I got on a charter bus with other people from my school and from my program and was ferried along the highway for maybe an hour or so, past fields and hills and livestock. I've stopped counting the number of hours I've spent on tour buses in my life and I don't even want to try to estimate the number of miles I've travelled in a vehicle. Even the twisting and turning roads getting into town felt normal. It felt like home.
We got out of the bus in Comrie, a little town on the edge of the Highlands, and were ushered into a church. Within minutes, I knew where the bathrooms, kitchen, and office were. Despite the hot tea and "biscuits" being served, I'm no stranger to a church. I must have visited at least a hundred on various and sundry trips. This was normal. This felt like home.
We played that get-to-know-you signature bingo. You know, the one where you have a grid with one description per square, like "born outside the US" or "has two dogs", and you have to fill in a name for each square and the first one to get all the names wins? Other than the fact that the descriptions were things like, "born outside the UK" and "has read more than 10 pages of the Quran", this was something I've done many a time. The way the ambient noise in the room increases and one intensely competitive pack forms while everyone else casually searches for someone who plays an instrument is something I've come to anticipate from games like this. It's normal. It feels like home.
There are these rivers that meet in town, two or three, I don't remember, and I don't know their names. But one of them flows right past the back of the church, all white caps and bubbles as it goes over the rocks and around bends, and there's a bench under some trees where you could sit and watch if you'd like. And there's a waterfall back up in the woods. We went on a hike as a group and took some pictures.
And the woods, they go on, it feels like forever, green as far as the eye can see, moss covering fallen tree trunks and running up living tree trunks and leaves blocking out the grey of the sky. I guess it's the right amount of green for October- I'm not used to noticing until I'm driving up into the mountains. And after some serious climbing, we came up on this view.
And I know, I know that the hills are different, that these are someone else's rocks jutting up from someone else's section of our planet and I know that this grass and these trees and everything around me is different, subtly suited to the climate here as opposed to there and I know they see the stars in different places and I know that no one sounds like me, but when I see these hills and when I see these fields and when I see these trees, it feels... normal. It feels like home. And that bittersweet longing that tugs at your insides when you've found the place that you'd want to rest in until your days are done, I feel that most when I'm out there near the mountains, with peaks and valleys laid out before me, just barely covered in blankets of trees and brush, where the air bites just a bit and the wind catches you in the back like an old friend. It's crushing, having that knowledge of where your soul wants to be and having to leave at the end of the day anyway.
Then again, that leaving, that feels normal too. That also feels like home.
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