Home Sweet Home

We’re home!

We arrived safely on Friday evening, December 14, having spent the previous night in New York after an 18-hour plane journey on Royal Air Maroc from Nairobi through N’djamena (Chad) and Casabalanca (Morocco) to JFK.

Our low expectations for re-entry into the US were met at JFK, where getting through passport control, even as US citizens, was the slowest of any country we have visited. We put this down not to greater diligence on the part of authorities–they were tracking us all the way–but to a lack of personnel to handle the numbers. We weren’t convinced that the expedited electronic entry actually achieved anything. And then there was the brusque lady at the exit of the terminal loudly commanding us to “keep moving” out into the cold night air when we were trying to decide if we were going to take the metro or uber to our airbnb. We sympathize with the many folks from abroad who have told us  that they have no inclination to visit the US at the moment.

These first steps into the country were ameliorated during our overnight stay in Queens. Everyone we met, regardless of race, was gracious and kind, making us sense that the incivility of the current presidency and political scene is making more people aware of the value of simple human kindness. As you can tell, we were reaching for a silver lining. 

Back in North Carolina, our son Sebastian greeted us at the airport and brought us home. How wonderful to walk back into the welcoming embrace of our own house. Our friends Nate and Christine are loaning us a car for a few days as we find our feet and a new vehicle for ourselves (having sold our car to our son before we left). And our re-entry into Durham Friends Meeting was delightful: we arrived during singing prior to Meeting for Worship and joined in with Angels We Have Heard on High. We were able to expand a duet to a full quartet of voices! And what joy to sit in worship and feel the loving connection of smiles across the room as we silently reconnected with Friends who have been holding us during this journey. 

Our bodies are slowly working through jet lag and travel weariness, and our minds are working overtime to remember where we left things in the house (or where they got moved to while our sons were renting the house from us!). As we drive around Durham, we are constantly looking to see what has changed and what is the same. A Friend at Meeting hoped that we would do a forum soon to share our experiences. Mike responded that we would be glad of the opportunity since it would be one way in which we could begin to integrate the experiences of the past 16 months.

Our sense is that this blog is not at an end. We need to continue to reflect on our experiences if only to assure ourselves that we have been away and it was not all a dream. The next stage of our lives beckons and we need times and places to listen to what is next.

The next few months have some markers: our annual Friends Couple Enrichment leaders meeting in January, a Couple Enrichment workshop we will facilitate at Pendle Hill in March, and then a workshop at the summer gathering of Friends General Conference in July.

But first, we will enjoy the Christmas season with our children and others as way opens. It should be an easy year to remember the simple need for goodwill to all.

Ahhhhhhh! Paradise in our hot tub.