Meanderings...

Well, it's been a while - and for that I apologize. We've been running around madly from place to place here and have come over to my homeland, England, for two months (well strictly speaking, "Europe" - since we're going to Germany by car and staying with my father in Scotland as well...). So I bring you this posting from England, which seems to have become populated with a whole host of very sweet little babies.

Mind you, it's been five years since I've spent any kind of meaningful time here in the old UK. Things have certainly changed a lot... For the better, in many ways - lots of recyclable plastic bags floating about; "green" cars; very wonderful buggies; bigger Cadbury's chocolate buttons... In other ways, they are the same: decent pies; excellent shopping; not-overbearingly-hot weather; scenic railway rides and beautiful coastlines. Since I am a foodie, I can always appreciate a nice pub lunch as well. I do love my homeland.

There are advantages and disadvantages to both sides of the pond, I suppose.

Mind you, the whole trip-thing had me thinking. I know now for certain that I have definitively drifted into "ex-pat-land" - I'm no longer so finely enmeshed in British society (I seem to have lost my way, fashionably speaking, for sure); no longer so familiar with prices and places and people. On the other hand, I am still "the British girl" in America - accepted and even loved by many (for which I am so grateful and thankful) but a bit out of place there as well. But I have been bound to one side of the ocean by a single thing - a little girl actually - my Josie.

She is buried in Minnesota, so that is where my heart, literally speaking, lies.

It's hard to know what I am, nowadays. At least in terms of belonging to any place or another. I suppose it's just easier to sit on the ground, with hands in the soil or the sand or the grass and feel the planet Earth, because she is universal and we are all connected to her, no matter where we walk. I am in limbo now; a bit of a social refugee. It's interesting and leaves me thinking hard, sometimes.

At least I know who I am. I think in the end, that is the most important thing. To know one's own reaction to events; one's morals; whether one can be bought and so on. In many ways I do believe Josie's death brought me to a place in which I could really know myself - everything was shattered, and I chose to put the pieces back properly this time, instead of throwing them about like I had in other major (though of course not tragic in even the slightest similarity) life 'events.' That choice, I owe to two lots of previous counselling and a determination not to die - either mentally or physically. Both would have been plausible ends, of course.

But, the world it too beautiful, and now I have Isobella to make it even more so.

Every day she continues to bring the most gorgeous pleasure to my life! I cannot tell you how blessed I am. Really, the alternative would have been much less pleasant than this life - this loving of my little daughter in whose eyes I see the future of the world. She makes me believe it might not be as dreadful as the predictions I keep hearing on the news or in the movies...

So off I wander in my quest to figure everything out, just like all the other people in the world. Well, within reason of course: there are those who prefer not to spend time on such things. And more power to them. I however, am destined to spend late nights in thought.

Anyway, here she is in her gorgeousness - growing more independent and energetic every day; increasing in length and weight and determination all the while! At the last check up she weighed 16lb 5oz and was 20...something inches long (she wiggled).

My little darling: