peaches & pits & surprise visits

“Peach and pit?” my girl Henna said, her big brown eyes looking at me eagerly from across the table. It was our last night of spring break, and we were in Barcelona, sitting full and happy from the homemade sangria and tapas we’d just consumed. Peach & Pit was a game we had played each night of the trip, recounting the best and worst from the day we’d had. That last night, we were summarizing the entirety of the week into our two categories, and I sat thinking about how incredible it all had been. Traveling with some of the best people I know, seeing cities/countries I had wanted to see since I was young. 

Before the break, I flew back to the US to surprise the army boy at his graduation. I had been counting down the days until I got to see him in uniform. It had been months of talking exclusively by the almost fifty letters exchanged between us. I had learned a lot in the new independence that I’d been cultivating, as well as learning to embrace the rhythm of heartache and missing someone that comes with this journey. Reading his words over and over again, learning the curves of his handwriting, studying army structure and history (yeah I know, I’m a nerd), made me feel close despite the gap. And never had I learned the breakthrough that comes when we circle someone so intently in prayer. When I was especially missing him, I turned to the One I knew was holding him up too. We both serve the same good God, and it was comforting to know that He got to bridge that gap with us. Over and over, I’d pray something over him, and a letter or news would arrive around that very thing. It was sweet & strengthening to see connection & faith being built from oceans away in what seemed like impossible ways. 

I had long anticipated his reaction, and the way it would feel to have him hold me again as I left at 6 am from Paris to get on a train to the airport, flew to Philadelphia, then connected to Missouri, and drove to the base. In total, it was about 21 hours of travel. That next day, he would have a banquet that family was allowed to attend, and there, in the parking lot of the banquet hall, I hid between cars before running out to surprise him. He had no idea I had traveled to see him, as in the one five minute phone call we had a few days earlier, I had told him it was midterms week (it was - I took them all early). When it finally came time to reveal that I was in Missouri, not Paris, I didn’t even give him enough time to react before I flew into his arms. That moment alone made it all worth it - the countdowns, the letters, the distance. (see vid below)

We spent the next two days with him, doing the very little there is to do in that part of Missouri. Eating real food, seeing civilians, talking whenever he wanted - all of these things were almost nearly foreign to him after his weeks in training. It was gratifying to see the ways he’d grown, matured, and been strengthened, yet not hardened. Being together again brought me a peace I hadn’t realized I’d been missing, and he was newly steadier, stronger, and more loving than he once had been. I had no idea until that weekend that my body could hold that much pride for someone else’s accomplishments. 

All too soon, we were saying goodbye again for another 16 weeks and more training, this time in a new state. The tears this time ran harder than the first, maybe because the hello we had that week seemed far too small to sustain the weight of this new goodbye. I don’t know that it’s true that goodbyes get easier. Maybe we just get better at handling them. If I had been naming “pits” at that point, that goodbye would have been the biggest. 

After the quick turnaround, it was back to Paris and then to Venice the very next day. My body jet-lagged and sleep deprived and emotional. We spent the day exploring the town built on the sea, rode in a gondola, ate pasta far too divine for this world, and walked until our feet hurt. We took the train to Rome the next day, venturing to the Trevi Fountain and the Colosseum, wandering the Vatican. We ate far too much gelato, and had pizza for every meal on little checkered table cloths. We drank cheap wine and went to a speakeasy, stayed up late, and laughed until our bellies hurt. We went to the Amalfi Coast later in the week, stayed in a remote Air BnB way too far up on a cliff and right below a pizzeria. We had no wifi and had to send emails on the roof, but it was somewhat sweet to be so disconnected. We took a boat to another part of the coast, littered with beautiful, colored homes and tiny shops. Barcelona was our last stop, where we ate tapas and drank sangria as we watched the sunset. We visited La Sagrada Familia, and ventured through some beautiful parks. 

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I did some research on peaches, and found that it not only needs the pit in order for it to grow around, but that very pit gets planted when that former peach is gone, and goes on to bear more fruit. How crazy is that? What we see as hard or difficult or disastrous, is often the very thing that makes everything else that much sweeter. 

I think most things have a pit if we look hard enough. My pit in this season of my relationship was of course the vast distance and lack of communication, the ache to speak to someone you cannot contact. But then there was such sweetness in the fruit around it. The letters I have now to hold onto, the sweetness of the surprise, the appreciation of what once was so small. 

There were pits to the trip as well. It wasn’t all picturesque. We were tired and hungry and we all got snappy at least twice over the course of the week. Things didn’t go as planned, the weather wasn’t what we hoped, so on and so forth. But again, the sweetness of our adventures were only made sweeter by the pit itself. When we’d finally get food, when the sun would come out. Had we not experienced the pits, we’d never appreciate the sweetness of the fruit - cheesy, I know, but true.