Vacation, all I ever wanted

Vacations are a truly wonderful thing. I don’t think I got that, growing up, though we traveled each summer as a family. Perhaps the real value of vacation hits you when you’ve been working really hard.

At the end of December, I began to realize I was soon going to need one of these fine things; it was not even an option. So I checked in with my friends Bec* and Pinky, who had given me an open invitation to visit them in Northern Ireland.

Fast-forward two months (kids cook bike kids fold the laundry kids scrub the bathtub kids have a good cry kids). Then, the children left Paris. Sigh. Here’s a vaca recap:

Intending to visit Musée d’Orsay, I biked down to the heart of Paris, only find it to closed. So, I spent a sunny, clear afternoon wandering streets and ogling monuments. Then Amber texted me and wasn’t too awfully far away, so I grabbed a bike and pedaled along the Seine in late-afternoon sun. I might have laughed aloud at how beautiful it was. Then I got to have a beer with this lovely friend.

The next day, I skipped my initial plan to go to a museum, put Billie Holiday on the stereo, and made a giant batch of minestrone and a pot of chicken broth. And also spied on an intriguing old-man neighbor who smokes a pipe, and took a long nap.

After lunch with the YWAM team that Wednesday, I spent, no joke, nearly seven hours straight on Skype. It was deep, exhausting, and glorious.

Thursday, it was time to go to N. Ireland. On the plane, I nearly cried as the Irish flight crew casually joked and chatted with the passengers. The French spell of standoffishness was broken, and I felt my heart relax into Anglo-Saxon comfort.

Bec and Pinky welcomed me for five days in their cozy little home in the countryside outside Belfast. I was greeted with welcome presents on my bed, including slippers Bec had knit, for which Pinky had cut wood buttons—and I continued to be taken care of in manifold ways.

We spent a beautiful, radiant day on the Northern Coast, savoring the odd rock formations and crashing waves of Giant’s Causeway and the sandy dunes of White Rocks Beach. Then we ate out and took away massive desserts, enjoyed in the wood-heated living room while watching a movie.

Bec took me shopping and on walks, and oh! We had such wonderful conversations. She’s such a lovely companion, asking quality questions (one of my love languages) and adding interesting commentary or observations. It was rich to catch up on one another’s key people and events and thought processes from the last year and a half. For me this was a much-needed chance to verbally process the last five and a half months here in Paris: such a gift.

Some other things I love about Bec and Pinky are that they live simply and beautifully in a mobile home next to the Pinkerton family farm, they garden, they intentionally cook and eat well, and make hospitality a priority. While my relations in Paris have felt so “unlike” me in these kinds of lifestyle choices, the Pinkertons felt like family, cut of the same fabric. Being a part of that home for a few days blew fresh air on my identity and desires in these key areas of land, food, and hospitality.

This was a marvelous thing to leave with—as were the other goodies Bec packed in a sack for my day’s picnic. A series of buses took me south to the small coastal village of Rostrevor, where I had booked a five-day stay at a YWAM base which exists in part for the purposes of spiritual retreat and rest. It’s well-equipped for the task: a giant house, with many rooms, comfy chairs, and bookshelves full of books. Across the street is the beach, which looks across the bay at a patchwork Irish hillside; behind the house and across the street is a lovely park, and behind that is a mountain forest traced with trails and lush falling streams.

I was there to be alone with Jesus, to rest, to process the last couple of months, and to work things out and begin to make decisions about next year. So I spent several hours a day reading, several out walking (coast, villages, mountain), and several praying and processing.

It was a little odd to suddenly find myself more or less alone. But I never got bored; I felt alive and inspired there, energized by incredible scenery and long nights of sleep. There was lots to think about and pray through, and if it got rough, all I had to do was look up, out, or around and see the wild Irish mountains.

I unexpectedly fell in love with Ireland—though admittedly it was a perfect storm of a much-needed vacation, prime real estate, gentle weather, and early-spring flowers (I’m a sucker for daffodils). At the same time, though, I just had to come to terms with the fact that I was going to leave a part of my heart in Fairy Glen, along a path between green-mossed pools of flowing water and sweet-smelling groves of ancient trees. What’s incredible, though, is that it was like the Lord used this tailor-made scenery to woo me, to soften and refresh my heart, and douse me with the goodness of his Presence. In those five days, Love woke up in me, again, but different and special and stronger than ever.

And then, I caught another series of buses on a perfect, early-spring Irish day spotted with puffy clouds, and I came back to France. I feel changed, imprinted with something divine and delicious that’s a whole lot deeper than just having visited friends and seen some lovely countryside. There’s not much set for what’s ahead, but I feel full of life and courage in a new way, ready to take on the road ahead.


*Bec and I became fast friends in the summer of 2010, when she stayed at the Boulevard for a month. We talked, cooked, and hosted, and found we have many common interests. Since then, we’ve kept up by snail mail and Skype.