just like that

It's surreal. I'm back and within being back 48 hours jumped in full time at work, I'm sleeping at a friend's house while M stays with her grandparents. J is still in the jungle so like a little triangle we make three points on a map with she and I reuniting on the weekends and I already can't wait.

It's strange how we envisioned doing exactly this as part of the way we make the jungle work and I am grateful for every moment of it but it's still very, very strange.

I'd bundled up my work clothes and stowed them in a box in the jungle six months ago and last week I opened them up and realized I had no shoes so I went shopping the day after we arrived and got a kicky pair of heels. Ruby slippers M calls them and I wore them on my first day and within a half hour I was nearly crippled, blisters and suffering and now that I'm out of the jungle and even the shelter it's harder to walk around barefoot and so I suffered all day until the second it was time to leave.

As soon as I walked out of the elevator the shoes came off and I walked city blocks barefoot and as I did I noticed suits glancing down amidst the after work rush. The urban jungle makes me smile, I feel the rush of the bodies and the go go go and I smile at the man on the corner with the big sunglasses and the boombox on his shoulder, Cruel Summer blaring out of it with satisfying irony and I dance a little as I go.