After six days of travel to Portland, Oregon for a poetry conference at Lewis and Clark College with Stafford Challenge members, I am back home in Georgia and attempting to transition back to my regular time zone. I made myself get up at 5:45 this morning for coffee and yogurt and a snuggle with my schnoodles. I stepped outside to check the world, and the birdsong assures me the harmony on the farm is still in tune here in the quiet hush of the rural countryside.
It’s my first day home being off contract for summer before I officially retire in August, and I have two goals: write/post, and get myself back in the zone. I might push it and do a load of laundry just to have clean socks. Memories are swimming in my head, full of the love and exhaustion of travel – the best kind of tired that tells you you made the most of it all and came home changed in a way that only travel and friends can change you. How truly Steinbeck the journey, the best kind that leaves you stumbling around with a cup of strong coffee trying to recover from one trip while simultaneously and secretly plotting the next.
But whatever the day holds, my heart and mind will carry all the fresh air and green trees and memories of the Pacific Northwest. I’ll read poems and remember my time there, holding it all close with a foot on both sides of the country today.
Be
there’s a bench beyond the allium
nestled beneath a tree
beside the cobbled sidewalk
come sit and be with me!
Common Threads 
I’m so ready to join you on the bench! Such an inviting joyful poem! This is such a rich slice. Its purpuse seems to be to capture the feelings of your travels, instead of all that you did. I think that is why I like it so much! And now back how, you describe your feelings so well, too. Laundry for you have socks! And this fav line: “holding it all close with a foot on both sides of the country today.”
BTW – did you attend your Sarah Kay event yet?!!
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The busy-ness in your chapter of slowing down. The images you created with your words had me right there with you. You are such a poet as you travel!
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