Escapade weekend

I keep thinking Sandy's coming home tonight. I feel the same anticipation I always felt when she'd been out of town. I'm expecting a phone call from LAX, letting me know that she's arrived there and her flight looks like it will be on time, and she'll call me when she gets to Sea-Tac.

Sandy rarely missed Escapade, the fannish slumber party in the Santa Barbara area that serves as a reunion spot for many of her closest friends every year. In 2009, she didn't go because I was preparing for open-heart surgery and she stayed here to accompany me for a harrowing day of angiogram attempts (I have small arteries, so there were some challenges), and for all the other stressful events that led to the big day. In 2007, she missed it because she was in the middle of chemo and radiation and grad school. But as far as I can recall, every other year we were together, she headed south for a weekend in the late winter to immerse herself in fandom.

She took this rather frightening photo of herself while she
was at Escapade in 2008. I have no idea why she took it,
but I'm sharing it.

I'm sure she's there this weekend. She always started counting down the days to Escapade months in advance. Over the past several weeks, I've had dreams in which she talked about going to Escapade, and others have, too.  There were plans for another fannish wake of sorts. Certainly, there have been many people talking and thinking about her down there this weekend. So I haven't been all that surprised not to feel her presence here much the last few days. I had a brief visitation dream Saturday morning, but I suspect she just popped home for a visit while the con attendees were sleeping.

In August, Vividcon weekend was very hard. After I'd felt her presence so strongly for weeks, her absence shattered me, even though I knew why she was gone. I expected this weekend to be hard, too, but instead, I've believed she's actually in California, and I've been excited about her return. I honestly wouldn't be surprised to get a phone call from the airport tonight, or to hear her come in the front door without an advance call. (After all, I have her cell phone.) In fact, I keep thinking that I should just go to the airport tonight and be there when her plane arrives, that I should surprise her.

If she were really at Escapade, she'd have called or emailed me multiple times this weekend. And I might even have been with her; when she returned last year, she urged me to consider joining her next time. If she were flying back tonight, I'd have her flight information. I point all of this out to myself repeatedly, but am unable to dissuade the part of my mind that believes the body memory is a reaction to the present situation.

Oddly enough, the only actual basis I have for this belief that she's coming back is that I don't feel her presence here now. Therefore she's out of town. Therefore she'll return. The mind -- or at least my mind -- is a pretty freaky thing.

In truth, I'll curb my impulse to run to the airport tonight. I'll be disappointed when she doesn't arrive home, but I'll remember enough of reality to not actually be surprised. And most likely, she will return, in the same form that she's been here so much of the past seven months. She won't come walking through the door, but at some point, I'll just know she's in the house again and I'll welcome her as warmly as if she'd just stepped off a plane.