Back to reality

After spending two weeks at my mother's farm, followed by a weekend with friends at their lakeside cottage in Quebec, we have returned to the city with no further plans to travel.

So what have I to show for my seclusion and retreat? The polished first draft of a novel I started writing eight years ago? Guess again. An outline of the young adult novel I've had buzzing around in my head for the past year? Sadly, no. It's still buzzing around in my head, a little more fleshed out perhaps. Apart from a few indecipherable (and I fear unintelligible ) sentences hastily jotted down, I have little to show for my vacation.

On the other hand, I have delighted in watching my daughter re-discover the farm — play with kittens, acquaint herself with the horses now inhabiting the pasture, ramble through my mom's dusty farmhouse in search of one after another dubious treasure, and simply wander, marvel and explore — cared for my mother during illness, and, most telling of all, slowed down enough to watch gold-throated finches and skittish hummingbirds cavort, to listen to squirrels and chipmunks battle for supremacy in the quiet, still woods, and to learn to recognize the various members of a bluejay family.

All that experience, seldom absorbed here in the middle of a bustling city, has got to count for something, I figure.

Or so I tell myself.

Plus I read a record number of books, which we all know writers must do. Another time I'll tell you about some of them.