Sunrise over Sydney

Sunrise over the Pacific, from our Balcony, Monday

Sydney, Monday

We have the good kind of jet lag, if there is such a thing, or at least what I think of as the easier kind.  This is when you wake up hours too early, and have the strange and lovely sensation of watching night turn into day whilst also being wide awake.

(The hard kind of jet lag is when the alarm goes off in the morning and you have to get up, even though it took hours to fall asleep and now it’s only 2 or 3am where you just travelled from.)

 

Sunrise on Today

There’s much to do when arriving home from a trip and the to-do’s are yapping gently but persistently at our heels:  laundry, unpacking, doing a big food shopping, making sure our calendars are up to date with appointments, reconnecting with family and friends, and planning for Christmas and Boxing Day which are, unbelievably, right around the corner.

The ten New Jersey boxes have arrived, which is excellent.   I needn’t have worried about treasures going missing, and could have sent more via the post rather than hand carry them from Ho-Ho-Kus to Ipswich to Paris to Hong Kong to Sydney.  I’d do the same again, though, if for no other reason than I slept more soundly knowing we had the most critical items with us.

 

Sunrise on a Season – It’s Summer Down Under

The temperature is 18 degrees C (about 65F) as I’m typing this, forecast to rise to 27C (81F) later today.  One thing I love about Sydney’s climate is that we don’t have, or need, either heating or air conditioning.  It rarely gets too hot or too cold, and in summer we enjoy Harbour and ocean breezes in the late afternoon.

I didn’t know until we moved to Australia that seasons change on the first of the month in the Southern Hemisphere.  A quick Wikipedia check tells me this is because it’s based on the meteorological (temperatures) rather than the astronomical (solstice/equinox) start of the season. 

 

Sunrise on the Next Phase of Our Lives

2008 has been a year of momentous change for us and our families.  I’m still processing a lot of it in my mind, and Clive and I are talking about what to include in our traditional Christmas letter.

I left my corporate career earlier this year, and Clive has transitioned to being semi-retired, mostly because he’s spent the majority of his time and energy supporting me and my U.S. family activities.  I know how lucky I am, and we have both been through enough that we know time is precious and we appreciate the gift of every day we have together.  I hope to do more writing next year, and Clive may well become fully retired, despite several clients having contacted him in the past week.

This will be the first Christmas I’ve spent without my son.  He’s now the one counting vacation days and balancing work and personal activities, including spending time with his beautiful girlfriend who’s juggling law school demands in another city.  The empty nest has hit me harder following my son’s university graduation than when he first left home for his undergraduate years.  Then, we had the school calendar and known weeks off for holidays.  Now, I’m not entirely sure when he’ll next be home in Sydney, or when we’ll next visit him in Washington, D.C.

I know these transitions are part of life, and I’m proud of my son and thrilled that he likes his work and has had some early successes.  For the moment, it is simply a joy to be home and working at my own desk, with my own “stuff” around me.  The to-do list keeps getting longer.

We’ve been up since 3am.  It must be time for another cup of coffee, and maybe a few minutes sitting on the balcony, breathing in that fresh, summer air.