Sometimes thoughts come to me like little packets of pretzels on the plane. I savor them and then they are gone. This weekend we were traveling, and thoughts flitted in and quickly dissolved. They connected and then disconnected, drawing knots around me. Now we're home---the umbrella collection has stretched a bit, the bluebells are tingling, and our garden is hued in vivid purples.

Here are my postcards from me to you from the journey.

2pm. It should stop surprising me how much I miss being home, and you already know this, but I miss home. We're on a train from London, and every mile seems longer. The first seat I took was saturated (I'm trying not to think with what) and my entire trouser legs are damp. Poor Walker. I might be officially classified as a grumpacaurus rex.

4pm. We are rolling through yellow fields specked with brick abodes and green fields and this is all so charming. Did I tell you we did make our train on time? I worried for hours we wouldn't. Silly me. Silly, faithless me.

5pm. The sky is packed with contrasting clouds and the air is cool after a sticky half-week of smog in London. So I will write and think about that, not that I'm hungry and we're on this train for several more hours.

6pm. It's Mother's Day. These days, it seems everything I know, she taught me. And, daily double, we also both officially have new moms this year (and we're both pleased as the bees knees with them).

10pm. Walking home from dinner, it was still light. Scotland is good at payback for the winter days. My eyes stopped itching and the puffiness is melting away. That would be from sitting on a bench in St James Park yesterday in pollen pods that looked like snowflakes.

9am. Outside the air looks like lilacs and moss greens and baby blues, and there is nothing more happy than being back looking over my garden as I write to trills of baby birds. There is nothing I want to do more than get out into that colorful world, but instead I'm inside writing a cover letter.

I will dream of this place where I sit warm and still each morning.

2pm.Operation Spice Cabinet and Project Inventory have commenced. I get a thrill from throwing things out, and today was my day o’ luck with all the expired medicine I found. This all means we are moving soon, you know. I am buying less, clearing out, wiping down. We’re really going to leave. My heartstrings are stretching thin.

5.30pm. Resume writing is by turn thrilling and dreadful. There is an upswing, though, when I click the apply box.

6pm Walker and I simultaneously exclaimed what?!/whoa! after a single quiver of thunder came from the purple-gray sky, a very rare occurrence.

7pm. The sun has come out.

8pm. I stepped out to find our roses are back. Good to see you, old friends.

10pm. It was almost a year ago I left Tennessee, and I still tear up when I let myself miss it. One of my sweet girls graduated Saturday, and I was so there in spirit.

There are pretzel crumbs trailing this post in all its messiness and disjunction. But in my uncertainties and worries, in all my errant thoughts and the pains of leaving, there is so much joy in life. I'm alive because I'm alive in You.

10.06pm. Peace.