The end.

I flew 38,000 feet above the Lybian Desert again; sat in an airborn capsule catapulting me back into the West. Four months ago I reread Salinger's Franny and Zooey. En route to Africa, Salinger's words resonated in my popping ears: "I go mostly because I'm tired as hell of getting up furious in the morning and going to bed furious at night. I go because I sit in judgment on every poor” person I know (Salinger, 139). I was tired of it because “there are nice things in the world- and I mean nice things. We’re all such morons to get so sidetracked. Always, always referring everything that happens right back to our own lousy egos” (Salinger, 152). I was fed up with judging myself, and judging others, without experience or legitimacy to back up any of the judgment. I was tired of working so hard for a joy that I know comes naturally if I don't get bogged down with my own fluff. Mostly though, I was ready. I left the summer in a calm place of preparedness. "The time has come" the Walrus told me, and off I went.

I dreamt of Africa. I did so growing up, and while I studied at Uganda Christian University, and have since my return. My presence there never really felt a part of me. When I was in fourth grade a woman visited Fitchville Baptist Church in Bozrah, Connecticut. She worked for a school in Kenya. She gave me a small, leather, flip-flop keychain. Seven years later my car keys flopped along with that piece of East Africa. A few years after that, it held my college dorm keys and meal card. It held the keys to my first apartment the summer before my Ugandan semester, before I left the keychain to come back to its origination myself. Walking off the plane onto the runway in August, the huge African, starlit sky engulfed me. Yet, it let me be. I went to Africa and was still following myself around. I shook my arms to attempt to feel what remained so far away. And as I left last Tuesday night, I again walked across that runway. Ached up into the starlit sky, and knew this was going to be hard.

Arriving in Uganda was simpler. Exciting. I left a place I love for a place I did not know. On Tuesday I left a place I love for a place I love. I wisper to myself: "live in the tension!" while I wonder if I'll ever live out of the tension again. "Displacement is not primarily something to do or to accomplish, but something to recognize” (Nouwen, 71).

My semester abroad made me feel like the snail in Issa’s haiku: O snail, Climb Mount Fugi, But slowly, slowly! (Kobayashi Issa). Even though the world felt smaller as I lived on the other side of it, the problems of the world did not. But, despite the mountain range, I realized the necessity of continuing the climb.

And I do not know what will come next. Well, that is a lie- I know that Christmas is next, is tomorrow. And then my last semester of Gordon. I know that right now I wear gloves as I type on the computer, so I'll soon leave this spot for a cozier one downstairs. I'll talk to my Mom and sit at the kitchen table that has made mention in this blog so many times. I like sitting at it. But more long-term, more wide-frame panoramic, how long I will stay or go? Will I do good or just be present? I stay right now because is the truest form of faithfulness available. If staying in six months is still the only blatant way to live what seems ought to come next, I hope I have the courage to do so. If flying off somewhere, whether it be Chicago or the Lybian Desert or Phnom Penh, I hope the same. I don't know if I believe in moments of epiphany or promise for changing the world any more. I do believe in following opportunities to give of myself- here and far, and wherever I end up. I desire to give of myself. Faithfully.

Thank you for being present with me through this semester. For following my thoughts and frustrations and sudden startling joys. My days home have been an amusing adventure in themselves already- as if the layover in Amsterdam was not amusing enough. Feel free to inquire as to things outside of my time as "a broad abroad." Like Ugandans would say: "you are most welcome."