Placed

It is Sunday night here, Monday midday for Michael and the kids. I’m on a train back from New York, where I was at the global convention on coaching (http://www.coachingconvention.org) for the day in preparation for some work I’ll be doing as a facilitator for them. The three days before that I spent running a Subject-Object Interview workshop in Cambridge. Tomorrow morning—in 10 short hours—I’ll be standing in front of my students for the beginning of the summer session at IET. I haven’t gotten six hours of sleep in a night for six nights. And that’s running into the two weeks of the summer session, which are generally the hardest weeks of the year. In the ideal world, I would enter these weeks rested and relaxed. This is not the ideal world. I’m a weary puppy.

Today Michael goes back to work for the first time in weeks, and the kids begin Term three. I have gotten email and the surreal monk-e-mail from both children (now Aidan has an email too: kiwiaidan@yahoo.co.nz). But they also seem to be doing fine: they seem to have beat the worst of the jetlag, seem to be delighted to see their friends again. Aidan’s best friend, B, whose birthday is the day before Aidan’s, saved his birthday party until Aidan came home. Naomi spent the weekend with her friend F, and was delighted to catch up on the news from the village. Perry, I’m told, is unchanged. Mostly the children are just missing me. They want me to come home.

I want me to come home, too. On the plane from Boston to New York last night, I found myself wishing, wishing, wishing I were on the 13 hour flight from LA to Auckland. I’m tired of sleeping in other people’s beds, tired of waking confused, tired of wearing the same clothes again and again. And in some ways, I’m ready to go and make my beginning back in New Zealand, ready to figure out what my career will be and begin it; I’m ready to get to the real work of my life there and get on with it. And in other ways, I’m just ready to see the sea again, to walk on the beach, even to sit in front of a fire. I miss my family, I miss my dog, I miss my cottage(s) by the sea. I want to go home.

And, of course, it’s more complicated than that. I’m excited about teaching again, have missed teaching deeply. I’m excited about seeing these students—whom I love—and the colleagues (whom I love even more than the students!). It’ll be good to get to have long conversations with Mom now that I’m staying at her place. I’ll get to spend some time with people I haven’t spent enough time with yet. I love it here, too.

We especially love Cambridge, as it turns out. Both Michael and I felt ourselves deeply connected to that place—more connected than we tend to feel in DC (to DC, the place--we have way more personal connections here). And that connection had us thinking about a sense of place and what it means and where it comes from. Many of you might think it’s a little late for me to be examining that question, but I always was a slow learner. As I wander the familiar streets of the South End, of Cambridge, of Bethesda, of Adams Morgan, I wonder what makes a place my place, and what makes it something else, something more foreign. And if DC feels less like home than Cambridge, how will Paekakariki feel when I get back there? In 13 days I can give you the answer to that question.