I am getting more and more homesick, waiting for Christmas. 72 days until we arrive in the Basel airport to exit out the French side, not the Swiss side and get picked up by my parents. The last time I was home was Christmas 2006.

I think one of the things I miss most about living there is that, here, it is difficult to walk anywhere beautiful quickly. Sure you can walk around the neighbourhood or drive out to a park to go hiking, but at home, everyday you can walk and see such beauty.

When we still lived on Schwarzwald Strasse, we would walk down the hill and turn right every morning on our way to school. The beautifully restored brewery would be right in front of us and directly above it perched on the hill shrouded by evergreens and other trees sits the World War I and II monument. I remember stopping abruptly on several occasions to just take in the scene. Sometimes heavy mist barely outlined the monument and everything felt eerie and wild. In a 15 minute walk, I could be on the hill looking down over the back of it at the beautiful golf-course valley.

Everything is so close there, you can easily walk into woods or fields, hills or to the next village. Here it takes me 45 minutes to walk to the Edmonds Library and while it’s beautiful once I get down into the bowl, I have to walk beside a really busy street most of the way. The noise and the speed create a barrier to really absorbing the beauty around me. It’s hard to feel peaceful and that’s what I want when I walk. I want to be silent and let my mind simply be present in the place where I am. I can’t wait to go home.

Here’s a picture I’m stealing from my dad’s blog that makes me long to go home: