We’re back in Virginia. For one week, we are back in Virginia.

Usually I enjoy a drive somewhere. It serves as a buffer, somehow, between events. I can plug in a podcast or music or just be alone with my dreams of what, exactly, I’d do with the lottery if I won it. (90 million Megamillions? Let’s see. That’s 45 million as a lump sum, lose 50% to taxes. Round down and you walk away with 20 million. Set up a couple of trusts, give a bunch away, spend wildly on fixing up the OPO and the boat. We’re still left with enough to do pretty well. Oh crap. You have to play to win. Sigh. There’s always a rub, right?)

I don’t know if the traffic yesterday was really as bad as it felt like it was, or if I’ve been conditioned to think that 5 cars on the road is cause for goggly eyes and a wonder what’s happening to bring so many people out.

This morning, after the first night since June sleeping without the sound of the lake lapping at the shores or the loons calling back and forth all night long, Jeremy got up and got into his car to drive to work. His commute over the summer was 30 seconds (if he got distracted by said loons).

This is weird. It feels wrong.

All of us said it today. Jeremy. Bee. Me. “It is SO WEIRD to be here.”

Life is faster here. There are more things to buy. More roads to drive. Faster internet. A larger kitchen, one that’s finished and isn’t a construction zone. I can’t find anything I need. Everything is in the wrong place.

How can the backyard that once looked so pretty now seem so dull and boring?

Part of the discombobulation might be in the limbo aspect of our lives. Julian heads off to college tomorrow, starting his sophomore year at George Mason feeling like he’s on top of the world. Next Thursday, we start the trek back to Vermont to deliver Bee to Bennington on Friday. Dinner tonight was the last we’ll have as a family without everyone having some college experience to share.

Earlier last week, Mike Anderson sent me plans for the Freehand wind vane we’re hoping to build for Calypso. Friends of ours are redoing their home kitchen and have offered us the old counters to use on the boat. As Julian goes through the house, taking things he needs to outfit his college apartment-style dorm room, I’m calculating what I need for the boat. Calypso’s refit is looming large in our heads.

Between Averill, and Charlottesville, and Calypso, it feels like we’re living in 3 different worlds.

Can it end soon, please?