Day four of no school, day three of entertaining, night two of no sleeping, whew.  There's only one thing to do after a lineup like that, hop into the car with your computer bag and your books and headphones and drive an hour to the closest city, drive straight to Target where you walk every single aisle and then straight to Thomas Hammer for the hottest, tallest americano and hours of uninterrupted anonymity.  That's what you do.

Because we had been days and days in the house, nights and nights on the couch.  And even though it was two weeks ago that we were back in that favorite city, it feels like it's been two months instead.  And there are wonderful things to miss about a city.  There is the driving music and the potential nestled inside options.  There was Italian dinner on New Year's with the just-turned-thirty best friend, the champagne toast later with sister and her husband, sister killing it in heels and leather.  There was a day with four Targets, two coffee shops.  An early morning-- me still in pjs and dad in his ear muffs driving all over the city, buying up the best donuts from the smallest bakeries.  And then there was Sunday with all of us driving from home to home, visiting old neighbors and old babysitters and listening to stories from Fred, the man who lived down the street and who used to let us feed treats to his cats.  The man who is a giant of a man, who is only five feet tall but whose stories make him tower.

There were disappointments, too.  Hard wake-up moments.  The phone conversation a week later that led to tears, distance.  The realization that family becomes a different thing as it grows and while family will always be family, it can shift from something close and concrete (the stick figured picture on the fridge, the photo albums, the matching dresses and the home video of our hands clenched during that first flight) to a new thing: shadowy and vague and only partially known.  But still, that city glimmered.

And so for me there will always be something healing and reassuring about rushing streets and rushing strangers and rushing schedules.  And there will always be a small part of me that needs to return, to leave my small, adorable town and to pull into a hustling bustling place and if you were in the car with me, you would probably hear a long, slow sigh.