Worn out but happy

The days seem long yet not so productive. I think I am working out what the next year will look like. B keeps asking me what I want to do when we are back in Canada...and the trouble is that I am not sure.

As the years piled on each other I have grown more committed to this place and the lifestyle that goes along with it. I have changed the way I dress, I have changed the way I cook and I have changed the way I socialize. In accommodating life here, the way I look at the world around me has changed.

I am looking forward to going out along. To be able to hop in a vehicle and shop for groceries or just have a cup of coffee all by myself will feel weird at first, but so freeing. The amount of personal freedom in a woman's life in a Western country is almost intoxicating. And yet part of the reason for that freedom is the fact that there is little communal sense of accountability. When I go out I am conscious that I how I dress and behave communicates something about my personal values, about my husband, and about the institution that we are associated with.

The thing is that in North America we have a tendency to remove things from their context and they no longer communicate the story that they are part of. On the other hand, in Asia things, including people are rarely removed from their context...certain foods will always be unclean and those who eat them will be, certain clothes are proper and those who wear them will be, certain activities are unacceptable and those who do them will be.

I was recently listening to a lecture on consumerism. I am now aware that the removing of items, clothes, food, music, rituals, or ideas, from their original context facilitates the consumer culture. And yet, as long as things are tightly bound to context there is little freedom for growth and development.

There are things I want to carry with me...places I have grown in my mind and character. And there are lessons I have learned...particularly about not running ahead with my own ideas, but being patient to see how the hand of God is working just ahead of what I can see. I wonder how this will affect how I settle back into life in Canada. I wonder how cohesively I can meld here and there as we forge a life there, being changed by here.