[15 of 100] Last Days
There is a brief lull here at the house, so I’m writing now rather than at the very end of the day. I want to be able to just fall into bed tonight and enjoy every second of sleep I can get before I get up for my long journey home tomorrow.
I like to travel, and I do rather a lot of it, all things considered. But I find the day before I travel somewhat anxiety producing, and this is doubly true when I am traveling between Colorado and Boston because both places are, to some degree, home. Leaving or going to either place requires a complex calculation of how to manage my duties and desires. When I am leaving Boston I have to consider how to get the cats cared for, what pieces of housework I need to do or feel comfortable leaving undone, if I have watered the plants, locked up my bike, paid the rent, hugged my goddess-nieces. Leaving Colorado means that I have to consider which small pieces of my childhood to bring back to Boston with me this time. It means I have to think about who I have and have not seen, and face the inevitable conclusion that I have not managed to get enough time with just about anybody. I watch one last sunset over the mountains and swear again that this time, I will remember to look up at dusk when I get back to the coast. Whichever place I am, I find that it hard to really be there the day before I leave.
Tonight we are having one last hurrah, a huge taco feast to which we have invited people willy-nilly at almost the last minute. We’ve been doing little bits of prep almost all day, then wandering off to some other activity and coming back to the kitchen to wash a bowl, chop an onion, grate some more cheese. A night like this, when the house will be filled with people brought from areas near and far in our respective lives (a friend from high school, a friend from Boston, my college algebra teacher’s partner, possibly my college algebra teacher, an ex-boyfriend, a high-school youth group advisor) is when I most love this house, and feel it to most fully embody the zeitgeist of my childhood.
I like to travel, and I do rather a lot of it, all things considered. But I find the day before I travel somewhat anxiety producing, and this is doubly true when I am traveling between Colorado and Boston because both places are, to some degree, home. Leaving or going to either place requires a complex calculation of how to manage my duties and desires. When I am leaving Boston I have to consider how to get the cats cared for, what pieces of housework I need to do or feel comfortable leaving undone, if I have watered the plants, locked up my bike, paid the rent, hugged my goddess-nieces. Leaving Colorado means that I have to consider which small pieces of my childhood to bring back to Boston with me this time. It means I have to think about who I have and have not seen, and face the inevitable conclusion that I have not managed to get enough time with just about anybody. I watch one last sunset over the mountains and swear again that this time, I will remember to look up at dusk when I get back to the coast. Whichever place I am, I find that it hard to really be there the day before I leave.
Tonight we are having one last hurrah, a huge taco feast to which we have invited people willy-nilly at almost the last minute. We’ve been doing little bits of prep almost all day, then wandering off to some other activity and coming back to the kitchen to wash a bowl, chop an onion, grate some more cheese. A night like this, when the house will be filled with people brought from areas near and far in our respective lives (a friend from high school, a friend from Boston, my college algebra teacher’s partner, possibly my college algebra teacher, an ex-boyfriend, a high-school youth group advisor) is when I most love this house, and feel it to most fully embody the zeitgeist of my childhood.