Since I saw you last

July 07, 2005 | Category: In My Life

I've written this in snippets through the week and saved in a Word file. If it seems uneven, it's because it's really a gaggle of fortune-cookie-sized thoughts wrapped together in a big tortilla. Damn, I think I'm hungry.

Sunday, I took all the fine advice I was given to do nothing.

But then Monday dawned in hazy sun. And it was warm, wet, and full of chores. Thinking about my little "lost day", the guilt was a quilt over my head. I couldn’t see anything but what needed doing.

Laundry, dishes, paperwork, bills, getting ready for my trip, praying, cleaning, cooking, shopping.

My father called, a quick little "hi" in the afternoon. I debated saying anything. Finally, I took a breath. "Dad," I said. 'It's about my heart. There's been an ... event."

*That went about as well as could be expected. I told him I would call when I got the results next week.*

By sunset, I was back at it. Walking back and forth through my shotgun home, dropping off and picking up and putting away. It was dark when some noises startled me out of my working stupor and I went outside in thick mist to look.

Fireworks, floating in the sky.

Rev, my next door neighbor, came out. "I wasn't going to drive up for the show." he told me. "Traffic is always crazy, after. I forgot we could see it pretty good from our yards."

I nodded. We stood side-by-side and watched from that invisible property line between our yards. Watched through the trees, with many sparkles of colored light reaching so high we had to crane our necks back to see. Our silence was broken by snippets of conversation and far away booms. We stayed to the very end, even though it was raining and we got soaked through. And we clapped, though no one could hear.

Tuesday and more to do. Updated my spreadsheets, dropped off the dry-cleaning, cashed a check, packed, replicated the laptop to the home system, and headed for the airport.

Late afternoon and I was kneeling at the gateway door at an American Airlines arriving flight. Bear saw me and began running. I was crying in relief when I finally had him in my arms. I belatedly kissed CD. He was bemused at how adults get forgotten in the greeting process once children are added to the mix.

Our little family shared a picnic in a row of empty seats at a semi-empty gate and then I jogged down to my own departing flight. Looking back every few feet, hating and dreading the distance growing once again between me and them.

Tuesday night I got to the hotel and realized I had left my Gmail and Blog passwords back at home. Too tired to think about it, I went to sleep.

Wednesday and it was 11.5 hours straight in conference. It was stared with an ice-breaking exercise where we were asked, in all seriousness, "If we could be a dessert - what kind would we be?"

Breakfast and lunch catered in as we slogged through, arguing process and format and dependencies and interdependencies and predecessors and drop dates.

We were at a hotel outside St. Louis, Missouri. That night we ate at a local restaurant where the horde of us happily enjoyed clams and lobster and salmon that were better than any of us expected, accompanied by a surprisingly good wine selection. A lot of wine, actually. So much so that two hours later we were all laughing so hard that our cheek muscles hurt even though I don’t remember anyone as being all that funny.

Thursday morning was terrorism, disaster, broken hearts, and broken bodies. I awoke at 6AM to MSNBC's breathless coverage and quickly turned to CNN.

Called CD and begged him to send me my GMAIL password. Then it was a flurry of quick, frightened emails to dear ones in London.

And pause for prayer.

Then another 5 hours of more debate club antics back in the conference room. At 2PM, I excused myself and my team. Several of my projects got the green light, and we were gave a rah-rah teleconference to prepare for next week's kickoff workshop here in Chicago.

3PM and we commandeered my architect and his Audi to take us to the airport.

5:40PM and I was Earthbound once again, through cobalt skies dipping low to the concrete runway.

And finally, home again.

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