Bayt

Caitlin and Shane got engaged a couple weeks ago now. I am happy, happy, happy for them. I've also been, since then, unbelievably excited to go home. Not to get out of Uganda, but just to go home and have the wedding to look forward to, seeing everyone and celebrating and being back. I'm also anticipating the itch that I know will come as soon as the wedding ends and the celebrations start to die down: the itch to leave home again. This, from a great article in today's New York Times:

“Your first discovery when you travel,” wrote Elizabeth Hardwick, “is that you do not exist.” In other words, it is not just the others who have been left behind; it is all of you that is known. Gone is the power or punishment of your family name, the hard-earned reputations of forebears, no longer familiar to anyone in this new place.
In Arabic, the word “bayt” translates literally as house, but its connotations resonate beyond rooms and walls, summoning longings gathered about family and home. In the Middle East, bayt is sacred. Empires fall. Nations topple. Borders may shift. Old loyalties may dissolve or, without warning, be altered. Home, whether it be structure or familiar ground, is finally the identity that does not fade.

Loved that, and wanted to share, and I guess that's all. Just excited to go home, happy to be here and have home, as it resonates beyond rooms and walls, to go back to.