Anne, Laura, and I have returned back to Cincinnati after spending some time back home with family and friends. Katie doesn't return until after the new year so it'll be just the three of us until then.

It's good to be back in Walnut Hills and not living out of a travel bag. Don't get me wrong - I enjoyed the time. However, there's something to be said for knowing exactly where your toothbrush is and not needing to worry about liquids in containers being three ounces or smaller. For me, Cincinnati is where I feel settled right now. This is different than saying that it feels like home, because it's still not quite there yet. By the time I left my previous BVS assignment I could honestly say that I felt at home with the people and area there. Cincy is still a work-in-progress.

"Home" has become an interesting, evolving idea for me. I still refer to my hometown, Nokesville, VA, as being my home. In reality, I don't recognize a fair number of people around town anymore and I generally need a docent if I'm gonna venture more than a couple miles from the Bear household due to added, rerouted, or renamed roads. The new shopping centers and subdivisions don't help a whole bunch, either. The family and friends that I still know there allow it to still be a place to where I can return. More and more it's the people, not the place, that make Nokesville home.

There are plenty of ways to describe "home". Most of them would have Nokesville qualify for that title. What I'm missing right now is a place that I can consider my home based on these terms:

- I don't feel like an outsider at local events.
- If I plant something in the yard I'll be around long enough to see it through an entire growing season and, if it's a perennial, watch it return next year.
- The neighbors around me aren't complete strangers, even if we don't talk all that much.

This isn't all-inclusive, but it's a general idea of what I have in mind. I know it's a bit of a double standard with my current vagabond tendancies but that's what I'd kinda like to find.

Living here in Cincy has often been a struggle when considering these criteria in that we know that our time with BVS is one year and then we'll likely be moving on to... whatever. It's difficult to try to feel that this is the place I can call home when I know that by the time December rolls around next year I'll likely be living somewhere that is not here*. It seems intriguingly ironic that by choosing to come here to work at a shelter I have, once again, become homeless in a way. I know it sounds extreme and I'm fully aware that I'm nowhere near being homeless in the traditional sense of the word - it's simply a thought.


I hope y'all enjoy ringing in the new year wherever you may be.
Ben Bear


*Editor's note: There is no gameplan as to where this "somewhere" might be. Suggestions welcome.

It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas!

Christmas preparations are in full swing here at the BVS house. Last weekend we ventured to Lebanon, Ohio with some friends and cut down a Christmas tree. Here are some photos of the very cold, but fun expedition to find the perfect tree for our house.

The cutting is about to begin!!

Anne, Katie, Laura, and Ben with our Christmas tree

Happy Chirstmas decorating,

Anne

...and here's the tree going up...

...success!

Peace and blessings,

Ben

Waiting for an Absolution

"And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea........

And indeed there will be time
To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”
Time to turn back and descend the stair,.......
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse."

--Excerpts from The Love Song of Alfred J. Prufrock by T.S. Eliot

"It is life in slow motion, it's the heart in reverse, it's a hope-and-a-half: too much and too little at once. It's a train that suddenly stops with no station around, and we can hear the cricket, and, leaning out the carriage door, we vainly contemplate a wind we feel that stirs the blooming meadows, the meadows made imaginary by this stop."

--The Wait by Rainer Maria Rilke

Dear friends,

It is with one good eye and a heavy heart that I sit to write this long-overdue blog entry. I have good reason for my tardiness. For the past two weeks I have had a severe eye infection that I still do not know how to pronounce properly. I feel as though I am living in a world apart from everyone else right now. A world of plastered smiles, half-remembered conversations, daily visits to a cornea specialist, four different drops to be administered every one hour/now every two hours as well as at night, an impenetrable haze, and a pain that feels like every nerve in my eye is on fire. I have been plagued by incessant doubts, worries, and the voice of my doctor who said there was a good chance that there might be some vision loss...it repeated so often in my mind at first that it was almost like a broken record.

At the eye institute that I have been going to, I see all of these people who are also waiting for relief and an end to their pain. Many have been suffering much longer than two weeks. My heart cries out for the glaucoma patients that I have to walk by everyday. I cannot fathom the immensity of such an illness as cancer. I am brought back with the realization that I am very much alive and well. It is these people who are truly waiting.

How easy it is to be enveloped by our own pain and sufferings. Some of us do not know how to come back from that world. I had time to sit in that place, waiting for an absolution that is slow to come. It has reinforced my patience and given new meaning yet again to what it means to be vulnerable. What also brings me back is hope. I cannot claim what has not happened yet, and each new day brings more improvement.

Thank you Dan for helping me get the prescriptions that I needed to get better again.
Thank you Ben and Kristen for helping me with my eye drops that first night when they had to be put in every hour.
Thank you Bob and the Summers for taking me to my appointments everyday.
Thank you Laura, Anne, and Ben for simply being there for me. I apologize if I have been less than kind to you. You have my gratitude.
Thank you to everyone who has prayed for me. It has meant so much to me.

A friend of mine has a family member who has terminal cancer. I am reminded of my father who has had AML Leukemia (currently in remission), and my mother's brother who died of lung cancer in less than five months. People come and go from our lives, and in these moments of revelation, we see how fleeting life truly is. Yet still we squander it. I have not been able to do much else recently but sit for hours and think. I come back again and again to the idea that so much of our lives are spent waiting. We wait for the end, the beginning, or the perfect opportunity to say and do all of the things we dream of saying and doing. We foolishly believe that behind every door is another chance to do right. When we finally believe that we have the time, we rush to the door only to find a hollow space of "what ifs" and "if onlys."

To write well, we should write about what we know. This is what I know. Life/time do not patiently wait for us. There is never any more beginning or ending than right now, nor a more perfect opportunity than the present to take that first step towards something or someone. Please do not wait to tell the people in your life that you love them. It is difficult to express emotions that seem to be wholly unsayable, but try. We cannot know what tomorrow holds.
................................................................................................
On a considerably lighter note, Laura, Anne, Ben, and I went with a couple from the church to get a Christmas tree on Saturday! My eye felt well enough that I could go with them. A blessing in itself. It was like the arctic outside though, and I almost got frostbitten toes. The tree farm provided us with plenty of hot chocolate, a wagon ride, and a picture with our new tree. Then we went back to the family's house to eat chili and german cookies. Other people from the church arrived, and we had a great time just being with each other.

Later that evening, we were provided with plenty of borrowed winter trappings to brave the winter weather, and we went into the town looking like eskimos to watch the horse-drawn sleigh/carriage/wagon parade. Thousands of people were converging on the town as well. There were about 145 different carriages, all decked out with lights, bells, bows, etc. It was a sight to see. We'll have pictures for you soon.

Sorry for the lengthy blog, but it has been so long since I wrote to you and I had much on my mind.
I do hope you are all doing well.

A friend always,

Katie