Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it. ~Confucius

It's been rainy here in Austin. It brings me some sort of misery that I have not felt since living back home in the North. It's funny how I still think of the North as "home". I will be going five years here in the Republic of Texas and still . . . I continue to call the North "back home."

Don't misunderstand me, though. I lived in Pa for a long time, everything I know is there. Almost all that I love is there. The one thing that Texas has, that Pa never will, is the man in my life. It's an odd thing to think, being since most people never move more than 50 miles away from their hometown and generally fall in love and/or get married to someone from their area. I had to travel almost 2000 miles to find someone that I could fall in love with, which is strange.

I miss the smell of Autumn. The touch of winter that starts in October. Here the seasons are Summer and "Not-as-hot-as-Summer" - winter here lasts from December to the beginning of March. Temperatures sometimes plummet and if we're lucky, we see a bit of ice. It lasts about an hour and that's that. Spring comes swiftly and by April we're in Summer again.

Winter is something that I crave. To feel that chill on the bones and the sweet sound of crunching snow. Frozen rivers and crystallized trees. We have trees here that stay leafy all year around. Big trees, little trees. It is so strange to celebrate Christmas when it's 80 degrees outside.

This misery keeps me in the house. I travel and look out over the 360 bridge, wishing I thought ahead to bring my camera. It's beautiful here, don't get me wrong. It's just not home . . . well, I guess if home is where the heart is and my heart belongs to a Texan, I will just have to bring the Texan to the North with me, that is if he can survive temperatures below 75.

You can never go home again, but the truth is you can never leave home, so it's all right. ~Maya Angelou