An extraordinary normal day...

There are some days that are just extremely busy from a time and task point of view. Today was one of those days in my life. It was entirely too long and filled with just too many things and people. It was so full, that this evening, even though I'm exhausted, I need some time to wind down from it all.

There are a lot of ideas and things roaming in my head from a lot of different conversations I had today, and each one of them was amazing. For the first time in a while I felt like I was in my place, in a place, and with a place. I was wanted and needed, desired and required, leading and following, sitting and doing. It was a balance, but mostly it was *me*. It was me at a point that I haven't been at in a while. It was me in a way that knew what I was doing. It was me in a place that wasn't lost.

I was back on the map.

I *am* back on the map.

I've been off of it for a while. Re-establishing old relationship, building new ones, scaffolding stories and experiences, meshing old and new. Today, it all seemed to fit. Everything I was, everywhere I've been, and everything I've become all took time to *be* today.

I can't get into specifics, and I don't even know if the specifics would make sense out of my head, but I'll just say that it felt good. It was like, for some reason, today was the day I was going to live into where I'm supposed to be going; as if today was a culminating day.

When in actuality, it was just a normal, super-busy day. In reality, there was no time to do anything except the tasks. Maybe take a breath here and there, but only maybe.

Perhaps I thrive on the minimal-oxygen-available type of existence, but I think it's more that I thrive on these relational, meaningful conversations and mutual respect. Today I felt like a person who had a place. And that's a hard thing to find when you are a lowly graduate student. Today I felt like I truly was authentically me.

And it felt good.

Time flies...

No, seriously. Time FLIES. I was semi-joking with people at the beginning of the school year when they were telling me, "As soon as you know it, the three years will have gone by." This process feels really long in the midst of it. It feels like assignment after assignment, and paper after paper (I'll have you know I've printed over 500 sheets of paper since I started school at the end of August).

But really, I'm sitting here about 5.5 weeks from the end of the semester (classes, at least), and 6.5 weeks from being completely done with the first year, the first THIRD of my graduate education, and I'm thinking, "Well, where did that year go?"

I really don't know where it went, but I've had an awfully good time during it. I've spent time with old friends, made new friends, explored new things, learned a new language (and loving it), been busy out of my mind at moments, and pulled ONE all-nighter. I am not going to do that again. I'm really against them, and I always have been (after high school, that is). But really. I just can't do those anymore. My body does not take to missing sleep very well.

But really. I think back to all the work I've done this year, all the papers I've written and pages I've read. The ink I've gone through, and the hours of studying. Time and seasons marching on while I force information into my brain. Information that is going in easier than music history ever did. I don't know what the difference is between now and undergrad, but I'm really learning things much better than I did. A sign maybe?

Life is ever interesting, and it's ever-moving. Time stands still for no man. And here I sit, wasting some more of it.

I have no idea where the last year has gone, but it will be awesome in 2 years when I'm thinking "It's almost time to graduate!!!"

Until then, I'm going to enjoy the ride on the wings of the clock.

Peace.

The smell of morning...

It's not often that I get to sit and enjoy this smell. I'm normally already in class by this point, or I'm in church, or I'm doing homework for the upcoming week.

But this morning, I'm in my house with the doors and windows open, reading my Bible (for class, but we'll ignore that fact for right now), and listening to the music of nature. The birds have been out full force the last few days, and quite regularly I see cardinals that make me smile on my route around town. The sun is shining. There is a little breeze. This is all quite fantastic.

It is March. In America.

This feels like February in my old home. This could easily be a January or February morning sitting on the grass in front of my house playing scrabble with the neighbors when another neighbor comes by on a walk with her dogs. I hear different bird songs now. And none of them are the incessant rapping of a bird on my window. I kind of miss that bird.

More cars go by here than ever did at my old house. But if I pretend, the train whistle could be mistaken for honking horns on the street. I like to think that sometimes. If I changed the setting just a little, I might be able to forget all together that I moved back to this country.

But slowly my eyes open and I realize that power is on, my house is quite a bit larger, and it has carpet. I look around and things are a bit (ha!) more modern. I hear no honking of car horns, or tourists around town. Tourists do not come to this town. And sometimes, that just makes it a little depressing.

Anything exciting going on today? Not particularly. I will not hear noise from the street. I will not feel the earth shake when a boomer goes off. I will not schedule activities around power outages, or have a neighbor run over screaming "APPLES WERE CHEAP TODAY!" I will not light a fire this evening, nor will I venture out to walk around a quaint town that always has someone to stop in and talk to.

I make my own little town wherever I go, instead. I don't have shop owners to stop in and talk to (because who in their right mind owns a shop and then sits in it, apparently), but I have other people to bother. The distance between us is greater, but it's worth the effort. There is something lost in it, I think, in getting in and out of the car. Cars make everything feel so disconnected.

And that's interesting, because they are connecting bigger geographical areas.

But how much community is lost because we are no longer around home when we are doing our business? What does it say that it is cheaper for me to buy gas in a neighboring city so I will go there to get it rather than visit my neighbor? What does it say that some people will drive an hour to work with strangers because it pays better, at the loss of having friends close-by in times of need?

Just interesting thoughts as I sit here this morning, with my eyes wishing they were closed, remembering a simpler life in a country on the other side of the world.