Change

This is the new Stillwater road bridge across the St. Croix river--this end is in Minnesota, the other end is in Wisconsin.  It feels like it has been under construction forever.

It's been extremely hot and humid here--the heat index has been close to 117F (47C).  Amazing when you think that six months ago, the windchill was in the minus 47F (-44C) range.  To cool off, I put the dog in the car and we drove in the pleasant air-conditioning over to the east side of the Twin Cities (Minneapolis-St. Paul) to the St. Croix valley that is the border between Minnesota and Wisconsin.  As I contemplate the landscape, not unlike that of England, but in the alien temperatures and humidity, I wonder if it is time to consider returning to the UK.  In my 25 years here in the state that I love so much (Minnesota), I never thought that I would write such a thing.  The world seems so alien to me here sometimes.  It just seems to have gone mad.  And yet when I look back over the 4,500 miles to the UK, the UK doesn't seem to be the place that I thought it was--or that it in fact was--either.

I feel like a misfit, a fish out of water, drowning in a world suddenly full of heat and hatred.

And then there are the times when I connect with the people whom I love here, and I feel right at home again.  There are so many wonderful people here and in the UK.

Nostalgia is literally an emotional ache for home (from ancient Greek νόστος, nostos, homecoming; and ἄλγος, algos, grief).  But as the English word suggests, home is a time as well as a place.  And that time and that place no longer exist.  You can never go back.