Thursday, July 27, 2006

Back in the drink

Yesterday morning was the first time I’ve been in the Bay for over a year. After a year of indoor swimming, I was finally back home, bobbing in the middle of the bay next to a buoy with the fog horns blowing and the fog so thick that Alcatraz Island was the only thing I could see.

The first week has been a whirlwind of necessity and luxury. The necessities included buying cars (a pair of Toyota hybrids), setting up cellphones and whacking the weeds away from my roses. The luxuries included carne asada burritos at La Taqueria, high tea at Lovejoy’s and a shopping expedition to Rainbow Grocery.

We had an extraordinary year in Paris, doing and seeing more than we had hoped. We found Paris to be a magical city and the French people to be charming. But at the end of the year we were ready to go home.

Going away for a year is like putting a comma in a sentence – you pause, but don’t interrupt the flow. Going away for two years is like putting a period in a sentence – when you come back, you have to start all over again.

Besides, nobody even thinks of going swimming in the Seine.