I am starting my travel journey to Maine, to visit my family there. It has been June since I last saw them, when they thought they were saying goodbye to me for a year going somewhere else. What a naïve humanitarian I was at the time. Now, I consider myself a little wiser or at least rough around the edges with my previous drama with Myanmar’s visa wait.

The threat of Covid and the newest variant makes this the most ridiculous time to travel, but I could not leave for a year without seeing all my littles and my mom. There were only nine people on my flight from RDU to BOS. It felt very apocalyptic, or at least a scene from a Stephen King book (see what I did there?) Nikki says I can’t help myself to whisper in her ear if someone famous is from Maine. Maine will always be my home, even though North Carolina has treated me well and I have set me roots down there for the time being with Nikki and Nina. Whom, by the way, I left in a very chilly house because we can’t figure out why our HVAC wants to decide on its own when it wants to heat our downstairs. It was a chilly 52 when I hurriedly put on all my accoutrement for the travels.