By Chen May Yee
I was in LA all last week. Six days, five nights. No husband, no kids.
Iwas ona health journalism fellowship. It's the kind of thing we journos dream about:Inspiring speakers, sumptuous meals, alovelyhotel (in this case, the historic Biltmore), field trips, great camaraderie andtemporary freedom from the daily deadline. All foundation-funded and with the sole purpose of making you a better reporter when you get back to your paper.
Then thenight before I left, I started getting sad. Iwas teary as I kissed the girls and put them to bed. The longest I'd been away from them ever was two nights. That was hard enough.
Isn'tparental lifecrazy? When we're stuck at home with the kids, we long for time alone. Time to expand the mind,rest the soul. Go away, and we long to be back with the kids.
The stay in LA was everything I could have hoped for. The speakers were amazing. The field trips - to Watts, to the ER of LA County Medical Center - the busiest in the country - eye-opening. And it was great to meet reporters and editors from around the country and swap war stories on survivingthe newsroom of the 21st century.
There was very little time to miss the girls. Yet I managed to.
Once I squeezed a walk in between sessions and landed at the new Disney concert hall designed by Frank Gehry - aglorious mass of shiny metal waves reaching up to the sky. The girls would have loved it. I walked around the back to a little garden and followed the sound of water to a rose-shaped fountain.What do you know -I had pennies in my pocket for them to throw in too.