Keep the Coffee Comimg

It is late I know, but this morning started in the afternoon, but I took my time anyway. The coffee was delicious, and I ate one of the scones I had bought yesterday at the farmer’s market, a blueberry scone. It too was delicious. Today has had the best beginning.

Yesterday we had a concert, and I have another tomorrow, the fifth uke event of the week, so today is another sloth day. I do have a few weird chores. I need to move a rug into the eaves and hunt through the closet here in the den for a couple of newspaper canvas slings. That last one entails moving baskets, my ironing board serving table and a couple of posters, but I’m not so sure I’ll finish it as that chore violates the sloth code to which I have dedicated my life.

When I think back, I know I had an amazing childhood. We lived just about at the top of a hill. That made for great sledding in the winter and speedy downhills on my bike during the rest of the year, the snowless parts of the year. Just beyond the hill was a big field mostly surrounded by trees. By summer the grass in that field was tall. I remember running through it and leaving a bit of a path behind me, a sort of a parting of the Red Sea path. The field was filled with brown grasshoppers. They’d jump in front of me as I ran. I’d catch them in my bare hands. The swamp was beyond the field. It was the best place in every season: winter skating, spring tadpole watching and summer frog catching. I used to like to fight my way through the trees and underbrush beyond the water just to see what was there.

Uptown was special. It was filled with stores including a diner, a spa, a few drug stores, a movie theater and the best store of all, a Woolworth’s. At Christmas time, uptown was decorate with strands of greenery from light to light and a bell in the middle of each strand. Different groups took turns singing Christmas carols on a raised dais in the middle of the square. I remember feeling proud and excited when my classmates and I sang. I hoped everyone noticed me.

I was a joiner. I was a Brownie then a Girl Scout and lasted long enough to get my ten year pin. I was on the drill team from about when I was eleven until I moved to the cape. First it was practice on Saturday mornings to learn the basics like marching, about face, attention, all the parade commands. Then I marched with the senior drill team, an all year activity: practice all winter learning our field maneuver and competitions all summer. I still have wonderful friends I met when I marched.

I have been the luckiest person. My dream came true when I went into the Peace Corps, a dream I’d had since I was 13. I have traveled so many places, also a dream from when I was a kid when I longed to see the world. I had a career I loved, working with high school kids. They kept me on my toes, but they were amazing. I got to watch them grow. I got to be a part of that. I don’t think there is anything more rewarding. I have the best memories of my kids. That is always how I think of them.