ESCAPE TO EAST GERMANY

Crazy title, I know. But it's how I've been feeling lately.

Full Disclosure: I drove down my rural road to take this photo of barbed wire. 

I want to go to a communist country enclosed by barbed wire. A republic you could be shot or imprisoned for trying to leave. A place that was riddled with secret police and neighbors who might rat on you if you dared to speak against the socialist party.

I have loved ones in this place. They are my characters. I want to be with them. But sometimes my life interferes. Even other peoples' lives interfere. 

And in some ways, that's the hard part. My life, I can mostly handle. But with a hubby in ministry I end up feeling the pain of a lot of other people. Lately I've been getting that feeling - not Calgon take me away, but I just want to escape to East Germany.

And then I stop myself and say, "That's no joke. What you're going through doesn't compare."

But the more I think about it the more I realize that, at some level, it's true.  And it's okay if I feel that way. I don't literally want to live in a communist country. Of course I don't. But I remind myself of several things. 

It was hard there. But it wasn't all bad. People had families who loved them. They had school and community picnics, and free transportation and jobs. They had outdoor play and sports and art and trips to the beach.

I live in this amazing place called the United States. I have freedom to travel to nearly any place in the world. I have green space around me - a backyard with a water feature and a garden with okra, sweet corn and ripe tomatoes. But being in the United States does not mean living in Utopia.

Evil exists here too. Some people endure horrendous things that I can't comprehend. We all know this. We see it on the news. We hear about it at work or maybe we witness it first hand.  

Sometimes, to be honest with you, I don't want to hear one more story of drug overdoses, murder, war, or abuse. It would be easy to look the other way. To grow hard. To let myself not care. 

Instead I retreat for awhile - to fiction. I always thought I wrote stories to be heard. To be understood and to process what I don't understand. But lately, I've realized I also write to escape. 

Wherever my characters are; that's where I want to be - holding their hands. Listening to their stories. I can't change people in the real world.  But there's a chance I can help my characters make good choices. I might not be able to give them a happy ever after but I can give them hope.  

And the truth is Communist East Germany no longer exists. Because lots of people hoped for something better and acted on their dreams, including my characters.

"Between stimulus and response there is a space. 
In that space is our power to choose our response.
In our response lies our growth and our freedom."
Viktor E. Frankl