Transitions

This lovely little flower seemed so familiar~The sun was blazing through the Southern Hemisphere where everything is different; yet here was this reminder that we are not as far from home as we might think. The corn plants, the pigs, the raised beds of the Methodist farm property where the well-drilling machinery resides were all part of our transition toward home. There was still a long way to go on our journey: through Maputo, through the border into South Africa, through Kruger Park, through Johannesburg, through the air, through Charles de Gaulle airport during the height of a security alert, through regular customs, through agricultural customs ~ through it all we were rising like divers from the deep, trying not to rise too fast, trying not to forget what we saw and felt, trying to breathe in all we were experiencing, trying to reconcile the contrast between one border and the other. Suddenly, we were bouncing into Pittsburgh, rushing into familiar time zones, blinking, crying, laughing ~ happy to be home~longing to hold on to something so fleeting, so beyond our grasp.
Experience changes us~profound experiences change us profoundly.