Pictures from Rome

I'm cleaning off my desk today and on it, I found two packets of very bad pictures that I took during a trip to Rome two years ago. Everyone in the pictures --my friends who were living there for the year, Melissa, with whom I was traveling --looks very happy. I don't remember the trip as happy, exactly, because I missed my kids so much, but I enjoyed the trip immensely and was very happy to be in Rome. If ever I took a trip that wasn't one thing, it was that trip. I think about it often, actually, those four days in Rome. About the food we ate (it was artichoke season), about the antipasto bars and a walk Melissa and I took one afternoon where we had that conversation that I think I always have when I travel when you talk about all the trips you're going to take, because I for one am never so sure that I'll be traveling a lot more very soon as when I'm actually away from home. I know it's a fantasy, all that travel planning, and I know it's absolutely true. all of which is to say the only real upside to cleaning your desk is finding pictures from a trip you took a while back and wondering if you'll go away, really away, again anytime soon.