{"id":186,"date":"2011-08-28T14:10:23","date_gmt":"2011-08-28T19:10:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kristareese.com\/blog\/?p=186"},"modified":"2011-08-28T14:10:23","modified_gmt":"2011-08-28T19:10:23","slug":"back-to-life-back-to-reality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kristareese.com\/blog\/back-to-life-back-to-reality\/","title":{"rendered":"Back to life, back to reality…"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Evening sky, from our Bar Harbor rental<\/p><\/div>\n

(With apologies to Soul II Soul<\/a>)<\/p>\n

We\u2019re back. Back from our glorious, six-week sojourn, back from spring sabbatical and summer break. Back to school — me at UGA\u2019s Grady School of Journalism teaching magazine writing; Bill teaching painting and drawing at Carson-Newman. Back to schedules, deadlines, alarm clocks, cat feedings, trash-emptying, lawn-mowing, house-fixing. Back to work. With a deep, regretful sigh: No more daily adventure of the road ahead. No more long conversations in our traveling living room — the car. No more being together all day, every day. And every night. (Sniff.) Perhaps most tragically: No more room service. (Nooooooooo!<\/em>)<\/p>\n

But also: Back to friends. Back to our crazy cat, Rocket. Back to our separate, but comfortable homes — the ones with the sofa seating curved to the shapes of our bodies. Back to looking ahead farther than the next bend in the road. Back to living from our closets and chests, rather than our suitcases. Back to knowing our way around. As wonderful as our trip was, we agreed — six weeks was a little too long to be away. As much as we loved each adventure, we started to get a little homesick.<\/p>\n

Still, we\u2019re glad we did this long version of our annual Maine hajira. Who knows if we will have the chance again, much less the time, energy or funds? Our epic journey (click here if you want to see the whole crazy map in detail<\/a>) began in Atlanta,\u00a0 stopped briefly in New Market, TN, continued up the East Coast to New York. Here was our big kickoff, planned for months (see previous post) to celebrate Bill\u2019s 60th<\/sup> birthday in a pull-out-the-stops four-day stay in our favorite U.S. city.<\/p>\n