I am all about cycles. For example, I love the way seasons trigger certain memories and serve as reminders to start something all over again.
Fall has always been my favorite season. As soon as Labor Day is over, my whole body starts gearing up for cooler weather. As a kid, early September always meant getting to experience “new book smell,” my birthday party, freshly laundered skirts and sweaters for school, sharpened pencils, the Jewish New Year and becoming a year older. Fall was always a chance to start fresh with new teachers, maybe even new friends, new classes, new clothes, new notebooks, new haircut and new commitments to what I would try to do right in the coming year. I could have been blindfolded and known it was autumn. I would have known, of course, because of the smells in the air, the crunch under my feet from acorns and pine cones and leaves, the cool edges of the evenings and the vague feeling somewhere inside me that had to do with getting older.
Summer had its own set of repetitions and rhythms. They dealt more with relaxing, reviewing. Lately for me, though, summer has come to signal the time to start getting ready for my trip to Uganda.
It is hard to believe that just as we tie up all the loose ends from our first big friendraiser/fundraiser, I need to start thinking about plane and hotel reservations for December. I have been busy discussing the thrust of the Team Two Mission Trip with the good folks at the orphanage, and several readers of this blog have expressed an interest in coming along. Now is the time to start planning the logistics of the journey.
*** If you or anyone you know is truly interested in getting more details about the upcoming trip, please email me with contact info. I plan on calling a meeting sometime in July so that we can all get together and discuss possible plans. I know I have mentioned the possibility of a medical mission. That is still on the table. We will definitely repeat our play/art therapy week, as that was so successful last year. Chances are the trip will take place over the course of three weeks, the first being the week before Christmas. Those who are interested in accompanying me could stay for a week or ten days during that time frame and then move on to other travels or return to the US. I plan on staying all three weeks.
When I was a young girl, summer always meant a new reading list. I loved filling in the lines with each new book I read, using my neatest handwriting. Lost in those books, I could go anywhere I wanted.
Who knew summer would ever trigger in me the longing to return to an off-the-beaten-path, dirt-poor orphanage in Kajjansi, Uganda? (Along with the knowledge that I really and truly get to go back!)
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