in between

it's been nearly a week home and my body still believes itself in the philippines. i'm wide awake in the night and sluggish most of the day. it's not the only way i'm struggling, just the most physical. it's like i arrived home with a plane load of souvenirs and yet, where do they fit here? how much was for the week there and for us alone, and then how much should come back and extend outward? such questions to consider and already many wider visions to step toward.

but on the threshold of the end of something and possibilities of other things, there's always that pause. a little melancholy, a touch bittersweet, some wandering around the house while everyone sleeps, looking, seeking, thanking, smiling, a tear or two or three, and taking a deep full breath of life, pure grace-filled life. a pause is all. but you need it at times.

can't say enough how i loved the surprising peace and joy there (was thinking it was the prayers alone but nieldon said it's also being in the philippines -- guess where he lives?), loved the people who attended litt-world (their faces are before me now), and the places i saw. there are places in europe that have become such a part of me, maybe a new curve in a fingerprint and now the philippines are too. i never expected it, not to such an extent.

it's fully autumn here, a great welcome home gift. my favorite season and i truly don't think i've seen a more beautiful cottonwood autumn. home. it's good to miss and be missed. yet, there are pieces left across a great wide ocean. i wonder, if you leave pieces of yourself all over, do you become less of yourself or are they instead replaced with something new and thus more of who you might be. regardless, i have exceeding gratitude for this journey. and i think someone might save those lost pieces for me even as they're replaced.

more to say, much more, but i'm a little dreamy about it all still. here and there, or standing in between, a satchel full of images, the never-ceasing wonder of love, all of it...truly tiny glimpses of eternity.