Dreaming of A White Christmas (and Finding Where I Fit With The Snow!)

Today I got to spend a lot of time out and about in Winston. I started off the morning with a brunch visit with my cousin Jonathan, his wife Miho, their lovely baby Emi-Chan, and my great aunt Deanna who I'll be staying with while I'm interning in the spring. It was nice to catch up since our last visit over the summer and Emi is so adorable (she's learning to walk and talk!). I got back to Steph's house, we chilled and watched Nickelodean, and then headed out to go shopping and sightseeing with my Aunt Patti. We did a driving tour of the Reynolda House (an art museum, shops, and gorgeous gardens that I actually thought about interning at), the Graylyn (another tobacco estate turned event venue/hotel), and capped off our afternoon at SECCA. The gate wasn't closed, so we actually drove up and it is absolutely gorgeous. It was kind of surreal seeing the place I'll be spending (most of) the next 4 months that I had previously only seen pictures of. There is the main building, a very historic tobacco plantation, and also a really modern auditorium that my Aunt Patti has attended lots of events at. She's really involved with many organizations up here and is already talking about volunteer opportunities for Earth Day and their film festival as well, which should be a lot of fun. I'll just have to see how it fits with all my other things with SECCA. :) 

After our tour, we came home, ate a delicious dinner, and then started decorating the Christmas tree and mantlepiece! Aaaaand, then it started SNOWING! Of course this Georgia girl who hadn't seen any snow since March (on my birthday!) was ecstatic. My aunt just shook her head about how excited I was about what she called "sleet," but it was plenty snowy enough for me to take pictures of my GA license plate with snow all over it. I even made a snowball to throw at Steph for good measure because I don't know when the next time I'll see snow will be, although probably not too far in the future....Steph and I finished out the evening by a cozy fire, drinking tea, Facebooking, and watching Harry Potter and Leap Year and now I'm chilling in a nice warm bed trying to get "deep" about my whole experience in Winston-Salem so far...

I don't know if it's because it's the Christmas season, Steph's here, or having WS folks to show me around but I really feel at home here. It may also be because I know that I'm getting ready to head back to my realllll home soon but I can definitely see myself fitting in up here, at least for the duration of my internship. Thinking about all this reminds me of a few things...

First, something that Parker Palmer wrote in "Let Your Life Speak" (you should read it if you haven't! It's life changing. Seriously). He speaks about instances in life where you feel lead to something, be it an experience, a job, a relationship, or any other thing, for certain unexplainable reasons. You just can't not do it. I kind of feel like SECCA may be that experience for me. Everyday I'm continually amazing at how I'm blessed with everything just falling into place as it should. Although I applied to many other internships (or at least it felt like a ton), this is really the only one that worked out. When asked the question earlier today by Jonathan "Why SECCA? Why Winston?" I really didn't have an answer. Some of it had to do with my career focus in fine arts because there's a large art community up here. And some of it hinged on the fact that I would have family up here to guide me and support me (and generously provide me with a place to stay), but I think ultimately this is something that I couldn't not do.

This post and all my thoughts tonight also remind me of a song that we sing at our Wesley Foundation services with the line "I finally found where I belong." While this "where I belong" may change from year to year, month to month, day to day, and even hour to hour, I trust that God will guide me to the people and places I need to encounter to be made into the person I'm called to be. I know that it's going to take a lot of readjusting to get comfortable living in a different house, state, and city and starting to experience the "real world" outside of normal classes, but I think that this experience here in Winston is going to be one of the most challenging, as well as rewarding, opportunities in my life.