Quiet

In the last month, I've had a couple of out of town trips for work. It had been a while since I had any of these - at least since before Julia was born - and now, in a month, I've had two. A few weeks ago sitting in a posh hotel in Montreal at 10 at night I remember the overwhelming quiet. I remember thinking how much more I would enjoy a posh hotel in Montreal if my family was there to share it with me. I thought the quiet and the longing was due to the poshness of the hotel and the newness of the locale. I was wrong - tonight I'm sitting in a less than stellar hotel in PA, waiting for it to cool off to the right temperature for a run, and feeling an overwhelming sense of quiet and a longing for the sounds of my family -the "Julia"s in Hunter's voice, the "baba"s in Julia's, the business of 8pm bath times and bedtimes, the evening conversation after the kids are in bed - the sounds of joy in my mind. Of course, these feelings could be somewhat exacerbated because the other thing these last two trips have in common is my lack of a good book.