The Shire

This weekend I spent three days in South Bend, IN shopping for houses. You can see one of our top picks as a movie to the left. Warning: it's a terrible movie, very poorly filmed. But theres a cool song attached.

It's been seven years since I lived in South Bend. Mark and I moved to Connecticut two months after we got married in Oct of 99. Since then we have moved through four states, never really knowing anyone where ever we went. We tackled new cites on our own and really enjoyed the adventure of not knowing what was around the corner. It was an adventure just to find the local grocery store. So it's strange moving back to my hometown after all this time.

While flying over South Bend for the arrival I noticed how small it seems now. It was evening so the town was lit up and pulsing with glowing life. After Indianapolis and San Diego, South Bend is so small, and after living coast to coast, my inner world is so big. I imagined that this is how the Hobbits must have felt when they returned from Mordor to the Shire. Not that the places we have been are evil, but they were big, and oh the characters we've met along the way! It's so small, and it's home. I barely recognize it.

Yet I'm still experiencing the unexpected. I didn't expect the entourage. Everywhere I went this weekend I was accompanied by several relatives. That was strange. Mark and I have been working solo for so long it was odd to have people to talk to and share ideas with. I feel like they are catching me from a high fall with each of them holding a corner of a blanket. Not like falling from a burning building, but like falling from a high wire trappese act. Ta da!

So we are on the move again. Just catching the waves as they come and riding like mad.