The morning is cold, sweatshirt weather. It has been, as my mother would say, spitting rain. I’ve lost track of the number of ugly days in a row. The sun is a fading memory. I am becoming the little girl in Bradbury’s All Summer In a Day.

If my 77 almost 78 year old self surprised my ten year old self, I wondered what questions I’d ask the so much older me. I decided that was a neat idea so I gave it some thought and came up with a few questions.

Has my life been happy? Has it been fun? Have my dreams come true? I think those are the most important questions of all. My answers would delight the young me. Have I ever traveled? Oh, the stories I would tell about the places I’ve been, the most amazing things I’ve seen and the people I’ve met. I’d let it slip that I actually lived in Africa and rode a camel in the Sahara. The young me would be in awe and listen with the widest grin on my face. What did I grow up to do? I’d talk about the job I was lucky enough to choose, the job I loved. It was seldom work. What did I like to do? They’d be no surprise that I love to read and watch old black and white science fiction movies probably still current back then. I love to cook, and that is a surprise. I do needlework, and that’s even a bigger surprise. The young me never gave thought I’d love what are sort of, to me, old womanly activities, tasks. I’d talk about playing the ukulele. Back then I didn’t believe I had a musical bone in my body. I sang so badly off tune it even hurt my ears.

After the questions were asked and answered, I’d use a sort of Neuralyzer to wipe away the memories of my visit. I wouldn’t want to influence the young me. I’d want my life to follow its natural course.

Today will have some light rain. The morning is chilly. It will be in the low 60’s during the day and the 50’s tonight. The sun has disappeared. Usually it hides all weekend but reappears on Monday, but today, I think the sun is lost.

When I was a kid, I never gave much thought to the future beyond the day or maybe even the next day. I counted the days before Christmas, but that was special. When my aunt the nun asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I made up an answer. I didn’t even know what I wanted to do on the next Saturday let alone some ambiguous future. Give me a break. I was nine.

The first time I even thought about the future was when I vowed to travel. That was when I contracted Barrett’s disease. My classmate Marty Barrett had been to England to visit his grandmother, and I was jealous. I used to go to East Boston to see mine. I had always pored over the pictures in my geography book and dreamed about traveling, about visiting far off places. The only relatives that ever traveled did so compliments of Uncle Sam. They were in the service. That included my father who, during World War II, had been to England, Belgium and the Netherlands. Canada was my first foreign country but, in my mind, it didn’t count. It felt unforeign, a perfect new word. I’d have to wait for Ghana for my next country which was about as foreign as I ever could have imagined.

Some places I have visited filled me with wonder and awe. Standing on the equator was one of them. I was in two hemispheres at the same time, one foot in each. Machu Picchu was another. I remember looking out one window and thinking that so very long ago an Incan looked out that same window and saw what I was seeing. Flying over the Andes and seeing the shadow of the plane on the mountain tops was like a scene from an adventure movie. It would have fit perfectly into Raiders of the Lost Ark. I remember thinking how craggy the tops of the mountains were.

I live in Massachusetts which has always felt old in a good way, but then I found out what old can actually be. The first trip I took after Ghana was to Europe, England first. Being there made me feel like I was in a history book. I walked in and around Stonehenge, visited all the tourist places in London, ate all sorts of interesting food, saw plays and traveled in the countryside. Nothing disappointed me.

It has been a while since I last traveled. I just haven’t been able to afford a trip, but I am starting to scrimp and save as in two years I want back to Ghana. I will be 80. It will be a present to myself.