On a sunny day in Dublin...

...I am missing someone. I did not use to be that sort of person.

It's been an achy sort of day. I cabbed over from the Abbott to Number 31 this morning. It's another OH MY GOD, I'm staying HERE? YAY! sort of room. It's a beautiful, lovingly restored Georgian house & carriage house, with (literally) beautiful people answering the door and all your needs. They brought me coffee and homemade fruitcake when I checked in, and I'm told the breakfasts are legendary.

I sat down for a bit to collect myself and figure out how best to use the day. Two hours later...well, there was a bit of a nap in there...but I had my postcards written, taken care of various email business, and burned a CD of pre-show/intermission music for the short plays. (Not all women rockers; I have other things on my iTunes). Mostly women singer/songwriters. I want to go to the Hugh Lane Gallery, but I need to start out earlier in the day for that.

Then I wrote out postcards for friends and loved ones; I know we can talk to each other in an instant (and I did talk to my sweetie on the Skype), but I think there's nothing like getting a colorful picture with a foreign stamp in your actual mailbox.

Ordered some tickets for tonight's shows (The Countess and her Lesbians; Love Scenes) and noted with pleasure the good review for Carolyn Gage's play (The Countess) in the Irish Times.

And left the lovely room to walk across St. Stephen's Green for whatever.

I like this part of town; it's very different and much more posh than yesterday's neighborhood. Hotel hopping is exhausting, but it does give you a feel for a whole city, rather than just one neighborhood.

On my walk, I spotted a large magpie on a rock and reached for the camera and it flew away. Then I saw a Buddhist monk in saffron robes sitting across the way, and the sun was shining on the fountain's waters and it was a lovely picture. So I pulled out the camera and took it. Continued on my way to the other side of the park, and in a block or so spotted a postbox and went to pull out my postcards. They were gone. Had I dropped them when I took the picture? Or even before? Maybe they are back at the hotel, but I doubt it, as I remember putting them in my bag.

And I wanted to cry. And I realized I'm only halfway through the trip, and I miss my home like crazy. Not my apartment (if you've been there, you know it's not that much to get worked up about), but the person who makes it a home, who is not with me here, who is at home taking care of our little creatures. And for a couple of days keeping baby raccoons in the bathroom. But they are gone now, and I am still across the ocean.

I used to just leave and shut the door and not even think of things I left behind until I unlocked the door again. (Wrote some pretty good stuff along those themes, too). And I'd drop into a town without knowing where I'd stay, and take the bus tour, and happily tootle along on my own for days on end, as long as I could get away with it.

And now I sleep in luxurious beds...on my usual side, guiltily taking all the pillows , half-expecting to have them pulled away, along with the cover at some point during the night. I know exactly how we fit together when we spoon, and where my arms fit around her shoulders, and hers around my waist.

I'll be fine in a minute or an hour. I'll walk and see something interesting, and I'm going to like both the plays, and catch up with the others afterward, and give out more flyers, and talk Paul into coming to the (very nice) dinner I'm invited to tomorrow. And work and plan and be the mind that never stops.

But right now, I'm homesick. I never used to be, but that's because I didn't have a home.