Pie?

I'm not sure when I'll have internet access again -- I head to Tanzania at noon tomorrow. I'm sure there will be internet in Marangu on Sunday, but then I'll be on Kili for 5 days. Feeling some trepidation at the thought of the mountain, mostly worry about how I'll do having to hike in tandem with an unknown group through the unknown forces of altitude. I'm not sure that I'll be able to do all of the things that I'm told I need to do to acclimatize -- go slowly, climb high and sleep low, etc. And I hear that sheer will isn't all that effective in this particular case. So I'll go off, critical climbing gear on the plane with me, hoping to be in the experience and summit if at all possible.

So much in my head leaving Uganda. Feeling like there is a small groove that fits me here. Genuine connection to people I genuinely admire. Liking who I am here, mostly resourceful and fluid, and wondering how this fits the at-home Cate. Swirling ideas about what makes a person someone not content to be in one place, and how that fits a calm-ish life.

In bed at night, when I'm tired of reading by headlamp, I've been listening to stored up podcasts. This week, it was mostly Tapestry, beginning first with the flurry of Dawkins/Hitchens/Terry Eagleton atheism/religion/evolution conversation. Last night I heard an interview with writer/psychologist Mary Pipher, where she talked about a bit of a quiet and polite crackup she'd had after over-pacing herself doing doing doing. She told a story about having chronic trouble sleeping, while her husband slept easy and deep. As he was falling asleep, she asked him "what are you thinking about?" "Right now," he said, "I was thinking about pie. How much I like pie and how good it is. What are you thinking about?" "The holocaust," she answered.

Alone in the electricity-empty darkness, I laughed out loud. That's me.

Mary Hines asked if she ever thought the holocaust people could become pie people. "No," Mary Pipher laughed. But I think maybe we can learn to sleep better.

Somehow, I'm hoping, I can bring a little bit of the pie-side of uganda home with me.