One of the joys of my life is collecting lines, quotes, and bits of information I want to remember. Since reading is my most favorite activity (whether books, news articles, or blog posts), this collection reminds me of what I’ve read.

I’ve also been participating in Jillian Hess’s Noted Commonplace Book Club, where subscribers share their favorite words. What a calming way to start my day. Here are a few of mine:

I also placed a new poster in my front yard:

We need to find moments of meaning in these rather dark times.

#minneapolis #ice #authoritarianism #fascism

Here we are, wearing our goofy Viking earbud thingies, but our smiles tell the real story. Life is better with traveling friends. Starting with the Rhine River cruise where we met, laughed together, and made plans for another adventure, here’s the total list.

September 2017 – Rhine River Cruise Basel to Amsterdam

September 2018 – Danube River Cruise Budapest to Nuremberg and extension in Prague

September 2019 – Rhone River Cruise Lyon to Avignon and extension in Paris/Normandy via train

Feb/March 2020 – Greenbrier Resort in West Virginia

2021 – No Trip due to Covid

October 2022 – Douro River Cruise Lisbon to Porto

October 2023 – Mediterranean Cruise Barcelona to Rome

October 2024 – Visit to Rhode Island

April 2025 – Tuscany Villa and visits to surrounding small mountain towns

October 2025 – Elbe River (plus two days in Berlin and then two days in Prague

Next year will be our tenth trip, so we are beginning to plan something special. I keep thinking back to that moment we met, on a street in Germany. We were on a river boat cruise, and we had all been dropped off in a small town to shop and get lunch.

“Do you mind if we join you?” I asked brazenly.

“Come sit down,” they said.

We laughed and talked all through the meal, and then explored together the rest of the trip. At the end of the week, we decided we HAD to do this again. And we’ve not stopped since. All our friends elsewhere know us and them as “the friends you travel with.”

We have had some wonderful food tours, strolled through museums and churches, and enjoyed fascinating explorations of a country’s culture and history. This most recent trip focusing on WWII and communism felt a little too close to home (see previous post).

My sister wanted to see if in the many boxes stored in this old house there was any information on the Driggs family. We pulled the containers out, pawed through folders, articles, and photos and realized we had a stack of letters written by my father to my mother during his assignment in Korea during the war.

Yes, they were private. But we loved learning more about them.

Poorna Bell writes beautifully of her husband living on in their garden. My father lives on not just through his letters but also his flannel shirt, which hangs in the old workshop where he puttered around most of his life. My mother is here when I pull out one of her cookbooks, though not often now that we are mostly vegan.

I participate in Jillian Hess’s Noted chat, where we choose and share a quote from something we’ve read or are thinking about. It was Ray Bradbury’s quote that pushed me to think more about this.

Bradbury said in Fahrenheit 451:

“Everyone must leave something behind when he dies- a child, or a book or painting, or a house or a wall built or a garden planted…”

I find that living in my grandmother’s 100-year-old house means I remember them all. A dish I ate from as a child visiting in summer; a rose she planted in a beautiful garden; an old piece of wood my grandfather turned into a sign; a book my great-grandfather wrote, still on the shelf in the living room.

We will not live forever. But I think about what Sasha Sagan said: “My parents taught me that even though it’s not forever — because it’s not forever — being alive is a profoundly beautiful thing for which each of us should feel deeply grateful. If we lived forever it would not be so amazing.”

Focusing on a moment, whether a dinner share with a grandchild or a walk on the beach with my husband, helps me not feel so anxious about the end of life. This makes me wonder- what will I leave behind?

I tried to prepare myself for this, the chance the US elections would not go in the direction I hoped. But honestly I couldn’t imagine there were that many people who would elect a bully, a liar, a vindictive clown who wants to blow up the world as we know it. And yet, here we are.

So how do I cope?

This morning, I dragged myself out of bed. Thank goodness David is of like minds, and he did not turn on the news (his normal early morning routine). I opened my laptop and deleted all emails that referenced news of any sort. I responded to a text message from my former foreign exchange student from France who sent condolences, and I sat in silence trying to figure out my day, my week, my next four years.

My father was an Army officer and and a lifelong Republican. But I know he would not have voted for this lunatic. I keep asking myself, what kind of people think he is a good idea?

So my plan is this- my morning routine will not include news. My evening routine will not include news. I need to do whatever I can to avoid seeing his face, hearing idiotic words come out of his mouth. I will take long walks, go sit by the river, calm myself in yoga, and take care of myself by eating well. And I will write.

David thinks we should protest, share our views, speak up. But this introvert may, in fact, struggle to engage in the world at all. At least for a while.

Peace and love…..

Well, I made it back to Virginia. I still (after 45 years) can’t call it home. Rhode Island is and will always be – home. I miss my morning sunrises on the pond.

Nonetheless, I’ve enjoyed connecting and reconnecting with friends here. And, yoga. I didn’t realize how much I miss the calm, peaceful, stretches and movements. This house has windows, and I love the light. And nothing is broken like in my 100 year-old grandmother’s house in RI.

This morning I went to my second yoga class, my Sunday morning church. I prayed to the goddess of strong backs and planned the soup I was going to make when I got home instead of meditating and clearing my thoughts. At least I wasn’t in anxiety-ridden Trump land. Oh, please, God, don’t let him win.

I asked Alexa to play “quiet, classical music” while I cooked. I never get a play list I like, but OMG I love this one. Songs I recognize slowly played to piano and violin. It’s rather like the tunes of the show Bridgerton. Now I need to figure out how to get Alexa to save the playlist.

One would think I could figure this out with a Master’s in Instructional Technology. But I have to say, it has all moved beyond me. But wait, I do love to learn. I love a project. I can see it now—I’m going to be planted on the couch for the next few hours.

Soup and music- not a bad way to spend a Sunday afternoon.