...And Still Home

Here we are, Boise, Idaho. We've been back almost a month, and it feels like it. The glow and haze of traveling and moving have given way to the warm fuzz of comfort and home. Strange rooms and hard beds and foreign tongues are gone. We're back amongst the white folk. It's not all bad, but it ain't all good, either. I'm sure I say this after every time I take a trip, but it's always strange to come back to where nothing has changed, to realize that life has trudged along indifferent to your absence, and that it will remain that way in the face of the person you are when you return.

How can nothing have changed? I changed!

Ridiculous, of course, but that's the nature of us human types. The world revolves around us, right? (Or, more accurately, the sun revolves around the earth, I guess.)

Here in Idaho the snow has stopped falling. We returned home to a whole mess of the white stuff, and it was wonderful while it lasted, up skiing every weekend, stacking up the water for the coming season on the rivers, safeguarding against the fire season, and all that stuff that snow does for us here in the West. But it's been a while, and heads are being scratched, foreheads wrinkled in vague worry. We watch the skies--or what we can see of them during this prolonged goddam inversion weather--and we hope for a break in the fog and a break from the clouds.

Me, I'm supposed to start ski lessons in a couple weeks, and I look forward to doing so on neither ice nor slush. Snow is what I'd like, so let's cross our fingers.