I'm back in California for a couple of weeks, and excited and happy are not words enough to describe the feeling. Home isn't either because being an expat for half my life, I'm home when I have Zoe, when I can joke with people around and have friends nearby. So this is just one of my many homes. But this is one of the happiest homes, if not the top one.
Walking back from the pharmacy yesterday, to the friend's house where I'm staying, I sucked in all the sunny air and all the smiles and all the friendliness that is around me. From the woman who had turned around in the queue at CVS to discuss the brush she was buying and me engaging, thinking this might be a good brush for Zoe's tangled hair, to the restaurant manager who walked over to a playing Zoe and explained very nicely and gently that Zoe needed to stay within a certain space, not to have the waiters fall over her. I was gobsmacked and just blurted out how in Sweden (or Denmark for that matter) the manager would have walked over to me and told me firmly and rudely that I needed to keep my child in tow (which of course would have lead to an argument between Zoe and me, but here, the manager knew that Zoe would react much more obediently to a stranger). From the amazing mexican food to the ad-hoc parties I'm invited to because this is where some of my best friends in the world lives. And they have ad-hoc parties.
I'm enjoying every minute, yet aching because I dropped off Zoe two days ago. She will spend the next week with her dad in San Francisco, going to a daycare there. I can't wait until I pick her up next Monday and I'm considering flying down south to take her to Disneyland. Just because I can.
Walking back from the pharmacy yesterday, to the friend's house where I'm staying, I sucked in all the sunny air and all the smiles and all the friendliness that is around me. From the woman who had turned around in the queue at CVS to discuss the brush she was buying and me engaging, thinking this might be a good brush for Zoe's tangled hair, to the restaurant manager who walked over to a playing Zoe and explained very nicely and gently that Zoe needed to stay within a certain space, not to have the waiters fall over her. I was gobsmacked and just blurted out how in Sweden (or Denmark for that matter) the manager would have walked over to me and told me firmly and rudely that I needed to keep my child in tow (which of course would have lead to an argument between Zoe and me, but here, the manager knew that Zoe would react much more obediently to a stranger). From the amazing mexican food to the ad-hoc parties I'm invited to because this is where some of my best friends in the world lives. And they have ad-hoc parties.
I'm enjoying every minute, yet aching because I dropped off Zoe two days ago. She will spend the next week with her dad in San Francisco, going to a daycare there. I can't wait until I pick her up next Monday and I'm considering flying down south to take her to Disneyland. Just because I can.
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