Not the 1997 Everclear release. No, the actual feeling.

In this case, the feeling of coming back from being away, and realizing just how quickly that respite from work, etc. dissipates and it's all like it was a scant week or two earlier. How many people return to work after a vacation and remark ruefully at the end of the first day back, "It’s like I’ve never been away."

I'm not complaining. Far from it. In these days, in these times, merely having a paid vacation to take puts one in the mind of feeling fortunate.

Such is how tight and tenuous things frequently feel these days.

Still, I thought I might have built up a bit of an afterglow. You know, one that might survive a good day or so back in the workaday swing of things. I certainly had enjoyed a ten-day break of peace and quiet, even with two little kids.

Bell's Cove, Nova Scotia is not exactly the south of France or Tuscany. It’s not the Greek Islands, and it's not the Vineyard. But it’s enchanting in its own simple way.

At dusk, the view from an old wharf out to the LaHave Islands and the horizon beyond is too perfect and painterly for a postcard.

(And besides, once you’ve seen Alan Dershowitz lying naked on Lucy Vincent Beach, the Vineyard takes on a different look, which frankly, no amount of stunning Menemsha sunsets can offset.)

A tiny inlet not far from the river town of LeHave, Bell’s Cove is on Nova Scotia’s south shore, about 40 miles from Halifax. My mother-in-law lives there in an old wood frame house. One little road winds between the houses.

Past the duck pond that marks the end of her back yard, the road curves around toward the ramshackle Government Wharf. Bustling it isn’t, but a few beat up fishing boats still head out each day, and tie up each night, and a local can still amble down at dark and buy some fish so fresh it’s being offloaded as they wait.

Twice a day, a flock of five ducks hop over from the oceanside to the pond, to be faithfully fed by my two daughters. Every few mornings, my wife and I make a run to the LeHave Bakery. Fresh coffee, muffins and bagels only seem to have their flavor enhanced by whatever still wafts about the beams of this former ship’s chandlery.

And at night, the quiet is nearly deafening, broken up only by the far-off clang of a channel marker or the drifting screech of a gull.

You can get a lot of thinking done, as well as a couple of books. As it happened, I was reading a new book by Mark Kurlansky , “The Last Fish Tale—The Fate of the Atlantic and Survival in Gloucester, America’s Oldest Fishing Port and Most Original Town.”

A broken and banged up fishing port is the same in Canada as in America. Bell’s Cove’s battered dock is much like those that are falling apart in Gloucester.

The real world intervenes in other ways. Going online, I’m able to follow Barack Obama’s world tour. I remark on the massive crowd that turns out to hear him in Berlin. My mother-in-law thinks that’s impressive. And presidential-looking. So do I.

And then, nearly dovetailing with Obama’s return, I’m back. There’s work, traffic, stuff to run around and do that was put-off. So much for the afterglow.

Within a week of his soaring speech in Berlin, Obama and McCain are going strictly small-bore in small towns: McCain looks petty and crotchety. Obama, the McCain campaign insinuates, looks uppity and presumptuous.

Of all the candidates, McCain and Obama were, by their own repeated statements, the two who were most committed to a clean break from the slash and burn of Swiftboating. We would, the two suggested, an intelligent campaign based on the issues. There would be a new level of civility and substance.

Now, before either one is officially even nominated, we have silly, snarling spats about tire gauges, meaningless drilling, and a Rove-like attack ad (featuring Paris Hilton, Britney and Obama) that one candidate’s own mother (Roberta McCain) summed up as “kinda stupid.”

So much for the afterglow.