Somehow the Light Gets In

When I first retired, almost ten years ago, someone said "try to put something on your calendar every day, even if you decide not to do it. A lunch out, a certain task."

Wait a minute? Wasn't the point of retirement to retire? To read those books, take those walks, go shopping on a work day?

At my retirement party in 2013. (Photo: Tony Cepak)

So, while I've always tried to have something fun on the calendar, there were many empty pages. Now I look at it and wish I had a few of those empty pages back!

Cork Poppers Add Music to the Menu

At an earlier Cork Poppers group, one of our members asked Rick if he'd provide a little concert on his classical guitar sometime. So, when he decided to host a pared down version of our group music was on the menu too! (Four of our members were away for the season; two were unable to come -- one of those being the guy who had suggested the music!)

Rick had said "bring finger food and a wine that goes with an Argentinian tango or Italian sonata." We were off and running! (He did say, "Tomatoes should be sliced and on the platter, not whole and ready to be thrown." Protecting the musicians and their instruments is always a good thing!)

Friendship and a Growing Bookstack!

It's been a week. This past week, tragedy in my home town.

The week before, joyful time with friends, company, and Cork Poppers. Since I already wrote about the shooting at Michigan State University, today I look back on the happier moments of the week.

Rick and I kicked off the month with a dinner with friends. Nothing fancy -- just pork tenderloin, mashed potatoes and Jan's fabulous salad. It's never the food; it's the friendship! But that salad rocks!

It's Our Turn

It's our turn.

Thanks to those of you who checked in on email, Facebook and otherwise to see if Rick and I were OK after the tragic shooting at Michigan State University. We are. We live about two miles from campus and about two miles from where the shooter killed himself after his campus rampage. We heard (and Rick saw) police cars and helicopters. And we were up very late, trying to wrap our heads around what happened.

Photo: Mike Mihalus

Remembering Most Obsessively

A place belongs forever to whoever claims it the hardest, remembers it most obsessively, wrenches it from itself, shapes it, renders it, loves it so radically that he remakes it in his own image.

Joan Didion

I've been thinking a lot about the cottage lately. I tend to do that rather often when the temperatures drop into single digits and the ground turns white. In another six months I will be back up north, painting on my porch, swimming every day in the lake. For now, I look back on other times.

My mom (front left) and her sisters at the lake. c. 1929/1930.

The Didion quote touches me because it hits, so spot on, how I feel about the cottages up north -- and when I say cottages, I mean both the one I live in now and the one down the road in which my cousins live, where I grew up in my younger summers and where my mother and her sisters spent time every summer from the time they were children.

And Now It's February

Here's something you don't often see in my world at this time of year. That's sunshine, morning sun, coming into the backyard. Never mind that it's one degree below zero. It's sun. I'll take it!