Home again

Returning from a trip is always difficult for me.  There are a few things to do, but not many.  Listen to the messages, unpack your suitcase, throw your dirty laundry into the basket . . .

There's no mail to check because it's sitting in a box at the post office.  The newspaper will come tomorrow morning, but there's nothing to read now.

And if you happen to come home to a major heat wave, you have to wait for the emergency window air conditioning unit to actually do its job before you can go to sleep.

I feel adrift, floating around in my house, unable to settle.

One thing that is helping to ground me this time is that the friends who were watching the house brought in some lovely fragrant flowers for us.  I can look at them, smell their scent and think about life and death, love and loss.

So even though I am hot and tired and cranky and wandering around aimlessly, I also know that we are loved and that life could be much worse.