Home is Wherever I'm With You

(the title is a reference to this song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjFaenf1T-Y)

Coming to Spain has been one of the best experiences of my life. I feel pretty lucky to have had this opportunity and had it work out so well. I've grown in a million ways, seen a million new things, and feel like I have a million more things to tell all of you. Two big themes in this semester were 1) meeting wonderful new people and 2) missing all of the people back home. 

During my week in Germany, Hans-Dieter (nicknamed Hadi) and Elke (married and with their kids out of the house) were talking about how they are constantly traveling to different countries and moving from house to house. Hadi called himself "The Gypsy" and said that he could never stay in one place for too long. Then Elke said someting that I thought was pretty great. She said, "Well, to me, I am never away from home. Hadi IS my home. So I am never homesick."

Well people, this is going to be one of those sentimental moments. Sorry, bear with me. After being away for so long, I realized I am not so much homesick for places as I am for people. A good friend of mine, Ashley Kuiper, wrote to me once about this kind of thing and used the end of an e e cummings poem to sum up how you deal with being apart from people you meet, love, and care about:

here is the deepest secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows

higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

I seem to recall one of my favorites, Lauren Haney, writing something similar about her study abroad experience in Australia. She said (I think) you just leave little pieces of your heart everywhere you go with the people you meet and invest time into, so your "home" just gets bigger. Now I have a home in Sevilla with my Señora and family, at school with my professor and friends, in Germany with the Gesches, in Wisconsin with my parents and family, in Westchester and Connecticut with my brothers, at Trinity with my friends, at Camp Calvin with the counselors, and the list goes on. I carry all this with me. To me, "home" is becoming more and more classified as a person than as a place. And I guess when you push the idea far enough, when the Lord is your best friend, your "capital-H" Home is with you wherever you go. Pretty swell. 

Woah, it is really happening. TODAY, I go back to one of my homes, Trinity, for the nights of the 5th and the 6th. Then after a day at Rudi's house I go back to Wisconsin on Sunday the 8th. If you are at those places on those days, come find me! This blog has really been fun for me to keep up. I am going to miss it a lot! I love writing updates, reading comments, and hearing feedback and ideas from everyone who was interested. It's been a wild ride in Sevilla, and many thanks to you for reading along with me. It always felt good to know that even as I was across the ocean people still cared about what was going on in my life. So it is time for "adios" to España for now. I seriously can't even wait to see you guys.

¡Abrazos y besitos! See you on the flip side! 


Love, Anna. 

Me in front of the fountain at, where else, Plaza de España