Snapshot of Tonight

One perfect Autumn leaf on my wall in Palestine.

Quite by surprise, I find that it is suddenly mid-October. In Minnesota the leaves are changing colors and I am reminded of how last year my friend Maddie, who is now my friend and my housemate, sent me a perfect, autumnal leaf, straight from Minnesota. She knew that Palestine does not really have Fall and that I must be missing the triumphant colors of the Midwest.  I taped the leaf to my bedroom wall along with precious cards and photos of loved ones back home in the United States.

Get off my chair nasty cat. And yeah, I broke that lamp.

Now another YAGM volunteer lives in our little flat in Ramallah. He works at the school where I worked and has already had adventures (read: terrifying experiences) with the local stray cats which are exceedingly clever and find their way into the aforementioned flat. (I will never forget the day I came home and found big dirty cat prints on everything.) Perhaps it goes without saying that I follow this year's volunteer on Facebook, despite having never met him. Of course, I feel jealous at the experiences he is having and his awesome stories, but I am also so, so, so happy for him and for the other current YAGM volunteers.

Today I finally sent a bunch of my pictures from Palestine to the printer so that I will have hard copies to put up (everywhere!). Although I took a couple thousand pictures, I still find myself wishing I had taken more. Why did I not capture a shot of the rabbit shop (live rabbits) outside my yoga studio? Why did I not take a picture of the garden outside my supervisor's flat? It was so easy to remember to take pictures of the adventures (traveling to Petra in Jordan, standing next to the Dome of the Rock) but so much harder to remember to document the quiet, beautiful moments that truly made up my existence abroad.

Today at work we were discussing creating a short promotional video about our programs. Several of the teachers talked about how often they wish they had a video camera in hand when the students tell stories of their lives; fleeing violence, and literally seeking refuge. Our refugee clients have stories filled with heartbreaking loss and breathtaking resilience. I am particularly fond of the stories of life in the midst of the insanity; babies born in refugee camps to mothers who love them every bit as much as mothers whose babies are born in fancy Midwest hospitals. I am reminded that everyone has beautiful stories of life. Heroic stories. Sad stories. Fantastic and hilarious adventure stories. Stories of the quiet moments filled with joy. Stories of a single red leaf taped to a bedroom wall in a desert that seemed both far from home and home itself.

Tonight, one of my friends updated her blog and I found myself thinking that I should update mine. It is easy to remember to document one's experiences while traveling because you want to update the loved ones far away and because you are doing so many "Facebook-profile-picture-worthy" things. But life is lived now, in the quotidian moments. Those moments deserve some documentation as well.

So here's to the moments that made up my evening: there were no unexpected clients at my after-work volunteer gig so I nearly finished Jonathan Kozol's book Amazing Grace. My heart ached for the children of the Bronx and the children of Palestine, who are really not so different.  Volunteering got done early so I watched the end of tonight's episode of "The Voice" with Maddie. She vacuumed the stairs during commercial breaks. Hit by inspiration (and an entire day's worth of Muse on repeat), Maddie played music while Lexi returned from the gym to make a grilled cheese sandwich and coffee in preparation for her night-shift. I wrote a blog post and I stayed up later than I meant to, but felt good about it because I was struck by the urge to document a slice of my life right now.

Let us not forget to honor the beauty in our daily lives.