Tuesday morning in Maria and Oliver's house

As you travel,
actually or metaphorically--
One of the frustrating things is this:

There is  so much to see and experience, always
one more thing just over the next rise in the road,
One more picture, one more roadside pumpkin, one more macaroon....

And yet, strangely, Time just keeps moving along,
never announcing how much more we have at our disposal.

I remember that May Sarton at sixty wrote: "I am no longer acquisitive.  I used to be--but now I'm not...."

For me, I'd say I'm as acquisitive as ever, just for different things.

I used to--back in the day of being a passenger in a car that whizzed by little shops--think that I would love nothing better than to go inside and buy things.  If I was lucky, I'd have a few minutes in some stops to buy little patches with the name of the place embroidered on them.   I must have been lucky a lot because I returned from that ten-week, twenty-six-week camping trip in 1984 with enough patches to make a lap quilt: Yellowstone, Glacier, Banff, Seattle Space Needle.

But I wanted to see inside every glittery shop and but beautiful things--like carved wooden sea gulls and patchwork quilts and sweaters.

Sometimes, I still do.  But after a while, you start seeing the same "cute' things in shop after shop and you realize you have had the equivalent of so many things in stores that that pocket of wanting is quite full.

I have had two phone conversations this week with two of my close friends, both of whom are finding that work they are doing is more satisfying that anything money can buy.  For me, it's leading writing groups, being a friend, being a mom, being Carlene's daughter, being able to take a trip like this.  The objects of desire now are layered.  A delicious meal--acquired after conversations that whet your appetite for certain flavors--this is now more satisfying that buying things to take home.  I am acquisitive for experience now, more than things.