this story begins in the middle

when I get home from a big trip, I like to let things sit for a while. I like to let things float around in my head while I settle back into the business of everyday. I put the images away and let the proverbial dust settle. I am slow to process, so slow. but I think this is because when I'm traveling, I am all the way in it. up to my elbows, up to my eyeballs, up to my everything in whatever is happening around me. and I love when I'm in it, I live for the times when I'm in it but one day mushrooms into the next and I am too close to what's happening. I can't see it, not really. it's only when I pull back that the whole thing finally comes roaring into focus.

this summer, we took a trip back home. when we do this, it's big. it's three weeks and a few different states, it's a trip that starts in the midwest, somersaults into the south and then loops back to the midwest again. it's three weeks of family and friends and home-cooked meals and hours on the road. it's spectacular thrifting and fleamarket sundays and sticky, sweaty skin. it's mosquito bites and too many cherry slushies and maybe a few arguments and definitely a few meltdowns. it's humidity so thick it can be carved, it's grandparents and swimming pools and movie nights and cousins and cornfields for days. it's backyard croquet and the sound of cicadas at dusk and overwhelming waves of nostalgia. it's everything a trip back home should be.

dear people, I'm done processing said trip home. expect a parade of images this week. starting here and now with the ladies lounge in the old chattanooga choo choo hotel. chandeliers and checkered bathroom floors, I am a sucker for such things. tennessee fell somewhere near the middle of the end of this epic trip but it feels like the perfect place to begin.