courtney and I sent a donation to Middle East Children's Alliance (http://www.mecaforpeace.org/ ). I just mention that in case anyone who reads our blog is looking for a way to send humanitarian aid to some of the most affected by the war in Lebanon.
MECA is taking food, medicine, bedding and water into the refugee camps around Beirut where tens of thousands of Palestinian refugees live.

To me it seems like an easy connection to make: the more our government backs the unbridled violence and aggression in the Middle East, the more hatred and reprisals will come our way. As the saying goes, we're busy making enemies faster than we can kill them. Well, that's not what I want us as a nation of people to be doing. And even though it's never enough, I feel ready to get back in the fray and add my energy to the movement for peace and justice. A better world is possible. I want to help make it so for all the Bens in the world.

Thanks as always for reading our blog,

Valori