The quiet between

We're in the sky now, flying home to Seattle for the summer. The last 17 days in Tucson have been the quiet between.

The before:

• Five months in Tucson, at our winter place, a park model (trailer) at the Voyager RV Resort where, in the winter, 3000 adults do as much or as little as they want. I call The Voyager RV Resort "camp for grandmas". There I play handbells, discuss current events and foreign affairs, exercise, assist in dramatic productions, and enjoy time with friends. We agree with people there that we have more friends at the Voyager than we do where we live the rest of the year. It is easy to be fully involved and very busy. 
• Then, a month at Oinofyta refugee camp in Greece, doing whatever is needed, including the accounting for Do Your Part, the nonprofit I volunteer for there. Two weeks sitting in the seat of the camp manager during her speaking trip to the US. Long days, the routine and the unexpected, with 500 residents - including 192 children - and a dozen volunteers. Living in a community house. 
• Then, ten days in Seattle being an efficient companion to my husband Art as he resolves medical issues: kidney stone surgery and a beeping pacemaker.

And the after:

• Sliding back in to my life in Washington, mediating in small claims court, participating in the business we have an ownership interest in, helping my son take the reins of the business he owns with a friend who was in a serious accident last week, returning to my wonderful faith community and deciding what part I want to play in the social justice work being done there, meeting friends for coffee - and always, maintaining the financial records for Do Your Part, on whose board I now serve.

I have loved the quiet between:

• Sleeping in the morning until the sun wakes me, walking the quiet streets of the resort where nearly all the winter residents have already left, reading the paper, reading books that have been waiting for me all season, watching season five of Scandal on Netflix - and, for the first time in my life, meditating every day via streaming Insight Timer on my phone.

I consider making the quiet between my revised normal. I note the newly diagnosed asthma that troubled me all winter has dissipated and no longer requires medication. I wonder whether it was aggravated by the stress of my self-selected busy-ness. The daily meditation has slowed the pace of my body and my mind.

I probably won't revise my normal very much. I'll keep doing the meditation, though. I really like it. That may be just the quiet I need in the after.