While many of our friends are leaving for exotic destinations around the globe next week for Spring Break, we will head for Portland. This flight has been planned since we bought our tickets last June and even though we're moving back in summer, it'll be good to see friends, family and take care of a lot of business and shopping. It will be strange to "vacation" in the town we live in, but we will do our best. The girls want to attend Rieke a few days, Craig will go in to the LaCrosse office a couple but for the most part we will be busy just catching up with seeing everyone.
The last two weeks have flown by for me. One museum outing with lady friends, CIS Dinner Dance, 2 luncheons with CIS friends, 2 days spent with my sister Teresa who was in town again (including a fun day in Sweden) and on top of that lots of walking, biking, tennis and my usual yoga/strength routine. It's now Saturday morning and I'm looking forward to a weekend of chores, food shopping, laundry and such. Craig and I are seeing a play by an English Production Company tonight and dinner out.
Craig's had a long week with LaCrosse people in town. The office was a hub of activity until late hours. He's begun to mingle his new U.S. job responsibilities with his current Danish ones. The Controller he hired the first of January is doing a bang-up job and will assume some of the managerial responsibilities while the Portland Marketing Dept. will take others. Craig will travel to the U.S. at least twice and to China once before we move home in June.
We're trying to cram little excursions in here and there amidst Maya's big 5th grade "exhibition" project, end-of-year school parties and packing up. We hope to get to Stockholm, The fjords of Norway, Legoland (on the big island of Denmark) and Croatia after school is over. Sounds crazy but we just have to do it.
Molly continues to create a busy social life. She has a sleepover with a different friend every weekend and at least 2 playdates after school each week. She aces what little homework she gets and has become a stronger reader. Maya likes to come home after school and hang out, do computer games, homework and read. She has one or two playdates a week as well. She confided in me last night that she's torn about moving back to Portland. She's making some good friends here and wants more time to get to know them better. However, she's looking forward to being with her old friends at home. Both girls' worlds revolves around their friends. How lovely and innocent. Aah, to be a child.
The more I visit with fellow ex-pats, the more I realize how very different our experience is from theirs. Many have been assigned and re-assigned jobs globally, and do not have a "home" per se. Where they currently hang their hat, is their home. They bring everything with them and set up their lives, integrating as completely and as wholeheartedly as they can. We, on the other hand, just took a bite out of the real thing. We've always known we'd return and to exactly our Portland existence as we left it. With that, it's been hard to "detach" from Portland and "attach" here. I can understand now, why the first year is the detaching process. It takes about that long to feel connected and get truly involved in activities, friendships, etc.
But, on the other hand, one year will give us the experience of a lifetime. Not only in traveling and seeing other parts of the world and how people live, but the detachment I speak of is also a time to re-evaulate and assess one's life as it was. This self-induced exile from home has been a time of reflection, bonding and growth. We've all become very practiced in the art of patience. At the risk of sounding very Dorothy-like, "There's no place like home". Granted, distance makes the heart grow fonder. But we are very fortunate to have a place we can call home: A place that is familiar, cozy, inviting and safe. A place where roots are deep. We will return home to open arms of loving friends and family.
The sun is up and the skies look friendly today. We've had still freezing temperatures this week, a little snow, sleet, rain mixed with 2 beautifully sunny but chilly days. The only color is from blooming crocus in every lawn. We won't get new growth on trees and flowers for another month. We change our clocks tonight, giving us daylight until almost 8:30 pm.
Enjoy the new birth of spring,
Love and Light,
Mary Jo
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