I'm back, he's gone, there's work to be done

Arosa. Arosa was delightful. While the rest of Switzerland was living under a cloud of fog and smog (link auf Deutsch, click here for the English), we were above it all at 1800 meters under a cloudless blue sky fit only for postcards and travel magazines. That alone was wonderful. The mountains were breathtaking and because we were two weeks after the holidays, the crowds were small and the pistes were all but empty.

I left by train Saturday morning and spent the three and a half hour journey listening to my nano, writing in my workbook and, once the fog lifted about 40 minutes outside of Zürich, staring out the window as we rode further and further into Kanton Graubunden. Saturday night I went to dinner (pizza and a beer followed by a caffe coretto - espresso with a shot of grappa; I was going to have to pump and dump anyway, so I figured I might as well go for broke) and then, for the first time since I was about 6 and a half months pregnant - Small Boy's got a birthday coming up, so that's 18 months ago people - went to a movie. In a movie theatre. (It was Broken Flowers, by the way, but I would have gone if it had been Dumb and Dumber meet Starsky and Hutch.) Sunday I took the hiking trail to the Tschuggenhutte where I stopped, rented a sun chair, ordered lunch, and promptly laid back and read this for three hours. I made my way back down to the village, sat on a terrace with a stunning view of the mountains right up in my face, and drank a cappuccino.

R. and Small Boy arrived at about 5 Sunday afternoon. Small Boy took one look at me, started to cry, and reached out for me so that he practically fell out of R's arms. Mamamamamama. My day alone in the mountains was wonderful and much needed, but did not come without some blowback. Apparantly Small Boy really missed me. I mean really. Missed me. Saturday night he had woken in the night - he's just started to sleep through, and we figured we had about a 70 percent chance he'd sleep throught the night I was gone. We were on the wrong side of the odds. He woke in the night and for the first time in his life I wasn't there. It took R. about an hour to settle him back down. The rest of the week in Arosa he was much more clingy than usual, at times refusing to sleep anywhere but on my chest. This from a boy who generally refuses to sleep on my chest. He's an affectionate boy, but he's not a snuggler. Not a chest sleeper. Not usually. Last week he was. My disappearing act really unsettled him, then he was in a strange place, and then, on Friday the 13th of all days, Tooth Number Seven broke through. It was not an easy week for Small Boy, and as a result it was not an easy week for me. I feel a bit like I need a vacation.

And now R is off for three days and three nights of military service. In a way, it's good timing. I need a few quiet evenings alone where I can do my thing, whatever my thing is - right now it's writing this post, watching figure skating on Eurosport , and drinking a glass of wine - without feeling like I'm ignoring R. (Eurosport, by the way, is one of the absolute greatest things about living in Europe and has ruined me for all other sports coverage.) I need to be able to eat instant pasta and go to bed at 7:30 if I feel like it. And a friend of mine, whose husband is an accountant and working out of town for what seems like weeks on end by now, is coming over tomorrow night for a sleepover. Bad movies! Popcorn! PJs! More wine! Whee!

And then Thursday it's time to do some work. Time to look through this and plot out my deadlines. And then get to work. One good essay. One good story. I don't need to be Cheryl Strayed and I don't need to be Edward P. Jones. But one essay that's really fine. One story that says something true. One thing that lives up to the best of what I can do. I've done it once. Now it's time to prove it wasn't a fluke.

Just one fine thing.