It is eight o’clock on a Tuesday morning, which is a solid hour and a half earlier than i’ve gotten up on this day of the week so far this term. People were already up, about, and trickling out of Rabi‘s house as their day begins, and we’re just sitting here — her because her day hasn’t got any sort of structure or schedule other than making it onto a plane and me because i’ve totally subverted the ebb and flow of my entire week. I woke up long before nine in the morning yesterday and the day before; starting at 6:45 and waking up roughly every three quarters of an hour from there until nine, because that’s the way my alarm at the apartment works. Today i only got one chance at sliding back under the cover of sleep, and then i braced myself for the bright light of the kitchen and popped out of my room into the Whitaker’s morning routine.

You have to understand that i’ve only ever lived in a house with myself and my mother as a kid, and that back when she oversaw my mornings at all she was usually involved her own daily rush to work at the hospital. Somewhere in there i’m sure there was a “make sure you have your homework” and “did you get your shoes on,” but most of what i remember about mornings is from other people’s houses — my grandmother’s, and Eddy’s, and George’s — all of whom were layovers on my daily commute to CTCA or Masterman. Eventually i was old enough to take public transportation and much more reliable about waking up than my mother or her alarm clock and my routine became totally divorced from her own, barely even intersecting at the shower or the kitchen table. But, anyway, that’s not the point.

I suppose the point is that i was right, and this was really exactly the vacation that i needed. Boston isn’t anywhere exotic, and my time here was even more scheduled and routine in a lot of ways than my daily classroom engagements. However, inserting myself into this alien routine in this different place has somehow recentered me back to the things i should be really caring about instead of whatever i had on my head last week, and that’s more invaluable than anything some tropical location could possibly provide.

Well, plus there was vegan chocolate couscous pie waiting for us when we got back from the concert. That would never happen at home.