Feeling a little sad this morning, as it’s the last day of my month in Toronto. It’s been a wonderful month, so quickly — it seems — gone! When I came I raked leaves, which I enjoyed thoroughly, no longer in possession of a yard myself, and since then it’s cooled and even snowed (though the snow was rained away) and Christmas decorations now adorn the neighbourhood.

There have been special events (birthdays and the musical “Come from Away”) and ordinary ones, memorable day by day. Also, because this was a longer visit, I was able to get in a few meet-ups with other people: professor emeritus and writer Magdalene Redekop (Making Believe); friends from Winnipeg days, now in St. Catherines, the wise and wonderful Doug and Annie Schulz; avid reader (and supporter of writers via her blog “Pickle Me This” and 49th Shelf) and writer Kerry Clare. Nourishing conversations, all of them, of the kind that make one paradoxically hungry for more!

First on the agenda when I get home will be to put up the tree and festoon my own apartment with Christmasy matter, as well as re-connect with my Tsawwassen family (including attending a performance of Handel’s Messiah with oldest granddaughter) and my local friends. This is lovely anticipation. But I will miss my Toronto family a lot, and this place too.

“There is always something to miss,” says Sarah in Sarah, Plain and Tall, one of the books I read to the two youngest here, “no matter where you are.” Always, sadly and true, because “where you are” is one place at a time.