Where I Live

One morning during my early days in Czech language class (all these many years ago), the teacher referenced an author that wrote, "You travel to discover more about where you live". Of course, it's possible that the author said something completely different, such as "You travel to collect cheap souvenirs" and I just heard it incorrectly, considering that I didn't understand Czech very well at the time. However, I like it the way I think I heard it, and believe that my version this is a very true statement.

My traveling this week away from our new home has shown me several things about and where I now live:

1. We live very far away from our family. Where we live now is like another world out there - CaliforniaWorld, far, far away. It takes a good portion of a day to travel this way, and California seems very fuzzy and distant once we're here. To others that live here, the fact that we live in California seems to put us in a completely different greeting category. Almost everyone here (at church, for example) begins their greeting with "Hey, here are the California folks". Or, "All the way back from sunny California, huh?" I don't think they would say that if we had moved to, say, Oklahoma. It's like we've grown new adjectives for ourselves because of where we live now.

2. California is indeed very sunny. It's been raining off and on since we arrived here, and it's just amazing to me that it rains at all. In fact, when the first drops of a storm hit the car windshield yesterday, I was mesmerized by them. They're just so...wet.

3. Fresnans seriously know how to recycle things. I was almost aghast the other day when I spotted a public trashcan chock-full of recyclables. We really do have such an easy way to recycle in Fresno (we get to throw everything even remotely recyclable into one big bin and they take care of the rest.) It's too bad that it's not that easy in other places.

4. It really is a dry heat. I forgot what muggy felt like until I visited here again (when it's not raining here, it can be a tad muggy). Fresno also is almost mosquito-free, which I must say is wonderful.

Of course, paired with this new quote about traveling is the age-old "There's no place like home", too. Thankfully it is possible to appreciate the new, and appreciate the old at the same time. It's kind of like having the best of both worlds, rolled into one.