Life These Days: Countdown to Taiwan

The last few days before our trip to Taiwan were hectic and slow-moving and non-effectual, trying to make the most of our time celebrating another school year, another season, new friends and old, while also preparing for a new adventure ahead.

Setting up the shop and staff for us to be gone, setting the cats up for their new caretaker/servant, trying to buy all the last minute things we were going to need including airplane snacks and books, cleaning the house, cleaning out the fridge, cramming in celebration dinners with everyone we could, squeezing all the aggressive cat squishes I could before the cats ran away on me. Mostly through my own disorganization, a lot of things have been falling through cracks, without the usual runway for end-of-the-year teacher gifts or ordering things to ship in time. Jon returned the last of our library books the day before we left, and I could feel his moment of glory shining bright. At long last, our overdue books liability has been tackled to some substantial extent.

As for the shop, I think Jon had his things all set up well before departure, delegating tasks and responsibilities, failsafes for failsafes, things he could do from afar, orders placed or queued up to arrive on various dates. On the other hand, even while I actually don’t seem to do much for the shop these days, taking the occasional photo or trying to scribble something down, it was well up until the moments before take off where I was on the phone with Sean or Brendan trying to describe the “feeling” I had around a wood desktop in a photo, or trying to set up a Google drive folder nestled within various other folders. I spend quite a bit of time in my folders, but they’re organized according to the haphazard journey of the shop and the blog and how things have happened.

I hated to rush through the end of another year of life, with so much growth and change, achievements and accomplishments, special moments and ordinary ones. It’s hard, sometimes, to slow down, when there is so much to look forward to. Everything is changing so fast, and sometimes it feels like we’re leaving something tangible behind.

So many lasts: the last school pick up, the last movie night, the last swim at the YMCA, the last day of me and Junia waiting outside for Caleb and Naomi, the birds having found out that there were free goldfish to be had. A tiny little flock of sparrows training me to be the pigeon lady from Home Alone 2.

In any case, these last moments here in Toronto, special and ordinary, still ones to be cherished, even as we look ahead to marching off into another land, and bringing our three little duckies with us, along with our journals and some mosquito repellent. Saying goodbye to the various people in our orbits and our creature comforts as we fly into the unknown.

Can’t wait to share more.