Who knows why-the last days run so smoothly. To weave through rush hour with all your bags, and arrive via three English trains over an hour earlier than your printed schedule promises. To ride a free taxi to ferry due to service rendered to Australians. To wind up in a dock-area pub in Poole and hear an unlikely character sing a casually exquisite Mack the Knife. To eat cassoulet aux moules and drink local cidre near St-Laurent-sur-Mer. To find yourself lost within fields of yellow flowers lit by sun. To make your last circles in Pacy-sur-Eure and land in the room of your dreams, pen and paper on desk facing window open to fragrant air, open to nothing but yellow flowers. To meet at the end the person who bends a head toward yours, and even though you're one foot in the car toward airport and have not asked, tells you in a quiet mix of French and English where you must go, to Giverny, to Honfleur, not on weekend when it's filled with parisiens, tells you as though planting seeds, as though you are not really leaving, and tells you how to reach the airport most swiftly and safely-