has "home" found a place to rest its weary head?

My parents are there waving from the observation
deck of little Tri-Cities Airport.

I recently returned to France after a longer than expected State-side visit that makes counting time more complicated than ever. I've officially been residing in France for over five years now, but I just spent nearly a year in the US. However, I kept my apartment in France while I was away, so I technically still resided there, I think. Um, how exactly do I answer that question of how long I've been living in France?

The complicated answers don't stop there.

Because, you see, I've also stepped over a weird threshold that I unconsciously never expected to cross: my home-life--that life where I return at the end of my voyages to my normal day-to-day rhythms--is actually in France now. Not the U.S.

Oh, I've heard about other Americans who feel that home-feeling once they return to the non-American place where they live. But because I get around so much and because I didn't move abroad expecting to stay so long and because my everyday life is far from settled-feeling and because I'm adaptable and find home both everywhere and nowhere and because I know I'm not yet fully at ease in French daily life and because my work life keeps me well-connected to the US, well, I just didn't anticipate becoming one of those Americans.

But two things happened that announced to me that I have indeed crossed over.

Transitioning from airplane to train, with plenty
of luggage in tow to make things exciting.

First, a close French friend spent some time in the US while I was there. I was excited for this friend to experience part of my US life, part of what has made me what I am. And excited that there would now be someone in France who knows me-in-the-US in a way that seemed like it would add a wholeness to my French life. Except that instead, during the visit, I slowly realized that US life isn't my real life anymore; it's not the place where my day-to-day life takes place; it's not even really the place where I feel most at home anymore and where I'm most me. Instead, it's the place of memories and history; it's the stage on which my past life took place. It's a place where I can no longer remember the shortest ways to get anywhere. It's the place where I don't have people's phone numbers already stored in my phone. It's the place where you learn who really cares that you're back in town for a visit. It took having someone from my French life dropped into my US life to make the big reveal (you might as well know that for some reason I'm imagining a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat as the visual metaphor of this big reveal ;-) ). My US life is still a good place; it's just no longer my today-life.

And then after that big white rabbit got pulled out of the sturdy black hat, I returned to my home-du-jour after months away and discovered that maybe [enter the magician with yet another rabbit to pull out of yet another hat]--despite having to rediscover where I keep things in my apartment--this place is more than my home-du-jour now. I only officially lived in this town for not-quite-a-year before leaving for nearly as long as I'd been living here. But I've returned to a life. A place where I know where to buy my groceries, where I don't have to check Google maps in order to get everywhere, a place where I have friends who welcomed me back, a place where people see me as part of their everyday lives rather than just that old friend who's dropped into town for a couple days but whom they forget to invite to things because they're not used to that friend being on the invitation list.

For those who've never experienced all of this (I was one of you until recently!), this rabbit-exiting-hat reveal is weird. It's one of those internal dissonance experiences that you want to give order to and understand but you can't really. So I think you're just supposed to accept it and move on with life. Right? Something like that anyway.

And maybe most surprising of all in this big reveal is discovering that of all the home-places my life is still tied to (hence, feeling at home both everywhere and nowhere), I kind of actually feel like I have a home-home again. But it took going away for a while and returning--returning to life and community that are real and that exist--to discover this home. It's often in the comparisons that we measure things, isn't it. How do we know we're taller than we were last year? Because our pants are too short now or because we can now look over the top of Aunt Mary's head or because the mark on the wall from last year's measurement now reaches our chin.

Back to the sometimes-rainy streets of Pau.

Accustomed as I am to that home-is-everywhere-and-nowhere feeling, it is massively unexpected to have these first stirrings of feelings of having a home in a physical place again. While I try to dive deeply into life wherever I am at the moment, I'm used to sensing that in some way I'm always just passing through, because a nomad lives in my soul. And the reality is that because I can do my work from anywhere, and because I only have to give a month's notice to move out of my furnished apartment, and because I'm here at the whim-in-the-form-of-visas-that-must-be-renewed of the French government, I really don't know how long I'll live here.

But there's still something new that I'm experiencing in this physical place that is becoming home-home more than anywhere else in the world right now.

And as with any early blossoms of feeling, I'll be testing this one out for a little while. However long it ultimately lasts, for now there's something unexpectedly satisfying and centering at giving a name to that surprising white rabbit--#ithinkihaveahomenow. (What self-respecting magic-show rabbit doesn't add a hashtag to her name these days?)

an american cathedral

One of the good parts of life in Europe is its grand churches and cathedrals. As a contemplative person, I love these spaces. I love their quiet. I love their grandeur. I love the symbolism written into nearly every bit of their structure and décor, even if I don't know how to read all those symbols. (I've written a little about that here.)

Such grand spaces have never been part of my US life. But a couple weeks ago the friend I'm staying with invited me to join her and her mother for high tea at Washington National Cathedral, an Episcopal church that has been the site of many of America's important moments of grief and celebration. The teas, which serve as a fundraiser for the cathedral, are offered by the women's guide that volunteers to keep up the cathedral's gardens. Tea includes a pre-tea tour of the cathedral, led by a super knowledgeable docent.

Though it was constructed rather recently, as Gothic-style churches go, authentic construction techniques were used so the cathedral took 83 years to construct (1907-1990). It's now the second largest cathedral in the United States and the sixth largest in the world. Though "national" is in its name, the church has never had any government funding. While numerous notable Americans are buried here, Woodrow Wilson is the only president entombed in the cathedral. According to our tour guide, he was a big supporter of having a church like this in the capital.

north carolina mountain vignettes

Along a scenic mostly two-lane highway that runs through the North Carolina-Tennessee mountains I grew up in, I was surprised to find this lovely coffee bar inside the gas station market when I stopped for a bathroom break. I decided a little afternoon caffeine would do me good and asked the woman at the register if the bar was open. She said it was, but she'd have to wait to take my order until her colleague returned from her smoke break to cover the register again. There was something so charmingly home-grown about all this that I decided to live in the moment and wait for the smoke break to end. While I later paid for my chai tea latte, the next customer was asking if the store had any worms today. The register-woman answered in the affirmative and told him where they were. He then piled a container of nightcrawlers--which looked a lot like a small tub of hummus or cottage cheese--up along with his food purchases.

I love, love, love such little moments wherever they happen in the world - whether far from home or in the corner I grew up in.

Watauga Lake, Carter County, TN - There was so much

photo-worthy scenery along this highway route,

but with few turn-offs and a schedule to keep

to, I had to content myself with this one

sun-drenched photo.

americans, please forgive me if i don't apologize for bumping into you

A sure sign you're no longer in France where

most people use long-life "shelf" milk that

isn't refrigerated until it's opened. I'm a

dedicated milk drinker, so I'm always raiding

a grocery store's small refrigerated shelves

holding 0.5 L, 1L, and occasionally 2L

"fresh milk" containers.

I rounded a corner at Walmart last night and nearly bumped into a couple coming from another direction. I intended to apologize. But it didn't happen.

I was foiled by that slow motion thing that's happening in reverse during this visit stateside. That slow motion thing where my mouth starts to say something (in this case "Pardon," as one would in France, but this time with English pronunciation instead of French - go figure), my brain stops it before it's said aloud, then those hills and valleys in my head try to figure out what I should be saying instead and why I'm having so much trouble, and then the split second appropriate for polite apologies of this sort was past as the girl in the couple murmured a "sorry," reminding me that this is what my slow-motion brain was trying to come up with.

I've been stateside for about a month and a half now, and it's been an interesting visit for discovering the way French life has infiltrated me after four-plus years there. Despite the fact that I still have slow-motion moments abroad when my American brain tries to figure out some oh-so-French situation, I have finally crossed that threshold I've heard about where that's also happening in reverse.

I officially belong nowhere now, it seems. Or everywhere.

So in honor of slow-motion moments the world over, here are a few other things that have tripped me up so far:

• I've apparently acclimated to the size of drinks outside the U.S. Many times now I've been subconsciously shocked over how huge "normal"-sized drinks are here. Twice I've been intentionally ordering a small drink and ended up being given one of the gigantic huge ones for free. This has made me chuckle. That other me--the pre-France one--would have felt like I'd won the lottery. The cheapskate current me is appreciative but really doesn't want to drink that much.
• I'm internally shocked here when servers at restaurants show up with the bill while we're still eating. It feels incredibly rude to me - like we're being asked to leave, rather than that they are just trying to provide good service and keep us from waiting. Apparently I've adjusted to the leisurely pace of most French dining (which works well for slow-eating me), where lingering long around a table is totally normal, where you almost never feel rushed out of a restaurant, and where you need to plan to start trying to get your bill about 20 minutes before you actually need to leave.
• I'm still adjusting to the fact that here it's not a mark of rudeness not to say goodbye to servers/salesclerks when you walk out of their establishment. It's okay to do it here, but it's not a cultural norm like it is in France.
• I had the hardest time the other day not using the 24-hour clock that has taken me forever to adjust to. So if I text you about meeting at 18h instead of 6 p.m., I hope you'll appreciate the little math exercise.
• I'm still kind of shocked inside when people speak nonchalantly of running to the store to pick up some sort of food product or other necessity on a Sunday. My insides want to gently remind them that stores aren't open on Sundays, especially not after 1 p.m. And then slow-motion-brain finally realizes I'm back visiting the land of Sunday-shopping-is-a-thing-here.
• On the up side - I was able to stay at a Starbucks the other night working on a proofreading project until 11:30 p.m.!!!! Such establishments in most of France are typically closed by 7 or 8 p.m.
• And a friend and I were able to enter a restaurant and order food within about 30 minutes of their posted closing time! Kitchens are often closed at French restaurants well before closing time, so this felt like a huge treat and the height of good customer service.

Et voilà! Reverse-slow-motion-brains-R-us.

being welcoming

You never know when you'll run into a good story. Who would expect that an errand-in-the-middle-of-rush-hour to replace a headlight you just noticed was out (I got tickets the last time my lights burned out before I noticed they were out, so there was no time to spare this time) would turn into a gem of an interaction?

As Lloyd helped me replace the worn-out headlamp, he happened to say something about welcoming people to America. He told me this as we walked out to the parking lot of an auto parts store not far from my house in the more immigrant heavy part of Nashville. There's a lot of Spanish spoken in this store, and probably some other languages too.

Lloyd prefaced his welcome-to-America story with a story of his own lack of welcome somewhere outside the States: As a soldier, years ago it seems, he was out and about somewhere in Europe when a man standing with a girlfriend asked Lloyd if he was "Americano." Lloyd, in his military get-up, said that he was. And the man spit in his face. Lloyd, as he tells it, is a redneck, so he charged the man. But the man's girlfriend held them apart. Some welcome.

Fast-forward to sometime more recently: Lloyd was helping a customer and asked the man where he was from. "Laos," the man replied. And Lloyd said, "Welcome to America!" And the man started to cry. Lloyd was afraid he'd said something wrong. But then the man explained, "I've been in America for 19 years, and you're the first American to welcome me here." Wow.

That gets you in the gut, doesn't it? Our pride in being American should translate into welcoming new people into our midst. Unwillingness to be welcoming sure looks a whole lot like insecurity and a whole lot like not loving our neighbor as ourself. How would you want to be treated if you were the new person in town?

roots

For a few days I'm back where I began. It's a good place to be. Especially while still-cheery autumn sun glints down on Upper East Tennessee's hills and hollers. Today for barely more than a moment I did something I've done all too rarely here, during either my growing-up days among the narrow, windy roads or on my regular return visits to see my family.

In places other than this one, I explore (old-school style, sans GPS). I take the long way home. I take roads I've never driven on before, roads whose destinations I don't know, roads that start out heading in directions I want to go without offering any guarantees they'll continue that way. I walk along sidewalks that may or may not deposit me somewhere I recognize. I meander by foot or by wheel. And I make delightful discoveries. Exploring offers you things you wouldn't receive otherwise.

Post-nice-conversation this afternoon with a fellow traveler who doesn't hail from these parts but has made a home-base here I was reminded how little I've explored the nooks and crannies of this place I still refer to as home, in the way of "home-home" that references roots rather than where my books are shelved. I haven't done things here that I have done in lots of other places I've lived in and visited. Mostly, I haven't meandered with eyes willing to see the wonder of this place. Instead, I went to high school and sewed 4-H aprons and babysat and went on youth group retreats here. Good things all but not really the same as exploring. Living, yes. Exploring, no.

In Cape Coast, Ghana, two years ago now, I stole away for some solitary moments spent overlooking the picturesque coastline, watching colorful fishing boats bobbing on the sea as two men carried fishing paraphernalia down a path and then along the beach. I wondered then if they recognized the beauty they walked in the midst of every day or if they only pondered whether the day's catch was enough for their family's supper.

When I tell people where I'm from, those with any knowledge of this place comment on its Appalachian mountain beauty. I agree. Yes, it is beautiful here. But deep down I feel a bit insincere as I nod my head. Because I'm not sure I ever stopped long enough to take in the beauty while I lived in its midst. I don't think I paused on many mountain paths in the middle of my daily tasks and looked around myself, absorbing just a bit of the prettiness I'd been plopped into courtesy of birth. I certainly didn't explore beyond the usual routes from place to place.

When I've returned to Nashville after various travels abroad, I've come back with eyes eager to see my home (in the home-du-jour, single "home" version of the concept) through a traveler's eyes. What would my new friends think of this place? What would they notice? What would seem odd and incongruous? What would seem intriguing? What would seem beautiful? What would seem similar to their homes? What would be strange and different? What would surprise them and crack their stereotypes?

Today, for perhaps the first time, I momentarily turned those questions toward my home-home in the northeastern tip of Tennessee. I explored just a little. I exited the interstate one exit early and headed toward a nearby road that appeared likely to take me to the farm-fenced, sun-brightened hills that were beckoning. I wound along the narrow asphalt for just a little while, crossing a railroad track, passing old Boone Station, and meandering deeper into the hills. That bit of time was long enough to decide there must be more of it. There is wonder here too.

It's sometimes easy to sell home-home short. To miss its charms for its daily grind. To miss its cow-dotted pastures and friendly-looking houses--scattered in delightfully un-cookie-cutter fashion along shoulderless roads--for grocery store runs and "i"s to dot or for family to visit.

But that's the beauty of travel. Done right, it brings you back home, back to where you began, just better equipped to recognize the wonder of the world you walk in every day as you catch your daily fish and finish your geometry lessons and visit your new niece. Here's hoping for more time spent exploring my beautiful home-home.

domestic travels too

I didn't need my passport to go to New Orleans, but my work there over the weekend was not so different from my writing work abroad. I was there on a little media familiarization tour, along with five other writers and photographers. As in Africa and Haiti and London, I had too-few days to try to learn New Orleans, specifically its food culture, enough to write about it later. As in those other places, I discovered that the story is best learned by talking to a city's people.

I've posted some photos and bits of the story on my other blog: www.kamirice.blogspot.com. Today I'm writing up more of the New Orleans stories that I was hired to write. Eventually I'll post links to those stories.

reunited. in more ways than one.

I've spent much of this week being reunited with my long-stored belongings. And it's mostly a happy reunion, except for the part where I'm a little overwhelmed by how much I still own even after all the work of purging I've been doing these past couple years. It's mostly books, though, so once those are on the shelves, the pile of boxes waiting to be unpacked will be vastly smaller. As I unpack, I'm enjoying discovering a few more things I can get rid of but am not enjoying disovering the things I did get rid of but now need again. It's much more expensive to re-buy things you once owned but don't anymore. Grrrr.... I mostly guessed right in my purging, but there are a few things I missed on. For example, is there anyone out there with an extra ironing board? :-) I sold mine at one of the myriad yard sales, and now I have an iron but no board and none available in my new home. And ironing on a desk just doesn't cut it long term. Mostly, though, I purged okay.

Today as I unpacked, I participated in a very unexpected reunion, versus all of the expected ones of the day (like the cool mugs I haven't used in ages!). You see, sometime about two years ago I purchased a ring from my sister who was selling jewelry. I loved the ring. It was the perfect style for me, and I could wear it everyday. It was one of the few pieces of jewelry I wore during my four months of travel in Africa in '07, and it was fun to enjoy something pretty. Well, fast forward to the summer of '08, and suddenly I realized one evening that my hand was naked. The pretty little ring was gone. And I had no idea where I lost it and only a slight idea of when. I looked and looked for it, but never found it. And I couldn't afford to replace it. $50 to re-buy something like that just wasn't in my budget.

I hate losing things in general and don't do it often. So it really bugs me when I do. Especially when it's something I really like. You can probably see where this is going....

Fast forward to today. When I felt like the woman from Jesus' parable in the Gospel accounts who celebrated when she found her lost coin. As I unwrapped mugs from a cardboard box, something rolled to the bottom of the box. Hoping it wasn't a piece of broken mug, I was shocked when I discovered that it was my lost-for-good ring. It's amazing what a pick-me-up it is to find something you thought you'd lost forever. I want to tell everyone that it is found, so they can celebrate with me! And now I have an object lesson every time I look at my ring-ringed finger: my joy at finding this silly little bit of lost metal is miniscule compared to Jesus' joy at welcoming new children into His fold. And as I worry and fret about checkbook balances, my ring-ringed finger is also a reminder that God isn't an austere, miserly God. He delights in giving His children good gifts, which sometimes means giving things that aren't necessities.

surprised

I've been back in the States for 2.5 weeks now. And I'm surprised. At how clear it is that it is the right decision to stay put for a while. Because I'm tired and full.

Over the years I've slowly, slowly been growing better at first recognizing and then trying to live within the boundaries and limitations inherent in humanness. This isn't an easy thing for me as I tend to live life full with poor ability to recognize it's fullness and only end up wondering why I'm so tired all the time. Until times like this when I stop for a bit and realize that for two years I've been planning major travels while simultaneously growing my freelance biz from part-time to full-time, growing into a new church community in Nashville, deepening old and new friendships, volunteering in my community and then absorbing millions of impressions and interactions as I travel around the world. Oh and trying to learn French. And accepting assignments that I've never done before and have to learn (or fake, at least that's sometimes how it feels) my way through. And trying to read more and actually being successful at that, courtesy of my book group. And trying to cook more. And any number of other things. All while living temporarily (that means home and office are on the constant move which also means constantly lining up manpower and vehicle power for shifting belongings) in one house after another.

Part of the reason I wanted to go to London this fall instead of waiting until 2009 or some other time is that I wanted to return to the States in December. I came back from Africa in December too. And the dark days and contempletive aspect that can accompany the Christmas season, Advent, is the perfect aspect to return into from a long sojourn. I am thankful that this year I didn't have any pressing work assignments during the remaining holiday season, so I could arrive back into my family's arms for Christmastime and then rest with some dear and very fun college friends in a lake cottage in northern Indiana while we rang in the New Year. I needed that time more than I even knew when I scheduled it.

And then I returned to Nashville feeling desperate to secure permanent housing, unsure how long I could muster continued survival in the land of the temporary. Though a generous friend long ago offered me a place to stay for the month of January, until I could figure out more long-term digs, I returned unsure how I could force my way through another whole month of trying to find things in packed and unpacked and repacked bags, of how I could do my work while sitting on an air mattress on a bedroom floor, and in general of how long I could hold on a little longer. The extent of this feeling has surprised me.

Thankfully, thankfully, things have come together in good fashion for me to move into good housing next week. So I've been forcing myself to hold on for just a tiny bit longer. But this is hard. I am not at rest. I am not settled. I am thankful to be able to write at all today because I haven't felt I had the capacity for writing, even for journaling, for what feels like a while but is probably only a couple weeks. Yet I am glad that the visceralness of these feelings will make the contrast of settledness so visceral too.

I am also eager to stop for a while and listen to and process all that's been poured into me these past two years. I am still in Nashville, and I am still writing, and many of my friends are still the same. Yet everything has also changed. These two years of fullness have launched new things, and I am excited to stop long enough to learn what these new things are.

I am thankful, too, for friends who affirm my weariness, who tell my always-onward self that it's okay to retreat a little for a while, who understand why all I want to do right now is sleep and read and sit with my friends.

Originally, I was planning to return to England this year, hoping to get in a full six months abroad. But over the fall months in London, though that continued to be the plan I wanted, I never felt full peace with it. So I proceeded with it until God made more clear that instead I need to stay in Nashville for a while. And as much as I would love to head back to London so soon, I've found a bit of relief in the rearranged plans, and I am very excited to participate in Nashville life through the larger eyes and heart I'm bringing back to my city. And I'm excited to trust God for all the places and people I hope to get back to some day and for all the new ones I hope for too. And I'm hoping and trusting that stopping for a while will better equip me for those places and seasons even as stopping works out it twin purposes for my right-now life too.

tilapia is the coolest word of all

(For photos to accompany this post click here or scroll down to the January 8 entry.)

Two weeks ago tonight I enjoyed one of the perks of my job. My writing-assignment-of-the-week was a profile story for Nashville Arts Magazine on a couple of Nashville’s restaurant owners. Mid-afternoon I met them at one of their restaurants and got to know them a little as we chatted and I wrote down their answers to my questions. Very pleasant people.

As we ended our interview time, they invited me to come back to that restaurant, the one in Sylvan Park, and to their other one in, the one in East Nashville, and enjoy a dinner on them, noting that experiencing their restaurants would be helpful for writing the profile story on the owners. Very wise people.

I decided it was a good week to take them up on their offer, even if it was going to take up more of my time and even if sure-to-be-scrumptious meals are better enjoyed with dinner companions than alone. My cupboards were fairly bare, and my meal-creating energy almost completely depleted. Taken together, this created a good moment for a job perk. A good meal is surely nearly as great as health insurance, right?

So Monday night I enjoyed a drive through East Nashville streets that always make me want to own a little front-porched house on a side-walked, tree-lined street with neighbors to wave at and nearby coffeehouses to haunt. And a neighborhood café that serves delicious fare would be nice too.

I ended up choosing an entrée from the list of specials for the night. The tilapia dish attracted my attention, and when the bartender recommended it, I was sold. Choosing tilapia dishes is one of the residual results of my world being opened up by my Africa travels. Tilapia. I learned I liked it. And guacamole and avocados too. These foods have been added to my list of choice foods, courtesy of Africa.

I was not disappointed. The tilapia special was scrumptious indeed, as were the cheesy grits served with it. (I always thought I didn’t like grits either! And I kind of enjoyed not liking them and being a rebel southerner. Hmmm, is there any other kind of southerner?) This tilapia was much tastier than the last tilapia order that Africa prompted me to choose and that I tried to write about on this lovely blog.

On that occasion, ‘twas the night before Christmas and I did some thing I had never done before. I ordered fish at a restaurant. My parents, my sister and brother-in-law, my nephew and I ate supper at Applebees before they closed early for Christmas Eve. I perused the menu and saw the parmesan tilapia. It made me think of Africa. Just 23 days or so removed from that continent, I was happy to take my mouth and mind back there and to have an excuse to do something I’d never done before. Actions in the service of sentimentality can be nice.

Tilapia makes me think especially of my couple days on islands in the Ugandan waters of East Africa’s vast Lake Victoria. Fishing is one of the major industries of the people who live there. And I was told that they were catching mostly tilapia and Nile perch. I don’t know what either of those fish look like, so I couldn’t check out the veracity of my informants, but I’ve decided to trust them.

I had fish quite often while in Africa. I don’t especially dislike fish, but I usually don’t choose it when there are other options. Like chicken options. And I definitely don’t like picking out those spindly fish bones. But since I usually was eating whatever was offered me during my travels, I ate fish and learned that I like it. And I particularly learned that I like tilapia, at least tilapia recently pulled from the lake. I also learned how to spell tilapia, which is a good thing to know because it’s such a cool looking word.

My novice palatte still can’t distinguish well between different kinds of fish, but now I feel like I have a fledgling relationship with one specific member of the general fish category. It’s a pretty one-sided relationship, but a relationship nonetheless. So I must now take advantage of any opportunity to deepen that relationship. So Applebees tilapia it was. It arrived with accompanying rice pilaf and veggies and earned points for choosing good friends. It had nice texture, looked good and was thankfully boneless, but when its parmesan blanket was scraped back, well, it was pretty one-dimensional. Boring. Bland.

And I have to confess that part of me was a little bit glad that looks were deceiving. Because actually, the blackened, salt-preserved fish that appeared to take hours of preparation around a wood fire was tastier than that fancy, boneless Christmas Eve version. The island tilapia was served sans head but with fins to accompany its sliverly fish bones. Fins aren’t exactly appetizing-looking, but memory says that the fire-cooked fish tasted much better and had much more character than the nice American restaurant version, which made me proud of my island hostesses. And made me feel connected to them again. Which made me wonder if my Applebee’s tilapia had been caught by one of the island fishermen I met. Which made me feel connected to them too.

And so I think it’s now a done deal that tilapia will always take me back to Africa and to kind and smiling hosts who labored over my meals and reminded me that we’re all alike on the inside no matter our outer trappings. Those are memories that make me smile and feel warm inside, whether the tilapia proves to be tasty or not.

happy reunions

Since returning from Africa, I've been asked fairly often whether it's been difficult to readjust to American life. Generally, my answer has been "no." I'm apparently adaptable enough that I can recognize that life there and here are different from each other without really being thrown by it. This week, though, I've discovered a bit of readjustment that has been trickier than I expected: the shift from the mindset of guest to the mindset of resident.

I hadn't realized quite how deeply eight months of living in the always-flexing and always-trying-not-to-be-a-nuisance non-rhythms of the traveler have infected my person. It's turning out to be a less-than-immediate shift in my head as I work to let myself settle into a place again. The challenge is less in settling into my city and more about settling into a particular abode. It just feels so foreign to have furniture and large amounts of belongings again (these things really belong to me?!), to sit down at the same desk every day to do my work, to really unpack. I’m excited to cook my own food, for example, but I'm struggling to figure out where to start in a kitchen again when I'm not just offering to help someone else with the meal they're preparing. What did I used to fix for myself when I was choosing and preparing my own meals? I'm struggling to remember.

The positive side of settling, though, is showing me just how real it's been that working while traveling is really challenging. Efficiency is nearly impossible. God's generously provided me with a great living situation with my friend Alice. My room boasts a window perfectly situated for my small desk. I get to look outside, watching people come and go (which keeps me from feeling so lonely when work keeps me holed up) and enjoying the currently white-blossomed, soon-to-be green-leafed Bradford pear tree. It's awfully nice when you're in a stage where you're a beggar who can't be a chooser and you end up with an inspiring view out your window in a room that feels good for working in (the feel of the room is quite essential to productive writing, mind you). I'm so excited and hopeful to begin to slog through to do lists that have been taking way too long to get through and to work on writing projects that are part of my processing of these past months of experience.

Perhaps partly increasing the challenge in resettling is the reality that I finally know I'm not resettling here for very long, so there's still an aspect of temporary to it all. I expect to be in Nashville only through the end of June, but that's still long enough to practice "being" for a few months. And readjustment issues aside, I'm really excited to relish these next months in my city. Now that I know where I'm going (defined loosely) I can relax and enjoy where I am. And I can enjoy where I am better because I know that rather than boxing me in it's launching me out.

Because of being in one place, I can finally begin to soak in and sort through the experiences of the past eight months, particularly the four of them that were in Africa. Up to this point, I've felt like the trip wasn't really over because I've still been traveling. And even though I'm pausing for a stretch of time, I actually feel like the trip still isn't over, because I feel like four months in Africa was really just the beginning of a new season of life. In this new season, I'm working as a full-time freelancer with no other sources of income, and I'm exploring cultures and living into this part of my life that's been waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting for the God-ordained moment to bloom. There's such a sense of energy and momentum and celebratory life in this part of this season; these are the things that cover over the awkwardness of readjustments.

As I reunite with the belongings that have been allowed to hibernate this winter, I’m discovering another bit of growth that Africa has brought for me. Traveling without so many things as I’m normally surrounded by has produced a healthy lessened attachment to my things. On a practical front that’s helpful as I embark on further purging; the purging is a bit less painful than it would be without that disconnection. On another front, though, there’s freedom. One of my lifelong challenges has been letting other people use my belongings. Perhaps it came from being the big sister of little siblings who might break things they borrowed or from living with people who are less careful with things than I am. Who knows. Whatever the reason, it’s plagued me. I’ve wanted to be generous with my belongings and have appreciated the generosity I’ve benefitted from when I’ve borrowed someone’s ladder or book or paintbrush. But, though I’ve improved over the years, I’ve continued to struggle. I expect the struggle’s still not over, but these months of being a traveler have certainly provided a bit of breakthrough.

As for what’s next, here goes the announcement I’ve been hinting at: I’m making plans to move to London this fall, in mid-September, in order to continue living cross-culturally as a writer and mostly because as much as I can understand His voice that’s where God’s directing me to go. I’m slowly getting used to saying with some level of confidence that this is what I’m doing. But, I suppose it could still fall through. My freelance life has taught me not to live in the world of the definite until after the thing has happened, and my language about future plans tends to reflect that.

In addition to that big news, I’m also planning to spend most of July in Haiti working with some MAF missionary friends to do what I did in Africa. I had to figure out what was happening with England before I could figure out Haiti, so I haven’t talked about it much, though it’s been sliding around in my grey matter (that would be brain not hair—yet!) for months.

There are many details to work out on all these fronts. Those will come. For the moment, I’m first relearning how to live in a place. It’s an important thing to relearn.

emptying suitcases. woohoo!

Greetings! Just a quick update for now to let you know I'm finally in one place for a little while. Traveling is wonderful but so is unpacking. ;-) For the first time since last July I'm actually settling into a room for longer than 3-4 weeks (most of the time my stays have been two weeks or less). I'm looking forward this weekend to moving some of my very own furniture over to my new abode off Nolensville Road in Nashville, where I'm living with my generous friend Alice. It's quite amazing to shift gears in my head from being a constant guest in people's homes to living in one again. I'm excited to cook for myself and use my own towels! I suppose it's true that traveling helps you appreciate the simple pleasures of life.

Nashville's blooming Bradford pear trees and other flora are announcing that spring is here. It doesn't seem time for it yet, but that's because I still feel like it should be fall. My timing's still a bit off seasonally. I'm glad to welcome spring, though. And glad to be in Nashville for it.

Plans are afoot, but I'll wait for a future post to announce them. Stayed tuned. All signs are saying that more adventures are still ahead!

are we so different?

During the month of January, I was busy writing up stories from information I collected while I was in Africa. Until now, I didn't quite realized exactly how much work I lined up for myself during this trip. Normally, I might be working concurrently on 4-5 stories at the very,very most. I might have other stories lined up to work on after those stories were completed but wouldn't have to work on them until the first set was done. I didn't get to order things that way this fall. Instead, I just had to collect mounds of information, trying to make sure I collected the right information, and then sort through much of it once I returned to the US and finally had time to write.

The result of that process has meant that, as I write the stories, I've been revisiting places I visited months ago, places I didn't get to sit in for long before having to move my head and heart (and feet, too!) on to the next stop. It has been good to go back to them now with slightly more time for listening to what they told and taught me then.

While in Kenya, I interviewed two men who are government employees, perhaps accurately categorized as mid-level manager types, one more senior than the other. I met with them in their offices in the main government building during my fourth or fifth week in Kenya. By that time, I'd heard plenty of stories about government corruption, misappropriation of funds, road projects uncompleted because of the corruption and misappropriation, etc. (And I'd ridden on said roads and experienced their terrible state.) I'd heard stories of Kenyan pastors exhorting their congregations to pray for the evil spiritual hold on government to be broken--particularly in light of the upcoming election--,citing reasonable evidence that political leaders have to take oaths and make agreements that amount to pacts with the devil, something that stems from Kenya's (and much of Africa's) spiritist history. Additionally, I heard stories about the growing violent, gratuitous crime in Nairobi, in particular. The things that are happening with increasing frequency there sound very similar to the reports that come from Johannesburg, one of the most dangerous cities in the world. I heard stories about a former president who was a friend to the church yet was considerably shady.

So, to be honest, based on the things I heard when I was in Kenya, the things happening there now, though nothing short of tragic, aren't surprising to me. The seeds for all of it, from rigged elections to awful violence were there. In many ways the reports about how stable Kenya was and how surprising all of this is don't feel correct to me. Perhaps it was stable by the numbers or on economic fronts or on world diplomacy fronts or something, but in just a few weeks of listening there, one could hear a very different story.

However, in spite of all that, when I interviewed the government guys, I came away hopeful for Kenya. It seemed the government was working on some important reforms, and these guys were excited about them. One of the reforms was a shift from process-based management to results-based management, a shift from services getting bogged down in the process but never delivering to government entities and employees being evaluated on the actual delivery of services and products. Employees were being given performance contracts with expectations for work to be completed. Additionally, both men spoke well of ways to address other issues and of the possibilities for pan-Africanism (greater cooperation economically and otherwise between African nations, perhaps in the spirit of the European Union) to help solve some of Africa's challenges.

One of my interviewees gave me a copy of a brochure describing "Kenya Vision 2030, a competitive and prosperous Kenya." As I read it in January, in the midst of the post-election violence, I found it sadly ironic. The Vision 2030 development process was launched by Pres. Mwai Kibaki in October 2006. Here are some quotes from the first page of the document I was given [emphasis mine]:

Kenya Vision 2030 is the new country's development blueprint covering the period 2008 to 2030. It aims at making Kenya a newly industrializing, 'middle income country providing high quality life for all its citizens by the year 2030'...The vision is based on three 'pillars' namely; the economic pillar, the social pillar and the political pillar...The economic pillar aims at providing prosperity of all Kenyans through an economic development programme aimed at achieving an average Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rate of 10% per annum over the next 25 years. The social pillar seeks to build 'a just and cohesive society with social equity in a clean and secure environment'. The political pillar aims at realising a democratic political system founded on issue-based politics that respects the rule of law, and protects the rights and freedoms of every individual in the Kenyan society.

It's frustrating that the current president could have endorsed such a plan and then act as he has in the current situation. And Raila Odinga seems little better. From afar it sure seems like neither of these men really has the best interests of their dying and displaced countrymen in mind. It's hard not to believe they're not both motivated mostly by a desire for their own power.

It's also hard to understand the depth of hate that spawns ethnic violence. (I found an excellent BBC radio report here that was helpful. It's just over 20 minutes long but is worth listening to.) On Friday, though, I was reminded that we're not immune to such things here in the US. The Graduate Christian Fellowship group I'm part of at Vanderbilt University invited a speaker on immigration issues to address our group gathering.

I've struggled to follow the immigration issue that has been a fairly hot topic for a couple election cycles now (senate/congressional and now presidential). Mostly I just know I've heard things from people and commercials and sound bites that seemed pretty uncaring (to put it mildly) toward the immigrants in our midst. Plus, I'm increasingly confronted by the reality that my closest relationships fall within a fairly small subset of the American Christian community, so there are things being espoused by American Christians that I don't think of as widespread because I don't hang out with people who talk that way.

Our group discussion on Friday night included an attempt to understand what Scriptural exhortations are relevant to this issue. We discussed Biblical commands toward love, hospitality, and care for both neighbors and strangers and commands against from selfishness and hoarding what we have away from others. We talked about addressing the in-country issues and economic disparities that prompt people to try to get into the US. People shared stories of Christians they know who actually say that people trying to cross the border should just be shot. We talked about how many of the illegal immigrants are hard-working people who are less likely to be involved in crime than American citizens. We wondered how many people who advocate "keep 'em all out, shoot 'em if they come in" type measures have ever considered themselves in the shoes of those trying to get to America. We discussed how much racism plays in: why do we always only talk of Mexican immigrants when there are Canadians working illegally in the US, too? We talked about how Americans want to be free to go anywhere they want but want to keep other people from coming here. And, we're all immigrants to this land anyway, so where to do we get off trying to keep other immigrants out? We talked about how much fear feeds and plagues all of this: economic fears, fear of "the other," and so many more fears.

We acknowledged that the issue is complex, and we didn't solve it or figure out which immigration policy to endorse. (Though I wish we could just let whoever wants to come, come, I guess I understand why we can't do that.) It was good for me--in a this-is-the-truth kind of way--to be reminded of how much hate still exists in our country. We can take a moral high road and condemn what's happening in Kenya. But, perhaps we should consider how far away we really may not be from something similar here. Bad things must certainly follow when we don't love our neighbors, be they like us or not like us.

whereabouts

Sorry for my pretty lengthy delay between posts! I've got much I want to get written for this blog yet, but I've been very covered up with writing assignments, most of them still from information gathered in Africa.

I wanted to give you a quick update on my schedule, though. (Partly so those of you in Nashville will know when I'm in town!) I arrived back in Nashville last Wednesday night. I plan to be a good citizen and vote in the presidential primaries tomorrow. (That information isn't particularly relevant to this post, but, hey, I don't see any editors around these blogger parts. ;-) ) I'll be in Nashville until Feb. 18 when I'll head to the UK for two weeks of hanging out with friends and investigating options. Then back to Nashville for a couple days before heading up to Illinois to spend some time with all four grandparents and extended family. Then back to Nashville for a couple months at least.

It's a strange thing to be living this bohemian nomadic existence for a little while longer. I've had friends who've done it in the past, and I always wondered quite how that worked. And, now, suddenly, without planning for it, that's become this stretch of life for me.

I continue to be amazed at God's provision and presence in the midst of all the great unknowns of this season. There's much molding that happens in a year of sleeping somewhere different every couple weeks, in a year of depending heavily on the generosity of others (both friends and strangers!), in a year of learning to receive well, in a year of soaking in all the little provisions that add up together to be God's great care for me, in a year of hoping to steward that care by passing it on to others.

This month and next I'm beginning to do a couple group reports on my trip. Mostly likely Sun, Feb. 17 in the afternoon will be the date of the "report gathering" for my church, but others here in Nashville are welcome to come to that. Email me or leave a comment in my blog if you'd like more info. On Fri, Mar. 28, I'll be the "speaker" for the Vandy Graduate Christian Fellowship large group gathering. Then, in March or early April, I'm hoping to hold some other sort of gathering for Nashville friends and supporters who aren't connected to either of those groups, though any of you are welcome to come to the groups' gatherings, too.

I welcome your prayers in this season. I'm still praying through what's next. Most up in the air is where I will live, as I expect to continue freelancing. I'm in a reasonably rare spot in life in which I have a great deal of freedom. I have no home. My belongings have already been packed. I'm almost at a point with my work that I could live almost anywhere (add in a bit of God-orchestrating on the work front and I could live anywhere). I don't have a husband or children to consult. I'm not in great financial debt. I have a current passport. And, to top it all off, my immunizations will continue protecting me for a while, and my travel luggage has already gotten some travel experience! I feel a sense of responsibility to steward well this moment, this time of opportunity. So, please pray with me that I would do that.

Here's the recap of the schedule things I mentioned above:
now-Feb. 18: Nashville
Feb. 18-Mar. 3: UK (London and Oxford)
Mar. 3 - ?: a couple nights in Nashville
approximately Mar. 5-15: Illinois
Mar. 15-at least mid-May: Nashville

Feb. 17: tentative "tell about my trip" gathering for Grace Community Church folks and anyone else who wants to come
March 28: Vanderbilt Graduate Christian Fellowship large group speaker

from zimbabwe back to kenya

To update, my parents' town does, after all, have a coffeehouse, and I did a bit of work there today while drinking an adequate hot chocolate that wasn't as tasty as the "luxurious hot chocolate" I enjoyed on several occasions at my South Africa coffeehouse spot of choice. But, as the saying goes, beggars can't be choosers, and I was glad for a coffeehouse-ish place to go.

The coffeehouse has about five tables. As I was the last to exit after the "morning rush," I overheard one of the two workers comment excitedly that they should have taken a picture because at one point all the tables were full! It was nice to be part of an historic Independence (Kansas) moment.

On my way out I quickly browsed the retail tea section (the coffeehouse also is equal part retail establishment selling health food type stuff) and happily discovered that they sell Celestial Seasonings Bengal Spice tea. I discovered this tea when I visited a friend in Denver and she brewed a tasty cup of it for me. I picked up my own box at the Celestial Seasonings gift shop after our tour of their Boulder, Colorado, plant. I've never found it in stores, so I've been rationing my one box, which is now packed away somewhere in a box labeled "kitchen stuff." It might be time to replenish my stock.

Anyway, on to the real reason for this post. I've just revisited a blog I discovered a number of days ago and have decided it's time to tell you about it. The blog writer keeps her identity fairly anonymous, but it's apparently written by an African woman in Nairobi. It's very well-written, so I recommend it to you first on the merit of its writing and second because the writer is providing some helpful overview of what's happening in Kenya. I'm sure there are other good blogs out there, but this is the one I'm frequenting: What An African Woman Thinks.

appreciating what you've got

One thing my Africa travels taught me to appreciate is the American political system. As frustrating and fallible as it is, it still gets some things right. I now appreciate term limits that can't be changed at the whim of a head of state. I appreciate election days that stick. I appreciate a Constitution that set up some good safeguards. I appreciate not being afraid to go to the polls on election day. I appreciate a country in which all jobs are not "government jobs" because the government doesn't run everything. I appreciate decentralization now that I know what it means.

When I left for Africa at the end of July, candidates were campaigning and the media was pontificating. It all seemed like a little too much too soon. I mean, it was still a year and a half before the presidential election! Calm down, folks. Besides, I was busy packing and writing and planning and sorting and preparing and organizing. So, I didn't pay much attention to the fine details of campaigning. Plus, I'm fairly cynical about ever being able to get real information from the campaign machinery anyway.

In Africa, though, especially in Kenya and Uganda, some of my new friends and acquaintances asked me about our elections. Mostly the Kenyans asked me about Barack Obama. (I didn't know until I was in Kenya that his father was Kenyan.) And mostly people asked me who I thought was going to win: Hillary or Barack. Still, it was a sobering reality check on the way the world follows our politics. What happens here affects them.

The week I returned to the US I happened to read the Atlantic cover story (December issue) on Barack Obama. I don't know yet who I will vote for, but this article did raise some interesting points. This one hit me with more force than it might have otherwise, since I was fresh off the plane from international travels:

What does he offer? First and foremost: his face. Think of it as the most effective potential re-branding of the United States since Reagan. Such a re-branding is not trivial—it’s central to an effective war strategy. The war on Islamist terror, after all, is two-pronged: a function of both hard power and soft power.... The next president has to create a sophisticated and supple blend of soft and hard power to isolate the enemy, to fight where necessary, but also to create an ideological template that works to the West’s advantage over the long haul. There is simply no other candidate with the potential of Obama to do this. Which is where his face comes in.

Consider this hypothetical. It’s November 2008. A young Pakistani Muslim is watching television and sees that this man—Barack Hussein Obama—is the new face of America. In one simple image, America’s soft power has been ratcheted up not a notch, but a logarithm. A brown-skinned man whose father was an African, who grew up in Indonesia and Hawaii, who attended a majority-Muslim school as a boy, is now the alleged enemy. If you wanted the crudest but most effective weapon against the demonization of America that fuels Islamist ideology, Obama’s face gets close. It proves them wrong about what America is in ways no words can.

Interesting.

Since returning, in light of all the things I newly appreciate, I've been trying to catch up on the candidates. It's hard going. I watched part of the Democratic debate on Saturday night. Until it reached the point that all debates seem to reach: candidates repeating their catch phrases in answer to every question, not saying anything new after the first half of the debate. Like I said, our politics aren't perfect, but as I pray for Kenya, I'm glad for what we have.

where in the world did 2007 go?

Or perhaps I should say, Where in the world did I go in 2007? As the clock launches us into a new year, I find myself wondering, Where in the world will I go in 2008?

After spending Christmas week with my siblings and their families, I've traveled with my parents back to their home in Kansas. It's good to be here and to feel like it's the closest I've currently got to a physical home. Even though I didn't grow up in this house and don't know which kitchen cupboard holds glasses and which one holds bowls, at least the bowls and glasses inside the cupboards are the ones I grew up drinking and eating out of.

I've unpacked my clothes, and tomorrow I'll start sorting through files and bills and other fun things. Nothing like celebrating the arrival of a new year with file folders! Yippee!

This is a thick time of life. There's so much opportunity, yet so much to be done in order to capitalize on it. There are so many unknowns, yet I don't want to rush too quickly through to the other side of them, back into the known (though my life tends to linger mostly in the unknowns even when things are in order).

I'm glad for the short days this time of year and glad that we get to live in Advent and Epiphany during the dark, cold season, in contrast to my African friends. Somehow those conditions outdoors are good for cozy reflection and prayer indoors.

It's been good to be with family, to have them ask me about my travels, my impressions, my experiences. It's good to talk about it. Yet, I understand somewhat what some of my missionary friends in Africa said about how hard it is to explain things to people, how hard it is for people who've never been to Africa to understand stories about Africa. But I guess that's probably true of anywhere.

Now that I've reached a place I'll get to sit still in for a little while (though this month is sure to speed by faster than I was when I got my last speeding ticket ;-) ), I'm able to better feel the yearning to go back to Africa some day, more than once and hopefully sooner than later. But, it's not time yet, and I don't yet know what will be the particular context for my return trips.

These past months have taught me some good and important things about the vocation and calling God's made me for. But, pieces of those lessons are still a little unclear, dangling just out of reach, not quite grasp-able. I look forward to taking the steps to reach those dangling things.

One of the little things I can do in the aftermath of my Africa months is pray for and with new friends across the ocean. It's challenging to stay informed sometimes, but it helps when I get emails from folks in Kenya asking us to pray for their country. More than one of the countries I visited during my travels was gearing up, like the U.S., for presidential elections. Kenya is the first of those countries to hold their elections. Many were hopeful that Kenya could be a model for fair and peaceful elections and governmental transition. However, that hope hasn't been met positively. Please join our Kenyan brothers and sisters in praying for their country, for an end to the chaos that has erupted following the vote counting, for tribalism not to divide people, for truth and peace.

May 2008 be a year that God's grace and truth and mercy are newly absorbed by places and people that have dark histories.

subject to change

Where I'll be when over the next few months and beyond is still being sorted out, but for those who want to know (and for those who don't but wander over here anyway!), here's the plan I've got so far:

• now - Dec. 22: livin' it up in Nashville
• Dec. 22-sometime after Christmas: finally catching up with the fam in East Tennessee, the land of my birth
• sometime after Christmas-sometime in late January: keeping my parents company at their Kansas digs
• late January/early February: back to Nashville for some work and a "report from Africa" gathering of some sort
• February: some traveling for such purposes as scouting out future options and saying thanks to supporters
• March-ish until sometime: livin' it up in Nashville

I appreciate your prayers as I also pray and listen, seeking to hear where and to what God's leading me next. I plan to continue freelancing, but beyond that the road ahead's wide open. I've got ideas, but they're not quite blog-worthy yet. Mostly, I'm praying I'll be a good steward of the opportunity I've got to move almost anywhere or to stay where I am, the opportunity to re-evaluate and make an intentional and hopefully obedient decision.

almost home

I’m sitting in the airport waiting for the final flight of this trip. It’s been delayed, giving me time to sit by myself and ponder, giving me a moment of pause before I fully re-enter a version of my old life. Though I’ve now been back in the U.S. for almost a week, it’s the return to Nashville that will signal the real end of this Africa trip. Even there I’ll still be in transit, surrounded by suitcases and without a physical home, but in spite of that I will have to take up some version of normal life and responsibility again. I have Africa assignments to finish, but I’ll be buying my own milk and cereal after driving myself to the grocery store. I’ll be checking in with clients and facing a mountain of mail. Though I’ll still have Africa in my head and on my fingers, I won’t officially be traveling anymore.

I’m nervous as I head back, though less nervous today than yesterday. Still, I don’t think my old life will fit me anymore. More honestly, I’m hoping it won’t, and perhaps I’m more afraid that it will fit. I don’t think I want it to.

I don’t know yet exactly how these four months have changed me. Has it been in big ways? Or small ways? Or somehow not at all? It’s in returning to Nashville, it seems, that I’ll begin to see what’s changed in me and what hasn’t. Though part of me doesn’t want to go back there, part of me knows I have to for a little while at least. I don’t think I’ll be staying there. That’s not certain yet but seems likely, which makes returning “home” even more odd and full of mixed emotions. After four months away, I’ve disconnected from the place. It seems a bit tiring to think of reinvesting there for a blip of time before fully moving on. But, at the same time, I need that reinvestment and reconnection. And, don’t get me wrong, I really like Nashville. It’s been a good place for me to be these past five and a half years. So, thoughts of leaving don’t come without sadness.

Already Africa seems a long way away. I know I was there, and I have the stories and pictures and souvenirs to prove it, but already it feels like another lifetime. What was so real in those moments has begun to morph into legend and fairy tale. I guess that’s what happens when you travel through time, when 6 pm to 6 am is 19 hours instead of 12 and you enter your time machine on one continent and exit it on another.

I want the true Africa stories--the everyday, unlegendary, this-is-what’s-in-front-of-me-today stories--to live long. Now removed from Africa, my time there seems too short, too cursory, too much of an overview, like a summary rather than a book. And while I hope to go back some day, perhaps for longer, perhaps under different specifics, I can’t really live in that desire at the moment because I also just need to be home. I need to be with old friends. I need something solid under my feet. I can’t yet strike out on the next adventure. And I’m not comfortable acknowledging these needs, but it feels important to voice them.

Home. I’ve struggled with knowing what language to use as I try to say I’m going back home. With no permanent address other than my p.o. box and no house for my bookshelves or dresser for my clothes, language about home seems false and fake. I watched the movie The Terminal while I was in South Africa. It’s a nice movie to watch while you’re traveling, and I feel increasing empathy for Tom Hanks’ character who’s stuck in an airport without a country, without a citizenship, without a home.

I’ve read some things lately about our home being in God. That’s true. I buy that. And there’s settledness in that. But, whether because I haven’t fully lived in the reality of that yet or because I’m still a human being living on this earth, it seems that however true my God-home is, my feet still yearn for a place to slip off their shoes and prop themselves up on a familiar coffee table when they return from their adventures. They’re not looking to end the adventures, just to have a safe, quiet, familiar place to come back to. But, perhaps being greeted at the Nashville airport by generous, caring friends will be that safe, quiet, familiar place more than I expect.

coffee, coats and cape verde

I’ve hit coffeehouses with a vengeance this week, with an average of 1-2 visits every day, mostly because they’re convenient places for meeting up with my DC friends rather than because I’ve been dying for coffee. Last night was my third or fourth Starbucks visit, all of which have been bittersweet (sounds like I’m describing Arabian Mocha Java or something, doesn’t it? :-) ) because they remind me that I’m just an alumnus of that family now, not a real member anymore.

After I paid for my grande peppermint hot chocolate, the guy behind me in line complimented my coat. For reasons that deserve a whole other story, compliments on my coat are particularly sweet to receive. I explained to him that I’d just returned from four months in Africa, so I’d just purchased the coat.

“Oh, where in Africa were you?” he asked.

I listed the countries. He was excited and envious. He’s never been there yet, but his parents are from Cape Verde. Honestly, I didn’t really know until this trip that that’s a country, an island country off the coast of West Africa. I think coat-complimenter guy said they speak Portuguese there. He’s always wanted to go visit West Africa. (To learn more about Cape Verde, click here.)

He asked what I was there for. I explained I was a writer and had done work for some non-profit organizations. Then tell people, he said, that Africa is more than poor people, that it’s beautiful, that there’s more to the story. I told him that was already in my plan.

He walked off, and on the eve of the real end of this trip I felt like I’d been given a mandate.