sneaking in a last post before the new year

hi everyone,

Brittany's beautiful, brilliant blog below (alliteration, take that!) is wondrous and I encourage you readers to read that for a more soul-felt, well-rounded, meaningful slice of pie.

I, on the other hand, offer you some rambles reflecting on my homecoming which will have no conclusion, or deep, heartfelt meaning, but will likely look like I am writing after having knitted for three hours (with a brief break for making a smoothie) whilst suspiciously eyeing the shows the Food Network decides are meaningful things for people to watch. Which is what I actually have been doing.

But it's so much more.

The premise of my knitting frenzy and overconsumption of Food Network television is that I've been nannying this past week.

And, I think it's safe to say, I've met my 10-year-old best friend.

This is the part in my blog when I explain just how awesome we are together:

-Did we spent two hours at Chuck E. Cheese today trying to accumulate tickets to try and win a Hannah Montana pencil pouch? Yes.

-Did we go there after we went and saw "Bedtime Stories" starring a guinea pig with enormous eyes who was our favorite character? Yes.

-Did we spend 10 minutes this morning trying to turn on her parent's car? Yes.

-Were we embarrassed it took that long? No.

-Does she like crossword puzzles and making smoothies with intriguing mixtures of fruit and vegetables? Yes.

-Does she like furry pets? Yes.

-Did she love that I bought her a book tonight (a Newberry winning book, mind you) and started reading it 8 minutes after we got home? Yes.

-Did she learn how to knit tonight in like ten minutes? YES.

-Does she like my newest pet, Rhonda the Bunny? Heavens, yes!

All this ought to communicate clearly that my new ten year old best friend and I are getting along quite nicely. In the grander scheme of things, this should also communicate that I am (as Brittany has poetically told you) back in Oregon. Eugene, specifically. And I am working! Yes, friend, I get paid to go to Chuck E. Cheese and play "Dunk the Alien."

It's certainly odd to be back, to attempt to reconcile that I live here now. Mostly, I feel like I am a little kid again, overwhelmed (but in wonder) at the great big world around me. So much life happening all at once all over the place. It's nice, perfect even, that I am working as a nanny for the month of January. I feel as though an appropriate way to come back into one's country (after having been gone a long while) is to have a child who doesn't mind that you are a little eccentric, that words blurt out in Thai, that you ramble a lot, that you talk to her cats and want to organize her parents' house.

I imagine this coming home will be a gradual emerging rather than an instant arrival--more like a pill bug coming out of its round little ball of a shell after being picked up or shaken a bit. And Providence has me in the hands of an incredible small person who knows she's free to be whomever she wants to be and knows I will reciprocate that very thing.

Well, I'll end just about here.

I want to second Christmas wishes to you, and New Years wishes as well. But especially the Christmas sentiments. I hope you kept the Blessed Holiday Itself well. And I pray that we can be willing and open to letting the Christmas Story and Message unfold in us... It's all about the Love and Peace, right?

Happy Christmas. Merry New Year.

-kelly

PS: A postscript, but a very important one. I want to say thank you so much for all your support and love for BQ and me. If there was a word which meant more than thank you I would use it, but I don't know one that communicates how I feel so well. So I'll just tell you thanks so much for everything you've been for us, and everything you've done. And I hope you know how much I mean it.