One month

I am sitting in my room with the window open; so far it is a nice and sunny day here in Cambridge. I bought a basil plant to keep me company (I mean, to use in cooking...), and it is sitting outside on the window sill soaking up the rays.

Life seems to be settling down here: I usually know where I need to be without looking at my diary and I have become able to prioritise my reading, &c. Actually, today marks one month since I have been in this place. I do not know if how I feel today and how I relate to my surroundings is quite what I pictured my one-month anniversary to look like. (But then again, I tend to idealise). I enjoy this place and feel as though I am gleaning so much from this experience... but I do not think I will ever feel at home here. When I moved to Santa Barbara to go to school I developed a sense of home in that place--both at westmont and in the wider city--but I think that I will always feel a bit of an outsider here. Perhaps I have more of a sense of "the end" here. I have already begun drawing up plans for my next steps: looking into internships, jobs, more graduate school. Nine months is not a very long time.

But, overall, I think that this realisation is perhaps a good thing: I am learning that I am not as comfortable being transient as I thought I was (or used to be). I am holding onto a lot about where I come from and who I come from, something that I did not do last time I studied in this country. I was chatting to a friend over tapas a few weeks ago (an American originally from NY but lived for a long time in SD). He viewed this experience very much as a starting over: a new country, a new start. This seemed to be good for him (sometimes we need to change our surroundings in order to change something deeper, I believe), but I could not relate to him on that level. I view this as another experience to add to my already full and blessed life. I did not want to walk away with my eyes shut this time. I think often of my family in Alta Loma and Laguna and soon-to-be Humboldt (!), and also of my "extended family" in Santa Barbara and San Diego and Thousand Oaks... and further. I think of my beautiful web of friends and family and family of friends and friends of family. I have a very rich and loving network in California, and I am beginning to understand that better now that I am outside of it.

So, all of you back at home... thank you. I have been thinking of you all during this time of distress back in cali. It seems something so familiar but so far right now. Thank you to all of your updates; please do keep them coming. And I will keep you in my prayers.