Return

In about 10 hours (WOW! didn't know it was that close...) I'm headed back to Rising Hope. But the landscape looks totally different than it did a year ago. For one, I have no Charles to experience it with, which is sad in a way. For two, I have a Dan (or maybe two...) to experience it with, which is happy in a good way. For three, I'm only going to be there for a week, which is happy and sad.

But oh how I've wanted to go back.

Thing is, I know things aren't going to be the same. I've always known that. But I'm the teeniest bit afraid that once I get there, some of the luster of last summer will wear off. After I express this fear to myself I tell myself that that's kind of impossible, being that I still remember the warts of my experience as well as the whimsy--but it's a fear all the same. Fear of moving on to the detriment of what's behind, I suppose. But my Lord and my God, how I have missed those people.

I'll be staying with Deborah, the most beautiful and wonderful church secretary that has ever walked the planet. I'll be visiting Lauren, who taught me so much last summer (namely how to laugh in the face of pure and total chaos.) And I get to see all the faces of all the beautiful people I shared life with.

So why am I so frightened? Because I know I've changed. I know I've continued on the path that all of these beautiful people helped lead me down but I'm not really sure if they're going to recognize that path. Phrasing it that way makes it sound like I'm worried about their approval...which I suppose I both am and not. More than anything I'm worried that I haven't lived out my experience in the best way I should. I'm afriad I haven't done justice to the stories which I was entrusted with, the stories I was instructed to tell.

Maybe that's why I feel the need to go back--to learn more of the story, and to learn to tell it better from the people who live it and tell it best.

Maybe...just maybe...I've left a bookmark at RH, and I'm finally returning to it to read on. Whether that's the case or not, I think that's how I'm going to look at it. Who's afraid of finishing a story, after all? Especially when it's a story as compelling and full of robust, dirt-under-the-fingernails, wonderful love as this one?

Waterproof

I cannot say how much I wish reasonably-priced laptops were waterproof. But for this lack, I would be sitting on my tiny balcony watching the miracle of non-frozen precipitation...in FEBRUARY.

I would be sitting on my tiny balcony, watching the naked trees dance around in a frenzy. "Warmth!" they cry. "Moisture!" And like so many maenads they dance in the storm, whipping about and in danger of tearing their fellow revelers apart.

I would be sitting on my soaked balcony, allowing my skin to soak in this precious February humidity, allowing my flaky elbows, knuckles and calves to drink deep and croak out a raspy "thankssss."

I would be sitting on my wooden balcony, scruncing my toes in the velvety sodden wood, watching the edges of my hair sneak out from my hoodie and curl in the presence of moisture. I would be breathing the fresh, earthy air. I would be blinking eyelids that gradually cooled with the night.

And I would settle. Something in my heart would sigh. Something in my brain would signal my muscles to relax and sink deeply into the wood and brick supporting me and cling like ivy to the exterior of my tower room.
Something in me would shake its shaggy head, blink its unused eyes and rouse, yawning and expectant, at the first sign of Spring.

Oh, for a waterproof laptop...

or the ability to perform a good Impervious Charm