In limbo

Before I left San Francisco at least two friends commented that the road trip was a great idea for the reason that it made our departure from our life there and our arrival in our life in Wales, less sudden. And that by the time we got back to Wales we would be desperate for a more permanent life.

I think they're probably right. And sometimes I wonder if this trip is too long though it also seems to be whizzing by too quickly. We are in limbo. Tom is working so has the most regular life of all of us. But the girls and I are visiting places, reading, playing, knitting and hanging out together with a lot less structure. The most burdensome things I'm currently having to deal with are meal times and making sure the car has enough petrol.

And we're slowly mentally leaving San Francisco. I think while we were on the west coast, in Portland and then Seattle, San Francisco never felt very far away. Now sitting in South Dakota having driven many many miles and seen thoroughly non-San Franciscan sights like grizzly bears, families all wearing ten gallon hats (even the pre-schoolers) and genuine cowboys rounding up cattle - well it feels an awfully long way away.

This trip has brought life back down to its essentials - by which I mean, my home is really wherever the three most important people in my life are. And one of its benefits has been spending time with them. I'm not home-schooling in any organized way, though I am answering questions where I can so have had discussions on everything from the stock exchange to volcanoes to the practice of killing off minority languages as a way to control people. Turns out the teachers I spoke to about our trip were right to say that the girls would get plenty out of the trip, without me focusing on multiplication or spelling or whatever. The educational part is just happening as and when and as a shared experience.

So we're in limbo at the moment - and it turns out it's a pretty good place to be for a while.