Unhitched

I wake these mornings without the daily dread of a deadline. Like the dog that sleeps in the bed with you, I sigh and turn onto one side for ten minutes to look out the window. Then I sigh again and turn to my other side. I think about Time. Then I shift to my back, take up my phone and read about the daily horrors as recounted on the various news sites. After that, I really sigh, and as antidote, read my book for ten minutes, which right now is The Boys in the Boat. I read this book both because a young person to whom I am deeply committed recommended it and because as a lover of old things - see awesome photo – I delight in being transported back to a long-ago time like the 1930s, when the action in that true story occurs.

You wonder who once sat on these porches of a summer night, with the dews descending and the fireflies winking.

Speaking of summer nights, this summer just ending has been a strange one for me, because for the first time since the years when gals wore poufy hair like this…...I have not been filing a weekly column. And as it stands I'm not going to be filing any, until October at the soonest.I both chose this non-writing path and had it chosen for me in that the parent company that owns most of the papers I appear in announced in July it had no budget for freelancers at least until then. I know I could have done a Gandhi and kept writing for free but to do so would break solidarity with my brothers and sisters in the scribbling game. For about six hours after hearing the news though, I did feel I should go on sending a fresh column to the other papers that subscribe to me column and are not part of this giant chain. But then, sitting outside the dry cleaners at around 4 that afternoon, it dawned on me that this could be the universe sending me a message.I asked the editors of these independent papers if they‘d mind my taking a break and they couldn’t have been nicer. "Take it!“ they said. “Take it by all means and we’ll be glad to have you back in October."And so I decided, I would take the time, and wouldn’t I have scads of it!I didn't have scads of it, of course. For one thing, our span of time is brief and swiftly passing no matter what we are doing. And for another, there were some family events, some joyful in the extreme and some that same degree of terrifying and to them I turned all my attention.But over these weeks I did learn this, I did learn this: I learned that I feel at my happiest when I write, and that I feel most lost and somehow lonely when I don't.So, I’m back, ready to catch more small moments of Time in my little net and tell of them here.Of course we writers never know who is reading what we write, if indeed anyone reads any more, but that’s fine. It’s the writing that counts, the saying what we saw. I have always felt my purpose in life was to do just that. Just as it says in that early-days Elton John song with its lyrics by the great Bernie Taupin, “My gift is my song and this one’s for you."https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwzdVHTNpXs&list=RDRwzdVHTNpXs#t=96  

The Nicest Kind of Houseguests

For me the nicest kind of houseguests are the ones who:

• Sleep until noon haha.
• Know where everything is in your kitchen.
• Don't just ask if they can help with the bacon and eggs and coffee but get up and start scrambling and frying.
• Don't ask where the vacuum is because they know  - and they know what it's for too.
• Are enough younger than you that they understand your electronics better than you do.
• Are just plain fun. (Who knew you could drink a Heineken while IN the water in a lifejacket that eliminates any need to even try to stay afloat?)
• Really know what an oar is for (See below. Maybe this  6'8" guest will be one of the 'Boys in the Boat' at the 2020 Olympics :-))

• And finally, and most importantly, are happy to hang out at the supper table, laughing and talking about everything from what it's like to be an identical twin, to the nature of time to the worst job you ever had.
• We had six guests at the lake here Friday to Sunday and ended up feeling almost as young as they are - good times!