Tuesday is the beginning of going home and I started it by packing, doing a blog entry and taking a last shower in the bath without a shower curtain (we sacrifice a set of towels every day, trying to keep the water controlled).

Noises outside bring me to our bedroom window which overlooks a courtyard. I can imagine this in earlier days, the fountain in the middle hosting pigeons, small dogs and where the neighbors congregated before their afternoon naps. Now it's a "carpark," and the fountain is broken and the pool cemented in. The sounds were a woman in a brown thick coat walking her tiny dog on a long black leash, talking to her neighbor. She limped away after she said goodbye.

I hit the large shopping mall early, trying to get a last few souvenirs purchased. My friend Liz is a sport nut. If she were here at this Go Sport store, she'd have all the balls off the wall, moving them around through the store (although she prefers basketball).

Ba(r)bies Car
Galeries Lafayette Mall
Lyon, France
June 2007

Keys in Boxes, Front Desk
Lyon, France
June 2007

Dave arrives home, we gather the luggage and we're off to the train station, catching a fast train to Geneva (although it didn't feel fast and the air conditioner definitely didn't work).

Windows to/of the World

Geneva Train Station, Switzerland
June, 2007

The taxi driver took us for the Really Quick tour of Lac Geneve--with its man-made geyser. He also drove us through downtown pointing out all the designer shops. My favorite institution of commerce was the bank that was a converted church.

Our hotel, next to the sculpture of two boys with a kite.
(They weren't wearing a stitch of clothing.)

And on the other side--a chapel. They had just finished Mutual (their youth meetings), so Dave and I went in. He spoke with a woman who knew about the towns in his mission he had served in and she brought him up to speed on his old stomping grounds. I happened to find the Young Women President: Sissy Alegria and visited with her in Spanish (her parents are from Argentina) about her ward.

She gave me a tour of this tiny small chapel and I was happy to see our church iconographic art, including the picture that I refer to as The Irish Christ. Although usually it drives me crazy at home because I like original art, it was comforting this night, like seeing familiar faces at the end of a journey.

I like being anchored here, in this Gospel.

Another familiar face greeted me on the flight home: my quilting friend Rhonda. She was the VP of our quilt guild this past year, as well as Ace Reporter for me, the newsletter editor.

Did I fall off the schedule, like Pico Iyer asserts that we should do while traveling? Did I get lost, in order to find myself again? My year had been crunching me down and it was nice to unfold myself, to walk the streets of Lyon and write in my long-neglected journal.

I think the moment I heard Bach's music dancing off the old buildings was when I found that sense of joy again, long buried under being so terribly responsible. I leaned up again the warm stone walls, closed my eyes, and without worrying who saw, "conducted" the deep strokes of the cellist's bow, flicked my fingers to the dancing eighth notes of the violinist.

I was going home.