Jane Austen's house in Chawton, Hampshire

Why would I rather be in my beloved Karoo? Because I'm surprised at how
nonchalant I am to be here... too many people, too much buying &
materialism, also too much noise... and too much happening....
I'm also walking around seeing glimpses of the ghosts of me, of the me that
used to be. And I stare in disbelief. That was me??!!
It has taken this trip, a bookend to a previous one four years ago, for me
to see how God has changed me... the one drop at a time that melts the
glacier. It feels like I have been taken out of my skin... that my needs are
much less... that there are no specific categories I, any longer, belong
within. I'm a lot freer.
I'm on the way to my sister. My mother's coming back tonight, but we are
staying there for a day or two. She stays in Hampshire, in the south of
England. I'm going get her to take me to Jane Austen's house, also to
Winchester cathedral and to Guildford.
The view right now from the car could be from any of the winter scenes in
Narnia: thick snow on the ground and on the black, starkly bare trees all
smudged by fog.
As a writer in the making, I'm still searching for my voice... and place.