Many happy returns

Like the large, two-storied plane that carried us from London to Baltimore, we've been slowly circling, encountering occasional turbulence, and preparing for landing for a little while now. The first few days back were challenging for rather mundane reasons: Cleo, still on Africa time, awoke repeatedly in the darkest, quietest hours of the night. (It is a surreal, but not entirely awful, sensation to down one's second coffee of the day at 3 a.m.). Thursday then proved especially challenging: little girl awake at 1:40; my PC's hard drive crashed, irreparably, at 7; Cleo diagnosed with her second ear infection at 9. Since then, though, it's been relatively smooth sailing, as we wheel our family towards the docking gate that is normalcy, and a return to work.

In all of this, however, there have been a number of moments of beauty. I'll focus on one neat coincidence that occurred over the span of the last 24 hours. I stole an hour today to work out at a posh boutique gym in Mount Vernon: surrounded by wood paneling and sleek squat racks, I was surprised and delighted to find the club's stereo system locked on to a satellite station that played only 1990s rock and rap. Motley Crue? In the house. And so, too, with LL Cool J, and Metallica, and Alanis Morissette, and... well, I felt like I was a third-year grad student. I'm not saying that the era was a pinnacle in the history of music. But it damn well may have been my pinnacle - especially given the anemic amounts I managed to lift today.

At least in one sense. Coincidentally, we got a lovely package yesterday from my parents; in it were, among other things, some of the very books that I owned as a child. And a note, stuck to the worn copy of Helen Piers' The Mouse Book: "Kerr, I think this was the first book you ever read by yourself, on a train trip at the age of 4." A relic! And a sight easier than the Arabic text on Ibn Batuta that was next on my reading list. So Cleo and I sat down, and followed Mouse's efforts in finding a house, a friend, and some food.

Back in the 90s; back in 1975. We're told to remember to live in the moment, when possible. But when the moment is 4:50 (today's reveille), living with at least one foot in the past can be pleasant, as well.