Shuffle off to Buffalo~

It's 7:11 p.m. and I'm on the bed leaning against three puffy pillows. The laptop rests across my thighs. My husband is on the other bed with the newspaper. The TV is on: Law and Order. He's watching; I'm not.

"You should get away, just the two of you," my friend tells me-- often. "It will revive your relationship."

We are in Buffalo, New York, after an eight hour ride that took ten today because of the snowstorm that swept into the northeast and dumped a quick six inches. Who goes to Buffalo in the winter? The city, home to Niagara Falls, is notorious for its snowfall.

Our mission was not planned as a relationship revival. We came to watch David's college basketball team--the Worcester State Lancers-- play a winter tournament. Bruce attended every one of David's high school games: football, basketball and baseball, and will go to the college games too. I went to the high school home games, most of the time. I think.

One other Boston area team bowed out of the tourney at the last minute fearful of traveling the Mass Pike and the New York Turnpike in snow the meteorologists had hyped for the past week. But for two days off from school, I happily rode ten hours through a snowstorm to Buffalo. That, and to watch David.

Here's the thing. I just drank three, maybe four, complementary glasses-- they were small - of Merlot, Holiday Inn's way of welcoming us. I don't have to cook. I have two week days that I don't have to set the alarm and beat the sun out of bed. Worth the drive, the last half through a snowstorm? Yup! Watching David's game? Priceless.
~~~~~
“Travel teaches toleration.” ~Benjamin Disraeli

For Alice~ She's home!!!!!!!

What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson Sometimes it's all about knowing that loved ones and friends stand behind you, knowing that support is there on the down days, the worry days, the days when you feel off-center, out of sync, bedraggled emotionally, and in pain, but knowing all the while that you're not alone. You're not alone... Alice is an online friend--she lives in Hawaii-- who belongs to the writer's workshop that I do. We've only "met" online, but those who have online friendships know that they can be just as strong as those in-person relationships. Alice was hit by a car while walking, and is in the rehab phase of things. She's working to regain mobility after a broken pelvis, a broken arm, and a broken nose. It's scary to realize how, in the blink of an eye, life can lurch and our plans for a time are displaced by survival and healing. We...

This retirement thing~

This retirement thing . . . it seems like it should be so easy, so effortless, so thrilling, to stop the daily grind. It is thrilling; at least I think it will be come September when I'm not following the school buses to work. But it's not easy. I had a plan book on my desk for 35 years, one I filled in weekly, scheduling new lessons at 45-minute intervals, meetings, parent conferences, and field trips. I knew what needed to be done and when. I got up at the same time everyday (5:45 a.m.), ate lunch at the same time (12:06 p.m.) and watched the kids pack their bags for home everyday at 2:15 p.m. I'm not sorry to give up that regimentation. But three weeks into the summer, I find myself making lists of things I need to do, and there is so much to do that I can't imagine how I managed while I was working eight hours on top of it all. There are the household chores, gardening, exercise (aren't retirees supposed to get fitter?), freelance writing, book reviewing, readin...

Lesson from a Weed~

If dandelions could talk, here’s what I think they might say: " Bloom where you’re planted, sink your roots deep. Smile in the sun, soak up the rain, and let the wind take you to new places." Dandelions are an early spring food for bees. They are often the first flower a young child picks for his mother and they provide a sweet moment for a mother to teach her child to make a wish and blow away the seeds. They speckle landscapes with lemon-colored glory. Common, and often disliked by those in favor of perfect lawns, we trample over them with hardly a thought. All this crossed my mind as I stood in this field of dandelions, most having gone to seed. I had an hour to myself at a retreat at a beautiful family farm on this day of unexpected sunshine and warmth. I was looking for a moment of stillness. I’d watched two swans, visited the alpacas, chatted with the chickens, tried to coax a kit...

~Upstream and Down~

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