I am headed off to clean my last apartment for a while. Maybe ever. Depending on how much the phone rings for other things this winter. I grab my bucket and bag of rags and I have refused to wash my tangled mess of hair because the smell of his skin is there. This makes me grin. It titillates me even. My little secret. Sure, I am a maid, I am scrubbing the alkaline ring out of someone else’s sink but I have a grin that is well beyond the joy of housekeeping.
I am wrapping up things before leaving for Alberta for seven weeks. Exchanging keys, returning pie plates, cramming in dinner parties with friends, sorting receipts, making room in the closet for my renter, petting the cat A LOT knowing what is coming, going on one more canoe ride with my fellow. The essentials.
I think we are returning to being a nomadic people. I’ve always thought dashing around was unnatural, but perhaps it is not. So much shifts all the time with seasons, with resources available in our environment, with family obligations and who is at the head of our own personal V formation. We’re tunnelling through the earth in trains, herding down the highways in cars, flying around in our airplanes, odd ducks with erratic migratory patterns. Hello dear fellow, I meet and you and now I’m gone! Nora jumps from one deck to another with her little pink suitcase, two parent-ships passing in the night, “Hold on tight! Don’t forget your piano lessons!” And work brings me the opportunity to see my dear Norma Bean and my Uncle Ed who is having a birthday and to spend a month and a half with my dear sister and her family and meet brand new friends. What a gift! What a gift!
All that said, traveling is not my favourite thing to do. I am a real home maker. I love to garden. I love to nest. I love to watch the sunset from my very own porch. If I am going to flap my wings and soar off to do a number of things, I need to know I return to a home relatively shortly. A garden with wisteria. A bed with clean sheets. A fridge with my daughter’s art plastered all over it.
One foot in one world, one foot in the other, I lean to grab the vacuum and my hip’s a little stiff for a very good reason. 
