Love to go. Hate to leave.

Just wrapping up the last of our preparations and we’ll be heading out for the short three hour drive to Goleta in a little while. I am anxious while Val boxes up the mobile kitchen and packs up the equipment bag with our cameras, computer, binoculars. Ajax paces, head down, knowing something is up, but not what. Val notices my nerves and gives me a hug. He reassures, “everything is fine.” But it’s a funny anxiety — not a worry about the house burning down or Ajax being lonely — it is a kind of acute preemptive nostalgia for my little nest, a home shaped so perfectly for me. I don’t want to leave the cool green shade of the Fall grape vine and the nice September breeze that comes in the front window, the nodding morning glorys, and my paints and my deep bath tub, the eucalyptus trees and my pepper plants, my books and the video wall, our own little bed, the familiar and loved rhythm of my day. But the big world is there waiting, filled with beautiful sights, wonderful tastes, and I have to go. But, like a fledgling anticipating the fall, I guess I need a little push. I sit at my desk thinking: In a few hours this feeling will be gone; the road will fill my thoughts; all the fun in front of me, not the impossibly sweet place I have to leave behind. Val sees me stewing. “Almost ready,” he says, nicely, like I’m not a crazy person or a pain in the ass. “Me too,” I say, and make another pass through the garden, another check of the windows, another belly-scratch for good-dog Ajax.