Feeling the distance

I've said before, here, that graduate school is a very lonely experience. But it's not just the work that brings solitude. It's also, for me, the incredible distance from friends and family. When I think about the last four and a half years that we've been down here, more than a thousand miles from home, one thing that comes to mind is all the times when I desperately wanted to be back in Kansas. Sometimes I wanted to be close to the people who needed comforting while they dealt with tragedy. Death, prolonged illness, suicide, divorce, and more. But other times I wanted to be back for reasons that are much more elemental. To smell the air, see the trees, and immerse myself the familiar. For a number of reasons, we're not likely to be able to visit this summer. And while I know we'll be back at Christmas, I also know that until then I'll look out my office window every once in awhile and wonder what home looks like right at that moment.