“I want to remember these moments forever: the beautiful and mundane, the sweet mixed in with the frustrating. Just a common moment: me, reading Narnia aloud to the two youngest, while one crochets a sweater and the other takes a break from writing sentences earned by a bad attitude. A casserole made of leftovers swirled into eggs; I'll serve it, reheated in the microwave, for breakfast tomorrow. Girls still in school uniforms, me still in yesterday's jeans. These days will make the best memories.”
—February 28th, 2019, while I was living in Sonora, Mexico
“Mexico is slowly turning into memories, but the relationships remain. I won’t forget the sound of the girls crying after I put them to bed for the last time. I won’t forget laughing hysterically with Jenna as we put animal face masks on the night before I caught my plane back to Illinois. I’ve decided that I won’t forget a lot of things. Now that I’m here in Japan, I don’t want to have to say goodbyes to anyone for awhile. I’m happy to be here. I’m happy to stay.”
—April 29th, 2020, less than a year after moving from Mexico to Japan
“Yesterday slipped by, and with it, the day’s significance also passed unnoticed. Yesterday marks eighteen months that I’ve lived in Japan...which also means that I have officially lived longer in my little corner of Tokyo than I lived in Magdalena. Dates and anniversaries have always borne great significance to me. Treasuring each milestone and taking careful remembrance of it is part of how I make sure every part of my vastly-changing life remains real to me.”
—February 20th, 2021, while I was living in Tokyo, Japan
“My neighborhood is sleepy, old-fashioned, and 100% plain ordinary. I love it so much. I love the awakening of green and blue after a night of gentle rain. I love the sidewalks with the cracks in them and the water-logged park benches and the distant hiss of the local train coming to a stop to board passengers…Mornings here are the best. Life here, for that matter, is the best, too.”
—June 21st, 2022, while I was living in Tokyo, Japan
“Even in just a few years of living in Japan, I have noticed that I’m much more prone to say “thank you” and more inclined to stop and appreciate every weighted moment. And I love gifts so much more now, too! A simple gift that, in the past, I would’ve said ‘thanks’ for and quickly forgotten now brings me lasting joy for days, even weeks.
“I miss that. Overwhelmingly, I miss that. Jesus, don’t let me lose the gratitude as I temporarily settle into fast-paced, efficiency-based American culture. Don’t let me become dull to the unspeakable gift that is every single moment of my one wild and wonder-full life.”
—August 16th, 2023, shortly after moving to Ithaca, New York
During my time in Italy—I studied there in college—I remember meeting an Italian woman who asked me where all I’d lived in the United States. Using the dregs of my Italian language skills, which have since disintegrated after piling Spanish and Japanese on top, I explained that I’d been born in California, lived two places in Indiana, and (at the time) was located in the first of two homes I’d eventually inhabit in Illinois.
The lady laughed. “That’s so American,” she informed me. “Most Europeans stay near where they were born.”
I laughed with her. It’s true—we Americans often ask each other “where are you from?” because we know that the likelihood of the person we’re talking to having been born in the place where they live now is puny. Our conversation derailed from there as she started talking about Buddhism (another interesting conversation), but her words stuck with me. What I wasn’t close enough to her to ask, but what I wish I could have asked, is this: is the word “home” uncomplicated if you haven’t established and uprooted and established and uprooted a dozen times in your life? Do you know your community well—all their acres and aches and hopes and dreams? Do you ever want to leave? Or is the thought of “leaving” so unheard of that you aren’t compelled to contemplate it every other year?
I look at the penned remnants of my past life seasons, each one a memory that’s begun to crack and fade at the edges like a pile of Polaroids in a chest that’s let too much moisture seep in, and I wonder what it is to “settle down.” I’m looking at a potential two, or three, moves within the next decade, which is actually a slowed-down pace for me. Is home the place where you catch your breath?
“The last time I read Psalm 91, according to the note I wrote in the margins, was when I made the decision to use the term ‘home’ only in reference to God…A lot of people have asked me how I can be moving to Tokyo when I have so many loved ones scattered across the Western Hemisphere--especially Washington and Magdalena--and the truth is this: when God is my home, when He Is the One with Whom I am safest and Whom I treasure most dearly, I can go anywhere…There is something lovely about being able to say, ‘I am home,’ wherever I am as long as God Is there, too. As it turns out, that's everywhere.”
—May 21st, 2019, shortly before moving from Magdalena to Tokyo
It's so lovely to get more glimpses of who you are.