Enjoy the moment!

I had carefully checked the weather forecast before I headed out the door this morning to hop on my bike to go to a staff meeting that morning. It was overcast with a 30% chance of precipitation. It was perfect going there — cool enough so that I didn't even work up much of a sweat riding up the couple of hills I have to go through on my regular route. After we had wrapped things up at the meeting I went outside and could smell the freshness of rain mingled with concrete and could see raindrops bouncing off my saddle. "Well, this is just great!" I thought rather sarcastically to myself, "I'm gonna get wet!" To make it worse, I had forgotten my wallet that morning so I wasn't even able to grab lunch or shop around and wait around for the rain to stop. I decided to brave the weather as I just wanted to get home. Thankfully, it was not pouring, and I had definitely been caught in worse before! I tried not to grimace too much as I squinted my eyes, deflecting the drops that were flying into my face. The thought, "Enjoy the moment!" flitted across my mind as I was getting wetter by the second. I tried to look at it in a positive light: it was (somewhat) fun, it was refreshing and it was unexpected.
Bear with me as I digress a bit. After growing up in an arid, desert climate my entire life, I used to welcome the thought of rain; it was always something special, worthy of celebration when it came. And now? I've become rather indifferent to it and it's even become a bit of a nuisance, especially when it entails getting wet! These are changes, among others, that I've noticed after having moved here eight months ago or so. A huge difference between the "desert child me" and the "Canadian me" was accentuated as I was skyping with my parents (who are still currently living in the Middle East) the other day and we were talking about the weather. I was saying that it was getting warmer and more humid as the temperature has been climbing into the mid-20s (Celcius) and I've even got central AC. They just laughed - current temperatures where they are are well into the 40s!!! I think it's safe to say that I have adapted to Canadian climate because that sounds unbearable right now!
While there is a part of me that dislikes 'letting go' of certain aspects of the life I knew before and clinging to a new one, a part of me knows that it's good and that it's all part of the process of accepting change and adjusting. I know that, at heart, I will always be a "desert child" and that the Middle East will always be a part of me. I know I will probably go back and live there one day. I know that hearing snatches of Arabic in grocery stores or having interactions with Arabs will always warm my heart and bring a big smile to my face. I also know that I can't live in the past or the future - I can't live in the memories of home and I can't live just waiting to go back. I want to live in the present, engaged with my current surroundings and the people around me. That's where "Enjoy the moment" comes in. You will just live waiting for life to happen or be continually stuck in a weird time warp of the past if you're constantly wrapped up in the future or past. I don't want to miss the things, whether little or big, that God has for me in each day. Believing that He is constantly pursuing and romancing my heart opens my eyes to the little gifts He sends every single day that are just for me that make my heart dance: a spectacular sunset, seeing a deer in the woods, a free meal, a kind word from a stranger. . . I bet we don't see half the things He sends our way because we're too caught up in something else.

So friends, I challenge you to enjoy each moment and live with eyes wide open to catch what He is doing in the here and now. Sometimes the rain comes and we're unprepared, but it's up to you whether you choose to dance in it or grumble about it.

Home is...

The feeling of sand going through your toes
Intense summer heat akin to what it must feel like to be in an oven
Bright, blue skies 98% of the year
Rejoicing and running out to play when rain, a rare and special gift, comes
Where everything is "inshallah" (if God wills it - hopefully it will get done, but not likely)
Where weddings are big, gaudy, segregated parties that go late into the night and when the Bride only makes her appearance at midnight
Where everything runs on "Arab time" - fashionably late is the norm, sometimes even a few hours after the time earlier agreed upon!
Having to use a few matches before the gas stove finally lights
Hearing the bell ringing through the streets of the neighborhood, signaling the arrival of the gas truck - you have to go out and flag him down if you need "buta gas"
Hearing the call to prayer go off at least a couple of times of the five a day
Where taxi is the standard mode of "public transportation"
The smell of dust in the air and finding sand EVERYWHERE in the house after a sand storm
Hot manaeesh (bread dough topped with cheese folded over) or grilled chicken, tabouleh, hummus and baba ghanoush as the standard, after-church lunch on Friday
Everyone out and about come eight o'clock at night
Crowded malls and overflowing parking lots late at night
The smell of fruity shisha (hookah) wafting from cafes
The rolling red dunes of the desert, our "backyard," literally minutes from our house!
Hearing arabic, urdu/hindi and tagalog all in the same place
Watching a "new" American Idol season on MBC 4 that is actually a few seasons behind the North-American current one
Being excited to go on an airplane, eat the kids' food pack that usually had a little chocolate bar in it, and watch as many movies as we could
Making sure shoulders and legs were covered
Small finjans (cups) of milky tea with at least four spoons of sugar in it
Shabab (young local guys) racing by you in their deeply tinted or mirrored Land Cruisers
Flocks of young boys playing football (soccer) in empty parking lots or streets using their shib-shibs (sandals) or bricks for goal markers
Streets lined with little shops full of cheap candy, grocery and other miscellaneous items
Always sticking out in a crowd! Being a tall, white girl in a sea of light brown always attracted (unwanted) attention
Where Fine (like our Kleenex - what they call tissues) is in every room of the house
Shawarmas and falafels from the shop at the side of the road
The abundance of mangy street cats congregating around the garbage bins
Beautiful in its own, strange way.

Today, I miss it.