Yesterday, I went cold turkey and abandoned my laptop in favor of the new iPad. Bought two weeks ago as a long promised travel accessory, I’ve been slowly dipping into programs and apps. I’ve been disappointed that this one pound wonder just can’t do everything my reliable laptop can. Apps are different from programs. I’m sure I’m in for some surprises yet undiscovered, but we are on the plane from Milwaukee to NYC and the laptop is home, turned off and unplugged at 40% battery capacity, as recommended by the geeks smarted than me. Admission: I thought about taking my laptop to NYC and leaving it with Cheshire so that I would have it one more night with it and then get it back when we return to NYC 3 days before returning to WI.

Dependence? Addiction? And I think that it is Julia who is wedded to an unchanging routine.

The weekend’s Quest training went well. My lingering anxiety about travel melted away or perhaps it was distracted away as our small facilitators/leadership group went over ground rules and suggestions and some mindful time together. I came home to odds and ends. Packing was finished, except for power cords and the little bits of Wisconsin that I am bringing as gifts to Italy. There was house tidying, bills to be scheduled for payment in July, books to return to the library and the Netflix disc to mail. I was able to turn off lights for bed by 10. Of course, I hoped to get that good night’s sleep before the morning drive to Milwaukee and the inevitable delayed of take off time. But no. I slept only a few hours and the sleep was restless and fitful. Lying in bed staring at the ceiling, I came to the conclusion that it really doesn’t matter if I leave packing to the last minute and am washing or ironing or folding clothes at 2 am, I’ll probably get the same amount of sleep as I did last night.

Leaving the house for almost a month. I think of myself as an enthusiastic traveler. I don’t shrink from holiday travel or vacation, but I realized as I went around the house last night, closing and folding and straightening and putting away, how rarely I leave the house for this amount of time. How infrequently most of us take up long journeys and have adventures. For all the travel I dream of and dream of with friends of a similar bent, we could be peasants in the middle ages bound to our patch of earth. Rarely leaving the same scenery we see day in and day out.

I love my home and my small city. I care deeply for the work that I am doing and opportunities that Julia has enjoyed. I have been mourning the lilies that I will miss blooming and the weeds that will take over as soon as I pull out of the drive, but I also ‘suffer’ from wanderlust and know for sure that I am stretched and bent out of normal shape in during travel in ways that I cannot even imagine when I am home-bound.

Right now, after questions and anxiety and wonderings and obsessive planning and fears and even calm, as washed through me, I have the uncanny feeling of being exactly where I should be as I should be. Perhaps I have arrived at the present moment with no place else to be. It is a definitely centered feeling in my gut that is so light as to fly on wind streams without mechanical devices. I am drawn to comparing this with other times when I’ve felt the same but I would rather not be swallowed into reminisces and rumination. I want this to be just as new as it feels.