It's awfully darn quiet around here. Parisians have begun their annual flight to the beach and the mountains, and local businesses are posting signs indicating impending closures. Our neighborhood bakery has already suspended its Saturday hours. But the real reason it's so still is that yesterday, we packed up the kids and sent them off to a week of sleepaway camp.

We started talking about this back in the spring and there was a lot of enthusiasm as we perused the offerings. Canoeing! Kayaking! Swimming! Camp fires! Even so I let the idea lie for awhile, concerned that there might be second thoughts about spending a week all in French with not a soul either of them knows. But when there wasn't any grousing, I went ahead and filled in the forms and signed them up. As the day grew closer, I expected to hear some complaints or fears. But there weren't any. Honestly, yesterday, when I watched them climb aboard those buses, one bound for the Midi-Pyrenees and the other for the Alps, it was my heart that was pounding.

Although I sent them both off with stationery and self-addressed stamp envelopes, I don't expect I'll hear a thing until I pick them up next Sunday, sunburned, dog-tired, with bags full of dirty laundry. In the meantime, I'm hoping to enjoy time with my husband, hours alone together that we haven't had in years, and in Paris to boot. Hey come to think of it, that silence really is golden.