I forgot about the rushing wild rain here. I'm sitting in my car, waiting for a friend to get off work and there really was a moment when I wondered if it was possible and probable for my car to blow over. I specked out the suburban to my right and wondered who was more likely to get blown first and decided that moving closer to him might be an option. I haven't, of course, because I'm actually enjoying the windblown feeling, it does great things to my hair. Kidding. Kidding.

I'm in Tennessee. So far people have welcomed me Home, asked me when I'm moving back, wondered if this area was in any immediate plans, etc. It's nice to be wanted, I like that feeling. It's especially nice to be wanted in a place where it hardly ever snows, these are two things Tennessee has going for it. It does rain, though, case in point.

I've been hiding out in a cabin a few miles north of my old stomping ground, far enough away that cell phone reception and an internet signal are things of the future and I like that just fine. We waded through the garden yesterday morning, picking enough vittles for fresh peach salsa and then some. We didn't get enough of our picking fill, though, and headed back out in late afternoon to ford the blackberry bushes. We picked a few gallons and I declared five cups of that off limits to anything but a homemade blackberry pie. Lattice top, because it tastes better that way.

Every time I come back here I try to make the rounds, visiting old friends, snuggling their new babies or sitting on their college apartment floors. I'm so happy to see each of them, excited to hear what is going on in their lives, happy to share what's going on (or not going on) in mine. But what I'm most excited about is tomorrow night when the Makeshift Family will converge up in that cabin, when we'll gather around a bonfire or a table or something central. We'll laugh so hard our sides hurt even if we don't know what we're laughing about; I'm excited about when my eyes will tear up once or twice or ten times and we'll eat blackberry pie with a lattice top. I'm excited about the following day when two more of us will tie another knot marking the depth of how deep we go. I'm excited to see and breathe and smile and feel so at home that regardless of what state we're in, or what town we've crashed or what the greater purpose is, we feel it deep in our souls: we're home.

He said to me last night while giving me their flight time (over her squeals in the background) that he feels it already, and they're not even on the plane. He feels that sense that something really, really good, something made of the stuff of heaven, that sense that it's coming soon.

I love that.

Even if it does rain all weekend.