If you get this newsletter you can see some footage of the flat we will be renting!
I'm wrapping up the last details on my upcoming talk about the use of imagination in the school curriculum for the wonderful L'Harmas Conference in Canada, (same weekend as our 37th anniversary, isn't my husband sweet!?) and true to form, while 'editing' somehow five additional pages sneaked in when I needed to be cutting material, not adding it. It's such a fascinating topic for me, though! I really need to wrap it up and put it aside so I can get back to doing other things---- continued cleaning, purging, packing, and the better thing- visiting family before we leave in late December.
The map below makes me so excited, even though you can't see Kota Kinabalu, our new home-town for the next two years. KK is on the northern end of island of Borneo, on the northwest coast, facing the south china sea.
I said I was excited, and I *am*.
But also, two hours ago I was crying just because I read a description of that state of being where “…the moment I am in one country, I am homesick for the other.” (Allen Say, and this is a recommendation of everything of his I have read). I wasn't feeling particularly sad at that moment. I was feeling pretty good about my plans for the day. I was busy thinking about my talk and books and education and while looking something else up I just happened across that little quote, and it was like being punched, and the tears flowed instantly.
If you get this, you get this, you don't need words from me. Wrapped up in that short phrase with only 11 words in it is a huge backdrop filled in with experiences, emotions, smells, tastes, the kiss of the humid air of tropic climate countries on your skin, the rough rasping of the dry air of cold climate countries, the sounds, sights, and the people, oh, the people. All the people. Just 11 words making up a short phrase, and you know. You know, but you cannot tell and it doesn't matter because if you get it, you get it without anything else, and if you don't...
Nothing I say can explain it. It's just a little strange, I'm not from around here, am I? For those of you with roots, thank-you for loving us, putting up with us and our odd ways, and supporting us in all the ways you do, whether it's just general good will, prayers, or material goods (that apple pie was delicious, you know who you are)! People with roots are amazing.
For those of you who get it... thank-you, too, for being part of this weird fellowship of the rootless, the air-plants of the world, thank-you for being fellow travellers on this road that goes ever on and on... we who wander, but are not lost. It's comforting to know there are those who get it without explanation.
And sign up for the newletter, all y'all.
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