Praise then darkness, and creation unfinished

There's a grapevine at one edge of my mother's back garden, and she mentioned this afternoon that there were grapes. I took a look, and then a couple of grapes. Even the ones that are ripe, or close to it, are somewhat sour, as well as juicy and a bit sweet, but there's enough flavor there that I ate a handful, even though we bought grapes, and clementines, blueberries, kiwi berries [sic], and ground cherries (under some other name) at the supermarket this morning. I bought the kiwi berries because I have never had them, nor heard of them, and it was all of £2 for the package.

Today has been the sort of low-key day--grocery shopping with a ride from Mom's upstairs neighbor, lunch, then sitting outside reading the Guardian and doing the crossword, and plenty of conversation--that would have been routine when my mother lived a few miles from me, not a few thousand. Having been to London a few times before means I can relax into 'I'm here to visit my mother' in a way that would have been more difficult without that experience. It's not confidence that the things will be here later, it's that I have already seen Avebury, and the Tower of London, and the Rosetta Stone, and so on.

Twenty-two years ago, I went to Hong Kong to see it before the handover from British to Chinese rule, consciously thinking that New Orleans would be there later. Then Hurricane Katrina happened, and I still haven't been to Louisiana.

Twenty years ago, in Paris for a week, I took the opportunity to climb all the way to the top of Notre Dame Cathedral, because I wasn't sure I'd be capable of it on a future visit (123 steps with no handrail or landing). Another trip to Paris is still on the wish list, with cattitude and adrian_turtle, but that tower is gone. I don't know what if anything this train of thought leads to--I'm not going to jump up and figure out what else to see this week, I'm going to read my email and then take the laundry out of the washer--but I seem to have boarded it.