Checked the mail yesterday and came face to face, or rather, hood to face with a majestic peacock.

I hear him all the time and in 6 years, he’s eluded me.

We regarded each other for a moment or two, then I slowly drove around him to complete my task.

Those few moments though – kept a smile on my lips all the way home.

It is in the moments.  I know that.  I also know I forget sometimes.

Laundry lady just came all the way over to tell me the coffee was ready.    The coffee she makes for me.  There’s a moment.

Glaucoma man is here and has already chatted to me twice, excited to share his weekly news.  Another moment.

These people who I share one day a week with who have made such a task as rising early on a Sunday to do chores a pleasure.

Another moment was turning on my ipad after stuffing the washing machines and being surprised by the fact that the WIFI is actually working today.  (Obviously).

It hasn’t been working here for a while – to the point that I just stopped bringing my keyboard and pad.  I didn’t get to tell you about my trip, which I had planned to do last weekend.   I didn’t get to tell  you how I successfully flew.  Not just flew, but mustered the courage to peer out of the window.

I didn’t get to tell you how amazing it was to see my friends and marvel at the changes to a coast I used to call home.

They say “You can never go home.”  But ‘they’ are wrong.

Because it felt like ‘home’ … From the moment I stepped off the plane and felt the immediate comfort and ease of hugging someone special.

It felt like home when I saw friends that I love, friends I hadn’t seen in over a decade.  Held them tight – met children I had watched pregnancy announcements about and birth pictures on Facebook.

If felt like home on the water silently cruising the Elkhorn Slough thanks to my dear friend and Captain, Brian.

I laughed remembering how our dogs used to ‘escape’ our 3 and a half acres of romping room to seek out the slough mud – how my brothers and I had to fetch them and bring them back.

We always returned with the escapees excited and reeking of that mud, while we were exhausted climbing the final hill to home.

Home and memories.

And perhaps new beginnings.

I’m returning on the 22nd of this month.  I overcame my fear of flying. And I want to make more memories.  To treasure.