Happy Tuesday

I moved into my homestay yesterday, and I have never before felt more alone.  You’d think that being with a family, with lots of people around to talk and laugh and say nice things that I’d feel less lonely, but really it just makes me miss home even more.  Yesterday afternoon though, I was sitting under a tree with the women who were cooking dinner, and I happened to look up at the sky.  It caught me off guard how much it looked like home.  It was the same sky I looked up at when I was a kid, swinging as high as I could on the swings behind the garage; the same sky I looked at from the front porch of my new home, sharing stories with family; the same sky I looked up at from the top of the zip tower, wishing there was some way I could climb higher; the same sky I looked up at from the Quad at college, pretending to do homework with friends, but really just enjoying each other’s company.  I looked up at the same sky this summer, from the top of the stargazer in the meadow, eating pack-out lunch with a cabin of giggling girls.  And now, I look up to the same sky, through the vibrantly colored laundry hanging on the line, through the deep green leaves of the tree over my head, to the white clouds and blue sky high above me.  It’s so far away, and yet it seems to descend upon me, wrapping me up in a soft blanket of cool comfort on another hot day.  

This morning it’s raining, but I’ve moved into my room, into the place I’ll be staying for the next few months, and it’s really a great place.  Honestly, it’s nicer than any place I’ve ever stayed for an extended period of time; I have my own bathroom (complete with a western-style toilet and a tap with running water to wash with) and the main house has a TV with more channels than I have at home (more than 300, though they don’t all always work).  Two curious smiling faces just poked their heads around the door to wonder what the “tu ba boo” (foreigner) was doing in her room alone.  Their open, honest curiosity catches me off guard sometimes, but I have to remind myself how much of a spectacle I am in this place, and that while I’m here to learn about life through their eyes, they can’t help but be curious about what life is like through my eyes.  We seem so weird to each other, so different, so foreign, but we’re learning, slowly and not without difficulty, how alike we are also.  We may live on opposite sides of the world, but the sky above remains the same.  The sky rains when we’re not expecting it, bringing the cool, clarifying winds and breaking the heat after a long day of work (I’ve never had sweat drip down my legs before from just sitting), and yet the sun comes also from the same sky, making the plants grow and providing light to see by.  And in the midst of all of this, the deep blue twinkles overhead, always there, always out of reach.  Just knowing it’s there though, and that as I look up at the sky, you too see it similar, through the windows of your classrooms, or your homes, from the mountains you’ve climbed; from the shores of the oceans to the backyards and parks and places you’ve hanged your hammocks.  

The sky calls to me, calling me home, calling me here, calling me to fly; and yet the tree giving me shade invites me to stay, to relax, to rest a while.  I’ll rest here for a little while, and then I’ll be off again.  My roots hold me strong as the sky beckons me upward, each a place of love, yet with such different things to offer.