Mildly Bibliophiliac: I Felt Like Cheering

This is the first hour where I feel I've been able to catch my breath since our trip "home". It's strange to feel like home is multiple places but I suppose that has always been the case. I always have a sense of homecoming when we visit my grandma because I have so many memories of her house, the fields, the back 40, Sandy Lake, and the little country cemetery where my great-grandparents and my grandpa are. I feel there, more than anywhere else, like this is where I'm from because of the way my grandma sees the past in the field her mother used to plow and the neighbors they used to know and the place where the little country school house stood. It's where she grew up and my dad grew up and I've seen pictures of my infant self being passed around the same breakfast table where we ate last week. There's something grounding in knowing how a place used to be and how it still is. It felt good and familiar to be in North Dakota and in my hometown but there wasn't the same sense of homecoming. Maybe because things are changing and it's hard to feel the same about a landscape that I used to know and don't anymore. I haven't lived at home for almost 10 years (which is mildly alarming to realize) and as much as I love North Dakota, I'm not from there and will never feel like I'm from there. (The breathtaking flat. And that wind!)

When we stepped off the plane and I saw the 'Seattle' in a Seattle's Best Coffee's sign, I felt like cheering. When I drove to work on Monday in mild morning traffic with the Olympics jagged and beautiful in the distance, I felt like cheering. When I got into the passenger seat of Ryan's car after a week of driving not our car, I felt like cheering. I feel at home here because this is where our present is and we have each other. Home is where the heart is, as simple as that.

I have woefully few pictures from our trip, just a few here and there, but here are some from more relaxed moments during the week.