Over the hills and far away

The plane rises off the runway and the ground rapidly falls away. I look out the window of the smallish, propeller plane bound for Buffalo and look down at urban New Jersey below me.

There’s the NJ Turnpike, and the “1 and 9.” I see the junkyards and the vast lots of now-empty shipping containers brought here from China.

Up, up we go until the cars below look like fleas racing on strands of black shoestring licorice.

My eyes move west – to the rural mountains that roll gently to the horizon. Somewhere out there is my home.

I think of my daughters, both so sad to see me leave – neither happy about the disruption in their weekly routine. I think of my husband and his soft kiss goodbye.

It is a short trip. I will be gone only about 56 hours.

Yet I already miss them.

I close my eyes and picture the girls. I see rosy cheeks and mile-long lashes. I think of their giggles and the silly jokes they tell that make no sense. I see them running toward me, arms outstretched, dresses bouncing around their knees, smiles across their faces.

I think of my husband’s thick hair and gray-blue eyes, his strong limbs and tender ways.

The plane has turned west – toward those mountains - and I sit forward in my seat, nose pressed against the plane’s tiny window trying to decipher any familiar landmark from the terrain below, but there is none.

Finally, I realize, we’ve been flying too long and are long past my hometown. I sit back and exhale.

Fifty-six hours. Or so.

I’m coming home. And I can’t wait.

I’m home now. I arrived Tuesday night to a cavalcade of hugs and kisses as if they were all trying to make up for all the missed ones while I was gone. I wrote this partly in the hotel but didn't get to finish it until just tonight. I've been busy catching up with my family, so forgive me for being offline these last few days.