The morning is overcast and is still holding a bit of the evening damp. The fog hasn’t yet burned away. Heat will be here later. 77˚ is the predicted high. I have no real plans for the day. My laundry is finally done, but I haven’t yet gone to the dump. I’m saving that for later, maybe even tomorrow.

This summer I will be seventy-five, yup, you read that right, seventy-five, three quarters of a century. What I find strange is my mind doesn’t recognize seventy-five. I do forget things, but they somehow jump back into my head later. It is my body which reflects my age. I used to carry 50 pound bags of cat litter into the house and upstairs. Now I struggle with 12 pound bags of dog food. I drag the bags from the car into the kitchen. My back aches. I groan a lot.

When I was a kid, I couldn’t have dreamed this life I have been lucky enough to live. I always knew even back then I’d travel. The count is 32 countries. There is still travel in me. I want one more trip to Ghana. I just have to save all that money. Spam, here I come.

The two years I spent in the Peace Corps were more than I ever could have imagined. I loved every day. Africa is the most amazing place. Ghanaians are amazing people, warm and loving. My friend tells the story of one trip when his moto (motorcycle) quit working far from home. A truck driver stopped and offered to help. He loaded the moto on the truck and drove it and my friend home. Once, when I was market shopping, the rain started. I just kept shopping. When I finished, I went to where I had parked my moto, and it was gone. I could hear someone calling. I looked and it was one of the police guarding the bank. He was standing beside my moto. The police had carried it there so it wouldn’t get wet. Ghanaians are amazing people.

After Ghana, I worked in the same high school for 33 years, the one from which I graduated. I didn’t love my job every day, but I loved my kids, especially the ones who visited my office often. I wanted them to be the best they could become. They weren’t going to get away from me. I was like a dog holding on to pant legs. I favored my frequent fliers even to the point where I was criticized. I didn’t care. I knew these kids were so worth my time, attention and my love. When they graduated, I was proud for them, for what they had chosen to become.

I have been retired for almost eighteen years. I’m living the good life.

The morning is damp and cold. The house was only 64˚ when we all woke up, the dogs and I. The sun is supposed to appear later, but it will stay in the low 60’s. I have two errands, the dump and the store for cat food. I found a taste Jack likes. He empties his bowl. Unlike dogs, cats are picky. My dogs will eat anything. Each morning they get a biscuit and some banana. I just get the banana.

The air is sweet. When I walk outside, I can smell the flowers. My lilac tree is in bloom. Dark purple flowers are spread across the top. In the front garden, the white ground cover flowers have spread and bloomed. Here and there are a few pink flowers. My day lilies are tall. They border my lawn and the wild spot between my house and the next. Most of them are orange but a few yellow are intermingled. The forsythia tree has yellow buds. It is the oldest growing thing in my garden. The tree was a housewarming gift in 1977. I almost lost it one year, but it is full now. Lilies of the valley are all over the yard. They came from my mother’s house. I think of her every spring when the lilies bloom. I think it a joy to be remembered in flowers.

Every morning the dogs sense the change in my breathing and know I’m awake. They start whacking me so I have no choice but to get up. That seems to happen around 8:30 every day. I have become a creature of habit.

Last night I was patting Nala and found a tick on the inside of her floppy ear. It was tiny and hadn’t yet impeded. I flushed it. Now I’m paranoid about ticks. I checked Nala and found no more. I checked as much of Henry as he let me. He too was clean. Every day now they’ll be checked.

I sit with Jack every night, usually close to an hour. He gets treats, clean water, fresh wet food and more dry food. I clean his litter box. Jack sits behind me while I either pat or comb him. He is a huge, fluffy boy. I always find clumps. He purrs the entire time I clear the clumps. Every morning I go in and give Jack some treats and pat him and scratch his back. He always watches and waits for me. The dogs impatiently stand waiting outside the cat room gate. They want out.

The house is dark. Everything is quiet. The rain has stopped, and the wind is gone. Even the dogs have settled. I am content.

This morning I got rained on. The rain lasted as long as it took me to get the paper and yesterday’s mail, but since then, the rain has started again, and it is supposed to rain most of the day. Add 55˚to the mix, and it is an ugly day, a sweatshirt day, a good day to be home.

Yesterday I mortgaged my house to buy my dump sticker. Okay, I am exaggerating, but I did pay $190.00 for the privilege of dumping my own trash. That is on my dance card for tomorrow.

When I was a kid, my mother didn’t drive. She’d walk uptown pushing my sister in the baby carriage while my other sister walked beside her holding on to the carriage. My mother grocery shopped on Friday nights when my father could drive her to and from the store, but after we moved to the cape, my mother learned to drive as everything was too far way for walking. Later, when she had her own car, she had a sense of freedom she’d never had before. She grocery shopped any day she wanted.

I haven’t been back to my hometown in a long while. But when I go back, I always drive by the duplex on the hill where we lived for so long. Other than this house, it is where I’ve lived the longest. Even now, years and years away, I still close my eyes and pull from my memory drawer the inside of the house. I can see the green entry way where the desk stood. The living room had a couch and chair, a table by the picture window and the TV in the corner. There were two closets, one in the living room and one in the tiniest of halls, barely a hall at all. It stood opposite the door to the cellar. The kitchen too was small and the table and chairs were in the corner near the back door. Upstairs were three bedrooms and the bathroom. My bedroom was on the left, my parents’ room was on the right of the staircase and my brother’s room faced the hall. The bathroom was next to my room. We didn’t have a shower. I remember the hamper was in the hall across from the bathroom.

I am always astounded by what I find in my memory drawers. My childhood is there in the back drawers. All the places where we lived are there, even the one in South Boston where we lived until I was five. I find joy and sorrow in the drawers, in the memories. I am thankful for both.

My clean kitchen floor lasted less than one day. Last night it started raining around 10:30. The thunder followed. I expect there was lightning, but I didn’t see it. This morning is sunny and bright with a deep blue sky and not even a small breeze. The high today will be 69˚.

When I was a kid, we had a family doctor. He was such a big man he never could quite reach the top of his desk without stretching his arms. A full skeleton hanging from a hook was behind him. He wasn’t gentle or reassuring. My mother took me there after I had fallen down the stairs and had a big cut under my chin. He wiped the cut clean, and it hurt, a whole lot of hurt. He told me to sit still. I did. He scared me a bit.

I like cabbage but not Brussels sprouts. I like green beans but not beans. I love sweatshirts but only if they have pouches. Otherwise, where would I put my hands? I like flip flops but not sandal straps between my toes. I love ice cream but not any with nuts unless they are on the top. I love movies but not romantic movies. Give me a good monster, and I’m happy. I like a drink every now and then, but it can’t taste like alcohol. I prefer plain water. I like waffles but not pancakes. I never put ketchup on my hot dogs. That it is just so wrong. I love fried clams, but they must have bellies. I hate crooked pictures. They drive my sensibilities crazy. I don’t mind holes in my socks, even the toes. I just fold the tops over when I put on my shoes. I don’t drink milk unless I’m having cereal. I like jam but not jelly. I love pickles of all sorts but not olives. I’m a fruit lover, but I don’t like cherries or fruits with fur like peaches. Give me all sorts of berries but keep your raspberries. I don’t like Will Farrell, but I never miss Elf. Give me a cold day rather than a hot. I always contend you can get warm easily but not cold. I don’t drink hot tea, only ice tea.

It seems my life is built on contradictions.

The early morning was foggy. Yesterday’s clouds are still hanging around, but the sun should break through. It will be in the mid 60’s today. I have to go to Hyannis. I’ll pack later.

Nala trash picked again yesterday. I’ll have to take my prisoner’s stick into the backyard and do clean-up. Nala had chewed a hole in the trash bag and was running outside with her booty when I heard a can drop.

We always had Crayola crayons in the house. Every Christmas and sometimes at Easter we’d get a new pack. The Christmas pack was always the biggest. I remember the pack of 64 crayons. It had every color in the world, or at least I thought so. We seldom threw out any crayons. Pieces were kept in a cigar box. As the crayons got smaller, we’d tear off the papers, and the fancy color names were gone. All the crayons became simple colors like blue or green or red. We didn’t miss the nuances of the colors.

One time, when I was around twelve or thirteen, I was with my brother in a car. I was in the front seat. He was in the back. I don’t remember whose car it was. We passed a police car which was on the side of the road. My brother told me to bark out the window. That seemed silly but harmless enough. It wasn’t. The cop chased us and pulled us over. He was really angry. We got lectured. I found out later the cop had killed a dog. He didn’t appreciate the barking.

My second weird encounter with an officer of the law was once when I was coming home from Boston. I was in the back seat with a dog, a puppy of about six months. The driver got stopped for speeding by a state police officer. The officer came over to the car and started questioning all of us. He wanted to know if the dog had a license. I told him no as the dog was a puppy, and she didn’t need one. I also said she wasn’t driving, the wrong thing to say, but I was annoyed. He didn’t like my answer and wanted to know my name. I said Ryan why? He started lecturing me about respect and called me Miss Why during the entire lecture. Every time he did the two people in the front seat laughed so hard the seat shook. Finally we were allowed to keep driving. I wanted to go right to the police barracks to lodge a complaint. The dog questions were odd and a bit over the top, but I suppose I just should have been thankful the puppy didn’t get a ticket for riding without a license.

Today is cloudy and a bit cooler than it has been though the weather report says it will get warm. I have nowhere I need to be.

Around 12:30 the dogs went out for the last time before bed. When Henry came in, his coat was damp. I checked. A mist was falling gently as mists do. I shut the door, turned off the lights, and the three of us to bed. I was with Jack for a while then we went to bed, the dogs and I. They settled. I read. That’s when the rain started in earnest. I could hear the drops from the eaves and the roof. They lulled me to sleep.

In my mind’s eye, I can still see my father coming in the front door from work. He always wore a fedora. In the winter, he wore a top coat, a black top coat. In the summer, he wore a suit, a white shirt and a tie. He always tied a Windsor knot. My father wore ties his entire work life and on Sunday for Church. He loved new ties at Christmas so I used to buy him an expensive tie as one of his gifts. He always said he could tell the good ties from the cheap ties.

My mother wore slippers around the house. They were the ones with open toes and no backs. I always wondered how they kept her feet warm. My mother’s toe nails were always red.

I have never carried a pocketbook or a purse. I have always carried backpacks slung over one shoulder. My early ones were vinyl. I remember a mustard colored backpack I carried until it got so dirty it was almost embarrassing. I was carrying it when I went to Hyannis to shop for new leather clogs which I wore to work every day. While there, I noticed they sold leather backpacks made in Vermont. I bought a black one, and that is what I have a carried for years though I do have a vinyl backpack waiting in the wings should I need it. My mustard backpack was unceremoniously tossed into the trash. It has never been missed.

It is a beautiful morning. The fog is gone. The sun is brilliant, and the sky is a deep blue with a few white clouds. The morning is already warm at 66˚. The temperature will pass 70˚ today. I have errands, and it is the perfect day to do errands and maybe take a ride along the ocean.

When I was a kid, I had no idea what I wanted to be, but I knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to see the world. I wanted to jump out of my geography book into real places, faraway places. The pictures in my geography book sent my imagination reeling. I could see myself standing on the mountain in Rio below the giant statue of Christ of the Andes. The statue with his arms outspread. Riding a camel in the desert seemed the height of adventure. I wanted to see old England and the castle of the queen. I wanted to eat strange foods. I wanted to wander.

From my grandparents house, we, my brother, my uncle and I, walked a couple of times to Logan Airport, not a short walk. We didn’t tell my parents. They would have said no so we just left. At the airport, I climbed to a roof observation deck where I could watch the planes. Logan back then was a sprawl of wooden buildings, mostly one story. I watched people walk on the tarmac from the planes to the terminals. Men pushed carts to the planes to unload suitcases. Everyone was well-dressed.

On one of my excursions to Logan Airport when I was around ten or eleven, I collect brochures from every stall and counter. When I got home, I spent hours and days cutting and then pasting pictures from the brochures into an album. It was my travel album, the chronicle of my imaginary journey. On every page were pictures of where I’d been, where I stayed and where I ate. I even wrote commentary. The pages were stiff and thick from the glue on the pictures. Sometimes the pages stuck, but it didn’t matter. I pored over those pages and saw myself everywhere.

I don’t know what happened to that album. I figured during a move it was tossed, but that didn’t matter. The album had come alive. Imaginary trips had become real trips. I had jumped from the pages of my geography books into adventures everywhere.

The morning is foggy and damp. A light mist is in the air. The prediction is for a high of 66˚, but right now it is only in the 50’s. Yesterday was a delight with bright sun and a clear blue sky. It was warm. I did deck work, clearing branches, leaves and the ubiquitous pine needles. Nala played keep-away with a toy from the house, a Santa which once was a Christmas ornament. That further cemented my decision not to have a tree last Christmas.

Some of the experiences and the joys in my life are permanently etched in my memory drawers, in one drawer especially, one drawer labeled Amazing.

I remember the field below my house. The grass was tall and turned brown quickly in the summer heat. I’d run through that field and watch the grasshoppers jumping in front of me. They were brown like the grass. I’d catch one in my hands then let it go. The grasshoppers left brown stains on my hands. I always thought it was grasshopper poop.

I remember sleeping outside in the backyard. I’d lie on my back and watch the sky hoping to see a shooting star. I usually did, and an out loud wow always followed. In Ghana, I saw a night sky filled with more stars than I’d ever seen. I saw shooting stars every night. I’d point and yell to my friends who were outside in their yard on the other side of the wall. Those nights sleeping outside were so spectacular I wanted to stay awake to watch the sky. I never did.

I remember standing with one foot in each hemisphere when I was in Ecuador. A small shack was beside the invisible equator. The man inside the shack sold postcards with the cancellation stamp reading equator. I send one to my parents. I sent them a postcard from every country I visited.

When I was a kid, I loved watching snow fall under the street light in front of my house. The flakes gleamed and shined. The light was a circle in the snow. It looked magical, a realm of fairyland.

Sunsets, fireflies, Christmas trees standing tall and bright with lights, the first colors of spring, the first sip of coffee in the morning, sheets smelling of sun and fresh air, dogs happy to see me when I come home, cozy clothes and summer breezes are joys in my life. I keep them safe in my memory drawer, in the one labeled Amazing.

Yesterday it rained. My kitchen floor is filled with paw prints, pieces of dead leaves and a few errant pine cones. Most are compliments of Nala. Today is a cool spring day. The sky is cloudy but not so cloudy as to drown out the light. No rain is predicted. The high will be 60˚. My dance card is empty for the first time this week. I’m going to do around the house stuff, some cleaning and some laundry. Tomorrow I’m busy again. I’m heading to the big city, Hyannis.

When I was a kid, I was pretty fearless. Spiders never scared me. I watched snakes. I liked the way they slithered. The night was wondrous. I’d sit on the back steps in the dark and listen. I always thought I was hearing owls, but it was the cooing of mourning doves. Dogs barked. I could hear people talking and TV’s blaring through open windows and screen doors. I was always alone sitting in the dark with the night.

When I was in high school, I walked all over. I walked home at night. I loved those night walks home. It never occurred to me to be afraid. I always felt safe in my town. I could hear my footsteps echoing. The sidewalks were lit here and there from the lights coming from windows. Streetlights hanging over the road were bright circles on the asphalt. I never saw many cars. I remember the lit picture window in the front of my house. It invited me home.

The only places I have traveled alone are Morocco and Ghana. My family was a bit nervous about my going to Morocco. I laughed afterwards when they told me my brother-in-law, Rod, was the designated family member to go to Morocco to get me in case I ran into trouble. Every night in Marrakech I went to the Jemaa el-Fnaa, the huge square, for dinner. It was set up with tables and wagons. Colored light strands decorated the tops of the food stands. To me, all the food offerings looked the same from place to place so I’d find one which looked comfortable then I’d sit down, peruse the menu and order. I’d watch the meat cooking on grills and the vegetables being chopped. There was always a saucer with fresh crushed tomatoes and spices. I ate something different every night. As I was leaving, I’d stop at one of the wagons and buy some pastry for dessert. My final stop was an outdoor cafe for coffee. The walk home to my riad was through the narrow streets and alleyways of the old city. I loved those nights.

I swear I saw the sun when I woke up. Now it’s gone, replaced by clouds holding rain. The temperature is the usual for a raw spring day, 52˚. The wind has just started blowing. I need a better day, a prettier day, a day with sun. That won’t be tomorrow either so I’ll have to be patient until Thursday.

When I was a kid, everything was simple. Every weekday was the same: get up, get dressed in my school uniform, a blue skirt, white blouse and blue clip on western tie, eat breakfast, walk to school and then spend most of the day in class doing lessons except for lunch and recess. When I’d get home, the first thing I had to do was change into my play clothes. If the weather was good, I went out on my bike while other times I played with friends. I remember roller skating on the sidewalk with the old key skates. Sometimes we explored the woods and the swamp beyond the field below our houses. I never felt bored.

When I got older, boredom struck. In hindsight I think it and adolescence struck at the same time. Every weekday resembled every weekday when I was a kid. I got up, put on my school uniform, a pleated plaid skirt, a white blouse, a grey vest, nylons and black loafers, ate breakfast then walked to the bus stop. The bus went through two towns. I used the time to study. Most of the day was spent in class learning. The exception was lunch and standing outside for a little while in a paved area surrounded by a metal fence. When I got home, I changed into play clothes then sat at the kitchen table and did my homework. I was bored.

When I was in Ghana, most weekdays were the same. I got up, got dressed in a dress made with Ghanaian cloth, ate breakfast, the same breakfast every day, taught classes, ate lunch, the same lunch every day and then I’d spend the afternoon correcting papers or preparing lessons for the next day. I’d eat dinner, pretty much the same dinner every day, take my shower then read before bed. I always went to bed early. I never felt bored.