Glad To Return to The Home Nest
We landed state-side Saturday night, and relief washed over me. Don’t get me wrong: I had fun. I have read plenty of fiction set in WWII or the Wars of the Roses, and seeing places named in those books felt surreally delightful.
But I am a homebody at heart. Anything more complicated than ordering coffee in my native language gives me anxiety and spending a lot of time on new things worries me.
It’s The Little Things
The entire ride home, I fantasized about doing laundry. Specifically, doing laundry in my own washing machine and wearing clothes that hadn’t been spot washed and damp when it had to be rolled up and stashed in a suitcase.
I anticipated waking up well before a hotel would staff their dining hall for breakfast and making whatever breakfast I had dreamed of the night before.
Never underestimate the importance of clean clothes and food when you want it.
I am not knocking hotel food. We have had some of the best food in hotels. At the London and Edinburgh hotels we stayed at, they served tomatoes, mushrooms, and beans with the usual eggs and toast. I will be adding them to my breakfast repertoire: I love tomatoes and mushrooms fried up and slathered on crunchy toast.
I’m not denigrating the restaurants in Europe, either. Paris and Venice both had amazing places to eat. There was a restaurant around the corner from our hotel in Venice served beef and zucchini my husband latched on to as the ideal dinner.
But I ate my grapefruit and milky coffee at 3 this morning. I am not sorry.
Focus And Contrast
People talk of inattentional blindness. You know, where you fail to see something because you weren’t looking for it. I suspect I missed a lot of the finer details of Rome because I was already focused on the gigantic architecture and historical monuments. I zeroed in on the birds just to find some detail.
At home, I know every house and tree. I ignored them before. They weren’t important, and I could focus elsewhere.
They have their own quality of light and sound, though. Every place does. The feel of the ground through your shoes varies too. The ground is smooth here, where the slope and roundness of Rome’s cobblestone streets was noticeable. I liked the cobblestone, but I never appreciated the smoothness of the path by our creek.
The birds come into this too. There are families of ducks swimming around the creek behind my house. The look soft and shiny, like silk in the sun. As much as I appreciated the iridescent feathers of pigeons and the character of ravens, the ducks warm my soul.
I love that I have the chance to contrast these things, and I vow to focus anew on the things that delight here in my home nest.