Last night as I was sitting at home, feeling a little bored and perhaps a bit homesick, I turned on the TV. As I was flipping channels I came across a Meredith Brooks video. Normally I'm not a huge fan of her music, but I couldn't help but find myself laughing and smiling as I sat and watched her video, and suddenly didn't feel so far away. It wasn't because she's an American, heck, the TV is full of those. Rather, it was because like me, she's a Spartan - A Corvallis High School Spartan that is. Although I never knew her (she was long gone by the time I went there), I do remember when she came back and had a "concert" at our school. She was a piece of home, right here in my apartment, in Milan.

When I think about it, little bits of home are everywhere, even if at times that sense of home is a bit obscure. I consider myself to have been fairly active on the airlines in the past few years, yet I'd never run into someone I knew in the airport before. That is until I was catching my flight from Indy to Newark. I'd gotten there early and had a bit of time to kill, so I thought I'd try calling some people back home. Unfortunately, I got all voicemails (AJ! Chad! Jeff! Whatever happened to answering your phones!) As I was sitting in my little phone cubicle, leaving a message for Jeff, a little girl ran by. How cute, I thought to myself, but also how strange, she seemed so familiar. A few seconds later her mom can walking by, and I suddenly realized I knew them! The girl had been one of the flower girls in Jackie's wedding the day before. I quickly yelled after the mom, and hung up on Jeff. What a coincidence we thought, as we talked and learned that we were not only on the same flight, but my seat was directly in from of theirs. 2 days prior they would have just been strangers on the flight, but instead, I felt an odd comfort from talking to them. Although I didn't know them well, and chances are I'll never see them again, they were still a bit of home- a bit of America, and a bit of Italy all in one, a link through Jackie.

As I sat on the couch last night, having said goodbye to Meredith, I turned to my computer, and to Ex Pats, where I discovered yet another person who Jackie was a link to. As I was looking through the forums, I noticed that Cyndi had posted a reply to a msg about my blog. As I read it, I found myself in a state of shock and amazement, much as I'm sure Cyndi found herself, as she wrote that while reading my blog she almost fell off her chair when she learned that I had been in Indy for Jackie and Antonello's wedding- She had been there too. I had never imagined that someone else on expats knew Jackie, much less had been at her wedding. While we later figured out we had not actually met at the wedding, we did discover that we would both be making the journey back to Macerata in November for another celebration with Jackie and Antonello. In the forums I had found another connection to Macerata and to Jackie and Antonello, good friends who so often feel like family.

What a small world I thought to myself as I went to bed last night. It's beginning to seem that no matter where I go, if I look in the right places, I'll find a piece of home.