Onward

The shrill, piercing bleat of the alarm shockingly announced that it was time to wake up. I saw that it was still dark outside, and rolled over back to my dream, choosing to believe that the alarm was lying.

Five minutes later, the second alarm exploded, imploring us to get out of bed and catch our plane home.

We made ourselves presentable for travel and staggered to the airport shuttle, which whisked us to the airport in a timely fashion. Security was surprisingly not much of a headache, and we breezed to our gate where we boarded the homeward-bound plane. Ensconced in our seats, I envied Jeremy as he proceeded to fall back into a peaceful sleep, as if his slumber had never even been disturbed. I decided to cleanse my conscience by doing my morning pages, and then reached down and pulled out the green notebook that contains the music for New York Festival of Song's concerts next week. The Oklahoma airport shrinking to a series of dots as we ascended, I proceeded to continue my efforts to wrap my mind in the Russian and French songs that are Steve's gifts for me to enjoy discovering over the coming days.

We landed a couple minutes early, Jeremy ran off to play an audition for someone, and I took our suitcases home. I pulled out the yoga mat and made an effort to get my body warmed up, nibbled on a sandwich, sat at the piano to review the songs one more time, and then traipsed off to Steve's to rehearse our musical journey through Russia and France and all that connects them.