Dear Lucy,

I am writing to you from my own breakfast table while Maryland songbirds trill a familiar morning soundtrack.

Next to me is our family kitchen, complete with sharp, usable knives and well-worn cookbooks, pages stained with drops of vanilla or soy sauce.

Caroline and Conor are still asleep in their cozy beds on pillows that smell like home; cats curled against them—one for each.

A gentle wash of light spills across our little wooden deck and, after days of drizzle and chill, the sky between the trees’ leafy branches sparkles blue—all the neighbors’ chimneys finally retired for the season.

In my cup, the one I love best with the little place to rest my thumb, steams freshly brewed coffee made irresistible with cream and sugar.

The refrigerator is stocked with milk and eggs and strawberries. Ice cubes (ice cubes!) in the freezer are being made mechanically while I type. I could fill buckets with them and more would spit out.

My computer is plugged in comfortably without an unwieldy tower of adapters precariously held up by stacked books.

All the clothes we stored while we traveled are unpacked and put in drawers. I am wearing new underwear!

And yet I feel unsettled.

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