I woke up this week to find a half a foot of snow on the ground. In September.
The only time in my life that I have seen snow in September was a freak storm in Alaska in 92. (Wow, that was a long time ago!) This week, I excitedly phoned my friends and told them it was snowing. "Where are you?" they'd ask. Colorado. "Oh." No shared excitement over the snow. Sure it snows in Colorado alot--but not in September. Nor am I from Colorado to see normaltime snow, much less abnormaltime snow.
My friends, remembering who they were speaking to, asked another question. "When was the last time you saw snow?" Ahhh...The mind reeled back to the places I'd been and lived in the last few years. Southern India (no snow), Northern California (no snow), any state on the Gulf of Mexico (certianly no snow), Portugal (no snow in Lisbon anyway)... Hmmm...Could it really be that the last time I saw snow was Christmas of 99 in Brussells? Has it been that long? Perhaps that is why I was so excited!
The snow melted with the sun that afternoon and was gone as quickly as I tend to be in one place. I boarded a plane the next day, leaving Colorado to go not home, but simply the next place (where there will be no snow either). It seems I never get to go home, always simply to the next place. The Portuguese call it caminhado...my friend in Northen India calls it being a nomad...others still may say sojourning. My soul twin (who I visited in the abnormaltime September snow of Colorado) and I, we just know that we're never quite home.
Yet.
But like Abraham and others of the Hall of Faith, perhaps I am just looking for a bettercountry... home... heaven... Him.
