Ambrym Lessons Part 2: "Who's the Lucky Lady?!?"

Ambrym is a beautiful island, and not all of my three weeks there was spent lying around on the floor - I also went swimming in the ocean almost every day.  Another good place to reflect on life.  I'm not dating anyone right now, and while I love the freedom to pack my bags and move to a tropical island in the South Pacific whenever I want sometimes I really feel like I'm ready to find my life partner.  The idea of sharing all these experiences sounds great.  One day on Ambrym I was alone at the beach, standing in the water and thinking about this.  I thought about how many of us have this desire to find a person that will make our lives feel complete, to be able to say "you complete me."  I've been in love in the past, and have dated some wonderful guys, and I do know that it isn't that easy - no matter how great a person is or how much you love them, they never are able to make everything perfect.  Maybe we're thinking about the phrase "you complete me" all wrong, I  thought.  We are always being completed, moment by moment, by many different things.  Every experience we have, everything we see, helps complete us.  At that exact moment, I was being "completed" by the beautiful beach where I was.  So I ran my fingers through the water and thought, "You complete me."  I put on my mask and snorkel and swam, thinking "You complete me" to the fish I saw swim into a tin can.  I floated on my back, looking up at the beautiful blue sky and enjoying the water's support, thinking about how important it is for us to appreciate the beauty of every moment and its role in making us who we are.


Hard not to be inspired on a beach like this


Another related insight I got on Ambrym was about another common phrase: "Who's the lucky lady?!?" or "Who's the lucky guy?!?"  We usually say this when a friend has gotten engaged or started a relationship.  Of course that's exciting, but why not think of using the phrase more often - even in just thinking about ourselves and our lives.  After all, a lucky lady isn't just someone who's found their life partner - they can also be someone who's got a great job, or just bought a plane ticket, or is  enjoying a beautiful sunset, or eating a great ice cream sundae.  I wrote this idea into a poem for my friend Taylor in Alaska.  Taylor had sent out poems that she wrote to several of her friends, including me, months ago, and I'd told her I'd write one in return but never got around to it until my time on Ambrym.  So here's what I came up with:

"Who's the Lucky Lady?"
A Poem for Taylor Ciambra

Who's the lucky lady
With blisters on her toes
Poems in her typewriter
And flour on her clothes?

Who's the lucky lady
Who saw the northern lights
And learned about banana slugs
And read a book last night?

Her life's no fairy tale
It's got far too much rain
And awkwardness and "now what's next?"
And little bits of pain.

No "happily ever after" -
Her story's got no end-
But off she goes in her Xtratuffs
To find the happy around the bend.

Maybe she'll marry a prince one day
No one really knows
But a lady's luck is always born
In the blisters on her toes.



Comments

  1. Nancy Boyer-RechlinMay 22, 2017 at 2:42 PM

    Love it! reflections, poem and all. We all need to feel freshly blessed each moment, especially when life feels stale. I received inspiration for a few one-line "poems" on a recent WV walk... inspired by people I wanted to honor. Thanks for sharing.

    ReplyDelete
  2. HeidiMay 27, 2017 at 4:00 PM

    Bethany I love this post! And I love the poem! Wishing you well - letter en route :)

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

June 15 - Why Peace Corps is Hard

A lot of you have probably heard the “Toughest Job You’ll Ever Love” slogan about Peace Corps.   I’ve been here about a year now – one year on June 27 – and have done my best to share the experience through this blog.   I think most of my posts have confirmed the “love” part of that slogan – I do love this job.   It’s a truly amazing experience.   Whenever I leave or return to my village, I ride a motorcycle along beautiful red dirt roads, through fields that are now turning green again, past herds of white cattle and groups of brightly-dressed girls and women carrying big basins of water on their heads.   Dozens of people – the girls carrying water, men working in the fields or relaxing in the shade of trees – wave and call out my name.   “Gorado!   Gorado!”   The name I’ve been given means “One who has been sent from far away to achieve a mission, and returns with a good result.”   What a vote of confidence!   I have spent much of my life daydreaming over the photos and stories o
Read more

Musings from a Bench in the Port Vila Post Office

Image
All the post cards I bought during my long wait.   Yesterday, I was working in the Peace Corps Office resource room when a friend asked if I could help her run an errand.  Another Peace Corps volunteer who is serving on Ambae had a package at the post office, and it couldn't be delivered to her on her island until the customs fees were paid.  I didn't know much about how to do this, but I was free- and so I walked to the post office downtown, stopping into stores to browse as I did. When I got to the post office, I went to the desk labeled "customs" and explained the situation - but they were confused about why I had come and not the volunteer in question, and why I didn't have an invoice for the amount I was supposed to pay.  They suggested that I try another desk, labeled "items to collect" or something like that.  Before I headed over there, I got into a conversation with a couple of men sitting on bench.  In Vanuatu "storying", or c
Read more

"Blessed are the Flexible, for they shall Never be Bent out of Shape"

Image
First day of work at World Vision! The title of this post was a motto of the Rotary Youth Exchange program, and I learned it when I was an exchange student with them in Finland the year after high school.  The phrase stuck with me in Benin, as I dealt with the infinite frustrations and challenges of my first Peace Corps service.  And now in Vanuatu, I’ve had yet another chance to experience the importance of flexibility.  The good news is, whenever I get the question about whether or not I can work in a rapidly changing/flexible work environment during future interviews, I’ll be all set! Some time ago I wrote a post about my job here in Vanuatu/ what I will be doing for work.  You may not have read that post; it was very long, and didn’t have any pretty pictures until the end.  If you did read it, disregard everything you learned from it – my situation has had some pretty major changes.  Shortly after my time on Ambrym working with fellow Peace Corps volunteer Kathleen, w
Read more