For the first time since I’ve known him, the BF’s stomach is in a state and mine is not.  Over New Year’s in California, when I spent twenty-four hours in our hotel room desecrating its facilities and forcing down Gatorade that inevitably came back up (or out), I was sure that I had condemned him to a similar fate within the next few days.  But his Tabasco-laden insides never succumbed, and I was left grateful and prayerful that our children inherit his digestive system.

Now we’re in another hotel room, in Paris, and I’m propped against the headboard while he rests his head on my lap and my arms snake around him to type.  We’ve been abroad for almost a week now, after boarding a plane three hours late due to the fact that it was hit by lightning.  One sleeping pill and eight hours later, we landed in London and tubed it to our hotel in the theatre district.  For the next couple of days, the BF walked my ass off all over London: St. James and Hyde Parks, Buckingham and Kensington Palaces, Big Ben and Parliament, Westminster Abbey, the London Eye (aka that big ferris wheel), Covent Garden.  Then we met up with a couple of his buddies and headed to the English countryside, Somerset they call it, for a wedding. A wedding that was quite different from what ours will be: quaint English village, seven-hundred year-old church, reception at a manor overlooking miles of rolling green hills.  All I can promise is a view of the Gulf, with some oil and hurricanes and racism possibly thrown in.

On Sunday we headed back to London and went to see Henry IV at the Globe.  Slightly hungover and very tired, I fell asleep three times during the first half and the BF graciously suggested we skip the second in favor of some dinner and walking along the Thames.  The next day, we hit the Tower of London then took the Eurostar to Paris.  Last night, we hiked up the two-hundred-and-something steps of the Sacre Couer.  On the ceiling there resides a painting of Jesus bathed in soft light and golden accents, and it reminds me not at all of the JC I know.  In fact, for all the chapels and cathedrals we’ve visited (all those listed, as well as St. Paul’s in London), I’ve been less likely to feel His presence there than in the mundane details of life and travel: rest for aching feet, bathrooms (they call them toilets here) appearing at the moment of greatest need; The Lord’s Prayer recited during a wedding ceremony by believers and nonbelievers alike.  And, of course, the consistent patience shown by the BF as he endures all of my travel quirks: choosing the wrong walking shoes, asking Are we almost there? multiple times a day, mood swings correlating to food consumption and sleep deprivation and, as always, just my natural self-centered charm.

And now I get to take care of him for once, having premedicated myself with every-other-day doses of Imodium (another travel quirk, but one learned the hard way).  I’m thankful for the moment of quiet (notwithstanding Parisian construction, motorcycles, and conversation outside our second-floor window) and stillness (my blistered feet and sore calves are thrilled).  I don’t respond well to changes in routine, though at the ripe age of thirty-two I’ve found ways to deal with myself when I’m like this.  Coffee and wine, depending on time of day (and sometimes not depending on time of day) help.  And then there’s the routine that I all too often fall out of when I’m out of my routine, and that’s acknowledging the One who always travels with me…hears every prayer, every whine, and waits patiently for me to show up again, usually when I need something.  But there’s something to be said for routines being upset: light is thrown on their reason for existing in the first place, and the unimportant parts of them–the parts that are there to bolster my own self-sufficiency–are allowed to fall away.  They are replaced by short, heartfelt prayers sent up from a faraway place where, as it turns out, I am no further from Him than I was when I was “home.”