Far, far away in time and space

It didn’t matter how many times we had discussed the time difference in relation to Courtney’s traveling to and from San Francisco; when it was time for him to call us, he decided that 6 pm was a good hour, and he was genuinely surprised when he heard that we were asleep. “No, you can’t talk to the boys, it’s 4 am here! They’re in bed,” I said with a tired voice. He apologized but couldn’t help himself and started listing all the things he had seen and bought and noticed: Borders, Starbucks, English spoken all around, the climate, the people, streets, food – it all seems very exciting. I had trouble absorbing everything he said, having been ripped out of my REM sleep, but when we finally hung up I couldn’t fall back asleep. I lay there for a long time wondering what it was like, and wishing that I could have been the one to pick out t-shirts for the boys in Old Navy. “Shorts” I thought, “I should have told him to look for shorts”.

“They have EVERYTHING in America” August says, and when you can’t go there, that’s exactly how it feels.