Where I have been...
We are here in Annecy now, the Pat and I are...reconnecting with his favorite spots, experiences...getting to see some old friends...speaking our 2nd language with, at least in my weird case, a neo-nordic accent, getting re-accustomed to kissing people on the cheek and conversing with 6 cm distance between our faces...drinking Orangina, steak frites with Romaine salad and vinaigrette, a glass of red at La Trinquette, our oft-visited resto by the lake...oh man, the lake!...Clear azur blue water, green walls of mountains rising straight up out of the water's edge, it seems, like a fjord in Norway, veils of storm-clouds wrapping the summits, Vedette tour boats of varnished wood like nautical sports cars slicing the glass surface, no wind today...On the promenade we happen upon my old friend Godwin, my Christian brother from Nigeria, and of course, we spend a few minutes laughing out loud...What a joy to see him again! I tell him of my many African friends now back home in Stockholm...Meet Rika, from Swedish Karlstad, who has come to the church we were in here before, we speak Swedish to the utter fascination of French friends...See Roland, a friend from Seynod, the suburb we lived in here, father of Loic, a schoolmate of Laura's, he has come closer to an encounter with Christ--Wow!...
Patrick and I hang at the Bol des Marquisats skate-bowl, watching skaters, trick-bikers, Patrick gets a young boy to succeed with his first descent of a skatebowl slope without falling, by lending him his own board...Jumps later into the 13C. lake-water like a true Scandinavian...
Missed the Pentecost Sunday worship at New Life, I always like that Sunday there, celebrating the coming of the promised Paracletos, the Comforter, the Fire-Baptizer...Being here, I realize the extent to which those years (6) are part of me, my children's home, these mountains, this lake, this beautiful little city (1/10 the size of Stockholm), the roads up valleys and over passes, those days of watching 3 dozen parasailors hovering and spiraling on updrafts in front of the concave face of 2400m-high La Tournette while white sails dot the lake and people from all over the world stroll the streets, past my old favorite Cafe des Arts on the tiny island in the middle of the Thiou canal, picking up Claire after another theater production at Bonlieu Scene Nationale on a snowy night, Patrick's basketball games played in the Seynod gym, us sitting with the hard-working, chain-smoking, Renault-driving parents, all of us screaming while our boys try for two more points...
Realize too that home has become a very vague and misty concept, for me, and even more for my kids...Wherever my skis are, says Patrick...Wherever God and my loved ones or my stuff is/are?...I find myself, in the middle of so much familiar beauty and memories, thinking of spruce forests, big big skies, granite, water, red houses with white trim, a beautiful city built on 14 islands, new friends, a language I'm learning to love, cardemum, fika, ministry, and a yellow rowhouse with an ICA store nearby...Don't ever forget where you're from, someone once told me, in circumstances long forgotten...From Knoxville to Irving to Santa Cruz to Chicago to Paris to Turlock to Lyon to Annecy to Stockholm to this laptop in my friend Jon's living room, with Christ and Beth and Claire and Patrick and Laura and a Norwegian farm cat named Pepper all coming in along the way in different places and then going to a new place together...Everywhere we have been is part of us...I am a rich man!...
Patrick off to Stephen's tomorrow, me hang with Jon and over to friends from my old cell group to meet their newly adopted daughter and talk about jazz drummers and life, emailing home, visit the old neighborhood in Seynod...But Wednesday, it's SAS (we hope) back to Stockholm, to Åkersberga, to home that's plenty good enough for me!...It's good to go back and see where I have been...
Patrick and I hang at the Bol des Marquisats skate-bowl, watching skaters, trick-bikers, Patrick gets a young boy to succeed with his first descent of a skatebowl slope without falling, by lending him his own board...Jumps later into the 13C. lake-water like a true Scandinavian...
Missed the Pentecost Sunday worship at New Life, I always like that Sunday there, celebrating the coming of the promised Paracletos, the Comforter, the Fire-Baptizer...Being here, I realize the extent to which those years (6) are part of me, my children's home, these mountains, this lake, this beautiful little city (1/10 the size of Stockholm), the roads up valleys and over passes, those days of watching 3 dozen parasailors hovering and spiraling on updrafts in front of the concave face of 2400m-high La Tournette while white sails dot the lake and people from all over the world stroll the streets, past my old favorite Cafe des Arts on the tiny island in the middle of the Thiou canal, picking up Claire after another theater production at Bonlieu Scene Nationale on a snowy night, Patrick's basketball games played in the Seynod gym, us sitting with the hard-working, chain-smoking, Renault-driving parents, all of us screaming while our boys try for two more points...
Realize too that home has become a very vague and misty concept, for me, and even more for my kids...Wherever my skis are, says Patrick...Wherever God and my loved ones or my stuff is/are?...I find myself, in the middle of so much familiar beauty and memories, thinking of spruce forests, big big skies, granite, water, red houses with white trim, a beautiful city built on 14 islands, new friends, a language I'm learning to love, cardemum, fika, ministry, and a yellow rowhouse with an ICA store nearby...Don't ever forget where you're from, someone once told me, in circumstances long forgotten...From Knoxville to Irving to Santa Cruz to Chicago to Paris to Turlock to Lyon to Annecy to Stockholm to this laptop in my friend Jon's living room, with Christ and Beth and Claire and Patrick and Laura and a Norwegian farm cat named Pepper all coming in along the way in different places and then going to a new place together...Everywhere we have been is part of us...I am a rich man!...
Patrick off to Stephen's tomorrow, me hang with Jon and over to friends from my old cell group to meet their newly adopted daughter and talk about jazz drummers and life, emailing home, visit the old neighborhood in Seynod...But Wednesday, it's SAS (we hope) back to Stockholm, to Åkersberga, to home that's plenty good enough for me!...It's good to go back and see where I have been...
posted by studu at 8:44 PM
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