tomorrow morning!

Tomorrow morning I leave for a week away in Paris and Prague! Ben will not be coming because he's decided to save his vacation days for beach and slow-paced sun. Good choice, though there is nothing like walking with your beloved through the streets of Europe, especially the aged romantic ones in Paris and Prague... and I'll miss his being there. Silas will be home too (compliments of Ben's mom who arrives tomorrow!), so I will be much more alone (and free?) than I have been in quite some time. I cannot wait. Wonder what it will be like to be without Silas on my arm for so many days in a row for the first time, really. Not apprehensive, but curious...

I have a stack of books to take, a new journal I just made, MANY snacks, a couple of magazines. YES. Everything is lying on my bed ready to pack, and I feel quite prepared. The dilemma, as always when traveling to Europe, is shoes: I want to walk from corner to corner of the city without a thought of my feet aching off of my body, but I also don't want to look like a tennis shoe-clad American tourist traipsing through the city with much too loud a voice.

I just made homemade mac n' cheese with broccoli that's waiting for me on the stove. Yum. It's funny, this week, despite myself, i have had all of these domestic impulses to prepare for my leaving: to make a huge pan of macaroni, to stock up on berries, crackers and yogurt for Silas, even to clean out my car. And then at the same time, have felt a slight strain of resistance, of wanting simply to go and to let everyone else take care of themselves. This instinct, of course, is really only half possible and only half of what I want. It would be pretty lonely way to live...

There is a vase of peonies (pea-O-nee, as Max would say) in the middle of the table -- 5 fat, fringey blooms whisping their fragrance into the air... I wonder what flowers are in season in the markets in Paris right now.

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I woke up at 3Am this morning with my psychic-Silas-connection (often I wake literally 2 minutes before he starts crying) and then lay awake long after he fell back asleep. Lying there in the dark, my mind racing with anticipation, items to gather, money to transfer into my account etc., I pictured my plane leaving the ground and Costa Mesa becoming a spec, then fading into desert, then the span of the country, then vast ocean, and for the first time I felt a twinge of homesickness about leaving my boys.