Today is breezy and cloudy but still hot at 82°. I haven’t yet started the AC because the house feels cool enough. My dance card is empty for the weekend. I’m thinking to haul out my fall decorations. We’re coming into pumpkin time.

I remember my first grade classroom. It was up a flight of stairs on the right. Just outside the classroom doors was the cloak room with a double row of hooks on two walls. There were so many coats in the winter that you didn’t need a hook. All you needed to do was put your coat between some coats, and it would stay there. I don’t remember my second grade classroom. I just know it was across the hall from my first grade room. Mrs. Kerrigan was my teacher. She was the iconic teacher. I remember she had gray hair always in a bun, wore flowered dresses and clunky heeled shoes. She had an apartment across the street from the church. My third grade was in the cellar of the rectory. It had tables and chairs and a large clock on one wall. The walls had been white-washed. I sat at the table on the left wall. I also remember all the rest of my classrooms, but the only memorable one was my fourth grade room on the second floor in the old school. From fifth to eight grade, I was in the new school, and the classrooms all looked alike.

When I travel, my favorite time of the day is the morning. I love getting up early and wandering the streets. The morning has its own smells and sounds. Trucks stop to unload, people walk to work and buses are filled. I usually find a hole in the wall where I get coffee, sometimes even a pastry and can sit outside to watch the world unfold. I always feel part of it yet removed.