Three Things: Home & Away

The world is beautiful through our rear view mirror, but there’s also hope for blue skies ahead…

Just looked up to realize that it was our friend Axel’s 2nd anniversary, and J&L’s first anniversary, so we’ve really and truly been here in the U.S. now for a solid year and some change.

In the give and take of this unusual summer – with friends arriving and departing, doing quite a bit of traveling ourselves, and in realizing that it’s about time to start packing AGAIN – we’ve been thinking a lot about our own arrival and future destinations. There are certainly a few things about our lives that have changed since we’ve been back.

Number one, we no longer tilt our faces to the sun, whenever it’s out. In Glasgow this summer, people are having the season of their LIVES, in many cases – glorious sunshine, lovely, balmy days, smiles all over. And you believe the world is beautiful, when the sun shines in Scotland. All nine zillion shades of green sparkle from sapphire and emerald, and people are kinder, and everything is just – amazing. They’ve all said that it can’t last, and of course, autumn will come eventually, but it is GLORIOUS just now, and we wish we were there to see it. ANY sunny day, when we were in Glasgow, found people lining the benches in the parks, peeling off shirts, exposing every bit of themselves to the sunshine. Entire neighborhoods camped out on the green, playing with their dogs, passing ’round a drink, just loving the moment. And, arriving home as red as scalded lobsters and a little sun-drunk the next day, but still, everyone would say it was worth it.

Living where we do, this summer we’ve sometimes gone for full days with fog that doesn’t lift… but we no longer have the little niggling worry in the back of our minds that the gray might last for six months. We trust in the reappearance of the sun.

Number two, we no longer have soundtracks running in our heads at all times. That’s kind of sad, really. We came away from Glasgow at the close of our concert season, music just tumbling through our heads. At any given time, both of us, or either of us could be found humming something, singing some tricky patch of harmony in Latin or German or Italian. It brought almost a physical ache leaving our music behind. If you’ve ever performed with an orchestra, with hundreds of voices and instruments doubling your own small sound, and making the rafters ring with sound, you’ll understand what we mean. Not having found the kind of choir interaction we had back there has meant that we’ve needed to put that aside for awhile, so as to not be completely overwhelmed. We’ve found that we kind of miss the music in our heads, and we’re looking forward to reacquainting ourselves with grappling with a major work of music, and the joys and frustrations of choral music.

Number three, and this one makes us laugh, we no longer are jumpy around cars. It’s so symptomatic of how West Coast Americans are enmeshed with car culture that when we had a period of time where we didn’t normally ride around in cars, and were on foot or lumbering buses for much of the time, that we forgot about speed. We forgot about merging lanes. We forgot about all of the things that we had to remember to survive in car culture… and coming back was tough. We both noted that we were tentative about being behind the wheel. We were both more apt to opt out of driving, if we didn’t have to do it. And we neither of us ever went as fast as the speed limit, much less exceeded it… well, that’s certainly over, and we’re back to our old habits.

We pulled out the Scrabble game the other night, and realized we no longer take pictures of our epic word battles – because we don’t take much time to play in person anymore. The arrival of friends who bemoaned the loss of the lemon cake reminded us that we’re not doing as much baking, either (although, experiments in lower-carb baking are forthcoming! Stay tuned! We made ice cream cones once already, trying to make waffles! We’re not ready quite to blog the flops, but it IS happening!). When we were Away, we lived our lives in a different rhythm, and though we held onto it, and made decisions which support us keeping things simple, it has become apparent that simplicity is elusive.

We don’t want to lose everything of what we learned and gained from being away… perhaps even some of the ache is necessary to keep, so that we know what we’re missing… so we’re moved to keep a little of Away nestled in, next to our hearts, wherever we make Home.