Back in the Saddle

Well, my vacation is over. We had a great time - lots of fun, lots of relaxation, a few house projects finished (yippee!) - and now it's time to be serious again.

I'm still in the vacation frame of mind, partly because my brain is still switching back over to the pacific time zone after seven days on the east coast, and partly because the glow of vacation is a bit like the afternoon of Christmas Day: you just have to sit and marvel for awhile that you have had this lovely experience, and you can't quite peel yourself off the couch. Not quite yet.

We started with some days at home, which I always appreciate. Time to read (a whole stack from the library in less than a week - oh, the joy). Time to relax with a cup of coffee and the newspaper in the morning. Time to attend worship without having to do anything but listen. Time to work in the backyard and help put a fence together and paint the porch railing, which I have been meaning to do since we moved in a year ago, and deadhead my roses, and eat ice cream sandwiches in the afternoon, and drink lemonade, and sleep in.

And then seven days in New York City, just about as far from home as we can get and still stay in the country. Where we did lots of kitchsy-touristy things: the Empire State Building (where I discovered my beloved's heretofore unknown mild fear of heights), Rockefeller Center, the United Nations, Ground Zero (since the last time I was in NYC I went to the top of those buildings), a Reuben sandwich at Katz's Deli (home of a scene in When Harry Met Sally), amazing soul food in Harlem (check out Amy Ruth's restaurant here).

And a Broadway show, which requires its own little paragraph. I've wanted to see Avenue Q for years, since I read about it one day in Newsweek. And if Sesame Street has ever been a part of your life, as it has been in mine, then this is the show for you. As they state repeatedly: it's not for kids. (Nor could any show be with songs like Everyone's a Little Bit Racist and It Sucks to be Me). One song in particular is begging for its own post, so I'll work on that for later. But oh - to laugh until you cry, that's good vacation.

It was good to get out of dodge, but after 10 days of "huh...I thought I packed more clean shirts. And where is my last pair of underwear?" living, we were also ready to get back home. Back to work for both of us; back to life.

Hopefully also, a small step for me back to vitality and energy and out of, well, not depression exactly, but certainly sluggishness. Ennui. A certain apathy. (Thesaurus, anyone?) After my last post about prayer, I have started to feel something growing again, some small buds of hope and reconnection to God. I am only a few steps along what I believe will be a long road. I need to make some commitments of my own, to prayer and scripture reading. But to be honest, I also need God to make some steps toward me - or, in more accurate theological language, to make God's already-closeness more known. I am hoping for that. I am ready for that. I might even be praying for it.

Vacation is good. Life is good. Time to work.