I am certainly not the first to write about the ocean, and this is certainly not the first time you've read about it. But I can't help but write about it when the wildness pulls you in, whips against your skin until you lick your lips and taste salt and all you can think about is how free you feel. It does something to you, the wild does, fills you up and empties you simultaneously, and I know why artists escape to tiny seaside cottages.

Brutal as it can be, I would be lying if I said I didn't miss the dry heat of an Oklahoma summer: surviving almost entirely off bruschetta made with fresh basil and warm tomatoes off the vine and slowly roasting to death by the pool until you jump in and the lazy mornings spent creating pretty things. Also my family. Dang, I miss my family. It is not as aching and raw as it was a month ago, but I truly miss their company. Yet in being here, I am learning a lot about home, learning what defines me, learning that "home really has less to do with a piece of soil than with a piece of soul." (+) It is a fascinating journey.

Still, I was happy for a chance to return to the sea, to dip my toes into the Indian Ocean for the first time (!!!), to experience life on the coast. Kenya is beautiful and in my short explorations of it so far, I wonder how I got so lucky as to be here.
 

It's the 4th of July, and I'm 8,575 miles from home.

I wrote a few months ago that I wasn't sure where home was, but I think time has since answered that question. Home is not carved into a landscape, or stamped on a town, or etched in a building, but is rather built by and sustained through people. You wonder how you can have more than one home; that's how.

When I say I miss home, I mean I miss the people that make up my old life, though it constantly catches me by surprise to remember that there ever was another life.

And yet, slowly but surely, I can feel another home being built here, 8,575 miles away.

“The little things? The little moments? — They aren’t little.”

 — John Zabat-Zinn

The thing they don't tell you about traveling is how much and how intensely you'll miss, and also the kind of things you'll miss. The big things you've braced yourself for - birthdays and vacations and the like - but it's the little things that get you in the gut, the ones you didn't think to brace yourself for: taking a walk in a pretty garden on a Sunday afternoon, or watching the World Cup with your family in your grandparents' kitchen, or spending long lazy afternoons in the sunshine listening to bad pop music.

I keep thinking back to my last Sunday in Germany. That whole last weekend - something about it feels sacred. I knew I was leaving, and so did everyone else, and I tried not to think about it, and everyone else tried the same. My opa had his hip replaced a week before I left for Kenya, and Sunday was the first time since the surgery that he felt well enough to take in a bit of fresh air. The weather was the stuff of dreams: penetrating warmth in the sun, and lush coolness in the shade. And the gardens - the gardens were a thing to behold. Beds of lavender and sage scented sweetly the breeze and under a canopy of thick, knowing trees stood benches overlooking the gentle green. We walked along the paths and didn't talk about much of anything, but if we were to ask me what I miss most, that's what I'd tell you about.

Now, hear me out, I don't mean for this to sound like I'm unhappy. I'm not. I am truly glad I am here in Kenya, but this is a part of my life that I need to find words for, if only for myself.

I wish I could take you with me, show you what I'm talking about and let you experience it for yourself. I wish I could find the words to tell you how much it means to me. One of the greatest gifts my parents ever gave me was the gift of two homes; two countries I feel comfortable and at home in. And when I go back to my German home in sleepy Telgte, it's like my childhood all over again: thunderstorms in brightly blooming gardens, Steinbeck read on a golden-hued balcony, bicycle tires bumping over cobblestoned streets, kaffee und kuchen in a shady garden, bare feet dangling over the lake while drinking iced coffee with my older sister, entire days spent reading to the pitter of rain on the windows, warm strawberries from bush to mouth in approximately three seconds, dancing badly to good music, pigeons cooing from the steep rooftops.

Those are the simple things, and also the best things, and also how did I get so blessed?