Letting Go

First day away and all I could think is why didn’t I bring my hairdryer?And then I remembered: I didn’t bring my special hair-straightening drier-with-the-brush attached because I figured we'd be in Europe with the wrong kind of voltage and who knows but what the thing would explode, even using the right adapter/converter. Only wouldn’t you know in our tidy Hobbit-sized stateroom the cruise line has thoughtfully provided a couple of 110-volt outlets.THEN I REMEMBERED: I’ve stopped straightening my hair, which now curls all around and around exactly like the vines surrounding Sleeping Beauty’s castle. I also thought why oh why didn’t I bring my little fan that I always need to get to sleep, for its sweet little zephyr that it provides? And for the white noise to that helps me forget that there’s a person two feet away from me who sometimes snores to beat the band.THEN I REMEMBERED: We’re moving fast down the longest river in Europe and so there’s my breeze for my white noise and me too.Finally I thought why on earth didn’t bring my diary with all this free time so I could write down everything I was learning in this country and the sweet shops signs with their approximations of jazzy American English?THEN I REMEMBERED: the last time I brought my diary over the miles to Europe I left it on the airplane. My DIARY, that my kids will get such a bang out of reading aloud to one another while drinking one day long in the future. And it was November when I lost it! Ten-and-a-half months of funny tales lost and gone forever. So I mourned these things - for about fifteen minutes.And now I’m sitting looking our at this lovely braided muscle of water that looks like the anatomical drawing of the humans quadriceps and think to myself, this is how you let go.You just … Let …Go...And if I can learn to do that this week maybe I can learn to let go when life really demands that of me. And anyway: Budapest and all its history! Budapest and The Danube and Vienna by Wednesday morning!