The Day After Yesterday

[Disclaimer: This post was written a month ago on the journey from the Emerald Isle back to the US of A.]

As I boarded the United Airlines Boeing 747 in Dublin, I was surrounded by a symphony (or cacophony, depending) of American accents; this and the coming arrival in the States filled my mind with familiarities of my hometown, my home state, and my Homeland. America felt so close, even with a 7.5 hour flight ahead of me--so close that the recent reality of Aberdeen and life in the UK began to feel like a dream being presently lost in the fog of clouds outside the plane window.

I had vocalized this fear to some of my close friends, telling them I was scared that as soon as my feet were on American soil it would feel like I never left. To know what you are returning to so intimately that you can almost smell the summer rain asphalt and hear the crickets from 3,000 miles away is a precious testament to a warm childhood full of sweet memories, but it also stings with the thought of losing fresh and newly-forged nostalgia.

Turbulence just off the west coast of Ireland mocked my stomach and mind as I digested the end of an era. To be home: I was excited for things. Fish tacos and tan lines. Chick-fil-a and Taco Bell. A warm ocean and hot sunshine. Old friends and an old dog. It was a comfort to focus on the things which made leaving a year ago a sad ordeal. My mom would be there to greet me at the Dulles airport. It was going to be good.

But the aerial view of Aberdeen was still hot like a migraine behind my eyelids and even reading the easily understandable, "American-style" nutrition facts on the back of the bag of airline pretzels struck me as a sad departure from the "oddities" found in a foreign land, oddities which without me realizing had ceased to be odd, in a land which ceased to be foreign.

I don't think I could ever give my permanent residence to anywhere besides America; my heart will always bleed for the Stars and Stripes, but if it's not patriotism, there is some sort of dedication or fondness which I have built up for this adopted land. Abandoning Aberdeen feels much less like "returning home" than I thought it would when I set out to simply "spend a year in Europe." But oh I spent it. Spent and feel like I'm coming home with empty pockets. (Let's take a moment and realize that is not just a figurative sentiment..)

But the truth is that even if my past year feels dream-like, it happened. I gained an experience full of lessons, growth, friendship, and love that I can carry with me for the rest of my life, and, probably in ways that I am unaware, it will hang itself over my shoulders and show itself in handprints and footsteps of everything I touch and everywhere I go from here.
In reality, my pockets are chocked full. I think the quote goes something like, "the more you give in love, the more you receive."

(this won't turn right way up for some reason, sorry Lena)

So with the sadness of not being able to attain the impossibility of keeping everyone I love with me in all the places I love simultaneously, there is happiness in the fact that the words and prayers of these people will always remain a mark on me, no matter where I am.

Arrived!

 And here are some people that I missed and have since been reunited with!

Day 325: A Broad Abroad

Me. A broad abroad. With my Scottish broad, Nat.

Is what I'll be for less than two weeks, now.
And the bitter sweetness of that phrase is being swallowed like the six-year-old me taking her nasty pink stomach medicine. Whatever that stuff was, it didn't want to go down.

I had a nice coffee date with my dear friend Lena the other day, and we chatted about Aberdeen. And leaving. Aside from the friends, the faith, and all the experiences I've gained since I've been here, it hit me that Aberdeen, the city itself, has become so important to me as well.
Everyone has a hometown, maybe not the place they were born and maybe not the place they actually spent most years of their childhood, but a place they affiliate most closely with their formative years, and when they imagine themselves as a kid, this place is the place that rings out in memory.
For me that is obviously Virginia Beach, I was lucky enough to not be one of the many military kids in the area, and, born and bred, my years from 0-17 were spent full time in this city. I'll always love VB. It was always my home and, in a sense, always will be. I grew up in the ocean, with salty blood, gifted from a mother who grew up on the Gulf in Louisiana and the east coast of Florida and a dad who had me swimming and body surfing with him from as early as I can remember. Attempting to avoid cliches, and failing, it's just true that the ocean will always be part of my identity, especially the part of the Atlantic which extends its kiss to the sand from Kitty Hawk, NC to 87th St, VB.

North End shortly after sunrise

S-turns' clouds

My second home came through college, at the beautiful University of Mary Washington. Three years spent here made for some great times, where I made lifelong pals, went through some of the hardest struggles of my life, truly sledded for the first time in my life, and earned my first degree. The cherry blossoms and brick buildings of downtown Fredericksburg make it a hard place to dislike. But I think I always saw it transitionally, figuring I would never settle there, and so even through multiple years of living and loving there, the idea of "home" never manifested fully.

Fred is pretty doe

Campus in the fall and spring. Buonissimo

Kyle, Kyle, Chelsea, and me. So college. Love.

I came to Aberdeen, Scotland almost a year ago, knowing nothing of the city, of the university I was about to attend, or even of Scotland in general. But after everything these past days, weeks, months have brought, I now find myself walking, or riding my bike, down the streets, seeing things with such familiarity, and attaching certain thoughts and ideas with specific scenes and distinct flashes of memory from my time here, that this blink of a year feels like it's held so much more of my life than it possibly could have.
In my independence I became dependent upon this city. I needed it to provide me with friendship, community, food, education, maturity, resilience, newness and pavement for the path that is to come. It did.
And so as I begin to pack and actually prepare to leave, my heartbeat quickens into the familiar beat which came after every summer when I'd have to leave my beach, my ocean, to head back inland for college, the anxious beat that comes when leaving Home. This is the first place that is my home not because my parents happened to choose it as a place to raise their children, but because I had to make it one.

Nat, Sean and David Bowie last week. Open Mic at Musa was for some reason also playing labyrinth on the wall?

Three priest cyclists who stayed at my flat for a night before flying back to continental Europe after a tour around Scotland.

The French-Canadian cyclist, Eric, who stayed with me the night after the priests. Hope he enjoyed that night of karaoke. Woop!

And I'm listening to Tom Jones right now. What better way to shoot back to childhood, eh? (Oh that's not normal for most kids my age? Oops--First CD. My man. TJ.)
Song of the day: The Green Green Grass of Home, Tom Jones: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSajFnkUxQY

Day 307: One Month To Go

         It's a bit crazy that I've been in this place, Aberdeen, for almost a year now. A bit weird that all my friends and normal routines have become so dear to me in a length of time which has flown by so quickly. Weirder that it will all be uprooted so soon. It's weird that probably as soon as I'm home everything will rush back to me and it will feel like my feet never parted with American soil. Weird how soon after this return I might not always be able to bring an Aberdonian accent to my mind. Weird how I won't continue to hear the phrases “I'm knackered/chuffed/gutted,” “I can't    be bothered,” “ken fit I mean?” etc.

         It's kinda crazy how easy it was to fall into place in this Silver (...grey) City. It's a bit weird how falling in happened so quickly and how falling out will, too.

         It's all a rush of wonderful events, friends, lessons, and growth, this past year. I can look back fondly on my time here, see God working, and know that the feeling I had when preparing to board the plane last summer was one of truth: that I was indeed meant to go to Scotland, to Aberdeen, no matter the stress and nervousness that came in the process. I can look at my time with love, joy, and peace, and I can smile about this last month that I have to cherish it all while it's still around. Even through the sorrow of departing, there is so much happiness. “Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened.”

        If it weren't for this year, I'd be in a much different place in many ways, literally and figuratively. God is calling me to great and unknown things for my future and I'm positive that this year in the cold, damp, north-east reaches of Scotland has and will continue to play a vital role in the unfolding of my vocation towards Christ.

       There's so much I still want to do here (I've made an Aberdeen bucket list), so many friends I want to hold on to, so many goodbyes I don't want to say. There's so much mystery in the days ahead, so many decisions to be made. It'll all be an adventure, and, as life goes, you gain some and you lose some; I'll try to detach myself enough not to fall into a Pit of Despair (catch that reference-- Candlers, at least) some point after I'm back home and I realize that my year really has come to a close and I'm not a cool American in a foreign land anymore.

       Much love to the granite, the rain, the sun, the sea, the tea, the ceilidhs, the karaoke nights, the church communities, the young adults, the Poles, the Indians, the Scots, the Nigerians, and everyone I encountered here in Aberdeen. It's been real, y'all.  Let's party while we still can! (Read: write this dissertation...)

scene from Footdee, a small fishing village in Aberdeen

Serious best sandwich. Sautéed mushrooms in balsamic with Red Leicester cheese melted all over a baguette mmmmmm

Inside the chapel at Pluscarden Abbey, a Benedictine monastery I visited for a retreat a few weekends ago

Amish bread. Muffin style. 

The baker in me has come back out officially. 

Scottish countryside on my bike-overnight a couple weekends ago.

The Old Deeside line. A bike path from Aberdeen to Banchory.

Ice cream break, and lots of others were on the same flow.

Black Cherry and Honeycomb, mmmmm

Me. The past couple weeks. Library. Books. Dissertation time.

Day 273: The Eye of the Storm

So on Saturday my marathon of visitors and travelling finally came to an end when Katie caught her taxi to the airport. It was a sad moment. My little piece of home left me alone in Aberdeen again.

We're beautiful, and James is a photobomber.

Ultimately it's good though, because I need to buckle down and work on my dissertation and do that sort of thing. Responsible things.
Italy was more than awesome. It was beautiful and uplifting and so much fun and will probably go down as one of the best ten day trips of my life for a while, if not forever. Katie is a great blessing in my life; I am so glad to have friends such as her. Seeing her was awesome and side-splitting, but it did make me miss a few other things and people from home a little more, but also, when she left and I could say I'd see her in August, it made me realize how soon that is and how soon I'll be reunited with my home in the 757. The other side of that is how soon I'll be leaving the 'deen.
Leaving has come up intermittently these past couple months especially, as people feel the shortness of time, but these last two months are the serious business. Yesterday, walking home from work (where I seem to have most of my moments of realization), I looked at the bright 9:30 pm sky, where only a hint of sunset was setting pink on the clouds, and the air felt so good, cooler than it would be back home at this time of the year, but quite a pleasantly mild, summer evening. And as I enjoyed this and took in the pretty flowers growing on the edges of people's gardens, I realized I wasn't even thinking about where I was going, I just knew, and with this, it hit me how much Aberdeen has become my second home over the past nine months (oh! exactly, today!). Fredericksburg was kinda like that, too, since I went to school there for three years and some of the most memorable and important times in my life in that town, but when I was there, I always had another home in VB to go back to, while, in Aberdeen, I can't just take a weekend/holiday break and go back to my hometown. Also, I came to Aberdeen alone and really had to make it into a place I wanted to be; I had to actively seek out friendships, community, and comfort. This process has bonded me more than I thought I'd bond at the beginning.
So it's becoming dramatic to know that I have to leave and won't know the next time I'll be back.
I am really excited to see my beach and house and skies and friends again, though.
So much has happened since I've been away, people are engaged, married, having babies, graduated, moved, starting new jobs, and doing all those big transitional things that people do in their twenties.

Anyways, serious dissertation writing begins now. Research should be underway as of later today, and I'm praying it progresses smoothly. I have a little less than four months until it is officially due, but life will move fast (duh).
I actually have so many thoughts in my head right now, but will leave you with some pictures from Italy and be done.

(okay, first Edinburgh)

Free whisky (45 pounds in that glass)--a sign of times to come.

JP2

Shrine to Our Lady of Perpetual Help. Love her and love that church, just a small one near Maria Maggiore.

Oh girl, looking good with the Arch of Constantine and the Colosseum in the back

Got ta see Caravaggio again. 

Literally the best beer I've ever had. From an Italian brewery..In Italy? What? Open Balladin--go y'all

and then this

he's so happy and cute

and picks up all the babies and kisses em. This is the babe that was right beside us, and the mom then proceeded to weep for 45 minutes.

Mirror pic in Gesu

Just so pretty everywhere. (THOSE TREES)

Taken by our american yogi dinner neighbors

free biscotti and more wine.

me and Andrew, Scotland's patron

Giolitti, some of the best gelati of the trip

Then we reach Assisi and it just becomes breathtaking

sunset over Assisi

Basilica of San Francesco, by night

from the hermitage

Katie and the hermitage

My favorite lunch. prosciutto, mozzarella and arugula, toasted to perfection.

And Florence. The most perfect olives at a wonderful little market

more market time.

Duomooooo

Me and Lionel from Piazzale Michelangiolo

Katie and the dome from inside.

Then. Venice was just perfect.

Venetian market glory.

the colorsssss

We did this for a while.

the sweat was real, but it's okay.

Then we touched back down in Scotland.
The End.

Song of the Day: Strawberry Wine- Deana Carter.