spring cleaning / homecoming

I have the windows open. I’m wearing shorts and a tank top. I just came back from Paris and Oxford is in its own embryonic spring. It’s 60 degrees. I’ve spent the past three full days in bed, sick as a dog. It’s nice to wake up, realize you’ve slept all the way through the night, that you can breathe for once, and that your stomach isn’t killing you.

You know how much it sucks to be sick when the first thing you do upon feeling better is laundry.

I’m washing my sheets, I’m washing my clothes, I have good 90s music playing, I have a Big Bang episode queuing up, I’m drinking water, and I’m in a great mood.

When I was in Paris, I thought, “I could live in Paris.”

A week later, I think I want to take that back. It’s not so much that I miss home as that I have a home to return to. Why would I want to live in Paris? What does Paris have that could possibly make me happier than I already am? Yeah, it’s got the Arc d’Triumph. It’s got the Eiffel Tower and the catacombs and Pere Lachaise and half a dozen other awesome monuments and museums and whatnot. But every city has something that makes it unique. And it’s wonderful to get the opportunity to see those different things. But just because one place is incredibly beautiful doesn’t mean that I need to transplant myself because the new place is somehow “more important” or even cooler just because it’s older or has spiffier buildings.

Seattle is home for me. I suppose if all my friends and family moved away from there, I would eventually lose my deep attachment to it. But for all intents and purposes, it is where I almost always want to be, no matter where I am. I am so excited to actually be able to spend the entire summer there this year. To get to go over anytime I want and see my sister and my niece. To bake. To go to the beach. Go to the shooting range with my dad. Sew for a week straight with my mom. Cruise downtown with Kirsten. Catch up with old high school friends at Karkeek or Golden Gardens or the movie theatre. Sing in the car at the top of my lungs because I’m the one driving for a change. Drink Mountain Dew under the mild Seattle sun and tan in my Target-brand bathing suit and sleep and brew cup after cup of coffee with everyone I know in Seattle, because it’s Seattle, and everyone drinks coffee. Billiards with Piatt and Melissa, tattoo designing, revising Velvet, having the time and space and breath to churn out another feature or fine-tune Disconnect.

I am so excited to come home. I am so excited. How many times can I type that?

Seattle, friends, family. I’ll be there soon. Love from across the Atlantic,

Em