12.26.06

these past weeks have been filled with going home. holidays. watching white christmas, making pizzelles, making poppyseed rolls, making nut rolls. burning things with dad in the front yard. poking little buddy's fat belly. driving back and forth on the stark highway, no snow, filled with more and more cars every year (it seems).

tonight, i used christmas money to buy my plane ticket to slovakia. i get a little thrill anticipating the layovers, of all things, because layovers will forever remind me of travelling to scotland. that particular melange of problem-solving, distress, and intensity is preserved at some root level of my consciousness, likely never to be topped.

now, though, i have dates and numbers and estimates attached to the slovakia trip. it feels like a pile of treasure. i will get there, and, unbelievably, niki will be waiting. this will be the thought in my head as i'm halfway to germany, hoping catastrophe doesn't strike.

the solstice passed, but midwinter is only starting. wrapping up some nut roll tonight on my obscenely turquoise kitchen table, the darkness seeped in over the tops of my curtains and summer seemed far away for the first time. i am still processing things.