We’ve had a busy first week back in Rhode Island, but that’s because I am doing all my favorite things. We also made it to Mystic Seaport and three restaurants with the first set of kids. The family will come in shifts, and I need to make sure I don’t eat as much as I did this week.
Still, I am not complaining. This place makes me feel settled, calm. It is familiar.
But I love to see new places and learn.
Now that we’re back from our trip out West (South Dakota, Montana, Iowa, and Wyoming), I’ll need days to recover. Lack of sleep, eating all the wrong things, nervous stomach from driving over tall mountains, and, of course flying all contributed to this current state of affairs.
Our last flight was canceled, so we spent 9 hours in the airport before settling into a midnight flight to DC (with turbulence all the way). Now my gut is raging, my feet are swollen, and I’m exhausted.
Was it worth it? Yes. The views, the animals, various museums, and the fun people who shared our week-long adventure made this memorable. The temperatures were 90 at home, and we had a foot of snow!
The long days (we began with breakfast at 7 and ended getting off the bus around 5-6 most days) and cafeteria food (lots of carbs, meat, and sugar), and a different hotel each evening (packing and unpacking) made me wish the trip had been shorter. At one point, I told David I wish we hadn’t come and I’d never do this kind of trip again.
But then we’d visit a new place, learn the history, and see sights that are difficult to find words for, and I was ready for more. Now that it’s over, the negatives are fading from memory….
Instead, I am thinking of the Lakotas and our broken treaties; the Ziolkowski family who devoted their lives to carving Crazy Horse; a live bison napping outside our lodge window; a snowstorm at Yellowstone; the murder of thousands of bisons by Buffalo Bill Cody; waterfalls showering rocks and streams; Badlands and the geologic formations; many myths surrounding Yellowstone park; and challenges of Native American life today.
This makes so much sense:
“Travel isn’t always pretty. It isn’t always comfortable. Sometimes it hurts, it even breaks your heart. But that’s okay. The journey changes you; it should change you. It leaves marks on your memory, on your consciousness, on your heart, and on your body. You take something with you. Hopefully, you leave something good behind.” – Anthony Bourdain
When I was about to turn 60, I decided I should start a blog for 60-somethings, a journal of sorts to remember and share what I was going through. I couldn’t believe I was that old! Well, I think I managed one post before I abandoned it.
And now I am about to turn 70, which sounds about as old as 60 did ten years ago. The only thing that’s changed is how I look at the world, myself, and my relationships.
I will continue sharing what I’m learning here. I can’t wait until I am almost 80 to see if my topics have changed. Somehow I envision lots of posts about getting older, and that’s ok because that’s where I am. That 18 year old, sitting by the side of the road in Amsterdam with a loaf of bread and a hunk of cheese, thinking she was all that and more, had no idea how her life would turn out. There have been many dark times, moments filled with regret, days when I wondered if I was losing my mind. And yet here I am, excited about this next decade and feeling grateful for all I have in my life.
Minute by minute. Hour by hour. Day by day.
I wanted a perfect ending. Now I’ve learned, the hard way, that some poems don’t rhyme, and some stories don’t have a clear beginning, middle and end.–Gilda Radner
Stay tuned.
Not really. The hazelnut ice cream melted in my mouth and soothed raw places left by new invisilign braces. Homemade, at that. The ice cream, not the braces.
But the eating was preceded by a discussion.
“What kind do you want?”
“Um, I really don’t care.”
“You decide- it’s Mother’s Day!”
“But what do you want?”
He picked hazelnut, and I was fine with that. Just typing that word gives me chills because as a child I was “always fine with that.”
As I let the cold ice cream slip down my throat, I replayed the conversation in my mind, wondering if I had given in or if I really didn’t care. Sometimes it’s hard to know. I’ve been waffling for so long.
This time, it really didn’t matter. But I wish I’d picked.
I hate the word “nice.” It’s been used to describe me one too many times.
I suppose being nice is better than being a bitch, but nice, which rhymes with rice, another bland something, is the opposite of spice. Now spice–that has gumption.
Nice is another way of saying–no backbone, boring.Being nice started early in my life, when I heard my mother even when she wasn’t around, saying: “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.” Not a bad philosophy I suppose, but when being nice begins to shape who you are, then you’re in trouble.
Being nice translates into “don’t confront,” “don’t disagree,” don’t speak your mind.” All dangerous. These moments translate into stupid, dangerous, and careless moments. A drink too many, a lie allowed to grow, saying yes when I should have said no.
When I left a previous job, the editor said: “All the niceness has now left the office.” She meant it as a compliment, but I knew better.