Last weekend I was in New York State, passing through Tuxedo, and Warwick, and Florida... and it was a few days filled with:

• Great food (Conch fritters; a Cape May Casserole.... shrimp and crab meat and rice and cheese and every ounce delicious, made by a true bon vivant who generously poured unusual wines from California vineyards oddly named for Fess Parker (!) or Raymond....
• Fascinating conversation about a planet in change, politics du jour, the need for more books and less TV, the evolving role of the world press and (bruuuuuuuuummmm, insert small drum roll here....) the value of travel in shaping our world view.
• The celebration of a life well-lived by a female pioneer journalist who regularly crams more goodwill into one weekend than some people fit into a lifetime.

No matter that I had serious life-altering problems crouching in the back of my mind and jumping to the foreground when I let my guard down, or that a distant snow storm was threatening, or that ice was spitting at me from the sky on the ride home.... I was in my own "New York State of Mind" as the Interstate miles clicked by. And that "State" encompassed energy, possibility, celebration, expanding thoughts, intensity tempered with laughter, reality checks cancelled out by the hopefulness of optimism, exhaustion ultimately giving way to renewal.

Back in the Philly 'burbs, I'm struggling to find the inner joy and peace that seemed to waltz all through last weekend. It's slow in tempo right now, but it IS returning... It's coming in the form of family (a special birthday was celebrated today), friends (one said in a note to friends, "Yippee, Val said she'd come dancing with us Saturday night..." and that made me feel so incredibly appreciated as the sometimes "screwy girl" that I often can be) and in the recognition that soon an overload of work will withdraw and I'll have just enough money squirreled away to set a course for some distant shore for a week or two. My melancholy lifts at the very thought....

And truly, despite a heavy heart that beats within me, this is a time to dance...