The night stars welcome my eyes back to Kansas every time. It may take a day or three depending on the weather, but each trip they are there, beautiful as ever. I’ve been in many states, several countries, and two continents, but nowhere, nowhere compares to here, my homeland, in the beauty of the night sky. Maybe one day, when I’ve seen a bit more of the world, somewhere else will compare. Maybe.
My best friend has told me that she thinks of sunsets as God’s love letters to us. While I completely agree, I feel as though His love letters to me are the stars. They reach me a little deeper, a little more completely. One of my favorite poems, “She Walks in Beauty” by Lord Byron, captures some of the beauty of the stars, beginning
She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that’s best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes;
Thus mellowed to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
The night sky I imagine while reading this poem is of Kansas. It’s impossible to feel closed in and hopeless while looking at a clear Kansas sky, I think. The world seems endless, the magnitude of God’s power and grace tangible in their infiniteness. If one thing in this world can make me breathless again and again, it is the stars.
Thinking of my love of the night skies in Kansas made me think a bit broader to my love of Kansas overall. My sister had me listen to “Fly Over States” by Jason Aldean, where he sings that the people who dismiss the Midwest of worth have “never… caught a harvest moon in Kansas” (among other things) and if they had, “they’d understand why God made those fly over states.”
I’m entering into some cliché territory now, but it has occurred to me this year that it’s funny how similar all of the places I’ve lived in, visited, and explored really are. The biggest similarity between them is, of course, the people. But beyond that, there are similar needs, jobs, stores, streets, technology. Admittedly, the first thing I notice in a new place is the differences; I automatically compare a place to what I’ve seen, what I’m used to, what I already love.
But it is funny to me that I am almost constantly in a state of denial that I’m in Europe, England, Paris, Prague, Venice, etc. It always feels like I’m in a vague somewhere that’s just not here, home in Kansas. The place feels different, other, not bad but new. At the core of those feelings is a muted recognition of the similarities between smalltown, USA and bigtown, Europe.
I do not mean to downplay the cultural differences between here and there: merely, I am trying to understand my own difficulty in classifying, identifying, recognizing the places I visit while I am in them. I guess I am proud to realize that while I have naturally been picking up on and highlighting the differences between cities and cultures, I have also been subconsciously comforted by the realization that these differences are less important, less prominent than they may initially appear.
I love my favorite drink concoction at a gas station here in Kansas; I love too cream tea in Oxford. Nothing feels as liberating as driving while home, but the train system in Europe astounds me in its breadth; driving through the Flint Hills and riding a bus through the Scottish Highlands each evoke a sense of freedom in me. Discussing politics around a family meal reminds me of political discussions I’ve had in a warm, bustling, cozy English pub. The London Tube reminds me of the DC Metro; the library at Oxford of that at Georgetown; one Titian painting in Vienna of another in Paris. The sun kisses my skin warmly on both continents; the foggy sky follows me from London to Kansas to DC.
Each place touches me differently, in terms of intensity and style. But now that I’m stopped, resting on break, perhaps a tad bit bored, I can think back leisurely over all the places I’ve been thus far, of the dreams I had of them before, the chunks of reality I actually experienced in them, and the memories I carried back from them. I’ve told friends this break, impulsively rather than intentionally pompously, “the last time I had this tea was in Prague”; “the last time I had this soup was in Paris”; “the last time I heard this song was in Munich.” The similarities and connections pop up again and again; they are what stick with me. Years and years from now, when my memories of this year are blended cleanly and smoothly into one beautiful quilt of moments and images, I anticipate it being these connections which allow me to maintain the faceted beauty of a true year abroad.
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