Can't you hear Jerusalem moan?

Someone at David's baby shower on December 13 asked me when I had gotten back. Back to the country? Back to school? Back from Thanksgiving break? I had been to Colorado before, but never to that chidrens' hospital, so I couldn't really come back. Alissa had to say "Friday" for me. Yes, Friday, December 12 was the day that I landed in Denver.

When Milt asked me the same question on Sunday, I was ready. I told him that I got into Denver airport on Friday night, then rode up to Ft. Collins, then rode back to Denver, then rode back to Ft. Collins, then rode back to Denver. "You can't say 'back' when this is only the third day I've been in Ft. Collins, and I've spent two of those days in Denver." Point taken.

People thought I was "back" because they thought I was home, but I knew that home wasn't Ft. Collins because I didn't even know where the bathrooms or the oven mitts were. I suppose there are plenty of senile people who have lived in houses their whole lives and then forgotten where the bathrooms or the oven mitts are, but that's different. They are still allowed to call their houses home, even after they are taken away to a nursing home. And they are also allowed to call the nursing home "home." Or both can be home. Or neither.

If home is where the heart is, my home is in pieces all over the world. There are chunks in the swamp, in the camper, in the senior hallway, in Glacier Dorm, in my señora's house, in this dorm room, and in Fort Collins. My home is even in places I've never been, like George Fox University's Asian house and Singapore and orphanages in Uganda. Some pieces of my home no longer exist (like Putermobile), and some pieces exist only in my imagination (like my own full kitchen). This is all very complicated, so I prefer a definition of "home" that goes beyond nostalgia and desire and includes something of relative permanence and practical function. I don't have this definition completely worked out, and I don't even want to know what the dictionary has to say.

Lori asked me yesterday if I spent Christmas in Iowa or at home. The truth is I spent ten days at my parents' house and then spent Christmas in the Buick with my sister and the next few days at the Hoflands' house, the next few days in a cabin, the next two days at my boyfriend Ryan's house, another night at Hoflands', the next day in the Buick, and the next day and a half at the house on Kalamazoo. And then I went to Israel. No, Lori, I did not spend Christmas at home.

"Where is your home?" she asked as I finally unpacked the suitcase, duffel, and backpack that I'd been living out of since December 12. "Here," I said.

But that's only half the answer. "I've got a home on the other shore (Oh, can't you hear Jerusalem moan!) and I'm a gonna live there forevermore. (Can't you hear Jerusalem moan?)"