leaving

Oh yes, I'm off now. The funny thing is that I planned this little trip (and bought tickets for it) before I decided that for sure this would be my last semester of teaching. The trip parallels my typical December pattern of exiting immediately after classes end (and before the exams come in for grading). Though in the past dozen years, the goal had been to be in Poland. This trip is as all others, but without the Poland part.

Well, no trip is as all others. Yes, I'll be in France, but I will be stopping first in Marseille and I've never spent time there -- it's been a pass through place in the past. Because I'm without Ed, I'm concentrating on the more urban places, but with possible quick exits into the country. I'm leaving that open.

Leaving that open -- that's a lovely phrase. As if the burden of something has been lifted. It feels that way, even as right now it's just another end of a semester, and another trip to clear my mind and refocus. Which, for me, is best accomplished when I look at life as it is lived elsewhere, by others.


At the farmette, the fog has lifted and a deep chill has set in. Ed comments -- if you stayed, we could go skiing as soon as there's snow! We torture ourselves in this way on the occasions that I go off without him.
There is no snow -- I remind him. And of course, I'll be back in ten days. Plenty of time to take in any snow then.


I wish I could give you a photo of the beloved farmhouse...

...and of our beloved breakfast...

...but I am at an airport where uploading is not possible. Imagine them! Remember them!


So I'm off. Via Paris, to Marseille, where they say the winds are gusting fiercely. The Mistral is having a hellish time of it, just as I arrive!

I'll write next from the other side of the ocean.

[A note to all the lovely comments and emails that came from you: I smiled at them all! Thank you.]