Miles and miles.

I don’t even know where to start with this post. It’s been so long since I last wrote and my head is crammed full of experience and exhaustion – I think it’s going to be a few posts of unwinding to get the whole story out. I haven’t even been writing in a journal lately, so it’s not as though I’ve got paper to refer to or copy from. It’s just been go, go, go and even though I’m here in my office once again I don’t quite have my legs about me yet.

To recap: I left for Ottawa last Monday for four days of collective bargaining meetings, returned to Vancouver Thursday night at 9:30, and then left for Salem on Friday morning at 6, stopping in Seattle to pick up a friend and arriving there by 4 in the afternoon. On Saturday and Sunday I drove to Sheridan and back (35 miles) in order to visit Darren at the FCI. For those of you not keeping track, this was the first time I had been able to have “contact” with Darren since I last saw him July 2005, and it was the first time since his arrest that we have been able to speak without being monitored over a phone line. I had two five-hour visits with him. On Sunday night, we drove home, stopping in Portland to pick up some belongings from a friend and made it back into Vancouver at 2:30 in the morning.

So right now I am feeling the cumulative effects of two air flights, a 3-hour time difference, 1500+ kilometres of driving, 10 hours of intensive talking, 2 years of held breath exhaled, and the scorn of prison guards at a major US Federal Pen. It’s kindof a lot. And I’m exhausted beyond words (my eyes aren’t tracking properly still; I have vertigo.)

But I do feel as though a great and difficult thing is behind me, and the regular nausea building over the last two weeks seems to have disappeared as of Sunday night. I take this as a good sign, though I recognize I have some recovery to do from the last few weeks of stress. Everything from now until Christmas is pretty routine – some work, some dating, some travel east and to the island – it all seems very easy compared to what I just did.

There is much to say, of course. And it will be said as I unfold from myself and lay flat my thoughts first in my own home and then on this blog. The short answer is – Darren is fine and is as good as could be expected. And I am grateful to my friend Michael who traveled with me and provided distraction, and to the universe for our smooth passage to and fro.

A few photos from the trip (it wasn’t much of a trip for photography) are available above by clicking on the picture.