à la prochaine, france

last visits are done
to old people
to museums
to grocery stores

packing is (almost) done
suitcase
duffel
backpack
purse
holy crap how am I going to CARRY all of this??

souvenir shopping
check
one big. fat. CHECK.
(for those of you who don't get one ... the postcards were kind of pricey. and if you didn't get a postcard ... I still love you)

I'm getting those flitter flutters I get when I'm about to start a new adventure, even a very short one. like stepping off a plane on the other side of an ocean. or pulling into the train station in a new city. or touching the mediterranean for the first time.

but I get them for old adventures, too. like going to my favorite grocery store. and flying in over washington d.c. to come home and the houses are being swallowed by trees instead of desert and I can pick out monuments below that most people don't even know about. pulling into my driveway. lying down on my old bed in my old room.

old things become new things each time you come back to them, because you're a new person every time.

a year ago, this is what I had to say. a year later, here I am, with cliff dust embedded in my flipflops and lungs. I took my socks and I took my cash. I don't wear socks anymore and the cash is significantly depleted. you still don't need to worry, I'm still fine, but no matter where you're talking to me from, I will answer -- I don't know how not to. I love travelling. I love this adventure. I love touching the borders of people, place and time.

the only thing missing is a hand to hold as I climb mountains to see what's on the other side.

I can make it on my own. I knew going into it that these two months would prove that. it wasn't very fun, making it. I think I could handle alone if I was on the move, filling the people void with the flitter flutter of adventure. instead I've been settling into boring patterns here that don't suit me.

I've learned so much, though. adventures don't teach me lessons because I don't experience them with my mind, I experience them in a very inter-connected, hyper-aware physicality. but these two months, all I did was talk. talk and listen. listen and think. process, ponder and transform. but I'm ready to move again. I'm ready to get up and dance and shout and sing at the top of my lungs. there's a time for thinking and a time for poetry, for discussing and puzzling, and dreaming. but I'm ready to move again. let's go.

the dog days are over.