Good to be home?

We have been back from Europe for 5 days but it feels like years. So much going on and too long to explain. Let's just say I wanted to feel peaceful and cozy when I returned home but it has been anything but that. Why does everything seem to happen at once?

I start back to school in 10 days, and I can't believe I am saying this but I almost want to start back just to get my mind off the super-stressful business that has been occupying my time and energy these days. I am trying various approaches to bring peace of mind to myself, and so far early morning grocery shopping is the only thing that works. I can't even read these days.

Oh well. Let's not dwell on unhappy things. I will instead focus on that 16-day-long oasis from craziness. From now on, I will try to imagine myself back to .......

T.S. Eliot's footsteps in the reading room in the British Museum.....

the beautiful stained glass in King's College Chapel....

Cambridge, England - my favorite place on Earth.....

The Trinity College courtyard on a cloudy Sunday afternoon.....

a punt along the River Cam.....

the beautiful Roman Baths....

Where else can you be this happy in the pouring rain?

or maybe the quays of the River Seine....

or the lending library of Shakespeare & Company Books....

a stomach full of French food and an evening stroll in front of the Eiffel Tower....

the quaint canalside lanes of Bruges, Belgium....

Belgian countryside.....

the busy energy of Dam Square ...

the canals of Amsterdam....

Our trip was lovely, and I have so much to reflect on. Reflection will come, but for now, I don't have the energy or the time. I begin school in 10 days and I have a 700-page summer reading book to complete and a sudden lack of concentration ability - such a bad combination. As I've mentioned already, my mental and physical energy is being pulled a million directions at the moment. ....A death in my family, small issues that are unnecessarily being made bigger... and I am saddened by the news that a college friend of mine has been widowed far too early. Her pain is beyond my comprehension.

I'm thinking of her and everything else that is going wrong at that moment, but I am trying to focus on the positive. 10 more precious days of summer.