Another odd day in the life.
This day is significant because I'll be picking up R from camp after two weeks that she has been away.

For me, time passes abstractly for the most part. "I gave that to you last week" I'll say to someone I haven't seen in a month. It's all a blur and if it really matters I'll check the calendar on the fridge.

But when my 11-year-old (or 10, or 9, or all the ages she's been over the past 5 summers) goes away to camp, time takes on a new meaning and a level of consciousness I'm not accustomed to. I literally counted the days until she returned, and today that homecoming day is finally here.

When the big coach bus rolled out of the parking lot, taking my freckly-nosed girl away from me that Sunday afternoon, I was mopey for a while. But then, on the Monday, there was a big storm in Toronto with record-breaking rainfalls that knocked out the power for an entire evening. As I watched our street turn into a shallow river (we're on a hill and are unlikely to flood like the Don Valley would), and realized there would be no internet, no TV, no lights, no cooking, no phone (except the old cobwebby one attached to the wall in the basement) ... I felt a luxurious sense of delight wash over me.

It didn't matter that the cupboards were bare. I poured myself a glass of wine, lit three candles, cranked up R's tiny pink lootbag radio to treat my ears to a live, all-French Chopin festival, and opened my already-renewed library book for the first time. I would be alone for just over three hours -- the time it took for my husband to walk home from downtown, soaked beyond recognition, since the subways were closed.

That was 12 days ago.

Today at 11:45 the bus will roll into that parking lot and I'll be looking into her green eyes again - green eyes framed by a deeply-tanned face and wild, sundrenched hair and mosquito bites on her forehead and scrapes on her elbows and an army-coloured rumpled shirt I don't recognize - one she probably wore every day despite the full suitcase of perfect Gap Kids and Triple Flip.

Today.

In four hours and thirty-one minutes.