I've been in a funk.

Because it's that time of year: the days are shortening, cooling, dying.

Because all the things I love about here come to an end for a while and all the things I love about there are absolutely perfect this time of year.  Because husband has been spending his days and his nights working and I have been spending them on the couch with the curtains closed and Netflix on.  Because all of the races are over, all of the company has left, the garden is even finished.

I've been sticking to my routines.  Starting my days with fire, small fires now because I am almost done with the Samuels and I can't bear to part with them too and so I have gone from a chapter a day to a few verses a day.  And then sometimes backwards instead of forwards.  I have been eating the eggs in the morning, the lunch at noon, a full dinner at night.  I have stuck with the gym when I can.  I have stuck with bedtime.  I have kept myself away from naps and too much chocolates and coffees (mostly).

Still.

I'm in a funk.  

I miss home like mad.  I miss the way the city smells, breathes, paces.  I miss my sister.  And my forever friend.   I miss my mother telling stories on my father.  I miss that a lot.  

The sermon Sunday was on Abraham's big journey.  His willingness to go when called.  And I recognized the challenge of leaving: I've experienced that one quite a bit.  I thought about Abraham.  About what it meant back then to move so far, about the years it must have taken him and about the community he hauled with him.  And then I thought about now.  We move everywhere.  In days, we move.  We can pack up all of our things and entire families and we can be somewhere else almost immediately.  It's what we do, we are so transient, so mobile.  

I was challenged earlier this year by a different sermon: If you are in a city of lost people, stay as long as you can.  Stay is a harder word for me than go.  Stay means I have to connect.  Stay means I have to pause, more than pause, I have to be present and here and accessible.  Stay is not always hard, stay is sometimes wonderful.  But.

I'm in a funk.  I'm far away from family.  I'm wrestling with Stay.  And I'm dreaming about the next trip home.