Sometime last night thunder boomed overhead. The sound was like canon shots, not the usual claps. We all woke up, the dogs and I, but it didn’t happen again so we fell back to sleep. It was odd. 

Last night it rained. I didn’t hear it. Everything is still wet. The sky was cloudy this morning, a light gray, but the sun has made an appearance as has the blue sky. It is warm at 62°. Rain is predicted for later. 

When I think about growing up, I have good memories. I had everything a kid could want: a bike, a sled, roller skates and ice skates. I was equipped for every season. My roller skate key was on a string around my neck. I used it to tighter the grip of the skate clamps to the top sides of my shoes. Sometimes my shoes fell out of the clamps, and I had to reattach the skate to the shoe. I remember the silly walk with my skate hanging, still attached to my foot by the strap. It was lift the leg and swing the hanging skate in the air. I’d then sit on the curb and retighten the clamps. I loved the clicking sound of my skates on the sidewalk, and the way the bottom of my feet felt when I wore the skates. 

The eighth grade was the last grade in my grammar school. I had attended the school since first grade. I had nuns one year and lay teachers the next, all women. One, my second grade teacher, Mrs. Kerrigan, was an old time teacher. She had gray hair she wore in a bun. Her dresses were flowered. Her shoes, her black shoes, had clunky heels. She always carried a pocketbook. Mrs. Kerrigan lived on the second floor of a house across from the church. She walked to school. She was soft-spoken. In my mind’s eye, I can still see a glimpse of her.

I remember a trip we took, my family and I, to the White Mountains. We saw it all. We took the last bus to the Flume and had to walk back to the parking lot. The Man in the Mountain still protruded from the ledge. I thought the man looked amazing, craggy, grizzled. He would fall in 2003. I was so glad I had seen him in all his glory. My father drove up Mount Washington. I remember how slow he drove. I kept looking over the edge glad for the slowness. When we got to the top, it was cold. I couldn’t imagine living on the top of the mountain in winter. When we went back to the car, a bumper sticker had been attached, “This car climbed Mount Washington.”

My dance card has a uke concert tomorrow then nothing until Tuesday. I’m going to do some yard cleaning of Nala’s trash and fill a couple of feeders. That’s it.

The morning is pretty but a bit chilly, only in the 50’s. The last few days had me thinking that the warmth of spring was here to stay so the chill is unwelcomed. Yesterday was a tee shirt day. Today is a sweatshirt day. 

Right now I am watching the very first Perry Mason. I remember watching later episodes when I was in high school. I love this episode with the men in their fedoras, the ancient looking cars and the women’s fashions, the small hats and the white gloves for every day wear. Perry is quite dapper in his patterned sports jacket with a handkerchief in his pocket. He is wearing light slacks. The music is dramatic. Perry is facing the forever prosecutor Hamilton Burger, and Lieutenant Tragg arrested his client. Years back, Perry Mason was on in the afternoons, and my friend Joan and I watched together a few afternoons a week. It was a tradition of sorts. I thought of her today when I started watching.

Memories, even some of the smallest memories, seem to hang around forever in the far back corners of my memory drawers. They jump to the fore when something clicks, when something taps that memory, sometimes something unexpected. I know smell triggers memories. The smell of wood burning takes me back to Camp Aleska, the Girl Scout camp in my hometown. It was in the woods at the end of a dirt road. The main room had a giant fireplace. It had seating all around which also served as storage. That’s where the cots were. I remember the room always smelled of wood and fire. We’d light the fireplace, and I’d fall asleep watching the light from the fire flickering and jumping. The sweet aroma of the wood burning filled the room. 

In Ghana, in the mornings, the compounds behind my house lit wood fires for cooking. I woke to the aroma of the burning wood wafting across the fields. One time, I was hitching from Tamale to Bolgatanga, my home, a hundred mile trip. One of my rides was turning off the main road so he dropped me by a tiny village. It was a charcoal village. Trees were lying on the ground and smoldering in the middle, in a sort of hewed trough. The smell from the smoke was sweet. It clung to my clothes and my hair. It stayed with me.

I am hanging around the house today. I’m missing a concert. I overdid the last few days thinking all was well. Today I’m hurting. I figure I shouldn’t have collected all the fallen pine branches in parts of my yard. I have a concert Saturday I’m looking forward to so the day of rest is in preparation. The dogs and I are comfortable on the couch. It seems the perfect spot.