We are finally here in Italy, touring the country again with Marco and Claudio, but this time from their home in Viareggio. We awaken to church bells and cafe Americano in the garden. Flowers are blooming amid buzzing Vespas and even the sidewalks are arranged like quilts. A baby girl, Bianca, was born next door the day before we arrived and so her front door is festooned with pink ribbon.
We stroll just a few blocks to the Ligurian Sea where the sand is not too hot, yet. Only the Pumpkin has jumped in the gentle waves. We visit ancient cities and discover small, Bronze Age statues of people in a province of Lucca. Castle walls surround this whole town in Tuscany, as if to say we value every one of our people, not just royalty. Art is everywhere.
Did you know that because of the Spanish Inquisition (1478-1834), Jews brought the tomato to Italy?
Of course we are learning to cook the traditional food. Yesterday we made green lasagna noodles with two different sauces – a Bolognese and a Bechamel. The grands are enjoying the desserts, tiramisu and bignes, like profiteroles only better. Today Bob and I finally ordered a pizza for lunch on the Promenade, but it was like no other with fresh prosciutto and funghi.
If I were to define happiness, it would be now, this time with my whole family. Watching the Bug fill tiny ravioli while the Pumpkin works the dough through a pasta machine. Sitting on the sofa with Pietro, the truffle/rescue dog, and discussing design with Kiki over an Aperol. Walking in the rain with the Bride and Groom, and suddenly the Rocker takes my hand.
And Bob, forever mi amore, celebrating today our 45th Wedding Anniversary by doing laundry and caring for me. This cold I brought with me has turned into an infection. It’s OK. It’s life, I guess even this virus wants to survive in this beautiful country.
We’ve probably all been targets of internet trolls. People on our social networks who deliberately post provocative or humiliating comments would like nothing more than our response, our attention. Which is why it’s best to just ignore, block and report the trolls. Let them start a fight with someone else. But what if you’re walking along in a beautiful garden, dodging cicadas, and a gigantic, wooden troll appears out of nowhere? Well then, you engage. You listen.
Bob and I visited Cheekwood, Nashville’s Botanical Gardens last weekend to stroll among the whimsical sculptures in their Trolls exhibit: “Save the Humans.” It seems a Danish musician/artist, Thomas Dambo, has turned his creative sights towards crafting immense sculptures of trolls out of discarded construction pallets! They are not painted, they are meant to decay in fact. With one troll lying flat, listening to the earth, and another wearing recycled plastic jewelry, his message is clear.
“Thomas is known internationally for his larger-than-life Troll sculptures made from recycled wood. With over 100 sculptures all over the world, these Trolls have begun to have a life of their own. Popping up in Denmark, the USA, France, Germany, China, South Korea, Chile, and many more on the way, the message of sustainability and unlimited imagination have reached millions through in-person visits, shared photos, and international media coverage.” https://cheekwood.org/calendar-events/trolls-save-the-humans/
Once upon a time, Nordic people were sailing the seas, spreading their DNA along with their myths about giant trolls who lived in castles, not under bridges. According to Ancestry, I have a giant ONE percent Norwegian gene! You probably do too. Bob and I would love to visit Scandinavia next year. In fact, Norway looks like a fine first destination:
“On June 17, 2023, what they call the world’s first and only research station for the species of trolls opened in Rindal. “Home of the Trolls” is not just a research station for trolls. It is also a nature-based experiential destination with activities, outdoor adventures, local food, and exotic accommodation options.” https://www.visitnorway.com/things-to-do/art-culture/the-mythical-norwegian-trolls/
I wonder if the US would ever open a research station for Bigfoot? This morning, after sweeping more than enough cicada exoskeletons from the patio, I may have glanced at all the gowns celebrities wore to the Met Gala last weekend. Its theme was “The Garden of Time,” and aside from all the flowers and feathers one thing stood out to me – the hundreds of hours it took to hand embroider and create one. single. dress.
What is Mother Nature telling us? Giving us another solar eclipse, directing two cicada species to emerge from the ground simultaneously? Placing enormous, sweet Trolls in our path? Amid the constant drumbeat of two proxy wars, I think we must continue to plant and nurture our own gardens for as long as we can. Because 3 baby robins are flapping their wings over our patio, and they need the worms.
Yesterday, the mama robin aggressively chased a squirrel out of our backyard. First he ran up our maple tree, then he jumped to the fence, and she kept at him, dive-bombing him out of sight. I knew she had babies to feed, because after family dinner Sunday night we all got to see them. Nerd Alert – Bob and the Groom hooked up a fiber optic scope to a broom and gingerly raised it above the robin’s nest in the corner eave of our patio – 3 little yellow beaks attached to fuzz appeared on the monitor!
It was a welcome sight.
Last weekend a perfectly healthy young man, a local chef, died running the St Jude’s Nashville Marathon. He collapsed at the 22 mile marker, and the Bride was on duty at her hospital. It is never easy on the first responders and the medical team when a young person dies. Bob has treated his fair share of accidental deaths; a toddler falling into a hot tub, a child slipping through the ice. It takes a toll.
But this is my daughter, and she has children of her own. Now she was tasked with consoling another mother – do they teach this in medical school? The runner’s whole family came from NY to watch him achieve his goal. His name is Joe Fecci and he was 26 years old, may his memory be a blessing. A Top Chef winner he worked with over the years posted this on Insta:
“I keep telling myself not to just keep asking why, but it’s hard. because i’m fucking angry and i’m heartbroken but i am grateful. i’m grateful i hired a 19 yo kid from new york sight unseen bc he sent me an email. i’m grateful he spent two years sharing a kitchen with me.”
Almost every evening after dinner, Bob and I will take a short stroll and end up sitting on our patio. We watch the robin pair take turns feeding their fledglings. Baby rabbits chase each other around our cherry tree. But it’s not a Disneyesque moviescape. We also hear the never-ending sounds of destruction construction around us – the saws, the drills, the trees falling. I think about our fragility in the world, and how lightly we should tread. I’ve finished planting flower pots in shades of pink and purple blooms, I want to surround our small cottage with beauty.
And Bob has planted his vegetables in raised beds so as not to feed the rabbits. But they need to eat too don’t you think? Here on Saturday, we stopped for a picture at the Farmer’s Market with our cousins and their delightful friends from NJ. They are younger, their children are in college, grad schools and working their first jobs. They are in-waiting for grandchildren. We are all defending our nests.
A road trip back from witnessing the Total Eclipse of the Sun in Illinois took us 8 hours… instead of the usual 3. We joined the stream of satisfied Totality chasers heading south-east on 2 lanes, packed like lemmings, traveling stop and go on Interstate 24; the only highway between Carbondale, IL and Nashville, TN. It was almost an hour wait at the Cracker Barrel, so we ate Lorna Doones in the car and sang along to a Beatles station. A perfect end to an incredible weekend.
On Saturday morning, Bob and I flew to Durham, NC for the Memorial of a dear, old friend, forever nicknamed “The Smiler.” We attended Sacred Heart School together, but his reputation took flight in public high school as that Dude, The OG Dude. The guy who took life as it came, with a sly sense of humor. Sweet and unassuming, yet whip smart – Jeopardy level smart. Always willing to help his friends, as if the comic book high school hero Archie turned into a 60s hippie. The Smiler went to Woodstock with the Big Chill crew, then settled down delivering blood for the Red Cross in his signature porkpie hat.
All through the years, he and my good friend Bess were soulmates. Even though they married other people, they shared a daughter, Guinevere Turner. If you recall, Bess was the smartest girl in high school, and we both went to college in Boston – only I dropped out to get married and she dropped into a cult. In the Smiler’s backyard, Guinevere, an actor and screenwriter, led the memorial recounting the first time she met her father at the age of 18. Last year she published her memoir about those early formative years in the Lyman Family cult, “When the World Didn’t End.”
The next morning we flew home, only to get in the car and drive 2 hours to Kentucky with the Bride and family in preparation for the eclipse. We all managed to catch the second half of the Women’s NCAA Basketball Championships in our Paducah hotel. SC trounced Iowa 87-75. I marveled at how far women’s sports have come since I played basketball at Camp St Joseph. I understood why Coach Dawn Staley broke down in tears after the game, even if the Bug didn’t get it. I grew up trying to control my tears – big girls don’t cry, you never cry in public – but sometimes they burst out of you instead of simmering to overflowing.
The next morning, we drove to Southern Illinois University’s Saluki Stadium and parked with our fellow stargazers. It was the Super Bowl for space nerds. I learned a lot that day. For instance, bulldogs aren’t the only dogs a school can adopt for a mascot. I’d never heard of the Saluki breed, but they look like the progeny of an Afghan hound and a Whippet! And did you know that if you pretend that the sun is an empty ball, you would need 1 million earths to fill it up? Also, plan to charge your EV before a once in a lifetime event.
It was all worth the wait and the driving. It was everything and more. We saw the Totality for over 4 minutes which was great, but the Grands jumping for joy was the bestest! A cosmic dance the universe choreographs for a select few on this earth, and for us twice in a lifetime. In 2017 the Totality passed right over Nashville, so I knew what to expect – the slow-moving cold, the night crickets. But seeing the moon intersect the sun while our Grands were experiencing the same other-worldly, celestial magic trick was unforgettable. ps – the Pumpkin is hiding behind his sister.
Robins looking to nest have been hopping around my front lawn, while a sole cardinal, sitting in our maple tree, sings the dawn into existence calling for a mate. Every morning I stay in bed for just a few more minutes, to listen to the symphony outside my windows. Until my thoughts intrude – the ‘monkey brain’ of worry. Who will coordinate the medical appointments for my sister after another fall? That’s a big one.
Our health care system is so complex, how can we expect a nearly 90 year old to coordinate 3 specialists through a computer portal? It’s estimated that elderly Americans spend about 3-5 weeks a year getting and receiving direct medical care – it’s called the ‘treatment burden.’ That’s a lot of time. Not to mention arranging for physical therapy once the crisis has passed.
In addition to time spent receiving health care, this burden includes arranging appointments, finding transportation to medical visits, getting and taking medications, communicating with insurance companies, paying medical bills and following recommendations such as dietary changes.”
Bob has been practicing ER medicine as a safety net for friends and family since he retired. Send him a picture and he’ll tell you what you’ve got – is it shingles or poison ivy? Can’t find your doctor after returning from a trip abroad with Covid? No problemo. It’s nothing he hasn’t been doing forever, only it seems like there’s more complications lately. More people are falling through the cracks of a system designed to be reactive and profitable. Even people with plenty of resources and doctors in their families! It’s no wonder the American life span has started shrinking!
And it’s not only longevity that’s been affected. Last year, the US ranking on the World Happiness Report fell from 15 to 23rd – right below the UAE and Slovenia: https://worldhappiness.report/ed/2024/ But guess what? Interestingly enough, the old are now happier in North America than the young! My theory is that older people were better equipped to manage the pandemic. After all, planning for a bucket-list trip that was cancelled due to Covid and planning for a prom and graduation that never happened are both major phases in a lifetime, but they carry different weight. It might seem contradictory, but most things get better with time.
Our NJ cousins stopped by last weekend to stroll around the Farmers Market. It was a glorious day with all the redbuds in magenta bloom under a sunny sky. Their poodle, George, was overcome with pure happiness. He cried out to every passing dog as if to say, “Isn’t it great to be out with your human today!” We said hello to a celebrity dog, one I’d seen on the cover of a local magazine. And we decided on a variety of sambusas for lunch from an Ethiopian tent, plus plenty of pastries for dessert.
Today is the Hindu Festival of Colors, called Holi. Imagine red, green, blue and pink powder sprinkled on the air like glitter. In South Asian countries and the diaspora of Indians around the world, people are celebrating the triumph of good over evil, choosing love and renewal over fear. It’s a Christian Easter, the Jewish Passover. A reminder that Spring is on its way. Holi, Holy, Holey Moley. For millennia we humans have celebrated the end of winter and the beginning of spring. A season to grow and expand.
And even though I’ve found out my bones are more like balsa wood, I’ll continue to walk along the precipice of worry and beauty. I experienced my first tornado in March 2020 here in Nashville; but I also saw my first fleet of whooping cranes yodeling across the sky last month. We’re re-planning that trip to Italy we missed out on a few years ago with our chef/friends Marco and Claudio. Then we missed it again because of my fall. The French tarragon has erupted from its pot in my perennial garden, while the rosemary in the ground didn’t make it over the winter.
This life is a constant paradox, and that’s its beauty. Can you find George, the black poodle?
I can hear mourning doves outside my snug window. Their cooing soothes me into Spring. Are they looking for a lost love, or just announcing their presence? The sprinkling of snow we had last night must have given them plenty to coo about…
The Love Bug ordered heart shaped candies with romantic sayings on my phone with a swipe. She’s making Valentine confections for school. Over the weekend, Leslie left us heart shaped shortbread cookies wrapped in red ribbon, her latest in a series of delightful porch surprise packages. Bob’s ordered a special dinner from our local restaurant for tomorrow, complete with champagne. Cupid seems to be alive and well in Nashville, sharpening his little arrow this week.
And to top off this romantic week, the Rocker and Aunt Kiki celebrated 7 years of marital bliss in their newly renovated MidCenturyModern LA nest, while I thought about their delightful desert wedding in Palm Springs. https://mountainmornings.net/2017/02/14/happy-valentines-day/
The boys in the band flew west from NJ along with friends and family. The Bug was their flower girl while the toddler Pumpkin sported a fish taco bow tie to match his Dad’s. We stayed in a house with casitas, and I’ve longed for a casita (ie DADU in builder’s lingo) ever since. We rode a gondola up a mountain into the snow with cousins, and we fed giraffes at the zoo. California is a fairy tale come true – I felt like I belonged there. Wasn’t I the only girl skate boarding in the parking lot across from my step-father’s office in 1965? How many lemons did I squeeze into my freshly washed hair to dry in the sun? Didn’t I play the Beach Boys on repeat?
I was born to be a California Girl!
I just met a Cali grandmother on our street strolling her recently arrived grandbaby. She and her husband live in San Diego, but they are building a house one street over so they can live on the same block as their daughter. And it is not a small house, compared to our Blue Ridge home. Construction noise competes with a dove’s plaintive call. They plan on becoming migrating snow birds, like the cranes I saw in the clouds. Like us, they have adult creative/children in California. Their trusses are up and the Tyvec is on! And I know I shouldn’t envy them, it’s not a helpful emotion. But maybe it’s bringing up feelings of House Regret?
Bob’s had that feeling for decades. Great Grandma Ada’s family owned a small piece of land in Chester, NJ where her father Pinky had built a bungalow colony. A summer escape from the heat of Brooklyn, it was passed down to relatives over time. When Bob was a teenager, the aunts and uncles sold the Chester property, called Four Bridges. He’s sad about it to this day.
For me it was a villa called Papillon in the 80s. It was an older, pink patio home with a pool on the windward side of an island in the South West Indies. Not too big, not too small. It would have made a lovely vacation home. Bob wasn’t ready to commit to returning to the same place every year. Of course we did, return to that island time and time again. And each time we moaned about our lost opportunity since Papillon’s price, when it went back up for sale, had risen far beyond our reach.
Surprisingly, I don’t regret selling our mountain home, the one we built on 14 acres with a gorgeous view of the Blue Ridge. I had plans for a pond, and bunk beds for grandchildren in the basement. But moving to Nashville was an easy choice, I was tired of driving 9 hours for a visit. Plus, you know when your adult children aren’t coming home any more, their work and their children’s education begin to take precedence, and that’s how it should be. Unless you live in Italy.
Then you cannot live too far away from your Mama, it’s the rule.
But our generation of Americans, if we’re lucky enough to have a loving relationship with our kids, we get to pull up stakes and downsize. I knew what I was getting into marrying Bob – a pilot and ER doc who never sits still. His knee was shaking my desk in high school when he first stole my heart. Maybe moving back and forth between two families as a child was preparation for our nomadic life. I certainly don’t regret marrying him. I would do it all over again because my home is with him.
A psychologist said that only 5 year olds have no regrets, and sociopaths. I hope your Valentine’s Day is filled with love, of family, friends and fur babies – and very few romantic regrets.
Happy New Year! Looking back on 2023, I wanted to list the roses and the thorns – the high points and the lows:
1 The HIGHEST point of the year was our visit to the Rocker and Aunt Kiki in LA! Hiking, cooking and living the good life in the Golden State…. The LOWEST point of the year was visiting the Bride’s ER with Bob after his fall. He was wearing socks on the new wood floor and slid into a corner hitting his head. Luckily, he’s alive and well!
2. HIGH: Having my big sister, Kay, visit this past summer. We had a good time and if I’m not careful, we could turn into “Little Edie and Big Edie” and have a Lifetime movie made about us…. LOW: Losing Ms Bean was heartbreaking. She was as sweet as sugar and put up with the little Emperor’s visits because she knew I loved her best. I still expect to see her little Homer Simpson face whenever I open the front door.
3. HIGH: Lake mini-vacations with family and friends! Wildwood and Lake Barclay were wild and wonderful getaways even though I remain a devout ocean/beach person for life. LOW: The unfortunate and very painful incident of a certain little French Emperor named Watson breaking my finger. After surgery and rehab I’m the proud owner of three tiny screws in my right ring finger, although this is nothing compared to my siblings’ hip hardware!
4. HIGH: Finding a new friend right next door who insisted I continue my aqua therapy for osteoporosis in her pool!! I didn’t think I could make many new friends at my age, but we instantly hit it off and she has a grand dog we can walk together! LOW: As much as I love my new neighborhood, we did have to clean swastikas off the side of another neighbor’s house one day. So many people showed up to wash away the hateful images it turned into a block party and cancelled the hate with love.
5 HIGH: There are so many delightful instances that happen because Bob and I live so close to the Bride and Groom; stopping by for a walk with their old dog, cooking together, dropping off freshly made bagels, and of course the unexpected visit of a grandchild – those are the very BEST! LOW: We had a family of squirrels trying to squat in our attic and one even fell down into a bedroom wall. Bob hired a professional squirrel wrangler to set traps and “relocate” the critters. I stayed out of it for the most part!
It’s Halloween. Some people like going through haunted houses, dressing up with ghoulish makeup, and tricking you into handing out candy. Perfectly normal women become sexy French maids. Not me. I won’t watch horror movies or anything with zombies. In fact, I was watching a trailer with Ralph Fiennes in LA that caught me off guard – what appeared to be a cooking contest turned into something else entirely. I closed my eyes.
Did I say LA? Yes, Bob and I took a short, stealth trip out West to see the Rocker and Aunt Kiki. We flew in to see their finished home perched on a hill. It was so sweet to sit and talk, watch Cooper’s hawks gliding above us, and play backgammon. We didn’t Go Go GO! Instead, Bob taught them how to make pasta from scratch. I found myself looking around, at their beautiful home, at the amazing life they are building together in California, and catching my breath.
Kiki came home with her studio’s new coffee table book, so I immediately ordered mine. The living room on the cover is divinely inspired…. “Shamshiri: Interiors.” I’m lucky to have such an outstanding designer daughter on speed dial! Then we went for a seaview walk hike and I saw my first wild coyote.
The coyote is a medium-sized member of the dog family that includes wolves and foxes. With pointed ears, a slender muzzle, and a drooping bushy tail, the coyote often resembles a German shepherd or collie. Coyotes are usually a grayish brown with reddish tinges behind the ears and around the face but coloration can vary from a silver-gray to black. The tail usually has a black tip. Eyes are yellow, rather than brown like many domestic dogs. Most adults weigh between 25-35 pounds…”
It actually did look like a skinny wolf. I wasn’t afraid of the coyote, but I understood why my son’s cats must stay inside. They are predators and usually hunt rodents and rabbits, not people. You’re supposed to make a lot of noise if you see one, and indeed this guy looked at us, turned around and slowly sashayed away. I could picture his text bubble: “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
We’re back in Nashville and luckily I bought tons of candy before we left. Our new/old house is in a neighborhood of young families. I didn’t count last year, but I hope I don’t run out of treats tonight. There’s a skeleton waving from my front porch rocking chair and that’s the extent of my spooky decorating skills this year. After a week that’s seen another mass shooting in Maine of all places, and more and more anti-semitic rhetoric on social media I’m feeling enraged – but I guess that’s better than fear.
I was going to write about our glamping getaway with friends to Wildwood. But then I thought I’d have to start off before our Granville, TN jaunt, with our trip to the Emergency Department of the Bride’s hospital. And then Hamas attacked Israel.
At sunrise on Saturday the war began. The terrorists entered the country by land, sea and motorized paragliders – launching over 2,000 rockets and overwhelming Israel’s Iron Dome defenses. The descendants of Abraham are caught once again in a biblical battle and my heart aches for all the innocent Jewish and Arab citizens who are caught in the middle.
But make no mistake, their hatred runs deep.
Before glamping with friends last week, our whole southern family met up with my step-brother Eric at the Land Between the Lakes in Kentucky. If you recall, the Flapper married Eric’s father, her third husband Mr B, when I was in middle school. He was a distinguished judge in town, and he and Bob’s father shared the honor of being first and second presidents of the Dover Jewish Center Brotherhood.
Eric and I have been wanting our Grands to get together forever; he has three granddaughters living close by in St Louis, about the same age as our Bug and Pumpkin. Eric spoke fluent Hebrew and worked on a Kibbutz after college. When Vietnam happened he was drafted, and because he is a pacifist, he served as a med-evac Huey pilot. He introduced me to Arlo Guthrie and the fine art of passive resistance.
I was looking forward to hearing his thoughts on the politics of Israel today, on the extreme Orthodoxy that would like to turn Israel into a theocracy like Iran… before Saturday.
Many years ago I was visiting Eric and his wife Bev with the Flapper for their daughter’s Bat Mitzvah. He’d been a practicing dentist for over 30 years at that time. We were sitting in their living room with friends of theirs from Israel, one a young lawyer and judge who I’ll call Anat. I’d been complaining about Newark airport, about an Army soldier being searched before boarding our plane. It was the early 90s, long before TSA. And Anat said,
“You don’t think they would dress like a soldier?”
No, I hadn’t thought of that. Just like I didn’t think a plane hijacking meant a suicide mission. But her eyes changed, her posture changed, her essence changed before my eyes – Anat became a soldier. And so I immediately thought of Anat’s beautiful family in Ramat HaSharon, Israel on Saturday. I texted Bev to see if they were OK, and for now they are safe. I checked her facebook page but it was all in Hebrew, nothing past mid-September when the Holy Days began.
They should have been celebrating the end of Sukkot, a Jewish Thanksgiving and more. Last Saturday marked the end of reading the Torah in synagogues everywhere, and opening the book again to the first of the Five Books of Moses. It is a joyous time. Instead they are under attack from an enemy that wants to annihilate OUR people, the Jewish people. Their hatred runs deep. The British tried to draw boundaries on an area of nomadic tribes with fluid borders. But since shortly after the Holocaust, since 1948, Israel has been a sovereign state, a democracy, the size of New Jersey, surrounded by Arab states.
Make no mistake. Israelis do not slaughter Olympic athletes, or fly jets into buildings. They don’t strap bombs on themselves and walk into markets or behead journalists and children to post on Facebook live. Hamas must be stopped.
The sun is rising on part of my family in California – can you tell who is Jewish?
It was endearing and fun – SPOILER ALERT the team gets into a pillow fight, Rebecca falls into a canal, and Coach Beard turns into Ziggy Pop in clown drag. But I knew that was coming since I follow the Actor/Coach on Insta. We are left wondering if Ted actually tried a psychedelic! And for all you new kids, Baby Boomers may not have had MDMA, but we did a little tripping in our time.
Of course this Ted episode was filmed in Amsterdam.
A city filled with bikes, canals, and adventure. And TULIPS; I was there over 50 years ago and it looks like it hasn’t changed much. The real change is the recent, and not very well studied, use of psychedelic drugs to treat PTSD and severe depression. Do you really need a therapist next to you for an eight hour trip? And which “type” of talk therapy would be beneficial?
“It’s crazy, all the heterogeneity of what folks were trained in,” says Eiko Fried, associate professor of psychology at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands… It’s not normal in a treatment study to say, do whatever psychotherapy you want, for whatever length you want,” says Fried. Such inconsistencies inevitably muddle the results, meaning “you can’t really learn much. You’re shooting yourself in the foot with protocols like that.”
Only to muddle reality further, we awoke to the news that a Welsh soccer team, Wexham, just won a promotion to the professional league! Guess who owns Wexham? Two baby-faced American actors, Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney, bought the team for a mere pittance in 2021, its value now quadrupled.
Some people get puppies and bake sourdough in a pandemic, and some buy failing foreign football teams!
“Wrexham’s Association Football Club has formed an important part of the community in the small town in northern Wales since its formation in the 1860s, but despite strong support from local residents it has long struggled financially to pay its players and maintain its operations, almost going bankrupt with multimillion-dollar debts around a decade ago.”
Wales is on my short list of places to see, ever since my sister Kay told me it’s the most beautiful country in the world! And thanks to Ancestry, my Welsh heritage has been confirmed – my maternal grandfather was definitely Welsh. There was always a bit of a rumor around my beautiful, redheaded Nana. The woman who was holding me in a car in 1949 when our family went out for a drive to see a new airport. The woman who brought me to my first motion picture, Picnic, telling me how “grown-up” I was before ratings became a thing. I knew I came from a long line of proud, strong Pennsylvania women.
“Throw your bread out on the water, and it will come back with jelly on it.”
“We’re from County Mayo, God help us.”
I can only remember her long, black skirts and the sound of her black shoes on pine floors; her copious jars of pickles on shelves. But I remember the feeling of independence and confidence she instilled in me so long ago.
Today, a new Ted Lasso will appear on AppleTV. I’ve got a feeling the team’s losing streak is about to end. And I’m sincerely hoping my dance with breaking bones is done. Bob is asking me where I want to go next, the travel bug has infected him again. My gypsy/handy husband is ready to scour the globe, and I’m his reluctant, fragile wife. I didn’t rehearse for this part, I always played the fun-loving sprite, ever eager to try something new.
Opening new pathways in the brain is one way to defray the costs of aging I’m told. Have I told you that Bob has taken up woodworking and built a board and batten wall in our bedroom? With only a one-handed wife, he enlisted a little extra help with painting. Maybe we should go hiking in Wales? No other country has a dragon on its flag!
MountainMornings 