The morning is damp and cold. The house was only 64˚ when we all woke up, the dogs and I. The sun is supposed to appear later, but it will stay in the low 60’s. I have two errands, the dump and the store for cat food. I found a taste Jack likes. He empties his bowl. Unlike dogs, cats are picky. My dogs will eat anything. Each morning they get a biscuit and some banana. I just get the banana.

The air is sweet. When I walk outside, I can smell the flowers. My lilac tree is in bloom. Dark purple flowers are spread across the top. In the front garden, the white ground cover flowers have spread and bloomed. Here and there are a few pink flowers. My day lilies are tall. They border my lawn and the wild spot between my house and the next. Most of them are orange but a few yellow are intermingled. The forsythia tree has yellow buds. It is the oldest growing thing in my garden. The tree was a housewarming gift in 1977. I almost lost it one year, but it is full now. Lilies of the valley are all over the yard. They came from my mother’s house. I think of her every spring when the lilies bloom. I think it a joy to be remembered in flowers.

Every morning the dogs sense the change in my breathing and know I’m awake. They start whacking me so I have no choice but to get up. That seems to happen around 8:30 every day. I have become a creature of habit.

Last night I was patting Nala and found a tick on the inside of her floppy ear. It was tiny and hadn’t yet impeded. I flushed it. Now I’m paranoid about ticks. I checked Nala and found no more. I checked as much of Henry as he let me. He too was clean. Every day now they’ll be checked.

I sit with Jack every night, usually close to an hour. He gets treats, clean water, fresh wet food and more dry food. I clean his litter box. Jack sits behind me while I either pat or comb him. He is a huge, fluffy boy. I always find clumps. He purrs the entire time I clear the clumps. Every morning I go in and give Jack some treats and pat him and scratch his back. He always watches and waits for me. The dogs impatiently stand waiting outside the cat room gate. They want out.

The house is dark. Everything is quiet. The rain has stopped, and the wind is gone. Even the dogs have settled. I am content.

This morning I got rained on. The rain lasted as long as it took me to get the paper and yesterday’s mail, but since then, the rain has started again, and it is supposed to rain most of the day. Add 55˚to the mix, and it is an ugly day, a sweatshirt day, a good day to be home.

Yesterday I mortgaged my house to buy my dump sticker. Okay, I am exaggerating, but I did pay $190.00 for the privilege of dumping my own trash. That is on my dance card for tomorrow.

When I was a kid, my mother didn’t drive. She’d walk uptown pushing my sister in the baby carriage while my other sister walked beside her holding on to the carriage. My mother grocery shopped on Friday nights when my father could drive her to and from the store, but after we moved to the cape, my mother learned to drive as everything was too far way for walking. Later, when she had her own car, she had a sense of freedom she’d never had before. She grocery shopped any day she wanted.

I haven’t been back to my hometown in a long while. But when I go back, I always drive by the duplex on the hill where we lived for so long. Other than this house, it is where I’ve lived the longest. Even now, years and years away, I still close my eyes and pull from my memory drawer the inside of the house. I can see the green entry way where the desk stood. The living room had a couch and chair, a table by the picture window and the TV in the corner. There were two closets, one in the living room and one in the tiniest of halls, barely a hall at all. It stood opposite the door to the cellar. The kitchen too was small and the table and chairs were in the corner near the back door. Upstairs were three bedrooms and the bathroom. My bedroom was on the left, my parents’ room was on the right of the staircase and my brother’s room faced the hall. The bathroom was next to my room. We didn’t have a shower. I remember the hamper was in the hall across from the bathroom.

I am always astounded by what I find in my memory drawers. My childhood is there in the back drawers. All the places where we lived are there, even the one in South Boston where we lived until I was five. I find joy and sorrow in the drawers, in the memories. I am thankful for both.