No, I'm not writing my end of the world suicide note--yet. I'm trying to get my head and heart to come back home from the beach, where I was blissful for three days last week.

My struggle to get back home emotionally is one I have to contemplate. It's not just that the weather was perfect, the water warm. It wasn't just the contact with my mother and father in their favorite places (mom in a giant thrift store and dad watching college football). I was able to rest and be easy. I was able to just sit and look at the water, the patterns on the sand, the lovely broken shells.

Is it the juxtaposition of life as a breeze and life with expectations--groceries, laundry, work? That is part of it, for sure. It is also the many emotional/relational connections I had there as opposed to what I have here. I feel starved for people I love and know. I was glad to get back to my husband, but other than him, I really don't have the connections in this part of my world on a daily basis.

I'm going to do some stream of consiousness writing with some of the photos I took while there--will probably put up some of the writing as articles in the next week or so.

I did do some paintings and am happy with all of them. The one here is the last of a series I did on the porch of the condo there, looking across the street to the sand, grasses and water.