School, and Volleyball, and Diving - Oh My!

The past couple of weeks seemed to have flown by with an overwhelming slew of emotions and contemplations.  The second quarter has kicked off swimmingly as I have started to mix up my teaching strategies in order to liven things up not just for the students but for me as well.  In Geometry, I have found great pride in the small victories - as we grappled through proofs, there were about 20 urgggggggghghghghhghg moments to every 1 AHA! moment, but those AHA!'s made every frustrating challenge completely worthwhile.  My freshmen religion class just finished Part I of their Parable projects, where each group acted out a parable from the Gospels - they absolutely blew me away with how creative, hilarious, and comprehensive they were.  I cannot wait for Part II of the project where they will adapt their parables to modern day stories about their lives on Yap (Thanks, Cathy!).  In Chemistry, we are learning about the quantum mechanic model of the atomic structure and the juniors are dominating it as we head into electron configurations.  Who knew balloons could be so fun, practical, and educational all at once when teaching about sublevels and orbitals?!  My juniors are working so hard to understand these complicated concepts and I could not be more proud.

My volleyball season on the Maap team came to an end on Halloween.  I played for the "Little Boys" team consisting of everyone under 25.  My teammates spoke rapid fire Yapese and a few are students at the public high school.  It was fantastic not just to get to play some competitve volleyball (despite my body losing about 3 quarts of water in sweat each game due to the humidity causing my hands to become incapable of setting a ball), but also to get to meet so many incredible people.  I became a self-proclaimed expert at riding the bus to Gagil - which is actually quite a challenge since it seems that every day the bus number changes and the "5:00 PM Bus" could show up anywhere between 4:35 and 5:10 PM.  Everyone I was able to interact with through this experience was absolutely straight up Jesus.  My one friend, Marbey, even has offered to take me spearfishing one weekend.

Finally, today I officially became a certified open water scuba diver.  Caitlin, Rosemary, and I have been taking the course for the past 3 weeks with the epitome of perfection instructor, Jan.  We did a few days of pool exercises with the equipment and now have gone on four dives in the ocean.  The whole experience is so surreal.  At one point when I was 40 feet underwater I just looked up and watched my air bubbles slowly rise to the surface where I could just barely make out the sun through the turbulent surface.  The coral reef here is breath taking and I have seen more fish than I could possibly describe, touched an octopus, saw a shark (more a shadow because it was so far away), was about 15 feet away from a whole school of barracuda, and about 928 other unbelievable things.  It is like seeing a completely different world that takes up a majority of the life on Earth.  Indescribable.

A View of Yap from the Diving Boat

My Freshmen on Parable Day

Headed to the Dive Site

"Sometimes the little things in life are the big things."

                                                                                                     - Unknown

Setting the Stress on Fire

ANNOUNCEMENT:  In an effort to reduce my usage of facebook, I will periodically post some "Stealth Posts" (Grogan, 2012) in which you will just have to occasionally check up on the blog to catch.  These will come every so often and will usually include some of the fun little story updates on my life on Yap.  Kamagar.       

As my first quarter of teaching comes to a close, I am shocked by just how much work there has been to do.  Between creating final tests, grading said tests, closing out old lesson plans, creating new lesson plans, continuing to teach the new material, and calculating quarter grades as well as making personal comments for each student... it can be easy to forget to take some time to just relax.  To top it all off - my computer decided to take a little break from that whole operating thing I expect it to do... luckily - my friend, Doug, worked his magic and I am almost back to normal - and soon it will be better than ever - but still, worst timing ever.

          Rather than slow me down, my lack of computer actually made me at least three times more productive because I felt I needed to make up for lost time.  The result was being completely finished with my quarter grades and comments two days early and being way ahead in terms of lessons.

           I also found the time to make it to my first volleyball game up north in Gagil at the Yap Sports Complex.  I play for the village of Maap on the "Little Boys" team which is anyone under the age of 25.  We lost our first match to Gagil, but our "Older Boys" team won their first match.  It was a whirlwind of high fives, random Yapese screaming sprinkled with English volleyball terms, and overall an amazing amount of fun.  Once again I am overwhelmed by the freely given generosity of the people of Yap - first, some of my students made sure to get me on the correct bus (the public busing system consists of a few school buses that follow a VERY loose schedule, and if you miss your bus, you're out of luck) and about 5 other people chatted me up as I waited for the bus and my local friend, Martin, and I had a great conversation on the 25 minute ride through the bumpy, dusty dirt roads.  To top it all off, one man on my team, Marbey, happens to live near my village and always offers me a ride home - our talks on the rides to and from volleyball are always very insightful and deep and full of laughter.

          Currently, I am cooking some homemade veggie burgers for World Food Day to represent America.  Martin asked me a few weeks ago and I was flattered, so now I sit here concocting whatever I can to make a delicious dish for the celebration.  Mom - you'd be so surprised and/or shocked.

Finally, amidst all of this excitement, schoolwork, and business - I reached a point at school that I could just not pick up the red pen for one more minute.  Luckily, Mickey (our principal) decided he didn't feel like doing paperwork either during the last period of the day, so we both headed to the lakeside to burn all of the wood, cancun, vines, and debris that we had collected during our last work day.  We had a huge bonfire going with huge amounts of smoke that still has that incomparable campfire smell stuck in my pores.  Sometimes the best thing to do is just forget about all of the stress in our lives, and set a big pile of whatever on fire.

Manuella and Dolorlyn showing off their handstands (Just a fun picture of an average lunch period)

Mickey feeding the fire

Some of the freshmen joining us in fire building after school

“Someday, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love, and then, for a second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.” 
― Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Just Keep Swimming

On the First Friday of every month, YCHS has a half day of classes – how do we spend the other half of the day you may ask… Why doing manual labor on our campus, of course, to continue making it even more beautiful.  Last Friday – after a very long week – I signed my group up to work on clearing out the area behind the classrooms buildings.  The super secret side mission of this group was to attempt to pull the thousands of cancun vines from the lake.  These vines appeared to just be floating on the water and we could just simply pull them out with our ingenius device of long sticks with screws in the ends of them to hook the cancun.  We quickly discovered our master plan was foiled by the stubbornness of these vines as they had incredibly strong roots embedded in the bottom of the lake.

I slowly began to wade into the dirty lake (I am talking certain parts of the Muck Hike dirty…. The clean parts though!) to try to get a better grip – as I did this I realized what a wonderful opportunity this would be to spend the first semi-sunny day we had in 8 days swimming in this dirty cancun lake.  So, I did a quick little surface dive – thank-you LBD teams and Ryan Lilly for giving me some sort of lifeguarding skills – and began to work my way into the middle of the lake, which was probably around 8 feet deep.

I pulled out most of the loose cancun, but the vines were putting up a good fight – just as I was about to call it a day and swim back with my small armfuls of cancun (which I could float on and elementary backstroke my way in) – my reinforcements decided to jump right on in.  A few of the junior and sophomore boys dove right on in, and soon a few of the girls joined us as well as we took a couple “sepos” (machetes) out into the murky water with us and would take turns going under the water to cut the vines in order to harvest the cancun.  We spent a few hours doing this exhausting but exhilirating work.

When we were done for the day, we were hosed off and deemed “The Wolf Pack” by Fr. Rich.  Needless to say – I am ecstatic to have found a Wolf Pack here on Yap.  

The moral of this story is… well, I guess it’s okay to just have a nice blog post about my adventures without any lessons, reflections, or revelations…. And in truth – that is the lesson!  Sometimes, we need to stop searching for the deeper meaning, the epiphanies, the revelations – and we just need to let go, dive into a dirty cancun covered lake, and let the world teach us in that unique, special way that only it knows how to do.

Casually pulling in some cancun

About to submerge

Break between swimming sessions

"The Wolf Pack" swimmers

“Mud-pies gratify one of our first and best instincts. So long as we are dirty, we are pure.”
                                                                                               -Charles Dudley Warner 

Lights Out

Warning:  You always know there is something up when I leave a warning at the beginning of a blog post, as if it could be harmful to your health if you continue reading.  I do not think it could possibly hurt you, not physically at least – but I do feel the need to alert you that this blog seems to have taken the direction of more of a public journal or diary that not only outlines my adventures in Yap, but also navigates the inner thoughts, the indescribable feelings and emotions that I am encountering.  We shall see where this goes – for as Peter Pan so wisely said, “to live would be an awfully big adventure”, and I would hate to miss out on it over something as silly as being embarrassed to share what I am truly experiencing.

            The past week or so has brought with it some of the most frustrating, trying, challenging experiences I have ever faced.  My classes seemed to hit a wall.  My Geometry class floundered at the most basic concepts which I thought we had mastered – which led to my almost losing it during a class period that changed from a 5 minute review on bisectors to a full fledged re-teaching of the lesson completely changing my language choice and approach.  The students could sense my frustration and many even apologized to me after the class.  I felt terrible for almost completely losing my patience – a virtue that I usually pride myself on after 6 years of handling every possible problem from every possible age group during my years on camp staff – I felt even more horrible for letting my frustration show to my students, the ones who I truly am directly here to help along their path of education to help improve the overall living conditions of Yap.  I am not used to failing – in fact, I refuse to fail… and I used to think that this meant that no matter what, I needed to do all in my power to achieve success.  I now see – that our failures are what make us human – and how we react to these failures is what defines our character – what makes us role models – what sets us apart – what makes us heroes.

            In my Junior year of high school, I gave a talk during the Kairos XIX retreat about Piety.  My favorite quote from this talk is “It doesn’t matter how many times we fall down, what matters is that we always get back up.”  For most of my life, I persevered, I dug deep, I thought I was forcing myself with my own will to get back up.  After reaching a new level of frustration, a level of apparent failure – I am once again “back up” on my feet– but I would still be struggling in the dirt if I was not lifted up by the love of others – and most importantly, by the love of God.

            Things seemed to be getting worse at first - I had that terrible pit in my stomach that comes with homesickness (I have a GREAT story… well many stories relating to my experiences with homesickness – that is for another day),  I was feeling unmotivated to work on planning my lessons – to giving my all to helping these students to achieve their dreams, I was looking at my cold showers as painful trials from the depths of some horribly twisted icy hell, I was losing focus on what is truly important in life – of why I am here on the island of Yap. 

I thought that a quaint Skype date with my “more-lovely-than-words-can-describe” girlfriend would help to raise me out of this lull.  After an hour of working through the lack of video and what was a great conversation – we both realized that the online phone chat actually just made us seem that much further apart.  It put me further into my funk as I spent the rest of the day wondering if I should just hop on a plane to run back to Keri just to hold her in my arms… That thought quickly receded when I realized I would have to wait until Tuesday night anyway, and it was only Sunday.  But – I ended up realizing how excited I was to be with her when I return home, and even though we are 9,000 miles apart – I feel that our relationship has only grown stronger.  Sorry, boys, even though I am on the other side of the world in the middle of the Pacific Ocean – she is still all mine – and she is even more perfect than ever.

            Still – I was left feeling lonely, having some serious cases of FOMO, and missing all of the wonderful people back home on top of my frustrations with school.  To make things worse in the most dramatic way possible, a huge tropical storm has been swirling around the island for the past 3 days with no sign of stopping anytime soon.  Our power periodically goes out for hours at a time – Yap literally experiences island wide black outs.  Being thrust into the forced darkness seemed to be mirroring my inner frustrations that I just could not seem to shake.  And then – out of the blue (meaning we get mail on Mondays and Wednesdays – and today is Tuesday) – Fr. Rich brings a package to me during the last period of the day smiling cheerily as he says, “Well, it looks like someone loves you.”  As I looked at the package, my eyes were immediately drawn to the return address label that I recognized so well as I read off the address of The Community Outreach Office of The University of Scranton.  I could not stop beaming – but I practiced my self-restraint and decided to wait until I was home to open it. 

Of course, I was welcomed home by yet another power outage as the storm swirled around us – so I took my package and cuddled up with it in my cozy, sweaty twin bed.  My second family at the Community Outreach Office had sent me toilet paper, chapstick, pens, games, tootsie rolls, crazy straws, a waterproof camera, a yo-yo – all of the necessities one needs on a tiny island in the middle of the ocean.  And while all of these gifts certainly raised my spirits – it was the other items in the package that lifted me back up onto my feet.  I was at my lowest of lows (as one of my greatest mentors has repeatedly told me – My free spirit brings me to the highest of highs, but when I hit a low – I hit the lowest of lows, I have no middle ground) – I had fallen into the deepest cavern I have ever experienced, I accepted that I could not pick myself back up on my own – I surrendered myself to God, telling him that I needed his help to pull me back up to the top of the mountain, to bring me back up to the highest of highs – and he responded with a simple package – with a Community Outreach cup that changes colors when it’s cold, with a FIRST T-shirt that I am already wearing, with a Center for Service and Social Justice (new office name.. impossible to answer the phone with I imagine) bag that already has my school books in it, with a few flyers outlining what the Community Outreach Office is up to now this year – and what truly helped me not just simply back onto my feet – but what sent me soaring back up to the sky – a bundle of letters from my second family. 

            I sat in my room – with all of the lights out due to the black out – reading the letters with a flashlight – laughing hysterically as I read Lauren’s adventures of bread delivery and Peter’s note written in giant smelly highlighters and Kerry’s absolutely inappropriate, but oh so perfect for us letter, smiling to myself as I read Francesca’s note written on a rubber ducky and Michelle’s adorable animal puns.  I could not stop the tears as I read Ellen’s note describing life in the office, Lori’s beautiful words of encouragement, Cathy’s letter that seemed to find me right where I was at.  And then the sobbing began as I read Pat’s letter – a letter that reminded me that my experiences in Scranton, in the Community Outreach Office did not have a four year expiration date – these relationships will last for a lifetime. 

            I fell.   I fell hard.  I fell deep.   I gave up.  I realized I could not make it on my own.  I turned to God – I told him I needed him.  He answered me.  He sent me the encouragement, the strength, the motivation I needed.  He picked me back up with the hands of my friends, my mentors, my role models, my family.  He saved me.

      “When you love you should not say ‘God is in my heart,’ but rather,

 “I am in the heart of God.”             

                                                                        -The Prophet – Kahlil Gibran

Outdoor Adventures

This past week, I have been spending a lot of my free time exploring the island.  I am comfortable with the location of all of the major things and can navigate my way fairly well through the main roads of Yap – however, after almost 3 months on the island, I realized that there is so much island that I just have not taken the time to find, to explore, to adventure through.  So, a majority of my time outside of school was spent hiking through the natural treasures of Yap.  I ventured to one of the highest points on the island to get some gorgeous views of the sun setting – the sky went from a crystal blue, to a cotton candy blend of purple and pink, to a fiery orange, yellow, and red – my camera does not do justice to just how mesmerizing the skies can be here.  I may or may not have climbed a radio tower to capture some shots of the far side of the island (Sorry, Mom – I swear it was safe… well, kinda).  I also took the time to go out of my way to use the traditional stone paths for the more scenic routes around the island – absolutely breath taking and humbling to realize how long ago these paths were made and how much intricate time, effort, and skill was put into them to be made by hand.  To relax this weekend, I checked out some of the small trails behind our house that lead to various groves of betelnut, coconut, breadfruit, and banana trees.  During this hike today – I decided I wanted to create a little wall art for our back porch to leave the “Taro Patch Kids’” mark on our wonderful home.  Thank-you Trail to Adventure for honing my lashing skills – they came in handy – especially since I was tying them with some vine-like weeds.  Enjoy the pictures!

Sunset from the Radio Tower

About midway up to the Radio Tower

Reminds me of the Circle of Life from The Lion King

Stone Path

Stone Path

Taro. Patch. Kids.

My afternoon project

“Boys can see adventure in a dirty old duck puddle…”                                                                   

                                                                                     -Lord Baden Powell

Cold Showers

A large portion of my thinking recently has been devoted to how many comforts of life I have taken for granted.  I never truly appreciated being able to drive to the grocery store and choose from a variety of different products, brands, prices, colors, sizes, quantities, qualities, shapes, and so much more. I never fully appreciated the opportunity I had to receive such a wonderful childhood education that has opened so many possible doors for me – of course, I chose to force a hole in the wall and go in the complete opposite direction of all said doors – but still, the opportunity was there.  I never thought twice about being able to enjoy a long, hot shower. 

That brings me to today’s reflection – a reflection that came to me during my 87 second shower this morning.  For those of you who don’t know – I used to get my best contemplating done in the shower – with my Billy Joel or Disney playlist blasting – as I let the hot water take all of the tension out of my body.  Here at Nimar Wentworth – the cost of hot water is astronomical, and after doing some fiddling with our not-so-beautiful hot water heater – I discovered that #1. Most of the crucial parts of this machine are hanging precariously off of the tank and #2.  Anything that spends more than 4 seconds inside said tank will immediately smell like a mixture of rotten eggs, skunk, and sulfur.  So needless to say – we have adjusted to not having hot water in our humble abode.

Most mornings, I wake up and have to give myself a pump up motivational speech before forcing myself under the sheet of icy rain.  Recently, I realized just how ridiculous I was being – and that I should instead be focusing on how truly blessed I am to even have an indoor shower – with clean, running water.  I look at my morning showers as an opportunity that I should not take for granted.  I see that ice cold water as a cleansing, refreshing waterfall that serves to wake me up for a fantastic day on the island of Stone Money. 

With this new revelation – I have learned to love my cold showers.  I have learned to appreciate the little things.  I have discovered that attitude truly can change any situation.  A simple shift in pespective can make the most challenging trials, the most daunting tasks, the most terrifying encounters – the coldest showers – seem like gifts from God – opportunities, chances, blessings.

I am working on keeping my blog posts to a reasonable length.  I write like I talk – a lot.  This one is for you, Betty.  Short and sweet – just like my cold showers.

“If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude.” 

                                                   – Maya Angelou

One of the Family

WARNING: This blog post may turn out to be quite lengthy.  I have had an overwhelmingly wonderful revelation – and I feel the need to try to put it into words – particularly because this revelation has come from all of you.  At points, this post may delve into the deep emotional caverns of my mind and heart.  You have been warned.  Continue reading at your own risk.

Coming to Yap, over 9,000 miles away from home, I knew I was going to be challenged, I knew I was going to be changed, I knew I would cherish this experience.  I knew I would learn lessons that I could not learn anywhere else, lessons that I will never fully master the eloquentia perfecta needed to put them into words to share with others.  The most important lesson I have ever learned, I have ever felt, I have ever been able to fully embrace, came this weekend in a whirlwind of tears, smiles, laughter, conversations, hugs, drinks, friends, and family.  My wonderful mother told me that recently Hurricane Michael rampaged through the Atlantic Ocean – it seems my brother storm sent some powerful winds of emotion and revelation my way.

            I had a phenomenal week – in and out of school.  On Sunday night the TPK (again still looking for suggestions on our formal program name – Pat Vaccaro, you are always good at fun names… I’m looking to you on this one J) invited our four Jesuit padres over for dinner – it is so much fun to just sit back and relax and have fun with them – we all are becoming quite the tight family.  The Regional Superior of Micronesia, Fr. John H., floored all of us with his stories of when he survived a plane crash in the middle of the ocean because the pilot was actually a maintenance man because the pilot couldn’t make it, and then continued on to tell the story of how he was lost at sea for about a week because the captain of the ship admitted he was not very good at navigating.  That man never ceases to amaze me.  We had a faculty retreat day on Monday morning, which was such a warm reminder of why we are here and it was great to be able to share with my fellow teachers.  I adored leading morning reflections.  I felt ecstatic about the lessons I was teaching.  The juniors blew me away with their enthusiasm and determination during our second lab day.  My freshmen homeroom has begun to genuinely trust me and they have started to ask me the most complex, most impossible to answer questions about the nature of God and their personal relationships with Him – they are truly questioning their faith for the first time, and it is not only strengthening their connection with God, but it is improving their critical thinking skills as well.  I attended “Wine Night” at the Waterfront Inn overlooking the water and was able to meet a fascinating vegan couple from California on a World Tattoo Tour, and I was able to for the first time fully articulate to a lovely USDA vistor named Sheryl how my work with the students and families of YCHS is going to slowly improve the development of Yap.  I was inspired to find a way to fulfill my dreams – to change the world – to make this world a better place.

        

    Friday night ended up being an absolute blast.  The Taro Patch Kids decided it had been a long week and we deserved a night of care free fun.  We met up with a bunch of our ex-pat friends at the MNUW restaurant and enjoyed a night of singing, dancing, and drinking with our new Navy Seabee friends who are here working on various construction projects.  Our travels took us to the dive bar “O’Keefe’s and then up to the Yap Pacific Dive Resort.  Many of our local friends joined us as well and it was a fantastic reminder that no matter how serious things may get, and no matter how busy we may think we are – you always need to remember to just let go and have fun from time to time.  You need to laugh.  You need to dance your heart out.  You need to sing “Don’t Let Go” at the top of your lungs while making up a swing dance with Rosemary Burke and then flailing your arms wildly to the synthetic beat of the music.

            On Saturday – I was able to take a good chunk of time to just reflect upon my experience on Yap so far.  I cried, I mean really cried, for the first time earlier this week because I missed being close to the ones I love.  I miss being able to hold my girlfriend in my arms, I miss having sleepovers and deep late night pillow talk with my best friends, I miss taking quote walks through Scranton late at night, I miss being able to see the smiles and hear the laughter of the people who have made my life so special.

            When I finally reflected on why I was being hit so powerfully with these emotions of sadness – I realized that the fact that I am literally missing people to the point of tears is a testament to how much they truly mean to me.  I have been so blessed to have been able to meet so many incredible people in my short life.  I have been so blessed to have formed such powerful relationships.  I have been so blessed to be able to have so many different groups of people that I care so deeply for.  I am blessed to be crying because I miss you all so much.

            By the time Saturday morning rolled around – my mind raced every which way trying to comprehend, to understand, to decipher the mystery that is love.  It had occupied my thoughts so much that I taught an entire Freshman religion class with “GOD IS LOVE” written in huge red letters on the board – I opened the class by singing the chorus of “I Want to Know What Love Is.”  I could not get over how much I purely missed everyone back home, and how much I genuinely cared for them.  Then I realized that here on the island of Yap, I was developing this feeling for the people of the island as well.  My fellow volunteers, the Jesuit priests, my neighbors, the other ex-pats, my Yapese friends, my students…. Everyone. 

            During these reflections on love – I realized that Yap has allowed me to see what is truly important – what really matters in this life.  Without the pressures of money, or job interviews or promotions, or rent, or politics - without electronics, or instant gratification, or distractions – without the comforts of our modern world – I am discovering what matters… what truly, genuinely, completely matters – what we need to live… and I mean purely, fully LIVE. 

We need people.  We need family.  We need friendship.  We need relationships.  We need eachother.  We need to be able to cry.  We need to be able to laugh.  We need to care for one another – truly, genuinely care.  We need to remember that there is good in each and every person.  We need to remember that there is God in each and every person.  We need something to believe in.  We need someone to believe in.  We need someone to believe in us.  We need trust.  We need hope.  We need faith.  At the end of the day – we need love.

The revelation hit me like a tsunami roaring through the villages of Yap.  The flood gates opened.  The tears came again – but this time they were more powerful – they were more human – they were tears of love.   An overwhelming sense of support, care, compassion, trust, hope, faith, agape – unceasing love- swept over me.  I felt love to the very core of my being.  I could feel it – really feel it – from my tiny island of Stone Money in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.  I felt it coming from 9,000 miles away.

The amount of support and genuine care from my friends, from my family has presented itself in so many forms.  I finally recognized just how meaningful all of these acts of love were – no matter how insignificant and trivial they may seem.  Firstly, I could not have even afforded to be here without the support of my family.  And on top of that – so many incredible people helped to fund my year of service, my adventure – I could not be here without you – thank-you endlessly for the financial support, but more importantly for the love, care, and belief.  I have received numerous packages from my family – and not just my mom and dad – from my aunts, uncles, and cousins – from my brothers and sisters – and so many more people have asked what they can do to help – and not just help me, but to help Yap – to help the students.  The mothers of highschool friends, of scouting friends, of Camp Minsi staffers (Mrs. Lariar – your message brought me to tears) have sent me messages asking what they can send – asking how they can share their love.  Cards and postcards have filled my PO Box and never fail to brighten my day.  My wonderful friends who are scattered across the globe doing unbelievable, incredible things to make this world a better place have written me the most heart-felt letters – an art form that sadly has nearly gone extinct in our modern world.  Teachers from high school are going above and beyond to get support for YCHS (Mrs. Stephanie Hartline – Your friendship, guidance, advice, gifts, and your being a “Result of God’s Friendship” in my life means more than you will ever know.  Miss Georjean Jones – I would be absolutely lost without the Chemistry materials you supplied.  Mr. Barry Parney – after all these years, you are still challenging me and have your razorsharp wit – your short message means more than you could imagine).  My girlfriend has been more supportive than I could have ever dreamed.  Somehow despite being halfway across the globe, with minimal communication – she is still making me fall more and more in love with her.  The e-mails, letters, and comments from my Scranton family have been rays of sunshine in an already brilliantly bright island.  And not just from my peers – from my mentors, my role models, the cafeteria workers, my maintenance girls (Bertha – I couldn’t stop telling people how ecstatic I was that you found me on facebook – and the short e-mails we share to catch eachother up on our lives make my day).  The Jesuits back in Scranton still continue to be a huge part of my life (Fr. Roach and Fr. Ron – you inspire me.. you challenge me.. you make me a better person).  The messages on facebook – the wall posts – the comments – the likes…. They have so much meaning now (Ellen, check out this personal shout out! – You have no idea how pumped I get everytime I see you have posted something on my wall)  Certain people who I was believing I would probably never see, never talk to until a reunion of some sort – and even then only if the stars were crossed – have been sending their support.  On Saturday morning, I was able to talk to so many people on facebook chat as I was waking up and they were preparing for bed – they motivated me, they inspired me, and again they offered whatever help they could give (Cathy – I am truly blessed to have you and your family in my life – you are a remarkable role model).  My relationships seem to be getting stronger – more genuine – more real.  I am realizing how much so many people have given to me - how much love is coming my way.  I am loved – and there is no greater emotion, no greater feeling, no greater power than the power of knowing, of feeling, of experiencing love.

I am going to end this loquacious post with a short story that occurred in the midst of the emotional Hurricane Michael going on inside my head and heart.  On Saturday afternoon – while I was in the whirlwind of my revelation of love – Rose and I were relaxing in the kitchen/dining room/ living room/ den (it’s just all one space) listening to and singing some songs from the “Perfect Pandora” playlist.  We heard at the door our heavenly neighbor, Mary, calling softly “Michael…. Michael…” as I belted out some Billy Joel ballad.  I went to the screen door to see her holding her great granddaughter, Summer- and she had her other hand behind her back.  When I opened the door, she revealed that in her hidden hand was a new, freshly woven basket which she slowly handed to me with an unforgettable smile.  Now… in Yapese culture… everyone has a basket.  There are many style of baskets, and depending on your age, village, gender, and social status – the baskets differ.  The basket is a very traditional part of Yap’s culture that I am confident will never die.  It is a symbol of peace, a sign of trust.  When an ex-pat carries a basket –the Yapese people take it as a sign that the island has accepted that person, and even more so that the person has embraced the island’s culture, the Yapese people, the way of life. 

I knew these baskets were not easy to make, so I asked Mary to please let me pay her to give the money to the person who took the time and energy to weave my basket.  She shook her head no and said in a soft voice and slightly broken English, “Family takes care of each other.  You are family.”

That is what it all comes down to.  We are all family.  Our blood relatives, our friends, our co-workers, our acquaintances, our enemies.  We are all family.  On Yap – no one goes hungry – the people of the island take care of eachother.  Family means everything.  “Family takes care of eachother.”  No one suffers alone.  No one celebrates alone.  They share everything – their food, their money, their homes, their successes, their failures, their emotions – it is all shared.  It is all family.

My basket

Modeling with my basket
 It's practical and fashionable

              "Family takes care of each other.  You are family." 

                                                                      -Mary