Over the school break, we traveled the essential mental miles from over-scheduled, slightly chaotic lives back into a more natural rhythm, gifting one another with our own versions of “perspective”. I’m smiling now, remembering one such moment with Hannah. Struggling to locate our appropriate exit from a store overtaken by a sea of shopping carts, I looked to Hannah and asked, “Honey, where did we come from?” My daughter placed a calming hand on my shoulder, looked me in the eye, and answered, “Well mom, when two people really love each other…” The errands went a lot easier after that laugh.
Last week, I began sifting through my boxes of pre-digital photos and got happily lost in both the Hawaiian and Virgin Islands. Still looking for Bermuda… Some of those photos will probably make their way to these pages as I plan new journeys for a new year. There is no adventure like the “next” adventure.
I’m finishing up a “book” (in quotes, because I have no plans to publish it yet), having finally figured out that struggles and grief, when laced with humor and hope, actually present pretty decent writing material! Call it the journal that wouldn’t die… It’s a pioneer woman’s sort of mentality, I guess, not wanting to waste any part of what has already been sacrificed. The first chapters of the next one have already been written during some winter trail runs. I like to live with a trip on the calendar and a book in my head…
“Chaos” is but a last-minute school project away, but I’m hoping to accumulate the mental miles to ride through it all in a “first class” kind of way.
I hope the same for you.
… as I get older,it’s the mental(memories)
that I cherish most.
Heather, our cat decided to “rearrange” some of the Christmas decorations just like your dog did with yours, so I totally feel your pain!
You mentioned sifting through some “pre-digital” photos–I have about 6 boxes of snaps like that. I get a wild hair to look at pix from one vacation or another, and it’s fun to sift through all the old stuff and revisit memories of good times. You’ve made me all nostalgic now, so I may do some sifting tonight!
Have a good day…
Hi Garry,
So true. When I’m with Grandma Dugan (above), most of our time is spent propping open those very doorways (My Grandma Prior is, amazingly, still hopping on planes and the internet at 91!).
When “catastrophes” happen, as they often do, I try to remember that they’ll make a heck of a memory!!
Aww Jim! I feel your pain… (But at least the tree stayed vertical?)
Organizing (and scanning) those boxes of film photos is one of my (many!!) organizational goals for this year. The convenience of digital is so “me”. Too bad it arrived so late in my photographic lifetime!