Here and over there.

I'm running again. Ask my new fifteen pounds why. How is it possible to gain that much weight in just two months? The answer is bread.

It very quickly became wintery here and I don't have the proper clothes for running in the cold, so I'm taking a hiatus until we get back to California, but soon we will be there and I'll be running again. I have over-pronation (my ankles roll inward), so I bought a pair of shoes that fixes that and now I can run without pain, which is amazing. I have loved running through these neighborhoods first thing in the morning, watching as people leave for work, waving at people as I go by. The leaves are falling and they crunch under my feet. I feel myself growing stronger and faster. 

By the way, some people have been asking about both Chinua and Ian's health. They're both doing pretty fantastic. Chinua is managing his blood pressure with medication, hoping to get to a point where he can drop some of it (four different kinds right now). He did more testing and nothing came up as a cause, so we assume it is genetic and simply something that popped up at this age. Ian went through quarantine after his bone marrow transplant and it took spectacularly. He's really healthy! It was quite a journey but he is recovered and they are coming to visit us in Thailand this winter. 

It has been good to be here for so long. Chinua has approximately one zillion relatives and this is the first time we've been out here in six years. He tells me we've barely scratched the surface with the family we've seen so far. All I know is that I'm happy to be here, and especially since Khalifah got back. Remember Khalifah? She came to India to visit us, so we have that special bond of scooter rides in the hot sun. Sometimes it takes time to really settle in with people and visit, and I feel like we've done that. Detroit is the most foreign of countries I've been to on this trip, since I have no experience of living in the midwest of America. From basements to carpet, auto factories to abandoned houses, it's all a new world. 

We drove up to Canada for a couple of days to see my grandmother and step-grandmother. We also got to stay overnight at my aunt's house, which was cool since I haven't seen her for twelve years. 

I was not prepared for the way my grandmother had altered. She is turning ninety this year and has dementia. When we arrived at the home where she lives, she was napping and we startled her a bit. "I don't know these people," she said. She never did remember us, but she was clearly delighted and baffled by the fact that she has great-grandchildren. "I must be very old!" she said. She lit up, watching them. She was sweet and lovely, but it was hard. How can pieces of our memory just go away like that? My grandmother was strong and smart, an independent woman who took care of her own house and was fixing her roof at eighty-four. When we visited, she was so different from the woman I remember, but every once in a while my grandmother shone through, in her laugh or her dry sense of humor. I find that as I write this,  I'm having a hard time remembering the woman who I saw the other day, frail and a little confused. I'm remembering her from before. 

I'm starting to miss home like crazy, but we're still soaking in the time with family and friends. (I miss Wookie and the market, our friends and our sweet town. I miss speaking Thai.) The kids are doing well, though we're all floating in a vacation world. "What are we doing today?" they ask us in the morning. "Seeing one of Daddy's cousins," we say. "Another one?" They are bonding with their granddad and throwing a football (Kai is surprisingly good), watching TV, (which doesn't happen at home) and playing laser tag for the first time. 

Detroit is late nights in the kitchen, a lot of laughing and goofing around, wine and painting with my sisters-in-law, baby nieces, cousins everywhere, playing on the wii, sleeping in the family room in the basement, greens and black eyed peas, graffiti gorgeousness, crisp air, running in the mornings. I love our family here so much it hurts.