that sad house feeling...

When Edna and Hiromi left, it was sad...that sad feeling when an old friend goes away after spending a great vacation with you and you don't know when you might see them again.

Sarah and I were talking about it and we both thought these goodbyes were easier than the Pax Lodge goodbyes because we didn't stand in a circle and sing the Pax Lodge song before they left.

The third verse (Wherever we wander, Wherever we roam, Pax Lodge will always be our home. A place where strangers soon are friends, I'll meet you there, where the rainbow ends) always got me even if I had the best intentions of *NOT* crying and had somehow managed to hold it together to that point.

How true that verse is. I felt so completely at home when last October I walked back through the glass doors into the building that was my home for so long. But Pax Lodge isn't just the building where we all met and became friends. Pax Lodge is memories, friendships and feeling that comes with Pax Lodge girls. The last few weeks we established the Canadian Annex of Pax Lodge in the blue house and it was great.

It's not something that's easy to describe to someone who hasn't experienced it and it's not easy to recreate. When you have women living, working, and playing together from completely difference cultures, backgrounds, countries and frames of reference, something special has to happen. I'm glad that Alex got to meet five of those great women and maybe now he understands a bit better about Pax Lodge and the place it holds in my life still.

And saying goodbye to Sarah today I realized it wasn't any easier saying goodbye without that song, because if I was listening to the voices in my head, well they were singing the song...only the last verse, but that's the one that matters...and I was just doing a very good job of ignoring the voices when I said goodbye to Edna and Hiromi.

After I'd said my goodbyes to Sarah and Pauline, I took my time coming home...I knew what was waiting for me and I didn't really want that. The house is empty and has the feeling that it has been abandoned. I don't even have the usual after guests go chores to do because Sarah and Pauline were such marvellous guests the dishes have all been done, the bed is stripped and the linens and towels are all clean and folded.

So no distractions. The first thing I saw when I came in the house was the yellow rose in a beautiful glass swan vase that Pauline gave me just as she left the house. And I felt that sad, lonely feeling.

And the house is empty...until Alex comes home from work. I'm going to nurse my A&W Rootbeer float which was the treat Sarah and I had last night and read The Time Traveler's Wife until Alex gets home (I think that book is contributing to the melancholy of their goodbye...I highly recommend it though. I started it this morning and I'm already half way through and it's over 500 pages...I think I'll be up until the sun comes up again reading it again tonight!)

sigh....

come back and visit us again soon!! We're already making plans (okay, so maybe they're a long long way off, but they're still plans) to head to Mexico, Japan, London and Ireland....