The nights are chilly. In the morning the house is cold. It holds the night air. I have had to keep the back door shut because of the breeze, because the cool air is being blown down the hall to the den. Fall is in full swing.

The sunshine is sharper today. The breeze is so heavy everything constantly blows, turns, bends. We have a high wind warning and a coastal flooding warning. The nor’easter is close.

When I was a kid, I made memories without realizing they were being tucked away, saved in my memory drawers. Some have stayed hidden, but many have abruptly jumped into my head triggered by a smell or sight or sound. Yesterday we drove through the square of my hometown. My friend pointed at the shop where she got the best subs. We remembered Hank’s Bakery, and the smell of bread baking in Hank’s ovens which wafted through the square. I still see Hank’s though it has been gone a while. Woolworth’s and Grants disappeared a long time ago. I still lament the loss of Woolworth’s. Many of the old buildings, especially the banks, look the same but haven’t been banks for the longest time. I miss the old square with all its shops, with what seemed to be hundreds of pharmacies lining the street and with the people in stores and on the sidewalks carrying bags from their shopping. Every day the square lived.

Yesterday’s reunion was amazing. I hadn’t seen my old friends for decades, but we fit together as if we last saw each other yesterday. I think it is always that way with old friends with whom you have so many memories of growing up together, memories of events and places and things shared. We told funny stories. We laughed. We weren’t old for a while. We were back to then. We were retelling funny experiences and remembering people we haven’t seen for so long. One memory of when I was first in the drill team I found out one of my friends has the same memory. We were maybe around twelve and went to a party after a contest. It was my mention of the duplex where the party was, the one over fifty years ago, which triggered the memory of my friend from at the same party. Everyone else there was old, at least in our eyes. The guys shaved. The girls seemed so sophisticated, many in their late teens. Treva said she was so scared she stayed on the porch. I stayed in a corner, protected on three sides. I didn’t realize this memory stayed. I find it amazing, even strange, which memories, which happenings, get stored away for safe keeping in our memory drawers.

We have sun. It has become a lovely day, but a fall day at 64°. My house is even a bit chillier. The nights have all been in the 50’s, not cold enough yet for the leaves to change. The weatherman is predicting a nor’easter at the end of the week. Those storms bring strong winds, heavy rain and a wild surf. We on the coast get hit the hardest with the strongest winds and a higher tide. Sand is carried by the wind and beaches erode. They are terrific storms.

I have always been mesmerized by storms. I remember the hurricanes when I was a kid. I’d watch out the window. The wind was so strong the trees and bushes bent. The wind was loud, frightening. The old wooden windows rattled. The rain pelted against the glass. I remember the giant elm which stood across the street went down in the 1954 hurricane, Hurricane Carol. I heard it fall. Branches from other trees littered the grass and the streets. Yards were a mess. I remember my father got to work right away cleaning the yard. We helped by piling the branches we could carry. The best part was the small bonfire when my father burned the debris. It filled the air with that wonderful smoky smell, and the firelight shined in the late afternoon.

I remember the start of the rainy season in Ghana. It hadn’t rained for months. The ground was sand. The fields were empty. We knew it was coming when the days started to get humid. The nights got warmer. I remember one day when the sky got dark with grey-black, angry looking clouds, which darkened the day. When the rain started, it was torrential. I saw a lightning bolt strike the ground in front of my house. It looked like a kid’s drawing of lightning with crooked lines of light. It was so unexpected I jumped a bit. I had been watching from my small porch in the front of the house. I decided to go inside prompted by the lightning bolt and the metal roof of the porch.

I didn’t write any lists or chores for today. I seem to ignore them anyway. I’ll end up doing something impromptu, something which catches my eye. I do have my uke practice tonight. That’s it for sure.