Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Day 11: Going and coming

Champaign, Illinois

We're back in of our most recent "home" towns, spending days with generous friends who share their basement, food, and laundry room with us. After a 24 hour-long blip into Canada (Niagara Falls), a year-long blip away from this city, and a years-long blip from Michigan relatives, we're reminded of the sweetness of the familiar. It takes guts or sometimes just circumstances to yank us out of the familiar, but there's something about leaving that later lets us come back with a new sense of awe and appreciation. It's good to get away, so I stop and notice things like...

Restaurant names and prices that are American.

Extended family that understands being over 6-6 and shares your career path and looks like you. (OK, that one is John's - I know nothing about being 6-6!)

Friends, both parents and kids, that you can pick right up with every time you meet. Watching your friends' kids grow up and being able to play with them. As one of the girls prayed, "thank you God for friends that you know really love you."

Prairie clouds and rainbows that fill up the entire sky, from the ground up, and flat land to look across for miles in every direction. Peace and quiet.

A room shared with no small children, a late and lazy morning, a quiet afternoon.

The strangest thing about all of these things - I haven't grabbed my camera to capture any of them. For all the thousands of snapshots that I take, somehow it just feels most fitting be in the moment in the best of times.

3 comments:

Don said...

Glad to be out of the East Coast traffic and into the Midwest flow?

On to Iowa soon? Say hi to all for us!

Congrats on 48 states.

Jenn said...

Bummer! Wish we would have known that you were in town! It would have been great to catch up! Mady was just telling me tonight, "mom we need to go see abby and rachel more!"

joanna said...

Jenn - I know, our two days went by so fast, we didn't see half of the people we wanted to - bummed that we missed you guys too!