The cure for homesickness

Listen to the song before you read this. Joni Mitchell perfectly sums up Shane's past six weeks...in Europe and longing for California.

Yesterday, as we drove out of SFO in our little white rental car, I could feel Shane's body and mind relaxing. I asked him how the green hills looked to his weary eyes. Beautiful, he replied.

Shane is the kind of guy who loves consistency. He'd be happy to eat the same foods every day, live in the same house, wear the same clothes, hike the same hikes, drive the same car. His favorite haunt, Rancho San Antonio is always enough; he'd gladly hike and run there every single day. I remember rifling through his clothes as newlyweds and finding a ratty and particularly hideous pair of shiny purple shorts. He told me that they were 10-15 years old and he still wore them regularly. Right then and there I set what I call the five-year rule, anything older than five years must be under serious consideration for donation.

You can imagine what a stretch was for Shane to travel to Europe, receive an unknown treatment, eat new foods, meet many new people, walk around foreign cities, and be driven down unknown roads by strangers. Overwhelming for anyone with cancer in a weakened state, and even more so for Shane.

But we're back (for a few days at least) and his satisfaction and pleasure in that fact are palpable. He'll always be a California boy at heart.