Meandering Streams of Consciousness

Journal of Valya Dudycz Lupescu

Different shades of a holiday

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Home from Philadelphia and thrust into a busy week, but what a lovely trip it was! More on the reading and the fascinating Ukrainian Club soon, but first some thoughts about vacations and visits.

Philly is starting to feel like home.

Fuzzy phone picture of me & Trillian Stars

One of the gifts of having friends in distant places is that when you stay with them and cultivate memories in their home city, it begins to feel like home.

The last time Kyle Cassidy stayed with us in Chicago, we talked about how it’s comforting to return to a friend’s home and have your gadgets recognized by the network, have their pets and/or children recognize you, and know where to find the water glasses. It’s so true.

When I was a child, we usually took one family vacation each summer–a road trip. We never really had family or friends to visit in those places. Our vacations were lovely and memorable, but they were hotel stays and swimming pools, parks and restaurants. There’s something very different about staying with, or visiting, friends. It transforms a vacation into a visit, and those are different shades of a holiday.

On a visit, if you’re very lucky, you can sleep surrounded by beloved books and cats, wake up to #morningCATface, get greeted by a skeleton out of the closet, and have a friend make you coffee.

Of course we miss our friends when they’re not in our hometown, but what a joy it is to experience home in different places.

Roswell's #morningCATface

Thank you, Kyle & Trillian Stars.

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Author: Valya

Valya Dudycz Lupescu is a writer and the founding editor of Conclave: A Journal of Character. Her novel. The Silence of Trees (Wolfsword Press, 2010) was selected as a Semifinalist in the 2008 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award and since being published (both in print and ebook), has been a Kindle Bestseller, breaking into the Top 100. Valya holds an MFA in Writing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and has taught at several Chicago-area universities. She is currently an Artist-in-Residence at the historic Cliff Dwellers Club and is on the Board of Directors for the Chicago Writers Association. Valya teaches workshops around the city and online and helps to facilitate a monthly gathering of writers and artists called the Chicago Creative Coop.

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