Less than a month ago, I was driving a winding road through trees that were just changing color. As I drove, golden leaves sprinkled my car, catching the afternoon sunlight.
My chest ached like something was trying to get out. Or in. The beauty of the moment was so sharp it physically hurt.
I knew I was leaving this beauty–the golden leaves and dry cornfields–for a different world with a different beauty. I was in between seasons of life again.
Despite the busyness of an Illinois summer, my family managed to make quite a few memories. I became “Isha” to three of my nephews. Exclamations of “Isha” were usually accompanied by sparkling eyes and an equally sparkly grins. Well, except that rough day during potty-training when Alex said wistfully, “Bye-bye, Isha.”
My oldest niece decided to pray for a “good husband” for me. When did this little fluffy blondie get so big? Every time I visited their house, her little sister Joanna asked me to “pick stones.” She has a fondness for all things little and finds remarkable traits in the unremarkable. I love that about her.
When feeling particularly independent, some of us would quote Camden, “Camden do it self!”
Zayne called a tiny Fisher Price slide a “wee.” We spent our last moments together on our backs, wildly kicking the air like we were running and then dissolving into giggles much to the amused consternation of the other adults in the house.
Nettie came over to me after church to tell me that her new little cousin, Boone, “–is like a tiny pea!” She squeezed the tips of her thumbs and index fingers to make a tiny dot as if to indicate Boone’s unnatural smallness.
Boone was small, although not quite that small. Just small enough to snuggle and smell like a new baby.
I read stories to ones who are learning to read for themselves. I had them read to me too. They were excited when Grandma brought home The Pancake Pie from the library (one of the best children’s books ever!).
There were days I just wanted to squeeze them tight because they were so cute–like when Dylan pointed out the “-ole” in his sock. There were also days when I was relieved when everyone went home and the house stilled. Oh, we made lots of memories, not just the littles but the “bigs” too. And I return to Spain with a full heart.
It’s time for another season. This season includes a time of not feeling well. I spend more hours than I would like in bed or curled around a hot water bottle, as my body fights the bacteria in my system. But seasons don’t last forever, and the drier seasons often make room for us to dig our roots deeper as we search for water and nutrients.
Besides, I heard recently that one doesn’t have to bloom to be growing.
Leaving Illinois–leaving family, friends, and church community–was hard as usual. Well, maybe even harder than usual. I flip on the electric kettle and wait at the counter’s edge while my Barry’s tea bag floats atop the milk in the bottom of my favorite mug. I’m back in Spain and life in the States feels far away. “Well, here I am. Alone again.”
My bags are unpacked. My house is relatively clean except the random projects strewn around the living room. I live downtown and it just feels so quiet.
Then again…
A neighbor (and her irritating dog) dropped by because I’d promised her chocolate for watching my apartment while I was gone. She apologized over and over again for killing my plants and insisted I take the remaining straggler with me before she killed that one too.
Another neighbor (a new one) dropped by to ask if my apartment was for rent. Umm…
Yet another neighbor dropped by to ask if I could pick up her daughter from school. She caught me during a salad laden with chia seeds. While we were chatting, I felt a seed swelling between my front teeth. I couldn’t subtly pry it out with my tongue, so there it stayed and I punctuated the conversation with seedy smiles.
My neighbor boy dropped by to visit, strewing cookie crumbs across the floor as he made his rounds, examining everything new in the house. “What did you miss most?” his mom asked him. “Her or her toys?” He grinned and looked away. But he pointed at me.
As I was out and about this morning, I decided to make a list of the things I like about being back in Spain. The cons can go without mention this time.
The sunshine!
The accessibility to quality food, especially fresh produce.
Knowing my way around stores.
Having sales tax included in the price.
Living downtown where neighbors pop in and out and almost everything I need is within walking distance.
Good ol’ Spanish directness. (Yes, this can get annoying too, but I’m choosing the positive side today.) This morning, as I was standing at the hardware store counter, another customer plunked a packet of screws on the counter and said they were the wrong size. “How do we know you didn’t take some out?” asked the clerk, eyes narrowing. “There’s a screw of a different class.” Indeed, on a bed of bland screws was a gold-colored one. Where had it come from? There would be no getting around the fact that the package had been tampered with. I felt a giggle bubbling up but tried to swallow it down. Even in customer service, there were no niceties. No frills or lace bordering this conversation.
Amazon packages that arrive rápidamente with or without Prime.
Fast internet.
Cheap phone plans.
The reminder that God is here too.
The variety of people–colors, ages, personalities, nationalities–all piled into my neighborhood.
The late schedule. When I roll out of bed at 8:00, the streets are still pretty quiet, as if I’m not the only one reluctant to get started on the day.
My apartment. Knowing my kitchen–what utensils and pots and pans I have and what is in my fridge because I’m the one who put it there.
That’s all for now. See? I’m already feeling less alone and more… I don’t know… ready.
Well, hello, Mr. Boone, my newest little nephew. It’s a delight to meet you. I look forward to many more newborn snuggles over the next few weeks before I travel back to Spain. You won’t remember me, but I’ll remember you.
May this life delight but never absolutely satisfy you. May you invite Jesus to walk with you every step of life’s journey. Even when you stumble on doubt and sin, reach toward Him, not away. Find your satisfaction first in Him.
I love you, little man.
“Baby Boom” with big brother, Zayne. (Photo credit: M.H.)
As I sit down to write, I realize that it’s been a while since I wrote part 1 and even longer since I was actually in Alaska. But I’m here today at last. 🙂
Moving on…
The bulk of the touristing happened in the first couple of days while the sun was shining. The week’s forecast was glum, and it wasn’t far off the mark. We spent days and partial days running errands or just at home, organizing for the beginning of the school year.
We did have an exciting incident involving a broken down refrigerated truck, laden with ice cream and Texas toast and Jimmy Dean breakfast sandwiches. Free while supplies lasted. That night, we put the kids to bed and then curled up on the couches with popcorn. There were more long talks throughout the next couple of days.
On Sunday morning, I overheard my friend tell her husband that someone had brought them some moose. “How nice. Mousse,” I thought, visions of chocolate fluff dancing in my head. “Yum.” It wasn’t until they were digging around in the cooler that it dawned on me that I was in Alaska, for goodness’ sakes, and this wasn’t chocolate.
I got to taste that moose for supper one night with a bit of barbecue sauce drizzled on top beside a slab of perfect flaky grilled salmon.
One evening, we went flying just as the sun was thinking about setting. As my friend’s husband, the pilot, explained everything to me, I nodded and smiled and wondered why he was being so informative…until I realized that he was asking me to lift the thing off the ground. Gasp.
We managed to stay alive in spite of that, and soon were gliding over mountains with no roads and no people. It was strange to peek into such an untouched land, to let our eyes adjust to seeing tiny black dots which, as we drew closer, became black bears, bull moose, or caribou camouflaged on the rocky mountainside. We watched a black bear lope along the side of a mountain as our shadow chased him. And we flew over a blue glacier snuggled into the mountains.
It was stunning.
Until it wasn’t and I was holding a little baggie to my mouth. But let’s skip over that part because it’s hardly the part I remember. When I look back, I see the magical moments of glimpsing hidden bits of creation. It was that same night on our way home from the airport that we saw a moose soaking a swamp beside the road and a black bear gallop across the road in front of us.
On my very last day, it rained. But we bravely started the several hour drive to Homer, a fishing town. The boys were excited. My friend and I spent the hours talking… when we weren’t passing out PBJs and carrots and water bottles and wiping sticky fingers or settling arguments. 🙂 We also were busy doubting our decision all of the way to Homer. The clouds hung low and wet, and with clouds, there would be no scenery. Without scenery, Homer was a waste of time, my friend said.
But as we approached the Homer Spit, it began to clear. And it was perfect. We saw a puffin, a sea otter, starfish, jellyfish, and the boys even saw a seal. We walked along the beach and soaked in the scenery. And just before we left, we got we walked along the docks where fishing boats bobbed gently in the water. The cool air was fresh with just enough of a fishy tang to remind you that you weren’t dreaming.
We grabbed one last chai on our way out.
I left that evening, but with a heap of good memories. I wish I could bottle up the beauty of that week to take it with me to Spain. Then whenever I needed some beauty in the middle of my city life, I could uncap the bottle and sip a bit of Alaskan scenery.
It started in a quiet airport. I was one of a handful going through security. Everyone was that small-town sort of friendly, but that didn’t keep the guards from noticing the water sloshing around in the bottom third of my water bottle. *face palm* That was the second time I’ve done that recently: forgetting to drink my water before marching through security with the confidence of a seasoned traveler… and then returning shame-faced to the end of the line.
So maybe it wasn’t the most suave start to my journey, but I arrived in Anchorage mostly as planned and found the tiny airline that would take me down to the Kenai Peninsula. Tiny, as in, I was one of four travelers. I had never imagined traveling to Alaska, at least not until a friend had invited me up several years ago. But there I was, flying over miles and miles of unpolluted scenery as the sun set.
I stepped outside of the Kenai Municipal Airport to await my friend. It was cold and mostly dark. I was pretty alone, which, after a day of traveling, was pleasant. Pleasant, that is, until I went to toss some trash and saw that the trash can was one of those bear-proof ones.
Bears in an airport? That wasn’t the only alarming thing I would see during my weeklong visit. This was the land in which hearing a snap of a twig while on a walk sent adrenaline surging through one’s veins. The land in which moose were regular roadkill. The land in which vicious brown bears wandered through one’s backyard, right past the swing set.
In the untamed Alaskan outdoors, I began to realize just how soft I’ve become as a city dweller.
My friend arrived at the airport and managed to find me before a bear did, so things ended well for me. The two of us had three years worth of news to catch up on, but we postponed some of it until another time, due to the late hour.
The forecast promised sunshine the next day in a week of mostly rain; so, despite the fact that we were all pretty tired, we knew we had to seize the day. My friend bravely loaded up her six adventurous boys and we hiked part of the Kenai River Trail. Every now and then, we would stop to catch our breath, only to find that due to the scenery, our stops were mostly breathtaking rather than breathgiving. Even the fairytale mushrooms and the blushing fireweed looked so untouched by the world.
We watched bright salmon jumping as they wound their way up a river turquoise with glacier silt. The sunlight caught their rosy backs. The boys splashed around in the river, trying to catch salmon. Even the littlest splashed, letting his boots fill with river water. I dipped my toes in and pulled them back out quickly. The water was icy.
The next day was nicer than the weather had forecasted, which was wonderful considering that we had train tickets to a glacier park. Again, we headed out: six boys, three adults, lunches, snacks, and DVDs for the trip home.
We had heard the park was a bit of a letdown, and were admittedly pessimistic. However, we only wasted our time fretting. I will say that having a vanilla chai latte with whipped cream for the second day in a row did help our moods considerably. (In fact, I had quite a few of those vanilla chai lattes over the course of the week, always expecting it to be my last chance to get one.) Of course, the latte stop combined with road construction delayed us enough that even the boys were making negative train-missing predictions from the backseat.
Spencer Glacier Park was exciting from the oldest to the youngest. The scenery from the train was gorgeous, even more gorgeous considering that in was inaccessible by car. It felt sort of like luxury scenery, if there is such a thing.
We took off hiking once we arrived at the park. In just over a mile, we arrived at the foot of a glacier. Stunning. So stunning. And cold. We shivered, even in the sunshine. That didn’t stop the boys from getting a bit wet while rescuing glistening glacial chunks.
We almost missed our return train. No excuses. Just pure negligence on our part. But we did make it. On the way home we took a different route in hopes of seeing some bears, but even the beariest trail of the region was bare. Wildlife seemed to be hiding from me. But it couldn’t hide forever…
Since I wrote last, I feel like I’ve traveled the world. If not the world, then much of the United States at least. After an unexpected night in London, I landed in Chicago and spent enough days among the cornfields to get over my jetlag before I was packing my bags for Ohio, Pennsylvania, Delaware, NYC, Virginia, and North Carolina, for a PR trip dotted with visits to dear friends. I returned to the cornfields just long enough to catch my breath before heading to Nebraska for part of a week. And now I’m about to embark on another adventure.
I’m not sure why I’m writing all this except maybe to excuse myself for neglecting my blog. Besides, I’ve been spending time with many of my most faithful readers so writing has seemed less important.
Should I summarize the last month? Wrap it up with a tidy bow when inside is only sweet chaos? I don’t know. The truth is that I have hardly touched the memories I’m making. I feel like I am skimming along their tops, saving them to remember later.
Learning to know my nieces and nephews all over again: changing diapers, reading stories, wiping noses, giving golf cart rides, explaining things I don’t even know how to explain and how did they grow up so fast?
Speaking almost exclusively in my mother tongue.
Spending time with friends over tea and coffee and dark chocolate peanut butter cups, looking at recipes on coaches or sprawled in nylon hammocks with a cloud of mosquitoes whining above us. Or maybe a time or two peering out an upstairs window at an unusual neighbor.
Almost never eating alone.
Laughing with family until tears streamed and abs ached.
Traveling, traveling, traveling. And now traveling again.
Oh, look! It’s almost time to head to the airport!
The Spanish classes of our language school took a day trip to Granada to visit the Alhambra. It was a gorgeous day and we had our own guide, which made the experience more memorable. My souvenir was two strips of bright sunburn on the back of my neck where I had missed with sunscreen. Hooray.
A Japanese classmate made me an incredible array of sushi. “You can pay next time,” she said with a smile. I went straight home and savored every bite.
A teammate and I redeemed Adra. (Read about our previous trip here.) We went without much of an agenda and ended up doing little, but enjoying it more. The fishing museum, the tunnels, the beach, and the baked cod with pisto were perfect.
I was tired on the day I went to visit friends in the countryside. The visit overwhelmed my senses and my language abilities. It was hard not to fantasize about going home and flopping down on the sofa for the entire next week. Then, I came back to a town gone crazy with Noche en Blanco and streets that were almost impassable even on foot and a stranger who thought it would be nice to take me out for a drink. Yep. Those are the moments my nightmares consist of.
Several months passed as I dreamt of a morning trip to a nearby beach town. I erased it from my schedule every time something else came up, which it inevitable did. Until one day… the chance came and I grabbed it. While waiting on the bus, I spontaneously invited a teammate and she came too! We delighted over our British breakfast. And then there was a second-hand shop and the stroll along the port before coming home to real life.
Kicking a ball around in Plaza Mayor with my neighbor boy brought a few other littles to play too. It was quite a lot of fun because these under-5-year-olds were about my skill level for soccer.
Our Spanish class met to buy our teacher a gift to celebrate the end of the school year. Someone had the bright idea of getting a classy looking bag for her teaching materials. Great idea! Except that I was completely exhausted by the time I got home. “How are we so indecisive?” I wondered. The more I thought about it, the more I realized it wasn’t indecision as much as overstated opinions. Most everyone said precisely what they thought and then acted like they expected everyone else to agree with them.
Stopping by to visit a friend turned into helping her pack her things for a sudden trip to North Africa.
The dentist charged me half price for my cleaning just because. I know I saved just over 20 euro, but with all of the other extra costs that come with returning to the States, it felt like a hug from God.
My baby neighbor boy has grown a delightful little smile that just charms the socks off of people. Well, off of me at least. 🙂 I’ve started wearing sandals.
A friend send me two bags of Barry’s Irish tea. Oh, how I savored those two cups of rainy Ireland memories!
I hauled almost 50 euros worth of olives back from the market last week. I did it with the assurance that my family will be beyond grateful.
That’s all for right now. The rest would probably bore you if you’re not bored already. 😉 My teammates have all gone back to the States and soon I leave too. You may or may not hear from me for the next three months. Probably many of you will see me instead. I’m looking forward to seeing you!
I awake to my bed shaking. The window frames click and tick with the shifting earth beneath them. Another earthquake. Is it a bad one? In my sleepy stupor, I wonder if this time we will all have to dash onto the street in our pajamas. My heart pounds as I listen for voices and wait for more tremors.
But all I hear is the thump and whine of the garbage truck making its rounds like it does every night. It is comforting to wake up in uncertainty and then find the world is familiar after all.
Is this what my neighbor boy thought when I slipped across the street in the middle of the night to pick him up? While Mommy and Daddy were at the hospital awaiting baby brother, Little S had spent the evening with another neighbor but would not consent to spending the night. He filled their home with his wails.
When he saw me standing at the front door, he ran into my arms, sobbing as if he had just been waiting for something that made sense.
I picked him up and brought him home. He knows my house, and he knows me. We curled up on the couch after he had fallen asleep from sheer exhaustion. For hours, his breath shuddered from leftover sobs. The body does not quickly forget its tears. Spending the night away from his parents for the first time in his life wasn’t easy…for either of us.
But in a sense, I got to be his garbage truck–the familiar presence as the earth shifted beneath him.
If you have the time and energy, check out part 1, part 2, and part 3 before reading this final part of my family’s visit.
Somewhere along the line, the family travel journal petered out. It may have been due to the fact that Spain felt like coming home to me, not another adventure. Or perhaps it is was due to my sister’s stomach bug which made her less ambitious. Or–ahem–simply due to a lack of discipline. Regardless, some of the details of our time in Spain are fuzzy. So I’ll stick to the things that I remember…
After a teammate picked us up from the airport, we ran out to get chwarmas for supper. Sure, we could have cooked something, but none of us felt like generating any more excitement that day.
The next morning, after first breakfast at home, we strolled down the street to a café for second breakfast. My family enjoyed their tostadas, even if they didn’t enjoy the booming café music. “THIS IS SPANISH CULTURE!” I bellowed over the din.
A few of us zipped around town with a grocery cart, buying most of what we needed for the next week. Mom exclaimed over each new load of groceries we brought home but dutifully put everything away while we went out for another load. (Let the record show that we ate almost everything we bought and had to buy more!) Our shopping trip ended just in time to race–somewhat disheveled at this point–to my teammates’ place for a yummy lunch.
I tried to whip up soup for dinner but mostly just whipped up a giant disaster, which Mom cleaned up while we raced across town to pick up the rental car. The soup, partially cooked, was put on hold until the next night.
Photo credit: R.K.
Wednesday was market day. Everyone had been looking forward to the market, but with PEOPLE EVERYWHERE it was much more stressful than they had anticipated. Before long, I deposited them in plastic chairs by the churro stand and finished the shopping on my own. It’s strange, I thought, how much I’ve adjusted to living in a crowded space, to waiting in line or catching the vendor’s attention to get some service, to holding my ground when people get pushy and reaching around people when they’re in the way. New experiences quickly become normal life.
That afternoon, we went on a greenhouse tour. Our enthusiastic tour guide showed us the variety of methods they used for planting, ventilation, and pest control. After pigging out on the samples and buying a bag of produce to take with us, we spontaneously slipped over to the beach to watch the sun set and dip our toes in the chilly Mediterranean.
We finished the evening with the North African soup I’d tried to make the night before.
Thursday consisted of mostly cancelled plans, due to my sister’s stomach bug. No couscous with my friend and no drive up the mountain. Mom and I slipped out to some North African stores. My usual shopkeepers were delighted to meet my mother. I should have brought Dad along too because they probably were wondering how the American giant belonged to a woman half her height. 🙂
My sister was busy being sick so the rest of us took it easy, putting a puzzle together, reading, and the like. My brother-in-law cheerfully fixed my leaky washer, changed out the dorky bedroom light fixture, and reassembled a malfunctioning drawer. Meanwhile, my adorable and unsupervised nephew amused himself by dropping things from the balcony, as we discovered later.
Our big outing of the day– “Come on guys. We have a rental car. We HAVE to use it.”– was going to two grocery stores: Aldi and Mercadona. Since there is a tiny piece of Roman ruins right next to Aldi, I led my family there to see it.
Photo credit: N.H.
Dad stared down at the puny wall. “Oh wow.” Mom didn’t say much of anything. I’m not sure she even saw the wall because she spent the whole time trying to avoid the dog piles. My brother-in-law dutifully snapped a photo. At Mercadona, Dad disappeared for a bit and then came sidling over with a guilty grin and a container of pecan praline ice cream behind his back.
We tried to fuel the car, but due to the confusing labels, had a hard time deciding which was diesel. The guys stood at the pump, sniffing the dripping nozzles. Finally, I went inside the station to verify that they guys’ noses were accurate after all.
By the time we got home from our mini-adventure, my sister was feeling a little better. But she was not feeling good enough for pecan praline ice cream. So the guys took care of it for her…and for the rest of us, come to think of it.
The next day, we took the rental car up to the mountain lookout. We bounced all of the way up, the guys discussing the quality of the tires and such. We got out and admired the view of the sea of white plastic greenhouses before heading back down. By then, the clouds were moving in and visibility was limited.
My downstairs neighbor brought up a big plate of couscous, which hit the spot. Besides wandering over to the Spanish pastry shop and the nearby park, we didn’t accomplish much else that day.
I guess we were storing up energy for the next day. Saturday we went hither and yon–to Immigrantville to visit friends, to Almería to climb up the Alcazaba. Then back to Immigrantville for tapas in a loud and crowded tapa bar. Then to visit another friend who insisted we come in for tea and sweets. Then finally, home.
I whipped up a pot of puchero and then a few of us returned the rental car. Handing over the keys was melancholy, like our time was winding down too quickly. And it was. Sunday was our last day together. We were in charge of team lunch, so late morning we worked on food prep and then spent the rest of the day with the team for lunch and a church service. I was pleased to see my worlds unite: some of the people I know best in the world getting to know each other.
By Sunday evening, part of me was ready to get back to real life, but the larger part of me was trying to hold on to every single minute.
They left early Monday morning. I came home from the airport to wash a load of sheets. But I chose to leave the tiny fingerprints on my windows at least for a few more days.
For context, read part 1 and part 2 before reading this.
Saturday morning, we awoke to a white world. The green hills of yesterday were white today. We had a few minutes of fretting about being stuck in our hairpin curve neighborhood until spring, but we soon settled in for the joy of a wet snow day. We did laundry, put puzzles together (although the puzzles were decidedly not for adults), and made spaghetti and garlic bread.
It was this day that we hunted high and low for trash bags, and, after perusing the Airbnb folder, discovered that we would have to pay for a second trash bag and corresponding disposal! Nonsense! I stood on the trash. I think my brother-in-law did too. And later, Dad pressed it down even more. Hopefully, the bag of now-bricks did not put out our hostess’ back when she stooped to pick it up.
Now that I’m done discussing trash and our remarkably uneventful Saturday, I might as well mention that one fantastic thing that we did: a yodeler concert!
My former roommate had found a concert about 15 minutes from our place. And by the time evening rolled around, the roads were clear. We wandered into the concert hall, feeling very much like we were wandering into a Central Illinois gathering. Again, it was both delightful and disconcerting how much we physically fit in. We relied on Mom’s high school German and my German pronunciation of my own name to claim our reserved tickets (which, as it turns out, I still mispronounced my name so I might as well have just used the English version). Several people wanted to talk to us, but our blank smiles deterred them.
We sipped Rivella and ate the little chocolates at our places. The atmosphere was friendly and relaxed. People chatted until the lights suddenly dimmed. I checked my phone. It was 8:00 p.m. on the dot.
By the first song, we had already settled back to enjoy the evening. The music was exactly what Dad had spent years of hours watching on YouTube. His dreamy expression made the rest of us warm and happy too. The mixture of traditional music groups was delightful. My nephew was the only baby present (this might tell you the age bracket of the audience), and he did pretty good, considering the concert started at his bedtime.
During intermission, a man came around and tried to talk to us. When we apologized, he backed away and said something about “American!” Word had got around.
On Sunday, we went out for one last scenic drive. The snow was mostly gone, and the landscape was green again. We wound through the countryside and eventually found our way to Trachselwald Castle, where Anabaptists were once held as prisoners. We didn’t think we could get into the exhibit, but decided to enjoy the outside anyway. Then, my nervy brother-in-law pushed open the unlocked door and we wandered inside the damp, cold tower. It was an unexpected peek into our history, and the unexpected part made it that much more meaningful.
That evening, my former roommate brought over her fiancé to get my vote of approval (that was my idea). We had a delightful evening of talking and praying together. And in the end, he got my approval. 🙂
After they left, we realized we were pretty low on food. In our effort to “work it out just right,” we had underestimated our appetites. My brother-in-law and nephew polished off the tube of mayonnaise… plain. With a side of butter… plain.
The next morning, after a few hiccups–such as not filling up the rental van with fuel and my nephew promptly wetting through all of his layers just after Mommy checked in the carry-on–we were on our way to Spain!
Not having been able to reserve an exit row, Dad passive-aggressively manipulated circumstances by stretching his legs into the aisle until the stewardess took note and moved all 6’6″ of him to a roomier seat. It was a rough flight. My nephew cried for a good part of it while my sister and brother-in-law felt like “those” parents. There was enough turbulence that my sister and I wore matching pale green faces.
At our layover in Madrid, we had the perfect amount of time, which we squandered by making various and sundry trips to the food bar only to end up with stuffy sandwiches and a tasteless salad… and an almost missed flight. We made a wild dash when my brother-in-law saw on the screen that our flight was boarding.
“We are about to close the gate,” the attendant told us. And we frantically collected our people and things. But after that trauma, our flight was uneventful. And then we were home–at least I was home.
My Thoughts From Afar | 