Home

I am still in Minnesota. Keith and I were talking yesterday and decided that instead of 2 ½ weeks it feels like I have been gone 3 or 4 months. Not that I am not having a wonderful time, which I am. Time creeps in January and February anyhow. So I am attributing the snail’s pace to winter days.

We had to turn in our xc-ski rentals last week (my sister and I) and it promptly began to snow perfect skiing flakes. Today I will strap on snowshoes and head out with my sister’s dog, a black and white noodley looking cute thing named Buddy.

Everything is bright white, all the branches, sidewalks, roads, and already existing snow piles. This is the time of year that a little extra effort of getting outside is rewarded with quiet and peaceful vistas of white. It does take a little extra effort though and yesterday I was thinking how if you didn’t have access to snowshoes, skis, trails, how this long lasting snow could feel so formidable. I couldn’t run outside if I wanted to. Between the calf-deep snow drifts and now hidden icy undercoat, it is a challenge to walk to the car. Well, this might be my former southern experience talking. I know I will get used to it, I know I will.

So I am back home, or at least where I did my growing up years. So naturally I have been thinking a lot about the idea of home. I currently feel shiftless, uprooted, transient. And I am discovering that these feelings are not necessarily bad. These feelings are just what is at the moment. It occurred to me that I have been thinking a lot less about my old home in NC, the home that is now someone else’s home. And really it was just a house: walls, rooms, windows. What made it home was the people who were inside and outside those walls. I miss them. I miss the camaraderie of our street, I miss the ease of connecting with old friends not on my street, but much closer by than the 2200 miles that separate us now. We all had been through a lot together including a lot of life challenges that made us realize how much we needed each other. Death, surgeries, illnesses. But of course sad things aren’t the only uniter, we had birthdays, laughter, successes.

Had I not left that comfortable nest….I would not have learned a new definition of home. Now when I look out my window, I see the Rocky Mountains. I may not have the camaraderie of my former life, but I feel like both Keith and I are growing closer, learning about maintaining friendships and being open to developing new ones. I also may not feel my Montana home is my rooted place, but I am glad for my new friends and the new views. Who knows where we will end up, we do have a map (3 years of grad school), but we don’t really know the destination. Sometimes not knowing even what we are doing this summer feels a little overwhelming. And sometimes it feels like a great, big adventure. I keep hoping the latter feeling presents itself more often than the former. No matter what, by May I will know something and really that is not so far away (despite these long winter days).

Over the weekend, Jeff, Janna, and I packed up our snowshoes and headed out at dusk to the City of Lakes Loppet Luminary 5K (noncompetitive). Whatever that means right??? We had no idea, but since it sounded mysteriously interesting we signed up and showed up for a 6 p.m. start time. The luminary loppet turns out to be a course around the Lake of the Isles (one of the Minneapolis city lakes) lined with ice sculptures and candles. Lovely, amazing. Just another reminder that this rootless, shiftless-feeling person is having some pretty wonderful experiences, just because I stepped out of my regular routine.