WAKE UP, HONEY
19 October 2003
Dorothy lies on her bed, moaning softly, a cold cloth over her head. Auntie Em leans over
her, removes the cloth and says "Wake up, Honey." She opens her eyes and
realizes that she is back in Kansas again. She is surrounded by the people who appeared in
her dream--the 3 farmhands who morphed into the Scarecrow, the Tin Man and the Cowardly
Lion, Professor Marvel, who became the Wizard of Oz, and she expresses her delight at
being home again and says there's no place like home.
I felt a little like Dorothy this morning, as I woke up and felt a bit disoriented,
trying, in my pre-awake haze, to figure out where I was. Which direction did I go to find
the bathroom for a morning piddle? Then, as things came into focus, I realized I was back
where I started, I was back in my own version of Kansas.
The difference, of course, is that the characters from my "dream" of the past
six months aren't going to pop up in my reality here. My life has not gone from
technicolor to black and white, but maybe in some respects it has. Dorothy had her
"little people"; I had kangaroos (and Chippa & Keno). Dorothy had her yellow
brick road; I had that red dirt everywhere I traveled.
But in my "Kansas," I will not find a Janne and Chris, a Claire and Penny, a
Peggy. It may be that there's noplace like home...but there's noplace like Oz either.
It's time to shift backwards, over the rainbow again, and focus on the next thing, which
is Tom & Laurel's wedding, coming up this coming weekend.
Today I tackled The Suitcases, and letting air into those huge vacuum sealed bags we
stuffed inside to make it all fit. Miraculously, everything arrived in perfectly good
condition. (Well, perhaps not "miraculously" because She Who Packed was an
expert and wouldn't dare pack anything in such a way that it would be damaged.
The afternoon was spent going through all the purchases and smiling as I remembered the
places where I was when I purchased them. Going through the mail and smiling as I realized
that the MasterCard bill is significantly less than I feared it was going to be. Looking
at the new shoes and trying to figure out where the hell I'm going to put them all....
I'm back on California time. I slept all night long, waking up at 7 a.m. Don't feel any
jet lag at all, though I did take a nap this afternoon.
Tomorrow I start "life" again. I have things to do tomorrow, a doctor's
appointment on Tuesday, and Wednesday we take off for Santa Barbara to get ready for the
wedding.
Wake up, Honey. You're home.
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