Home Sweet Home

For someone who doesn't like to travel that much, I have to travel a fair amount for work. I'm not one of those consultant-types who lives out of a suitcase Monday through Friday, but I do have to go away once or twice a month. The shorter trips are almost worse than the longer ones because they're so rushed--you barely get checked into the hotel, and you're packing up again.

This week I was in Indianapolis for a few days. As far as work trips go, Indy isn't so bad. It's a direct flight from National Airport, the client is pretty close to the airport, and the Conrad Hotel, where we stay, is quite lovely. But I still find traveling to be pretty stressful, and I miss the comforts of home.

There are certain routines of coming home that are so comforting to me. When I'm finally in my car leaving the the airport parking lot, as I get on the GW Parkway, I catch a glimpse of the Washington Monument across the river, and my heart always skips a beat. In that moment, I always think about how great it is to live in D.C. Then as I turn off Pennsylvania Avenue onto my street, I always look for something in the neighborhood to be different, like somehow maybe they built a whole new building in three days, and I'm always relieved and reassured when everything is exactly the same. When I'm finally inside, I flop down on the couch and look around at my little house, thinking about how I love every little detail, and just how GOOD it is to be home. I bask in the glow of being home until inevitably I catch something that needs to be handled (yesterday it was that the ceiling fan really needs to be cleaned), and I snap out of my reverie and back into the real world.

It's good to be home. As Dorothy famously said, "There's no place like home."