Here's the thing

So here's the thing.

I am alive. I am well. I am also laptop-less, DSL-less and buried beneath boxes and paper and crinkled up packing tape.

And I am in Chicago.

I have a lot to write, and a long list of entries I've been eager to get writing, but it would seem I am meant only to check in today. A clumsy but lovable cat knocked a diet coke into my laptop a few days ago - the key word in that phrase being into, unfortunately -and it's inserting a long line of f's between every letter I type (hmm, I wonder what the poor gummed-up thing is trying to say? fffffffff...) and surfing round the web all on its own, hands tied behind my back. I've just greeted all the possessions that survived the 6 year wait in a warehouse in California, and while the powers that be have yet to hook up my internet access, I'm not the least concerned about the wait.

Some patient, calm, easily giggling and ridiculously slow- (and late-) eating bilingual woman has returned to Chicago in my name. If we can get her to blog regularly, whatever we decide to call this blog in its new incarnation, I think we're all in for a treat. Me and her included.

But first I have a lot of unpacking to do. So I'll leave you after a quick hello today, thanking you for checking on me, time and time again, thanking you for your e-mails, promising I will answer your comments and mails and questions as soon as I am technologically able.

A year ago today, I was walking the Camino. A few months ago, I made the difficult decision - and I have references for just how difficult I made it, if you're interested :) - to take on the challenge the Camino seemed determined to toss me for my next 45 years. Jung says the parts of ourselves we've left sitting on the bench for the first half of life come leaping out to play in the second. For me, that long walk across Spain was all the quiet time my benched selves needed to get their plans made. I moved back to Chicago in July, for a myriad of reasons I've no doubt you'll read here over the next few months, but most of all, for the chance to trade e-mails for live conversations. As much as I treasure the lifelong friends I've made in Spain, and oh, I do, the people who are most important to me still live in the States. And suddenly, at 45, after a fiercely independent life and a solo walk across Spain, I find myself bored with what I know so well - wandering, absolute independence, everything new every day, just as new and strange as I can get it - and eager to learn what I don't know -what it's like to stick around a little, invest in the people who have watched me wander all these years, hang with some kids who barely know me. I moved here for my people and the chance that they'll let me be an expat in my own life.

I'll be back Monday or Tuesday. Til then, thanks for the checking up and the patience. I hope you'll come back. I do have a story to tell!