This week my girls went back to school. A new school year has begun. But this is the first time that I'm not there.
New schools for both of them. In a new city. New friends. New teachers. New everything.
I wish I could be there with them.
- quick note from my phone
Photo by ML
Feeling a bit apprehensive today. The reason: I'm going to visit my daughters in Greensboro, NC, tomorrow. This is the first time I'm seeing them since they moved from Connecticut. And what makes this even more difficult, is the fact that I've never been to Greensboro.
I have traveled literally around the globe, so going to a new place is in itself nothing new for me. But this is different — this is about spending a weekend with my daughters in their new hometown and I'm the visitor! This is the first time that I'm not taking them some place, but rather they're showing me their new world.
I miss them! I miss them a lot, but I also feel so distant somehow. It used to be that when I traveled, I would come back home to them. Now I travel awayto visit them. Sure, there are the almost daily phone calls, the Skype and IM sessions, and even occasional emails. But it's not the same thing as calling "home" to see how they are.
-martin.
Now You See Me
— Photos by ML
I was going through the pictures in my camera, when I came across this sequence of my younger daughter smiling and making silly faces. Unfortunately I don't get to see her and her sister as often as I'd like to, so I try to make the most of each occasion. Over the last year we've visited the Maritime Aquarium in Norwalk, CT, on a fairly regular basis. And almost every time we then go to the nearby coffee shop Caffeine to eat a huge piece of cake. These pictures were taken at one such visit.
I'm not sure how much my daughters will remember from these visits, or whether they will remember them at all. But I hope that at least some of them become part of their childhood memories. It's funny though, how one's childhood memories develop. When I think back to my own childhood, it's not necessarily the "big" events that stand out. In fact, most of my own memories, especially the early ones, seem to be around very ordinary events such as visits to some park, playing with friends in the neighborhood, and so on. I also seem to remember certain foods .. hm .. getting kinda hungry now :)
-martin.
