“Whither goest thou, America, in thy shiny car in the night?”

[Billie Holiday]

A week after arriving back in my homeland, I packed up my duffle again and hit the road for the east. A roadtrip is exactly what my American plains-starved soul had been craving. As Claire Colburn said in Elizabethtown, "Everybody's gotta take a roadtrip once in their lives." Or over and over and over again in their lives. Like Sal in On the Road, which I am currently devouring for the second time.

I wound my way up the mountain, hugging oh-so-familiar curves, and wondered. I wondered lots of things, of course, but especially: What will this be like? Will we all be the same or will we all be different? Will we fall into the same comfortably-worn patterns of talking, relating, enjoying one another? Or will there be a big silence made of the gap between December and May? Processing questions like this is always good. But I shouldn't have worried.

The minute I stepped out of my car and was attacked by Nat Weber I knew that I had been really starved for everyone at Covenant who, I came to realize over five months of missing, really are the butter to my bread. I spent one glorious week squealing, squeezing, swimming, screaming, and - I've run out of s words - generally catching up and basking in the presence of Covenant people. Amazing what five months away will do to renew and refresh your love for a place and the people who are part of it. The lovely spires and cobblestone sophistication of Oxford are perfect in the same way that the trees and ponds and wide-open hills of east Tennessee are perfect. The loveliness of the one in no way diminishes the magic of the other. Maybe it even adds to it.

So. On May 22, Sarah and I will be driving the four hours down to Baton Rouge and moving in for the summer: heat, humidity, family, spicy food, and being a summer youth intern with First Pres again. PARTAY!!!! The rest of the summer is mission trips, summer camp, family vacation, and weddings. Until then, I am at home in Marshall, Texas with Mom, Dad, and Sarah, just like it used to be. Except one difference: we have a baby. :) Three-month-old Junior is our foster child for the next couple weeks and he is both depriving us of sleep and giving us an excess of delight we haven't felt for some time. (Right now, Sarah is sitting on the couch in front of me, burping him, and his little wide eyes are staring at me and his mouth is beginning to turn up in an impish grin.)

I feel like a Walt Whitman poem and just getting into the deep down glory of summertime.

"I felt like a million dollars; I was adventuring in the crazy American night."

(I really should read On the Road every summer.)