postcards from museums I visited long ago,
and eclectic cards and letter paper gifted to me throughout childhood and college.
I also found a note that I wrote to a good friend at the end of my Mali adventure. I never gave it to him, as it ended up returned to my home instead of delivered to him. I am so glad now, because it gave me the opportunity to glimpse concretely the perspective I've gained since then.
.jpg)
This is what it said:
"Je m'excuse, mais je vais écrire le reste de cette lettre en anglais pour éviter les malentendus..
(I'm sorry, but I'm going to write the rest of this letter in English to avoid misunderstandings...)
So much has happened that I do not even know where to begin. I have been thinking a lot lately about the way you looked at me last summer and said, "I wonder how this experience will change you." At the moment, I am not sure what the answer is to that, but what I am certain of is HOW MUCH it has changed me. First of all, I have realized that I am not at all equipped to spend my life in Africa. Spiritually and physically, I feel like I am coming out battered after a period of struggle with doubt, exposure to parts of my heart that I never knew were so ugly, and lots of physical illness. The missionary community continuously kept my head above water, but otherwise, I felt like I was drowning- in dirt, an unfamiliar language, the violent temper of my host dad, the seeming hopelessness of the poverty here, my own powerlessness, and the need for solitude. I leave in one week and have never been so ready to leave a place. The experience has been one of the most important of my life, but that's just it.. it HAS BEEN. I am living in the past tense right now.. and the future. I hope I will get to see you soon, so we can catch up. But then again, you're the one globe trotting now, aren't you? Keep in touch!
Sincerely,
Shannon Adele Looney"
How things have changed since then! For one, Mali has become a nation of blatant unrest, subject to a coup, displacement of people in the North, and questions of who ought to be in charge. Before I went there, I read on wikipedia that it was one of the most stable democracies in Africa.
How ironic.
But my heart still hurts for the people who I had trouble loving while I was there. Hearing news reports from Bamako, I think of little Mina, my first friend, and her brothers. I think of the nuns at the Catholic mission, my host family, and even the many men who asked me to marry them.
I can't help but wonder if they're ok.
I wonder how a country that hosts the fairly liberal Muslims I met can also be the home of people who would like to impose strict Sharia law on Timbuktu.
I cringe when people here use phrases like "only in Timbuktu," because it reminds me of that beautiful city I never visited. It reminds me that that city is less beautiful now than in was and that the bleak situation I witnessed in Mali as a whole is now even worse.
Life has also shown me its own sense of irony since then. I have learned firsthand the cycle I'm living by seeing myself grow back into the confidence of a new graduate as soon as I started medical school. This was the confidence that I had felt strongly my freshman year at USC. However, by the time I left Mali, it was gone. I thought that I would forever stay grounded in intense humility, but I am now able to see that humble confidence defines me with much more integrity than humility stemming from a lack thereof. I was a waif, a shadow of myself when I returned. I was a tangled web of emotions from which I couldn't escape. So last year, I started from scratch and built myself again on the foundation of mindfulness, compassion, and a certain realism that I had never known before. What surprises me now is how much the result of this careful construction resembles the person I used to be. I am now my freshman self with essential but not necessarily copious new perspective.
So here's to healthy cycles, to healing for the suffering, to memories, and to using hindsight to shape the future while living in the present.
No matter how scary change may be, it is probably not going to hurt or help you as much as you think. Not that I don't believe radical change is possible. Certain things, like becoming a healthier person or committing your life to a person you love with every fiber of your being, become the backdrop for life's cycles. But as we learned in medical school, some plasticity in personality is a good thing. And plasticity means not only the ability to change but also the resilience to bounce back.
I could not be happier to exist than I am today. I feel the warmth of home, family, and relationships. I go to school and learn how to care for my patients. I run and bake, smile and debate, philosophize and grow. This is how life should be, and I will look to this glorious existence next time my life cycles into struggle and hardship.
All of this from one short note to a friend. Life is, indeed, a beautiful thing. We are all perennial plants, and if you are in your winter, I hope your spring comes soon, so that you can bloom again.
