Going home

It's the first time, in as long as I can remember this year, that I feel light.

It has been very intense, this 2008. Wonderful ups, no real downs - but great frustration and resignation at times, personally, and many challenges professionally. I take my work very personally, which can be good, but also bad if it comes home with you and insists on being dreamed about and stayed awake over. More gardens designed, built and planted than ever before, and more to come - for which I am very thankful. In times that are rough for many, our small company, perhaps because it is small, has seen no dip, and in fact an increase, in its work load.

The next project has been put into very competent hands and I will check in from time to time. And the spring will probably see it evolve. But I have said goodbye to it for now. Hello sandman. Goodbye noisy neighbours. The woman who laughs like an amplified, tubercular parrot in the apartment below, the yelper next door.

I look forward to falling asleep.

Tomorrow night my husband will walk in the front door, fresh from British Columbia, taller than I remember, and the cat will look at him and not run away. He will be tired and I will be sleepy. We will sleep side by side and hand in hand and wake up and have breakfast together - croissants that he will fetch from Bococa - and then shop in Manhattan for Things. We'll have supper at home. Maybe a roast chicken.

On Monday we will have another breakfast, I will pack, and we will leave the apartment spic and span for Paulo, who will be looking after Estorbo. We will spend late Monday and Tuesday flying over the Atlantic and over Africa, touching down in Dakar on the way. South Africans will look after us on the flight. We will land in Johannesburg and smell the Highveld, and move to another plane bound for the Cape. On that two hour flight I will order my first Appletizer. And that will mean I am home.

Landing in Cape Town, I will thank my ancestors for looking after us, and perhaps I will cry. My father will meet us, and he will drive us home, where cats, dogs and people will be awake to greet us, tumultuously. The house will be filled with flowers. My mom will be laughing. My childhood bedroom will have been adjusted somewhat to accommodate Two, and sometime, very late on Tuesday night, Vince and I will fall asleep again, to the sound of penetrating, poplar-clad silence...

I can't wait.