Five days of jet lag and 700 pages of unexpected legal proofreading have kept me from the keyboard, and after meeting sleep and client deadlines I feel halfway human again.

Got hung up in Security at Heathrow in London because I forgot I had hand sanitizer and eye drops in my backpack, so it got routed to be tested for explosives, anthrax, or who knows what. The woman ahead of me had a gazillion little bottles of liquids in a plastic shopping bag (“They told me it all had to be in a plastic bag, and it’s in a plastic bag!”), and the security officer doing the testing took one bottle at a time to put into a quart-sized bag for testing. We were half an hour late leaving Prague because of congestion over Heathrow, and 15 minutes in the security line left me racing down a half mile-long terminal hall. Just barely made my flight. Nine hours later we touched down in America.

Spring in Europe was fragrant and lovely, and I’m home in time to see my flowers and apples ready to bloom. The ditch water’s filling the pump, the hoses are connected, and the weeds await. As do four clients who need editing and proofreading. And the avalanche of mail that my roommate collected. So I take a deep breath and declare that all will be finished at the perfect time. And so the adventure becomes memories. Fortunately, memories don’t take up much space and never have to be dusted. Maybe I’ll make more next winter–in Argentina or Belize or wherever inspiration leads me.