Friday

Being home feels good--except that we're still in triple-digits in the afternoons. 

Carlene's 100th birthday was exactly what she wanted, twelve of us family there to celebrate with lunch and a cake, card, and present party afterwards.  My gift to her was a book of excerpts from her own writing over the years, and she read the entire book aloud to family,

Bob spoke about those who weren't there; Jocelyn beautifully decorated the dining room and activities room with balloons, flowers and two cakes; Andrew read aloud a poem he'd written; and many of the staff members showed up to hug Carlene.  By bedtime, she'd gotten about 200 cards from family members,  lifetime friends (including many of mine), and the new friends she's made since moving into Assisted Living in Athens a little over a year ago. 

On the day after her birthday we went to Best Buy to purchase a new laptop--because she wants to write about what it's like After A Hundred! 

We're all thankful for her great health and the fact that she's loving where she's living.  

I'll write more as I get settled back in.  

Travel Update

Freda recently reminded me that I once said, "Please remind me if I forget--never take a road trip in August!"  I was glad I asked for that reminder. 

So I have postponed my road trip with Luci until the fall and will be flying to celebrate my mother's 100th birthday instead.  As the ad for Viking River Cruises says so memorably,  "Spend less time getting there and more time being there." 

This advertising meme doesn't usually fit my traveling style, but in August it does.  

Storytelling

The Moth is one of my favorite programs on NPR, featuring storytellers from all over. Their website and podcasts contain all their past episodes, short personal stories that are great road trip company.  

As a narrative lover all my life, I can get lost in a story.  But I can also find myself in them.  

Finding ourselves in a story is one of the reasons we read. 

From the epic tales of myths to the personal anecdotes we tell each other, great storytellers have a way of honing in on the details that make a story so real that, years later, we think it actually happened to us.  We remember it as if it did. 

I actually remember being on the back of a horse with my daddy when I was about two years old.  Suddenly the horse started running for his life, leaving little tiny petrified me holding on to my dad's back with all my strength as we raced across a field.

I remember us finally coming to a halt, dismounting, and discovering that what had set off that old horse was an accidental burn from the tip of my dad's cigar!  

Turns out, a few details had transported themselves from my dad's memories to my mind: the sudden run-away of the horse (though it wasn't a horse, it was a mule); the accidental burn that set it all off; my daddy pulling on the reins with all his might to stop the wild animal. 

But when all that happened, I (the girl on the back) was not even born!

He told me this after years of my believing I was there: "No, Sugar, that was back before you were born." 

I've been thinking a lot lately about stories and why certain ones have staying power, why some are buried so deep in us that they only come to the surface when we need them.  About a certain story that I heard in college that impacted me for years to come. 

I've been wondering why certain stories capture the imaginations of generations of people, why others are maybe just as good but soon forgotten.   Thinking about the ways we literally hold our breaths a minute waiting to find out how a story turns out. 

Maybe that's what I'm going to write about for a few posts coming up. 

I'm not exactly apologizing for yesterday's angry post (already deleted), just saying that angry posts should be tamped down just a bit--even if that post was tamped way down from what I really wanted to say!

But overall, when I recovered, I re-thought putting it out there.  Our screens need more kindness and peace.  

Where do I find those on my screen?

Numero Uno: any videos by Jon Batiste, the most charismatic human I can name at the moment.

Numero Dos: videos of dogs being dogs, responding to humans but also giving humans a joy that can't be found many places.

And of course, videos of people making beautiful things, following the arc of their own unique passions and playfulness.

So today I just wish anyone reading this all the joy and goodness you can find, and anything we can do to inject peace into this broken world.