The Cure-All

(Or Suka dan Duka - Part 2)

It's to be expected that, on occasion, this little jaunt still brings with it some low times. Certainly, these highs and lows would be commonplace regardless of my global coordinates, so there is nothing special there. At home or abroad - whether it's a sudden crashing into despair or a slow funk that creeps up, one just has to embrace it. Own it.

Crash. Funk. Own. 

Here, after a proper mourning period for myself, I can usually write or run it off, or an impromptu game with kids in the desa can turn it around. Other times, the lethargy seethes at a depth that only an Amanda Bynes movie can cure. Mostly, though, it helps to keep perspective that somehow I landed myself in a Peace Corps country that values pale skin, regards badminton as one of its most competitive sports, and has over eight varieties of Oreos.

Or, I go to my bag of tricks. Being blessed with an intricate network of phenomenal family and friends, luckily brings with it a killer stock of uplifting ammo. Menudo also helps. Here is a taste:

• My niece, Emily, has a penchant for memorizing every single word to any movie she's ever seen. Here is her performance singing along with a song from Tangled. Stick in there to the end. It's award-worthy.

• My host niece from my training village, Naila, here is dancing to some Javanese tunes in her Princesses T-shirt. The more things change, the more they stay the same really.

• Additional love in the form of some NYC pals and family pulling together a dance video to my favorite song for a birthday. 

Birthday Dancing Video

• And when all else fails, I go to the masters.

In closing, here is a short story written by my nieces earlier this year on a subway ride to my apartment. I found it in my journal the other day. One wrote a phrase, the other continued, and it alternated back and forth.  

Once there was a rock named George who loved a fish named Maurice. They got married and had a rish named Maurge. It was part rock and part fish so it was tan and could swim. On Friday nights, Maurice and George went to a club called "The don't lean on the door." So that left Maurge home alone. It was not good! So he shook up a bottle of soda and shoved it in his mouth which shot him all the way to China. When George and Maurice got home they said,"Well, we'll get a new kid."

Written by: Kerry Fitzgerald & Katie DiRago

Merry Christmas and love to my fam and peeps!

"There's no vocabulary
For love within a family, love that's lived in
But not looked at, love within the light of which
All else is seen, the love within which
All other love finds speech. This love is silent."

- T. S. Eliot 
(sorry for the secular reference, Pa)