Writing – Page 9

Thoughts of a Traveling Mind

After some remodeling and moving posts from there to here I am glad you’re here. Welcome to the blog!
Welcome to “thoughts of a traveling mind”.
In case you didn’t know: I like to travel. Looking up airplane tickets and complaining about prices is one of my hobbies. I am immensly blessed by all the travels I was already allowed to take and all the amazing people I got to meet. Strangers who have become friends. The feeling of home in unexpected places with friends who have become family.
Some stories of my travels and the many lessons I learned from places and people along the way you will find here.

What I’ve learned in the last year especially is that you don’t have to go far to learn something new and unfamiliar. My mind travels to all kinds of places. Sometimes these thoughts can be unprocessed and messy. Sometimes they are more questions than answers. Sometimes they are raw and brutally honest. They are part of life with all its bright and dark days.

Life is a constant journey, people are the true adventure – and writing about it is my way of making sense of it. I am immensly surprised and glad whenever it speaks to you as well.
Thanks for coming along for the ride!

Navigating the Turbulent Ocean Called Life

I was two when we moved for the first time.

Ever since then I’ve never lived in one place for more than six years. Due to my dad’s job and my parents’ global attitude, we have moved across town, cross country, and overseas. As a German native, I’ve also lived in Uganda, South Africa, and the US.

Transitions are not easy.

They challenge us, shake up our beliefs of who we are, of how the world looks like and functions, of how God is or seemingly isn’t at work in our lives.

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I am thrilled to be featured with this story at Ashley Hales’ Circling the Story today! Come join me to read the rest of this piece here!

[Five Minute Friday] Door

The last few weeks (maybe even months and years) have been full of change.
People getting married. Having children. Graduating from university. Quitting their jobs. Moving on.
And underneath I often seemed to hear the question: What comes next?
Where’s the next open door?

We have all found ourselves in front of closed doors.
At the edge of a new phase in life.
We already see a glimpse of what would come next, yet we are stuck here and have no idea how to get to the “next” part.
We are stuck in daily routines.
Stuck in our own comfort.
Stuck in a relationship with a friend who seems so closed off.
Stuck in our faith as if God was so far away and wouldn’t even care to listen to any of our prayers.
We just don’t seem to get through.
Through to people, through to God, through to abundant life.

I believe not every door is meant to be opened.
There are just too many choices in life, we have to pick one.
Make decisions. And this is often the hardest thing.
We don’t want to make a decision we might regret later on.
We don’t want to take a leap of faith only to find that we failed again.
We don’t want to bruise ourselves when we walk against a closed door.
And so we wait.
We find ourselves in front of doors, but we hesitate.
We refuse to take steps towards any of them, just for the sake of comfort and uncertainty.

I do believe that some doors are meant to be opened.
By us.
Us taking bold steps towards new adventures, new doors.
Even though we might not know if this door is open or not.
We’ll only know if we try.
Are we willing to be bold and adventurous?
Us not giving up with one closed door, but pressing on and searching until we found our way.
Us stepping out of the waiting zone and towards closed doors, closed people, closed relationships. Sometimes it doesn’t take a big miracle but the right key to open the door.
Sometimes it takes ourselves to fit into the keyholes to unlock the treasures behind it.
Are we willing to fit ourselves into the keyhole to unlock the treasures behind it?

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As always, linking up with Kate Motaung‘s Five Minute Friday. Check out her site for more inspirational stories!

This Little Storybook that Holds My World

My passport expired a few months ago, and since I’m about to go traveling again I needed to get a new one. When the lady at city hall asked for my old passport I was startled. Did she want to take it away?
It left me wondering, Why do I care so much about this little booklet?

Among TCKs there’s a joke that the most valuable book you’ll ever possess is your passport.
This little booklet tells stories.
Stories of travels to foreign countries.
Stories of adventures in unknown cultures.
Memories of people, smells, and food so different from who you are.

Like the story when we were stuck at the airport in Entebbe/Uganda for hours because the officer wouldn’t accept our residence permits. We didn’t want to pay the customary “fee” (we would call it a bribe), so he made us wait in this unknown country. Our work and lives for the next two years would depend on this little piece of paper. When he finally let us go after lots of questions, it felt like a relief and the stamp of entry like a triumph.

Like the story when we traveled to Tanzania, a 10-12 hour bus ride. Crossing the border was a matter of hours again because the border patrol enjoyed talking to the only Mzungus (white people) on the bus in the middle of African bush land. Only when they were sure my dad was Jesus (because of his beard and longish hair), they let us pass, and we had a new stamp in our passports to remember this trip.

These stamps are not just stamps on a piece of paper.
They serve as a conduit to our memories.
Images of sun-drazed hills, humble yet elegant and amazingly friendly people, and the most
breath-taking sunsets come to mind when I flip through the pages of this little booklet.

Many pages are filled with visas, but in between there are also a few surprises. Like the entry stamp of Abu Dhabi I had not intended to get.
My flight to Johannesburg, South Africa was delayed, so I had an extra night to spend in this desert metropole. At immigration I was searched by a completely covered-up woman, which felt intimidating since she asked me to take off my clothes. As soon as I left the nicely cooled airport a heat wave hit me and made my clothes stick to my body. The cab passed by simple white houses in the desert, the skyscrapers downtown looming in the background. I was taken to a hotel which could’ve easily been the scene of a Persian fairytale and met some friendly fellow travelers.
The Arab letters in my passport remind me of my first encounter with the Oriental culture, even though it was just a peek.

To get a visa or entry stamp from the US is quite a journey which starts a few months before actual departure, when you go to the embassy, wait a few hours, and endure security protocol. Just to get a five minute interview in which you state that you definitely don’t want to emigrate to the US or have a secret fiancé there. The long line at the airport and a suspiciously looking border patrol officer in Charlotte, NC almost seemed like a piece of cake afterwards.

Passports tell stories.
Our stories.
Just like photo albums they take us back to adventures and memories of the past.
An invaluable treasure you don’t want to give up.

And yet, I guess that many TCKs might agree that their passports can be a burden for them sometimes.
This little booklet doesn’t just tell what you experienced, but also who you are.
Your place of birth, your family name, your nationality.
You’re a citizen of country x. You belong to the people of y.

But what if I don’t feel like it?
What if my heart doesn’t match what it says on that paper?
What if my soul is lost in the beauty of Africa, the hospitality and openness of people with a different skin color?
The allegiance of my heart cannot be described by one single country code.
I am German and yet I’m not. I feel African, but so many things drive me crazy about it.
I’m a mix of everything, which sometimes feels like nothing.
My passport reminds me of this cultural conflict I find myself in, this search for a sense of belonging, a sense of myself, a home.

After a bit of paperwork the lady at city hall handed me back my passport.
With “expired” written across the page in bold letters.
Even though my old passport has expired, my stories are not.
Because I’m still here to treasure and tell them.

A few weeks later I got my new passport – many more pages to fill with new experiences.
New memories.
New stories.

[Five Minute Friday] Real

I like to play jokes on people.
Nothing really bad, just teasing. Telling little stories and seeing their unbelieving faces and their “really” expressions.
Some fall for it, they believe the fake story I just told them. Others don’t, they go deeper and ask for the real thing, the truth.

In a world of fake IDs, fake relationships and fake products, the realty is hard to find.
Many argue there isn’t actually a reality, everything is constructed.
But what if realness is there – buried deep inside of us and often found in unexpected places.

A student struggling with depression is real.
People in Syria living in the rubble of what used to be their homes are real.
Christians all over the world fearing for their lives because of their faith are real.
A Christian couple in your church getting a divorce is real.
A spouse yelling at you and not understanding every single one of your problems is real.
A friend letting you down or telling you something unexpected is real.
An experience of failure making you aware of your own weaknesses is real.

Being real doesn’t mean being perfect.
It often actually means real pain, struggles, breakups, failure, tough relationships.

What if being real meant being raw?
Authentic?
With all its edges and cliffs and struggles?

A real diamond is raw at first.
It looks like a stone and nothing fancy.
Only the chisel of a skilled master and life’s changes bring out the true beauty.
A raw stone turns into a real diamond.

Being real means being raw stones, nothing fancy or glamorous.
It means pain and struggles and disappointments.
But through courage and honesty we discover a bit more of our rawness.
And all along I hope we experience the chisel of our master to carve us more into diamonds.
Real treasures he already sees in us.

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Linking up with Kate Motaung for Five Minute Friday. Five Minutes of flat writing on one prompt. Sharing with other wonderful writers. Come and join us!

Growth

I fight.
I struggle with the new reality called my life.
I wrestle with the challenges thrown at me day after day that often seem overwhelming.
My mind knows I have to push through, towards the surface, towards the light.
But sometimes I’d rather not.

Sometimes I feel like a seed in the ground.
I’ve been planted for a reason.
I’m expected to gro.
Life has taken good care of me, watered and prodded me from time to time.
Now it’s time to grow.

Yet the soil is comfortable and familiar.
I know my way around, I know the people surrounding me.
I know how to behave.
I know I am me.

I just don’t want to change.
Don’t want to evolve.
Don’t want to go through the painful process of birthing seomthing new.
Why not stay a seed forever?

Because I would regret it.
I would miss out.
I would never see what’s above the ground.
I would never get to delight in the beautiful blowers around me.
I would never discover the strength and beatuy that’s been planted in me all along.
I would never get to discover new and surprising sides on me.

Only if I push through, only if I wait for roots to thicken, for seeds to break open, for some of the old things to die – I will also harvest the beautiful new life that comes from growth.
It’s time to grow.

And so I wait.
So I push.
So I focus on the light above that’s to come and the vision of new life ahead of me.

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Linking up with Karen Beth and her writing group today. Thankful for prompt words that keep my mind spinning, my words coming together, and my fingers on the keyboard dancing!

I feel like I’m not myself anymore

I feel like I’m not myself anymore.
My life has been taken over by someone, something else.
The way I eat, work, and interact is dictated by the outside.
I don’t know when I last got enough sleep.
When I didn’t have to worry about the loads of work in front of me. Emails in my inbox pile up – messages from dear friends waiting for an update, and all I can give them is a “I’ll get back to you as soon as things calm down.”
But when is that?

My kitchen looks like a battlefield, I stumble through it in the morning to make a cup of coffee and hope there’s still some food left in the fridge.
I don’t even want to get started on the rest of the apartment.
Piles and piles of paper, clothes, pens.
The air smells of heavy thinking.
I look at this mess everyday and think, “I really need to get some order into this.”
And yet, time runs by far too quickly and I have no energy left to pick up a single sheet of paper.
I want to meet up with friends and share my struggles, but often I feel like I have no ounce of emotional strength left in me to carry a conversation.

I feel like a grandma when I see my roommate go to a party at 9.30 pm and I start getting ready for bed.

What happened?
Well, I started working.
Welcome to the life of a new teacher.

I haven’t moved, I still speak German, I still surrounded by many familiar things and faces.
And yet, I feel as if I had entered a new culture.
The land of adulthood and working.
The land where clocks ring early and demand full-on responsibility.
A whole new world of terms, people, schedules.
And it takes time to learn them.
There are courses to prepare you for birth, marriage, driving…but why does no one ever

prepare you for work and all the changes it brings to your life?

Another transition.
Not geographically, but mentally, cognitively, and emotionally.
My sense of time, sleep, work, and social life has been uprooted and replanted into a new environment.

There’s the honeymoon phase.
I do enjoy new experiences, like meeting friendly colleagues, entertaining students, teaching epiphanies, and earning some money along the way.
There’s the depression phase I wrestle with at the moment.
The overwhelming feeling of defeat, exhaustion, and hopelessness.
The impression of being lost in your day’s schedule, tasks, and identity that no longer seem to be your own.
The inability to manage my life around this new omnipresent force called school.

And eventually, hopefully, there will be the readjustment phase.
When my roots are firmly replanted on this new soil of adult work life.
When I find the right balance between work and social life.
When I learn to say no to things so that I have time to enjoy the things and people I have said yes to. When life has found a new routine and I can carve out space to let in joy, peace, and people again. When I discover a new sense of anticipation for what will come next.
When I listen into myself and find that I am still there. I might have been lost for a while, but my identity – my self – has always been there after all.

[Five Minute Friday] Open

My life is like a prison sometimes. I feel trapped in my day-to-day routine. I just function, but true life has left me.
My mind is like a prison sometimes. I mull the same thoughts and questions over and over, but there’s no answer that makes the spinning stop.
My soul is like a prison sometimes. Worries and fear of the unknown creep up and won’t let me sleep. The more I worry the bigger these forces become and tear me apart.

It’s so easy to become closed off.
Stuck in my own doings and pereceptions and worries.
Hidden from the world and other people.

How can you be a door opener
for other people?

But there is a door.
Only recently when I reflected upon this busy, busy year I had with final exams and studying 24-7, without any time for friends but a lot to worry about – only then did I realize I had a few doors along the way.
Or rather, door openers.

People like J.
Whenever I felt overwhelmed with questions and deadlines and my own emotions, there was J.
We would cook together or have coffee and she would listen.
And then speak firm and encouraging words.
She listened to my questions and pointed me towards answers.
She opened my perspective for more.
She restored a bit of hope where I had lost it.

J is a door opener.

Interesting enough, this year roles are reversed.
She’s stuck with exams and drowning in books.
She is overwhelmed with questions about the future.
She might also feel like in prison sometimes.
The other day we had lunch and talked a bit how much I appreciated her role in my life. And then she said, “but don’t you know that you’re my J?”

This touched something inside of me because that’s who I want to be.
I want to be someone’s J.
A friend who shares life with you.
A listener.
An encourager.
A thinker.
A “sit still and wait” person.
A perspective changer.
A hope restorer.
A door opener.

*Yes, there were other people in the last year, too, and I can’t thank them enough for being Js in my life! If you’re reading this, please know how much I appreciate you!

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Friday is writing time!Kate Motaung‘s Five Minute Friday party!
Five minutes to give it a go at

[Five Minute Friday] Wait

I pounded on the door.

Desperate to be let in.

My head full of questions, my heart like a restless sea of worry.

What is going to happen? What does the future hold for me?

Answer me, Lord.

Finishing a phase in life and transitioning into the next is not easy.

Stepping into new things in life feels like standing at the edge and wondering what would happen if I took the plunge.

The next steps are not mapped out clearly in front of me. All I can do is wait.

I don’t want to wait.

Waiting seems to be a natural part of life.

Waiting for the bus. Waiting for a friend who’s late. Waiting for summer. Waiting for the cake in the oven to be done.
Waiting for a better life to start. Waiting for the crisis to be over. Waiting for a spouse. Waiting for a child.

We often don’t want to wait, yet we have no way to change it.

We want to have the answer now. We want things now,

But what if it’s not really about the waiting to be over? What if the waiting is the essential thing?

Waiting time is never wasted time.

Waiting develops us in ways often unseen: endurance, patience with others and ourselves, an inner perspective.

Waiting prepares the canvas onto which our future is painted – brush stroke after brush stroke.

Waiting strengthens the foundation we can later build on.

Waiting sharpens our character for the trials to come.

Waiting redirects our perspective.

We become aware of our own dependence and neediness.

We open up ourselves to the help of others.

We find the Lord who is working in our waiting and who’ll open up doors we never ever pounded on.

What are you waiting for? And how are you waiting?

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It’s another Friday and over at Kate Motaung’s place we gather for a fabulous five minutes of writing. One prompt. Just write. No edit. Share and be inspired!

What Breath Can Teach Us

I breathe in.
Feel the air flooding through my nose, mouth, down the trachea into my lungs and stomach.
I breathe out.
Breathe in again.
See my stomach rise and fall.
The more I listen to my breath the calmer I become.
Nature has its God-given rhythm and I can simply join its pattern.

Yesterday in my speaking class we did breathing and articulation exercises.
Words are a wonderful thing.
They can convey content, feelings, subtle hints, deep suspicions.
They can tear down or build up.
They always resonate with us.
While we experimented with different dynamics and voices the instructor said one interesting thing: “Whatever and however you speak – make sure your breath and yourself are rooted within you. Always come back to that root inside of you.”

This might sound strange, but it is the secret to good speaking.
You need firm roots to manage the different pitches, moods, contents you manage each day.
The people and things you interact with in 24 hours might kick you around, might really challenge you – but you can always come back to that breath inside of you.
Breathing in. Breathing out. Natural order. Peace.

Peace.
This word sticks with me, not only since yesterday’s class.
Feeling rooted while speaking, returning to that natural breath is a good metaphor for the rest of life.
It kicks around sometimes, doesn’t it?
Calls to take, errands to run, people to meet, counseling to give, problems to solve, fears to face…
Life’s tough and it’s not hard to feel like a tiny boat on a stormy ocean at times.

In the midst of these turbulences we need to be rooted.
We need that place we can go to, where our sense of self and order are restored.
Where our hearts can let go and calm down.
Where we can breathe in fresh air, a new sense of hope and perspective.
That place we can always return to.
That haven of peace.

This place looks different for all of us.
A cup of coffee in the morning.
A night of good and enough sleep.
A song that breaks the gloominess of our day.
A meeting with a friend.
Exercise.
Reading an encouraging book.

Silence.
Using the early hours of the morning to be still.
Before speaking a word I want to listen.
Listen to my breath going in and out.
Allow my heart and body to be flooded with air, energy, spirit for the day.
Before telling the Lord MY agenda for the day, I want to hear what HE’s got in store for today.
I face the challenges of this day with peace because I know I can always return to it.
To Him, the Prince of Peace.