Briefly: On returning home from nearly 8 months of travel

We’re back in San Jose, as of last night.

I have giggled with my sisters, eaten my mother’s cooking, gone for a walk, recklessly ordered the “biscuits and gravy deluxe” at our local breakfast place, and shared dim sum with family. I have sorted all my mail, done a load of laundry (with mixed feelings about returning to the dryer, after months of line drying), and opened all the parcels I sent to myself from abroad — which was like early Christmas. I have reunited happily with the clothes I left at home, with some wonder that I own so many garments (some of which no longer fit). I have stared in mingled delight (at last, books!) and dismay at the clutter all over my room, which I will soon have to organize/cull if I hope to be able to walk in that room at all. And I have discovered that our kitty Lyapa, far from having forgotten us, seems not to have noticed that it’s been months since she last saw us. (What is time to a cat, after all?!)

There is so much more I could write, but for now, I rest.