Dear Wigleaf,

I see the sun-slats through the blinds and the charcoal bellies of clouds that can't make a good decision. I don't know if it will rain. I am in my office, in Houston, Texas and I have been here for two years. This city is new, fresh-feeling. The streets are wide and the air is rock-heavy and hot. I've made kind friends, teach smiling students and I get by. For now, this is home.

I've lived elsewhere. I've swam in the ruffling waves of Florida shores, bent back stalks of hay grass in Columbia, Missouri. I've awoken to the winter chill in steel-cold Pittsburgh. I've cut open the waves of Puerto Rican waters with my fingers. Each place I've called home, wondering what that word really meant. I have bounced around for so long, but now I have a house and a yard. I have a husband and soft meals to eat at night. Houston is where I live now, but I've also come to an internal shift, a realization that my home glows warm inside of me, wherever I am, I am at peace. Perhaps I am finally at peace, Wigleaf.

I will continue to travel, continue to explore, but perhaps my resting place is the flush of joy I feel when I embrace those I love, when I see myself in the mirror, in all of my spikes, past and exhaustion, and I am satisfied.

Love,
Jennifer