morning report: return from road trip

I’ve just poured the first cup of coffee in my own home, after waking in my own bed from a pretty good sleep—my first morning following an eight-day road trip with children. As we drove in last night, children opened windows to “smell for home” and Madeleine announced she smelled salt air half an hour from the coast, her nose curling her whole body into a smile. I woke to the sound of geese migrating, to the smell of ocean and fishing, and I feel the same.

The trip to Pittsburgh and Indiana is richer than I can describe just now. Again and again I wanted to turn myself into a sponge to soak up goodness, laughter, affection, and I wanted to turn myself into a camera to memorize landscapes, sunsets, the subtle colorations of fog and starlight. Even a long moment being lost in Cincinnati found me gazing into a sickle moon, just before it tucked behind a rain cloud. (I found my printed out directions—which were honest-to-God strategically located for half of my visit—under a stack of children’s books, which was under a pile of jackets and raincoats, in the passenger seat of the car. And after being lost for far too long, I walked into a house where the table was set and the dinner smelled like heaven, a warm welcome.)

A large package on my desk turned out to be a dozen gorgeous copies of Living Crafts magazine—I open the first copy to find my two articles and I see I’ve been listed as “contributing editor,” complete with a photo and short description! The magazine is BEAUTIFUL from cover to cover, and if you have any inkling of craft love, go ask your bookstore to get you a copy.

Now I’m off to pour my second cup of coffee and make my favorite breakfast, then to address the vast collection of luggage, housing bathing suits and turtlenecks and craft supplies and everything in-between. Kids are home from school, toodling quietly (so far) with books and baseball card collections, just happy to be out of the car for a foggy day by the sea. Thoughts and images will settle out soon, as the clothes and travel necessities find their ways into drawers and closets and notes take shape in my journal, next to the coffee mug.