I love this morning. It is sunny, though the sun is only temporary, and it is warmish, already in the mid 60’s. The air is still. The leaves outside my window have turned bright red, and the color is popping in the sun. The house is quiet. It is nap time for the dogs. After all, they have been awake for a couple of hours and must be exhausted.

When I was a kid, my favorite day of the week was Saturday. My father did his errands, and sometimes I went with him. When I did, I thought those were special Saturdays. Uptown was always bustling on Saturdays. Hanks had fresh bread. The barbershop, a small one with only a couple of chairs, had men waiting. My father always got a trim. He’d pick up his clean shirts and leave his dirty shirts at the Chinese laundry. The clean shirts were wrapped in brown paper and tied with white twine. They were on a shelf in a sort of bookcase behind the counter. The laundry was hot and humid from the big presser in the front by the side window. Sometimes our timing was perfect, and I got to watch the man press shirts. The presser hissed with steam.

Three drug stores were right in the square and another was not far from the square. Middlesex Drug was the biggest. Pullo’s was the smallest. Sometimes my father stopped to visit with Pullo who was also the pharmacist and wore a white coat. He’d come from behind the counter to visit my dad. I’d have a Coke while I was waiting.

When I go back to my hometown, I ride through the square. From my memory drawers, I can see my square when I was a kid. I see the police box in the middle of the street, Woolworth’s and Grants, all those drug stores, Kennedy’s with its cheese, pickles and barrels out front, the spa and the Chinese laundry. I knew how special the square, uptown, was even way back then.

Today is so lovely it just about defines fall on Cape Cod. It’s 65° and sunny. I went on the deck to fill the birds’ favorite feeder and sat a while. The dogs romped in the yard. The nuthatches, even more than the chickadees, flew in and out then perched on branches to dine.

My house is so filled with spiders’ webs it could be the setting for a black and white 50’s science fiction movie. The spiders are all babies, spiderlings. They link everything together with tiny webs. I carry a duster for the high webs and find my stocking feet work well in clearing the lower webs.

When I was a kid, I was never afraid of spiders. I remember some girls would scream and run as if a horde of giant spiders was chasing them, chasing their entrees. I might have had a spider bite, but it’s hard to know. The bites are tiny and red and don’t even hurt. The bigger webs are beautiful, like doilies crocheted into intricate patterns. My favorite web was at the end of the movie The Fly. The main character with his human head and fly body was stuck in a web and crying, “Help me. Help me,” because a spider was advancing with dinner on its mind. Two men, who knew what had happened, were watching. One grabbed a rock and killed the spider and the fly.

When I was a kid, I was exasperating. You probably will find this difficult to believe, but I had an answer for everything. My parents were not amused.

I have favorite places. Home is always at the top of the list. It is where I find comfort and warmth, where I can wear my cozy clothes and where I can sometimes eat out of the pan. Ghana is next. It is my other home. Other countries, Portugal and Ecuador, are also on the list. I have done amazing things I dreamed of doing when I was eleven, when I first promised myself I’d see the world. I stood in two hemispheres at the equator. I have ridden a camel in the Sahara. I have bargained in markets where I probably paid too much but still thought I was wonderful at haggling. I have ridden in a balloon, a helicopter, a glider and in wonderful old prop planes. I don’t know what will come. I just know I’ll find it wonderful and exciting. I always do.