When I used to study ballet -- as an adult in my thirties -- I wasn't bad -- for an adult in my thirties -- except for the turns. Mechanically, I could do them fine. But even once I learned to "spot," finding a place on the opposite wall to snap my eyes to after every turn, I'd end up across the dance floor dizzy and nauseous yet exhilarated from the spinning.

"The nausea goes away," my dance teacher told me. But many months of practice passed ("Spot!" "Spot!"), and he was wrong, it hadn't.

The shape of our lives here Chez Nous has taken so many turns in the last months and days that I'm metaphorically standing on the side of the dance studio in my leotards, flushed with endorphins and doubled over ready to puke. He's going to Madagascar, he's not going to Madagascar, yes, he's going, he's going, he's GONE! Well, he's gone part of the way, to Texas to rendezvous with the prez and his entourage, but it might still all fall through and he might be back in five days! No, that was all a misunderstanding, and yes, he's really going with them to Madagascar, so I'll see him in eight weeks! And then four months after that, he'll be gone six months! And etcetera! FOR NOW! If the funding is approved! Turn! Turn! Turn! ("Spot!" "Spot!" "Spot!" "Spot!" "Spot!")

Yes, this all might be more dizzying and nauseating to my husband than it is to me, but then again, he loves this kind of thing. He's the one who takes our daughter on the rides at the Santa Cruz Boardwalk while I stand back, eating a corn dog, watching them whooping and turning upside down. Or better yet, I stay home and write. No way I'm going on those rides. (The Giant Dipper? In your dreams.)

Yet here I am. He's gone, looks like for a couple of months. I'm nauseated. I'm exhilarated. I'm breathing my slow yoga breaths. I'm learning to turn.