on combating wanderlust

Lately, I haven't had as much to share here as I used to. Life-despite my best efforts-has gotten the best of me creatively.

I painted my nails red over the weekend. Bright and dark and bold. So very unlike me. 

Maria was in town to keep me company while Zack was away, and we sat and talked and painted our nails as girls do. Because, for a moment, I thought they would make me feel a little more dramatic. A little more grown-up in the new world of a new job and spring in a city that remains both strangely foreign and somehow familiar. 

We unpack and repack her suitcase over and over. She's heading to Europe for a month-partly for school and partly for fun-visiting all the places I did four years ago, and few other cities I've never seen. I am trying to remember all the things I needed; scrounging through closets and boxes, finding plug adapters and small vials of travel shampoo that she wants to borrow. 

"Here take this." I say. 

But not the red nail polish. I hesitate.

I need it to make me feel different...just for a moment. A quick moment of something different, is all that I need. Perhaps lipstick too- something glamorous. Something to combat this sense of unsettledness. This wanderlust.