This week is a week of farewells. Not mine, fortunately.
My niece, Clare, has spent this academic year in Madrid, and will be making her way back to the States very soon. A dear friend, Judy, has spent this year teaching in Infantes, a tiny town a couple of hours outside of Madrid, and she too will be making her way across the ocean in the coming few days.
To say that I have been jealous of the time Clare and Judy have spent in Spain, traveling, learning, growing, changing, being transformed beyond all they could have hoped for or imagined, is to put it exceedingly mildly.
And, last but by no means least, Launa and her family, who have spent this year in a tiny town in France, are coming back to the States this weekend. Launa is someone I taught with for two years ages ago, but I feel like I have gotten to know her far better this year thru emails and blogs and facebook chats than I did in two years of living on the same boarding school campus and teaching the same students up in Connecticut.
As their sojourn there is drawing to a close, Launa has been writing some beautiful pieces on mystery and love and family and fear and lust and home (wherever that is...) and the wonder of her life journey - and by extension, our collective life journey.
Here's a bit of useless but tangentially relevant trivia - if you have seen or ever get the chance to see the movie, Away We Go, the scene in that movie where that young couple visits the wacky family at the University of Wisconsin - that scene was filmed at the school where Launa and I taught together: The Taft School in Watertown, Connecticut. The classroom they enter where they first meet up with their friend - I taught in the room next door to that one!!! More useless trivia - but totally irrelevant: that entire movie was filmed in Connecticut, every scene.
Traveling mercies to all three of you: Clare, Judy, and Launa. Not one of you has any idea how important you are in my life, how often I think of you and pray for you, and how much of an idol of mine you are.
2 comments:
Love this, love you. Thank you for your prayers--I consider myself fortunate that Mt. Eyjafjallajokull is (for the moment) quiet so I can go home. But just as grateful for the amazing months I've had in Spain, which is something you know about.
xox
C
Dear Gail,
This is so enormous -- both what I have learned and experienced here with my family, and the way that it has reconnected me with a whole new way of thinking about life. Your support and involved cheerleading all the way (including through all the rough patches) has made such a difference to me.
Wishing you happiness at home (as you say, wherever that is...) L
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