There's an undeniable grip of fear as the end of vacation nears, a seizing in the stomach.
Every time I am on vacation I convince myself that I am independently wealthy and do not have to work.
I like to pretend, a lot. It's not just for kids, people. But that's another story in a long line of other stories.

Everyone will be asking me "what did you do and where did you go," waiting to hear me claim vacation bragging rights to someplace exotic and spectacular.

For the first time in 25 years I used vacation time, for the most part, to be by myself.
I needed to listen for that "inner voice" that is supposed to be trying to speak to us all the time. So much noise has been drowning it out for a long time.

*At night the stillness brought flocks of geese flying so low overheard I could hear and feel the powerful rush of collective wings. I've never heard that sound before.

* I turned on mid-day television, one of my taboos, and came across Luke Spencer (sans his long, curly locks) on General Hospital asking Laura "will you marry me?" AGAIN!
Anyone my age will know how freaky this is. I went home (allegedly) sick from work on Nov. 16, 1981 to watch those two get married. It was the wedding of the year, so monumental it was my mother who called me at work to say "tell them you have to leave and get over here, now!"
Laura, I've been told, was recently catatonic and in a mental hospital. LOL. Some things never change.

*I lounged in bed with a thick comforter and cups of coffee listening to WPR's (an addiction) "A Prairie Home Companion," "Click 'n Clack," "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me," "What Do You Know" and Dr. Zorba and Tom Clark.

* I read volume one of Bob Dylan's "Chronicles," surprised at how straight Dylan was throughout his career, keenly focused on one vision. I had him pegged as someone who would have been "experimental." He never was a part of the counter culture I presumed he was a part of. He was an island unto himself.

Kind of like me this week.