I
was tired, jet lagged, drugged and had had little sleep having flown in from
Sydney on Wednesday, arriving at Dulles 27 hours later, still on Wednesday. I had caught a cold the previous Sunday while
sitting at the Iceberg Café overlooking Bondi Beach, on the second to last day
of our 15 day trip to Australia to visit John’s family. By Monday, I was sneezing and blowing but
still managed to attend a magnificent concert at the Sydney Opera House
performed by “The Sixteen,” an ensemble of strings and voices so sublime I seemed
to merge into the music. The next day, Tuesday, a sunny, bright Sydney morning,
we sat at Petrol Café for breakfast and then walked to the Sydney Museum to see
the Picasso exhibit, afterwards eating at the Museum’s outside café, where we
were visited by bright green, blue & yellow parrots, landing on our table, to
eat the crumbs left from our lunches. That night there was a birthday party for
a friend and then dinner out in the “Paris of Sydney,” an upscale community
near John’s sister’s bohemian community on Springfield Avenue. As we walked home that evening, it began to
sprinkle, the promise of the rain predicted for the next morning.
By
Wednesday morning we had been in Oz for more than two weeks, flying into
Brisbane and slowly making our way down the Pacific Highway, stopping a day or
two here and there, visiting, connecting, loving and laughing with various
members of John’s family. It had been an intense but loving experience, blessed with many intimate
connections, beautiful settings and deep, sometimes difficult conversations.
Working
through these difficult conversations required a great deal of focused, loving
attention, and though painful at times, it seemed a positive outcome overall.
John and I hoped to convey this outcome to Bron on our arrival in Sydney as
most of our conversations were with her grown sons and their concerns around
their relationship with their mother.
But plans changed, timetables did not meet expectations, and we arrived
later than expected on Friday afternoon with no time for the intimate
conversation we envisioned. The rest of
the weekend included visits with old friends, another dear sister and a friend
of Bron’s who’d come to Sydney for the concert and still no time to talk with
Bron, to ease her sorrow and help her through the more difficult parts of these
conversations. So our last day,
Wednesday morning at Petrol Cafe, rain drizzling down, we sat and tried to get
closure—a closure that would take days and weeks and hours, where none were
available. And then it was time to
leave. We grabbed our bags, hailed a cab
and left for the airport, leaving Bron in the street, waving good-bye, alone
with her pain.
Twenty
seven hours later we landed in DC. By
the time we got to Dulles airport, I couldn’t breathe and couldn’t stop
couching, asthma turning my cold into bronchitis. Our friend, Gail, picked us up and immediately
drove me to the Reston Hospital Center where for the next 3 hours I was tested
and treated for various possible complications including an EGK for chest pain,
CAT scan for possible blood clots in the lungs, nebulizer treatment for
breathing constriction and intervenes antibiotic. John came back for me around 3AM and drove me
back to our friend’s where we finally got to sleep around 4AM for a few fitful
hours. I awoke around 8:30AM and went
out to the kitchen where I sat with Gail, drinking coffee and talking about travel,
Spirit and consciousness. When she left
for work, John and I showered, dressed, prayed and threw our bags into the car.
We
drove across the street to a local CVS where I had 3 prescriptions filled and
while waiting, ate a smallish breakfast at Starbuck’s and then began our drive
home, stopping in Frederick on the way for much needed groceries. We had been gone for just over two weeks and
there was nothing to eat at home.
It
was in Frederick that this story really begins.
So here we are at the Common Market, tried, jet lagged, sick and
drugged. It’s now 5PM and we have to
check out, drive home another 70 miles and then unload groceries and luggage,
and put it all away before there is any chance of rest. And we have house guests. Two friends have come to stay at the house in
our absence and will be there when we get home.
Company! We need to get moving.
But
we had not eaten since Starbuck’s and that was really just a snack, so I pick
up a take-out box, fill it to the brim with fresh, organic veggies and tuna mix
and take the salad to a café table in the market, sit down and drop my head in
prayer.. Thank you Lord for everything,
for the table, the chair, the salad, the trip, the fatigue, the home coming,
the store, the moment, the silence, the peace—all conveyed in about 30 seconds
of intense stillness.
As
my head comes up my eyes meet those of another patron, sitting along the
windows, about 15 feet away. He smiles
and nods his head and gestures across the room, “Are you praying?” “Yes.” I respond, nodding my reply. “Are you Christian?” “No,” I say, “Muslim.” His startled expression, surprise and disbelief
combined, brings him to our table.
For the next hour we talk about faith, God,
religion, Islam and Christianity. Our mutual
understandings, our deep love and commitment, weave in and out, as three souls
linked by love of God, devotion to His will and openness to something bigger
than our limited human understanding, connect.
He did not agree with everything we explained about the Islamic faith
but he kept saying, “I can feel the love in both of you.” And finally that is
what we agreed upon. The love we each
felt for the other was the essential message of both Christ and Mohammad (peace
and blessings be upon them), and in that we were linked, regardless of
dogma. We were living the love God asked
from us and in that there is no disagreement, no separation; we are one.
It
was a long trip. I am extremely tired,
but this one hour in the market, brought confirmation, that
regardless of my day to day worries, beliefs, struggles, there is a field beyond the limited sense of me and mine, where we can meet, and that field is love.
“Out
beyond ideas of wrong doing and right doing,
There
is a field, and I will meet you there.”—Rumi
Vicki Davies
March, 2012
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