Home from Paris

The delights of Paris this trip:

Time with long- term friends, including time to talk about our contribution as elders. We're chatting and laughing at the amusing directions being given by the friend of the woman talking the photo for us.

Roses in bloom everywhere to make Paris even more gorgeous.

Special treats that we savored to mark the sweetness of the occasion.

A Vivaldi concert in a beautiful church with amazing acoustics. It brought my friend to tears.

Two art exhibits (Chagal and Boudin) in separate and lovely venues.

This is the reason I wanted to live in Italy- the opportunity to go to places where I and my friends want to visit. The combination of beauty, history, music and art fills me up and grows me as an elder by expanding my world view and awareness. To share all this with friends since the 80's who can check in at deeper levels, is rare and altogether satisfying.

Travel to Paris

I head to Paris today to spend five days with my friend, Annee, and a friend we worked with in California who's also visiting. It will be a time to catch up with friends, share stories of our past, see more of Paris and even have a romantic rendezvous with my Honey, who's there teaching a program this week. Getting to do this is another one of the perks of living in Italy for these four years and adds to a long list of things for which I'm grateful. Travel to the rest of Europe is easy and since I didn't travel in Europe as a young woman, I enjoy doing it now. A lot. And Paris? How can I not love Paris?

(taken in Notre Dame Cathedral on my last trip to Paris)

The Choice That Has Made All The Difference

In younger days before the strife
I sought a tall and mighty oak.
But when I had my share of life,
I closely listened to how he spoke,

To how he treated young and old.
And chastened thus by asking why,
I learned my lesson without it told,
And chose, instead, the clear blue sky.

In the labyrinth ways that only poetry can travel, this was inspired by Shay in her Word Garden by her poem: " In The Place Where I First Heard Your Name". It's a beauty, as is much of Shay's poetry, so check it out. It's offered for Imaginary Gardens With Real Toads Open Link Monday and is about waking up enough to choose my Honey. It's dedicated to him, also, because he lost his sister to breast cancer six years ago yesterday after caring for her tenderly and is missing her. He's a dear man. I took the photo on my way up to our town.

Hawk Squawk

If you'd like a treat, check out my daughter's blog: Following Spirit to track the story of Mort the Hawk whom she and her family fostered after he fell out of his nest. He fledged this week and looks handsome with all his feathers. She posted videos as well as photos from his downy chick stage to now. She lives in Trinidad's rainforest and gets involved in some interesting adventures, including this latest one. Your kids or grandkids will like this series since my two grands, ages 10 and 7, are part of the story. Enjoy.

When I Heard Your Lips

"When I first heard your lips define my skin"
it led me out, your sound true, your scent known
in ancient ways of knowing. As elfin
cloud forests cover dwarfed plants until crowns

of flowers emerge, sing their songs to all
and touch those bereft of color, so blown
to life was I. Your fingers traced maps, called
forth sight, showed hidden paths that might be flown.

Is love clear like that, smooth when ways are rough?
From whence comes this gift unbidden if not
sheer beneficence then bestowed pressed down,

flowing over for forty years, toughness
gone, not needed, love enough that I caught
your lips and let them define my skin, gowned.



In response to Victoria Slotto at dVerse Poets Pub who asked us to write a poem using synesthesia that intermingles the senses. *She gave an example poem by Jane Hewey- "I Let You In". I fell in love with Jane's last lines and used them as my first line.

Safe Within Myself

Safe Within Myself

It took this particular constellation
of experiences to arrive here-
a middle child, vigilant
in my family's brand of broken, went
within like turtle, grew
radar that detected danger, safety. Erred
on the side of self- reliance. Learned
self's true safety, and another's,
by naming love, loss
and life's knocks as grace.

Written in response to Mama Zen over at Imaginary Gardens With Real Toads who asked us to describe our place of safety and make our words count in less than 53. Mine's 52.

High School, 50 years on...

We've all changed in 50 years; some remarkably, some quite well. Some of the attendees I'd not seen since graduation, others at our 25th reunion or beyond. I visited, had dinner, listened to old tunes, danced, received my "golden" diploma and felt glad to be alive to do so in the light of absent classmates. Afterwards, I went to a party graciously hosted by two friends, now married. We had the chance to sit and share memories, happy, sad and painful in such an intimate way that I felt moved, privileged to be there to bear witness, sorry for the experiences that shaped lives in hurtful ways, grateful for the ones that shaped us in positive ways and finally aware of how little sometimes separates one from the other. We each had our story, of course. It was precious little time to catch up and hear even a bit of those stories. Left me wanting to hear more. I'm not sure what I can do about that but it's a niggling, recurring thought at this point.

I stayed with my best friend from high school, Ann, and had the opportunity to tour some of her world, meet her fiance, daughter, grandchildren and talk the days away in our effort to bridge the gap of too many years. It won't be that long again, we vowed, and retirement can make that resolution a reality. I liked and admired her in high school and found that I still do. We sang as girl scouts: "make new friends but keep the old, one is silver and the other gold." She's gold.

We toured some of our old haunts the day after the reunion, a perfect Boston spring day, and just enjoyed each other's company. The beaches I frequented as a high schooler stretched before me, stirred memories held for years and grounded me once more in home. Put together with the memories of my classmates, it rounded the picture of where I came from, the complexity of what shaped me, good and bad, and generated not quite a nostalgia, but a desire to know and understand more.

I also had the chance to see my father, now 96, and spend the day with him and his companion of sixteen years. They had been dancing the day before, spoke of their outings with other seniors and discussed current events, so I'm holding him as my aging mentor.

It was only five days but they were full and impacted me in ways I'm trying to understand more fully. I'm glad I went.

50th High School Reunion

I received an invitation that threw me for a loop- to my 50th high school reunion. I graduated in 1963 so, of course, it's my 50th anniversary, but I hadn't stopped to think about that until the invitation from a former classmate who tracked me down on Facebook. I'm going, of course, and will stay with my best friend from those days who now lives in Hartford, CT. I head for Boston the day after tomorrow. It brings a new dimension to the term elder on this journey I'm living. It makes me realize that I'm there and not just on a journey there. Although my 96 year old father says: "Your 60's are just the youth of old age.".

I'm still trying to wrap my mind around this and I think actually being there will help me to do so. I'll let you know.

In the meanwhile, my computer won't upload photos to my blog. It's a new problem and I don't know why. It was preceded by the screen turning bright yellow while uploading photos and then by it turning black. Seems ominous to me. Any ideas?

What I planned to post were photos of some everyday things that fill my days. Simple things, like my Honey starting to make bread, with focaccia and ciabatta the most recent delicious examples. Of lunches and dinners enjoyed with friends, a double rainbow that followed a storm last week, new herbs and geraniums already growing on the balcony, purple blossoms on the chives surprising and delighting me (who knew?), an ancient olive tree found in the country with its branches trimmed in a fanciful way, and my daughter and the grands fostering a young hawk until he or she can survive on his or her own. My life is full, my heart is full, but 50 years since high school? Wow.