moving (?) on

I'm back from a visit to daughter Karen and family in Kansas. Except for Evan, who will be here in Virginia in mid-July, I won't see them again for a year or more. In some ways my visit there was like an item on my checklist for the move--something I needed to do before going away for a long time. How absurd it feels, though, to think of that family time in a context of "mail cat food to Vienna sponsor to hold for our arrival," "send change of address for mail-order prescriptions," and "retrieve pick from neighbor who will never get around to digging out his stump." Nevertheless, that time with the grandchildren as a series item "completed" on my pre-flight checklist seems to put the Kansas stay in sharp relief, to make it all the clearer in memory, to make the love I felt there a bit warmer and more intense, and to make the parting hugs at the curb of the Wichita airport just a bit sadder and more wonderful.

The government, meanwhile, is three weeks late in giving us a pack-out date, and many other tasks cannot be scheduled until that date is set. The tenants are eager to get into this house; the property manager would like to know, too; utility bill responsibilities need to be reassigned; a thousand other things, it seems, are also pending, and, before I drift off to sleep tonight, each will make itself known, like an unfastened screen door banging in the Kansas wind. And then curiosity will bring calm--what art and architecture will be in front of me in just a few more weeks.... Tomorrow to fresh woods and pastures new.