{"id":202,"date":"2018-02-01T20:51:09","date_gmt":"2018-02-02T02:51:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gilbertredman.com\/librarianrevenge\/?p=202"},"modified":"2018-02-01T21:44:15","modified_gmt":"2018-02-02T03:44:15","slug":"saving-grace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gilbertredman.com\/librarianrevenge\/2018\/02\/01\/saving-grace\/","title":{"rendered":"Saving Grace"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post was originally published on my old (and now defunct) blog on 24 September 2006. No, that’s not a typo: it was about four months after Neal and I married that I finally discovered home.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"Ring

Photo credit: “Light Under the Stars” by Kat B.<\/a> \/ CC 2.0 BY-NC-ND<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Tonight, on the way home from B&N where Neal and I do work now and again, I saw lights glaring up into the sky. I, being from Illinois, wondered what stadium was nearby that I didn’t know about that would have lights glowing that bright into the night sky.<\/p>\n

Neal asked, “Are those northern lights?”<\/p>\n

Brilliant me asks, “Where…? Oh! Yes! They are!” (Yes, complete with all those exclamation points because I was quite excited.)<\/p>\n

I still remember the first time I saw the northern lights, standing with Neal in front of his old apartment building, a beautiful old stone house. I was leaning back against him, gazing up at them in wonder and awe, excited by this display that I couldn’t see back “home” in Illinois.<\/p>\n

I’ve written about contentment (or lack thereof) in my sense of place, which has been my state for pretty much all of my life, no matter which state I actually lived in. My motto has always been Wherever I am, I am there<\/em>, which basically means that I could fit into, could feel comfortable with any place I found myself. During my admissions job, I slept a new place almost every night and was fine wherever I was.<\/p>\n

But nowhere seemed like home<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Tonight, I finally felt a sense of home, leaning back against Neal, now my husband, and watching the pale green lights flicker up and down the sky, shooting fingers of grace into the heavens.<\/p>\n

I didn’t know where I would end up, if I would ever find such a place as “home,” a place I’ve often heard others speak of but one that I’ve never truly experienced with complete contentment before. A place of pure belonging and satisfaction in being.<\/p>\n

For me, it appears that this is a place with night water that glows with lights from the city and large ore boats, shining brightly on the lake’s corrugated surface. It is a place of unexpected grace, brightening a darkened sky with feathery wings of diaphanous and ephemeral splendor. It is a place where I can lean back and see all this, spread out before me, and be held tightly by one who cares beyond seeming possibility.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This post was originally published on my old (and now defunct) blog on 24 September 2006. No, that’s not a typo: it was about four months after Neal and I married that I finally discovered home. Tonight, on the way home from B&N where Neal and I do work now and again, I saw lights […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45,42,11,21,29],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-202","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-defunct-repost","7":"category-family","8":"category-home-life","9":"category-musings","10":"category-things-i-think-about","11":"czr-hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gilbertredman.com\/librarianrevenge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gilbertredman.com\/librarianrevenge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gilbertredman.com\/librarianrevenge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gilbertredman.com\/librarianrevenge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gilbertredman.com\/librarianrevenge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=202"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/gilbertredman.com\/librarianrevenge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":212,"href":"https:\/\/gilbertredman.com\/librarianrevenge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202\/revisions\/212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gilbertredman.com\/librarianrevenge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gilbertredman.com\/librarianrevenge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gilbertredman.com\/librarianrevenge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}