As August is coming to an end, I am realizing that I have
spent more days this month on holiday than I have at work. I’m surprised they
are still paying me in real money. Well, euros are weird colors and certainly
don’t look like real money, but the bank takes them and so will I.
At the beginning of the month, we took our first coupley
trip to Germany, and really, it was my first trip to Germany that wasn’t merely
taking a train into Frankfurt on a layover and throwing snowballs at Sister.
Two of Husband’s (and now my) friends were getting married. He met them years
ago while serving the Baha’i Faith in Haifa, and the friendships have remained
so many years later. So I bought a pretty dress, we rented a car with an
exorbitant insurance rate we weren’t told about until picking it up, and we
made our way into Bad Lippspringe. It was a tiny little town, full of
cobblestone streets, old people on bicycles, vibrant flowers attracting buzzing
bees, and buildings without air conditioning or people that we could
understand. Somehow we had found a country where neither of us knew how to say
anything more than ‘Hello,’ ‘Thank you,’ and ‘I don’t speak German.’
We spent the weekend with old and new friends. We ate
amazing Brazilian beef fillets, drank alcohol-free cocktails of all varieties,
put on crazy costumes for photo booths and danced until the early hours of the
morning. We witnessed two lovely people pledge their love to each other and
obedience to God, while sitting outside and listening to the loud chimes of a
nearby bell tower. We remembered the day that we made these same vows and
spoke the same words to each other. And as Husband picked up my hand during the
ceremony and gave it a sweet kiss, we watched a new marriage begin.
The following weekend, we went to Irish Baha’i Summer
School. The last time I was there was two years ago, my first attendance and
about a week before Husband asked me to be his bride. Due to the need to show
up for a few days in order to earn those euros, we did not arrive until the
last weekend of the school. When we walked into the plenary session, there was
a man in his late years sitting at a podium. We had missed about 30 minutes of
a talk by a man named Tomi Reicenthal, a Holocaust survivor who was there to
tell us his terrible story. His story about being taken away at the age of 6
and not really knowing what was going on around him; his story of he and the
other children in the concentration camp acclimating to the horrors around them
and playing hide and seek around, and behind, piles of dead bodies; his story
of the day his grandmother died in the camp they were in, and seeing her body
stripped naked and thrown from a wheelbarrow onto one of these piles; his story
that he never even told his own wife before she passed away years ago. He was a
boy in Belsen.
While hearing his story, we were reminded of the Baha’is in
Iran who are being persecuted only because they are Baha’is, so similarly to
what caused these atrocities. That is how these things began. Everyone remained
silent. The Holocaust did not start with gas chambers. It started with
whispers. Something he said when he brought up these poor Baha’is really
resonated with me. He said, “We have to shout. They have to know the whole
world is watching.” That was how our weekend began.
The rest of summer school was just as wonderful, though less
sad. As someone who has been singing my entire life, I was extremely excited to
hear that Tom Price would be conducting some courses that week. What I had not
realized was that he was also going to conduct a choir! He has conducted choirs
all over the world, including at the Baha’i World Congress in the ‘90s. Singing
with him is something I have always wanted to do. I knew I had to be in this
choir. And when he said there were still solos available and asked if anyone
was interested, I have to admit that my heart jumped into my throat and
threatened to fly right out and hit him in the face while my hand shot up in
the air like a 2nd grader who knew the answer to a math question for
the first time ever. And two days later, where was I? Standing in front of the
entire school, singing an intense solo in a beautiful and heart-wrenching song
written by none other than my conductor, about the Baha’i Faith’s prophet founder,
Baha’u’llah, and the trials and tribulations He went through in His lifetime.
I’m not sure how I hit notes that were almost two octaves above middle C (or whether I actually did), and
I’m still finding flaws that no one else even noticed, but I did it. And it
made me the happiest I’ve been in quite some time. I had forgotten how much I
miss singing, and how much I wish that I could do something with that love. Now
that I have finished gushing about my favorite part of the weekend, I can
continue. We CAMPED. I probably should not have lost my camping virginity to a
rugby pitch in 50F weather. It wasn’t terrible, but was awkwardly convenient to
use a portable toilet in the common compartment of a tent that had my in-laws
sleeping on the other side of a thin sheet of opaque plastic. There was more
singing, chatting with friends, eating greasy chips from the chipper at 1am,
service to the school and its participants, beautiful prayers every morning,
and many goodbyes (not in the tent, just in general). It was a wonderful weekend.
The last adventure of the month was my favorite and my
saddest. SISTER CAME TO IRELAND TO VISIT ME!!! Some might not understand how we
are so close, but she is my best friend. I miss her the most. In fact, I think
I miss her more now than I did before she arrived. It’s like I slowly got used
to not having her around and then was slammed in the face with the reminder of
her awesomeness and how hard it is to be away from her. I won’t make that
mistake again.
She game for a little over a week. I had to work so I
couldn’t be there to pick her up at the bus station, but Husband picked her up,
holding up the sign I made to welcome her to Ireland. He’s so good to me. As
each second slowly trickled through my day, I became more and more impatient
about getting home and hugging her. When I finally did, it was like nothing had
changed. We were content with just hanging out. We were content with going out
and eating. I introduced her to the few friends that I have here, and she fit
in almost immediately. She reveled in the cool weather and got just as excited
about it as I used to get before I knew better. We went to Fota Wildlife
Reserve with the family, and saw giraffes drinking each other’s pee, and black
monkeys carrying white babies. We sat at picnic tables for hours, more than 10
of us, sitting and eating and chatting about all kinds of things. Sister,
Sister-in-Law and I went to Dublin, also! It was my first time going there for
more than just reaching a specific destination and leaving. We went to see
Regina Spektor in concert. She is one of my favorite artists and she brought me
to tears. We originally only had 2 tickets, but SIL is a haggler and got a
street seller down from €80 to €50, a much more agreeable price, and we all got
to enjoy the concert together. After physically being unable to pull our eyes
away from the train wreck that was a 20 year old couple who obviously were not
permitted to ever see each other and thought this was the appropriate time and
venue to profess their love without words, we got to hear the incredible voice
for which we had traveled. Her voice was pure and smooth and trilly. Her words
were funky and all over the place. She cursed when she missed high notes and
she shyly and humbly thanked the crowd for their love and adoration. And she
made me cry when she sang my favorite song and caused me to remember a life so
many years ago. And the next day, we got back on the train and Dublin was over.
One more day of laziness and television and just being
thrilled to be together, and then a lovely dinner at Husband’s Aunt’s house
with some of the Baha’is in the area, including a pair of sisters who were here
as musical travel teachers and whose harmonies made me and Sister realize that
we needed to learn more songs to sing together. When we got home, Sister and I
stayed up until her bus at 2:30am. When Husband and I dropped her at the bus
station, I felt like I was losing a piece of my own heart. It feels morally
wrong to be this far away from her. Like it certainly must be against the law
somewhere, and I want to live with her wherever that somewhere is. But she left
me, just as I left her. And I cried. And spent the next day depressed and
trying not to cry every time someone asked how she was doing and how we enjoyed
her trip here. Somehow it was hard to think of the fun we had: all the goofing
around, the eating, the giggling, the trips, the animals, the time with family,
the photos, the everything. Now that a few days have passed, I can see those
things again. And I’m glad we are going to visit in a few weeks.
What an amazing month we had. I have a feeling it’s going to
be hell trying to get used to a 5-day workweek again. Thankfully I only have to
do it for 3 weeks before disappearing back to the sunshine for a month.
Oh, what a wonderful holiday season.
