I've entered my last week of working at ACS--I'm grading exams and packing up my classroom. My apartment is half-packed, half-hurricane and one-million degrees hot. I've been saying goodbye to my friends and to my city.

I don't actually fly home to the States until August 31st but I'm going to spend a large part of my summer traveling in Europe. First with my dAd and sister in Bulgaria and Turkey and then onto the Baltics, Berlin and Barcelona.

I've known since January that this was my last year in Sofia after five wonderful years but in January I didn't know how sad I was going to be to be leaving. This loss is eminent. It's around every corner.

Loss is difficult. I teach this Elizabeth Bishop poem <a title="One Art" href="http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15212">"One Art"</a> in English 10 as a part of my poetry unit. Now I can't get it out of my head.  What's more, it's interesting how time and place can change your understanding of a poem. Here's the poem:
<blockquote>
<ol>
	<li><span style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;">The art of losing isn't hard to master;</span></li>
	<li><span style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;">so many things seem filled with the intent</span></li>
	<li><span style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;">to be lost that their loss is no disaster,</span></li>
	<li><span style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;"> </span></li>
	<li><span style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;">Lose something every day. Accept the fluster</span></li>
	<li><span style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;">of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.</span></li>
	<li><span style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;">The art of losing isn't hard to master.</span></li>
	<li><span style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;"> </span></li>
	<li><span style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;">Then practice losing farther, losing faster:</span></li>
	<li><span style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;">places, and names, and where it was you meant</span></li>
	<li><span style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;">to travel. None of these will bring disaster.</span></li>
	<li><span style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;"> </span></li>
	<li><span style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;">I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or</span></li>
	<li><span style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;">next-to-last, of three loved houses went.</span></li>
	<li><span style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;">The art of losing isn't hard to master.</span></li>
	<li><span style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;"> </span></li>
	<li><span style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;">I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,</span></li>
	<li><span style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;">some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.</span></li>
	<li><span style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;">I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.</span></li>
	<li><span style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;"> </span></li>
	<li><span style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;">- Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture</span></li>
	<li><span style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;">I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident</span></li>
	<li><span style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;">the art of losing's not too hard to master</span></li>
	<li><span style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;">though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.</span></li>
</ol>
</blockquote>
It's the third stanza (line 9), "practice losing farther, losing faster" and the fifth stanza "I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,/ some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent/ I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster" that capture most of my attention.

It seems these days that I am losing more and losing it faster than ever but I keep reminding myself, "none of these will bring disaster." This is not the end of love affair with Bulgaria. It's just going to be different in the autumn.

But the part that speaks the most to me is that it's okay to miss this place and my life here.