Korak po Korak

When I first was in Croatia, even before we married, I think, I heard a singer named Lidija Bajuk on TV singing a song that of course I could not understand, since I didn't speak Croatian. But the refrain always included the words "korak po korak," and I remember asking my newly beloved if that might possibly mean "step by step."

He said yes. And once more I thought how all those puzzles I used to do in the newspaper had paid off. I think they were called cryptograms? All the letters had been assigned a number, and you were trying to figure out a phrase simply by making intelligent guesses based on what you knew about how letters tend to be used in patterns to form words. I'm sure it helped me in learning foreign languages because of the constant pattern recognition that is necessary.

Anyway, today that memory came back to me because I saw my doctor this morning and was told that after six weeks following a surgery, I can (and should) begin walking again.

For six weeks I have mostly lain on a couch, keeping my foot, and usually its companion, up above heart level, to prevent or decrease swelling and to help it heal. I have leaned heavily on the generous heart and strong body of my husband, and we have been immensely grateful for the support of friends with prayer, words of encouragement, meals, visits, and other ways of helping out. But the time has come that walking is what this needs to further heal. And it's what I need to live the life I normally live, which was the whole point of the surgery.

So today I took my first very tentative, very strange steps. I have to wear this surgical boot that reminds me of the stormtroopers from Star Wars. Said boot is about two inches higher than the very, very low-heeled shoes I normally wear, so each pair of steps was almost comical because of the lopsidedness. (I'll be calling the doctor about that. I don't want to develop a spine problem from lopsided walking for another month and a half.....!)

I think in my naive mind when I first scheduled this surgery, I imagined that when the day came that the doctor said I could walk, I would just be able to walk. I hadn't thought about what six weeks of not walking would do to the muscles and joints and even the part of my brain that has since toddler years just known that I could walk and how to do it.

I hadn't thought that my foot would still be bruised at this point, that the incisions would still show and be sensitive. Or that one of the major nerves in my foot would still be experiencing strange effects that sometimes resemble pain.

That's why I decided to take those first steps with the walker you see in the photos. Just to be smart, just in case I needed it.

So I thought I would just be walking to an event I've been looking forward to tonight. John Michael Talbot is coming here to teach and sing. I'm very much excited about it. I had really hoped to simply be walking, even if slowly. Now I'm wondering if I should just go with the scooter thing I've been using. I hate calling attention to myself and can't decide which is worse--to be on that thing, or to walk with a hobble and possibly "give out."

The truth is, either way I have to wear a stormtrooper boot, so I'm not exactly going to blend in, no matter what....

I'm not sure what I'll do. But it's an exciting day. And it was really neat when I took these steps and sent the pictures to my  husband, that he texted back, "One step at a time." Which is basically what "korak po korak" means.

I remember over 25 years ago when we saw her on TV, I said something like, "She seems like a lovely person. I'd love to meet her." And he told me she is from his hometown, she is his age, she is a real person that people do meet and know, even though that night she was on TV and by that time was living in Zagreb, the capital, where we moved shortly after we married. We didn't know at that moment that a war was going to start and change everything. And we thought perhaps we would connect with her.

So today when I'm not thinking about walking or the other things I have to think about today, I'm thinking about Lidija Bajuk and wondering if somehow, someday, I may still be able to meet her and tell her  how beautiful I think her voice is and that I love the simple way she plays guitar and sings. And that she has worked to keep poetry and folk stories alive. That I love how her videos feature nature and its beauty.

Maybe I should write her a letter?

Send her a link to this blog post?

I don't know. Step by step. Korak po korak. First I need to be able to walk to my desk if I want to write a real letter. And walk to the mailbox to mail it.

Meanwhile, you can listen to her music and see scenes of Croatian nature here.

And here is a song she wrote about the river that runs close to the town where I first heard of her, with pictures of it, also.

Now I'll go practice walking some more.....(and any typos are surely due to residual pain medication effects....)

Holy Saturday: Bridegroom and Wedding

I wasn't planning to write anything today, and I won't say much, except that I was so struck by this article by Elizabeth Scalia that I've decided to share it. Struck by the piece itself and by the connection to Donne's poem that I shared a few posts ago.

Scalia begins with words from Pope Benedict,

Dear brothers and sisters, let us look at Christ pierced in the Cross! He is the unsurpassing revelation of God's love, a love in which eros and agape, far from being opposed, enlighten each other.

On the Cross, it is God Himself who begs the love of His creature: He is thirsty for the love of every one of us.


. . . and I will let you read the rest for yourself. It is worth reading.


This image of Christ as Lover and Bridegroom struck me today also as I went into an Orthodox Church nave to meet a friend. I always love being there. The space itself, with its other-wordly icons and candles and silence, is beautiful, and the people I know there are beautiful.

But today it was even more beautiful, with rose petals and other flowers carpeting the floor, and flower garlands on the doorways and other places. Just as it was when I went there for a wedding a few years ago.

My friends are there now, as I write, nearly midnight. The church is about to be completely dark, except for one candle. And then light will spread and grow, and joyous music will begin, and Alleluia's will be cried out after long weeks of none. And the people will later feast as if for a wedding, celebrating a marriage unlike any other.

The Cross began in Love and leads to Love.

Poetry in Unexpected Places

We went to the Spring Art Walk on Broad Avenue last night. I used to work on Broad Avenue, and at that time my friends would say on hearing about my new counseling job, "Are you sure you want to work there? Aren't you scared? Are you sure it's safe?"

After a horribly tragic shooting that killed several members of a family not far from our building, my boss forbade my usual habit of walking the two blocks down the street between our place and the clinic we were associated with. If I had to go, I had to drive. Just to be safe.

That was over five years ago. In the meantime, a lot has been happening in that part of town. Good stuff happening. Good people making things happen. Things are changing.

Last night we went with friends to that very same Broad Avenue, a little further down the street. We visited art galleries, a just-opening bakery, a paint-your-own-furniture store. We talked with artists, ministers, a man who helps folks in the city learn how to keep their chickens to have fresh eggs. We heard live music. We saw smiles and heard laughter. Nothing felt unsafe.

A young man was sitting in a chair on the sidewalk with a typewriter in his lap. A sign held up by a friend said, "Personal Poem Written Just for You." It intrigued me, so we stopped and asked. He said, You tell me about yourself, and I write a poem. I asked about the cost. He said, Whatever you decide. After you read it, you can pay me what you want.

So we gave him about two minutes' worth of information (or less) about us, and in a few minutes, here is what he gave us. It fits so well with this that I have to share it:

We stood there and read it in the streetlight. I was impressed. We paid him.

I asked what kind of typerwriter he had. An Underwood! I said, "I'm an Underwood myself!" (It's my maiden name.)

I asked him about himself. You can learn some of what he told us here. I said I might have to write a poem about him.

He asked if we'd be willing to take a picture of the poem later and email it to him. He's working on a book. I said we would.

I said to my man, as we walked down the street as the sun began to set, "I never thought I'd be walking down this street for fun."

And I'm saying to myself right now, "I never thought I'd find poetry on Broad Street."

And then I'm thinking of all the people who sat on the couch in my office, and I said, "Tell me about yourself." And they did. I heard stories I could not hear anywhere else. Hard stories, stories of suffering and pain and courage and endurance. Stories I can never publish but never forget.

They would ask about the cost, and within a certain range I was able to say, "You pay what you can." And we didn't write poetry, though I did take notes. And I heard stories and met people and learned about lives that could make a book. I learned about the battlefields of many lives, and I give thanks for all those days, and all those years. They left a living poetry in my heart.

And I'm happy to see light and joy on Broad Avenue.

Thank you, Adam, for the poetry.

Dvadeset i Tri na Dvadeset i Treći (Twenty-Three on the Twenty-Third)

We interrupt this Lent for a special announcement . . . Twenty-three years ago today, we were married. Like today, it was a bit overcast and windy. (In fact, we have a hilarious picture of my veil blowing in the wind at one point.) Unlike today, we were twenty-three years younger and had little idea what lay ahead.

I remember hearing before I married that every wedding has something significant go wrong, that it would be bad luck if you didn't.

Well, our expectant-mother cake-maker was ordered on strict bed rest the day before the wedding. Our music director's child got chickenpox a few days before, and his wife was in cancer treatment and couldn't be exposed to it. And during the ceremony itself, one of the groomsmen fainted, nearly taking down with him all the ivy connecting the arch and flowers.

So according to the conventional wisdom, we should have been inoculated against bad luck. On the other hand, a dear woman made a wonderfully delicous cake at the last minute--and still came to the wedding despite the lack of sleep. And the music director was able to find childcare and direct the choir, which meant the world to me, since he had been my chorus director and beloved Bible teacher. And another groomsman caught the fainting one, saving the wedding from disaster; they even revived him before the end of "Lord, Make Me an Instrument" came, most people didn't even know it ever happened, as they had heads bowed and eyes closed for that prayer/song.

So, who knows, maybe all those last-minute "saves" undid our inoculation.

Of course, it wasn't "bad luck" that caused the war in former Yugoslavia. It was much more complicated than that. It may have been coincidence that we had bought our tickets to return there the very week that the war started. And it wasn't "luck" that we came from different cultures and spoke different languages; it was very much a choice we made to marry, knowing we came from different worlds. So I wouldn't say we had bad luck. But we did have a very tough start.

I've often looked back and wondered how many people choose this hymn as wedding music. Certainly today I don't hear it at weddings, and I don't know if I ever did growing up. But I knew I wanted it at ours, and Drazen agreed to it. We really were not expecting the war, but I already knew that moving so far away from home would be hard. And we knew that neither of us had "ease" or "idleness" on our list of hopes and dreams.

Father, hear the prayer we offer,
Nor for ease that prayer shall be,
But for strength, that we may ever
Live our lives courageously.

Not forever by still waters
Would we idly, quiet stay,
But would smite the living fountains
From the rocks along our way.

Be our strength in hours of weakness,
In our wand'rings be our guide;
Through endeavor, failure, danger,
Father, be thou at our side.

Twenty-three years later, by the grace of God, here we are. And it is by the grace of God.  He heard our prayer, and hears our prayers, and has given strength and guidance and many other things needed along the way.

And, I must add, I married a patient and persevering man. I don't think I'm an easy person for an engineer to live with; I know I'm not, for him. It's almost laughable to me, now a marriage therapist, to look at our scores on various personality tests. We are both extreme in most areas, and we are opposites in our extremities--except for the "intuitive" part on the Meyer-Briggs. So maybe intuitively we both knew we could make it, even with all the reasons we might not. Whatever the case, I'm thankful that he is who he is, and that he loves me as I am.

We didn't have these words at our wedding; I just noticed today that they are a part of the hymn based on St. Francis' Canticle of the Creatures--

And all ye men of tender heart,
Forgiving others, take your part.
O sing ye! Alleluia!
Ye who long pain and sorrow bear,
Praise God and on Him cast your care!

But we did have other verses sung, and thanks to God's faithfulness in all our wanderings, it seems a good way to end this writing about our anniversary.

All creatures of our God and King,
Lift up your voice and with us sing,
Alleluia! Alleluia!....

Let all things their Creator bless,
And worship him in humbleness,
O praise him! Alleluia!
O praise the Father, praise the Son,
And praise the Spirit, Three in One!
O praise Him, O praise Him!
Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!