I miss it

 

Europe I mean. 

I don't think it is missing vacation, per se, because I was with my kids 24/7.  And that is not a vacation.  It is a family vacation.  It was wonderful, don't get me wrong.  The family unit is strong, and Riley holding my hand  as we strolled through Europe (particularly through Paris and Southern France) is my most treasured memory of the whole summer.

But I miss it.   I miss the "closeness" of the cities.  They are more pedestrian friendly with lots of streets where only cars making deliveries are allowed to enter.  I miss how all the cars are small and boxy because they are fuel efficient and care more about space than looks.  I miss being able to go everywhere without getting into a car.  

Cars seem so isolating now.  (The bigger the better.  We use them to help define our cultural tribe.  We - Americans - can afford to waste gasoline because we have just that much money to burn.  Let's leave alone the ramifications of sending billions of dollars to oil producing nations.)  

In the US we always want to carve our personal space out of the landscape.  House with big yards, neighborhoods with fences and gates.  We are still prairie homesteaders fighting back the wilderness in our minds.  We all have manifest destiny dangling somewhere just out of grasp.  anyways.

I miss walking up to restaurants for a not-so-quick-bite to eat.  I miss that people congregate and are out in public until bedtime.  I miss that you can drink wine in the park and not get a ticket for open container.  I miss having a daily beer in a pub and striking up conversations with stranger who think my accent is cute. 

I think I even miss blogging about it.    

I miss having a camera around to capture things.  I need to start carrying one.  I just ordered an iphone and it will be my first phone with a camera.  For some reason, even though I am a bit of a technology junkie, I am late to the dance when it comes to cell phones.  I have never even sent a text on a phone.  Shocking, I know.  I just never saw the need.  I will be texting though - within the next week when my phone comes, I got a family plan with unlimited texting as my daughter once again pushes me into accepting the fact that she is now a teenager.  (First Facebook, and now texting.)

There is one part of this post-Europe malaise that is a vacation thing.  I miss the simplicity of only owning one suitcase full of possessions.  It was so easy to control life when that's all you posses.  I have not done laundry since I came home.  It's been a week. Actually 10 days.  I can't bear to go through it.  in our house, we call this the "Pee Wee and the snakes" phenomenon.  Click through to understand fully.

Real life is a lot more complicated, and if I am truthful, I will say that by the end of Ireland I was itching to get back home.   I love my home and my community and my friends.    I love my kids' lives, I love the Puget Sound and I love Seattle too.

And not to be gross, but this is so funny...  I LOVE love love my not-good-for-the environment plush toilet paper.  Like wiping your butt with bunny fur compared to the peeled tree bark stuff they have in the EU.  Let's end there for now.