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Home now.

So it has been quite some time since I've put anything up here on this page of mine. I do have an excuse: life doesn't stop.

Leaving Spain was hard. Leaving my home and my housemates of Puebla 7 was even more hard. When will a gypsy flamenco, a traveling artista, and a exploring American ever see eachother again? As if the answer was never, we parted ways in the Madrid-Barajas airport after a long night of celebrations, toasts, and goodbyes.

I spent that last night well. We started eating dinner at the apartment, then went to the Plaza Dos de Mayo for a late night public concert/botellon, and finnished up at a few bars around the plaza. By 3am I was at home showering, and at four we left for the airport. I started my night surrounded by good friends: Antonio, Leticia, Steve, Ines, and Willy and Gonzalo. By the time I got in the taxi, they were two, and as I passed through airport security, I waved goodbye to Willy and Gonzalo, not knowing when we three travelers - one by blood, one by vocation, one by spirit - would be family again.

Earlier in the night, Antonio and I had to say goodbye. Few in the world are so lucky to be friends as we are. There's an understanding between us that comes only to chosen brothers: he's the mature one when I'm a child, and I older-brother him when he's being erratic. Nonetheless, I will miss the soccer games, the bar sessions, the adventures, his family, and late night discussions ending in "I have to study."

And everything, everything I've written about Spain in the last year... put it in a box and forget abou it. The smells are gone, the voices of your friends fading, the shoves from angry old viejas missing. And that's how it is.

I walked off my plane in Cincinnati, and the whole year slipped away. I'm in a new place now -or is it an old place? - one as same as it has ever been, even with me so different.

The two weeks I spent at home were amazing. My farm, Perelandra, welcomes me as its son, and I love it here. My utopia. My family, of course, welcomes me as their son or brother or nephew or grandchild, and I love it here. And my friends... well, let's just say the good ones are still around, and they welcome me too: Eric, Megan (Eliza), Tess. I spent a good ammount of time here with family - mostly in fact - and some with friends. I also went to three Reds games, spent a day downtown, and a did some car shopping.

............more later.............