exhale

Like so many of us, I have spent hours this week reflecting on the past 360+ days---and how far I've come (and gone) since this time last year. Four addresses, three continents all have been my home at one point in 2011. Is it any wonder that my most of my well-intentioned plans for the new year never saw the light of day.

But what I did see! And the places I have been. The people, the smells, the changing skies and rhythms of daily life I could have never imagined as I sat curled up on the end of our sofa last December, pen in hand, charting the course for the new year.

Because just halfway through January, a job offer came along that was the right one for me and my family. It took us from our quiet routine in the Spanish mountain village we called our home for almost ten years to the austere Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, to the insane bustle of Mumbai, India, to our final resting spot not ten miles from where I grew up.

Because of the timing and logistics, my family spent most of 2011 apart, something we never intend to do again but understood would be necessary and thus soldiered through, grateful to the wonders of Skype, which allowed us a glimpse into each other's world daily.

For the last month, however, we have all be together under the same roof---my only wish for this holiday season. Although I find our home in an area strangely familiar (even 25 years after leaving for university and the Big City), it is new to the rest of us, and it is wonderful rediscovering places through their eyes.

And despite the fact that the majority of our worldly possessions are on a container ship somewhere near the Panama Canal instead of the Port of Philadelphia, where they should be, I, for the first time in many months, am able to exhale. To feel the weight of our one pooch against my hip as he sleeps beside me. To look across the room and watch my husband's chest rise and fall as he too enjoys an afternoon siesta. To watch the kitty leap from one window sill to another as he explores his new world. To watch my favorite girl skip through the crisp fallen leaves just as she did as a young pup back when it was only the two of us in the City.

I have many wishes and aspirations for 2012, and am looking forward to putting the ideas and plans I had for last year into place in the coming months. In particular, I am excited to return to this blog, to writing, to sharing our lives and our journey as we begin to spread our roots in a new soil.

Rachel will be back making in 2012; please stop back when you can, OK?

 Best wishes to you for a peaceful & prosperous new year!!