Competing Thoughts

May 29, 2018.  The school year wraps up this week, setting my teacher partner free to travel.  He has been prepping our Airstream, and I have been busily tweaking reservations along the path we’re targeting this summer.  Some returns, some new locations.  All of it flexible should we change our minds!  Our minds are crammed full … no question we are overlooking something (to be further tweaked down the line).

In our yard, every day something new blooms … bringing regrets that we must miss this to venture toward the other.  This collage blends purple coneflowers with datura, both prolific bloomers frequented by bees.

Transitions

May 18, 2018.  Transitions happen, ready or not. I wasn’t. This is day eleven of our new indoor-only cat living the outdoor-only lifestyle. I’ll spare details, but she violated Gary’s tolerance one too many times. This has been harder on me than on the cat, but I am observing her absolute glee with the outdoors and coming around to interpreting her plaintive meows as less complaint than plea for me to join her out there!

All changes again when we begin summer travels.  Both cats will be indoors for the duration.  Both will be very ready to explore the yard when we return. And perhaps at that point, the older cat and younger cat will share in-and-out privileges equally. I have fingers crossed. But I am open to the possibility that this little catalyst may have yet more to teach me.

This image I created for the 2010 Gathering of Circles – http://www.gatheringofcircles.com

 

Blown Away

May 3, 2018.  Yesterday afternoon I ventured out in weather that could not quite rain but refused to calm down … I had one of those moments of recall that brought me home to write down the memories.  Searching through files, I found photos from 2017 of the same place, on a similar overcast day – which I’ve coupled with a closer view of the prickly poppies prevalent this time of the year.  I go back once a year or so, preferably in the Spring.  My aunt’s house is long gone, but the road remains pretty much the same – near Cheapside, 20 miles out from Cuero TX.

My memories are of the year I lived in the country with my aunt, who worked in town and got home a good 2 hours after the school bus dropped me at the front gate.  I spent those 2 hours daily walking the country road, solo except for cows off in the pasture.  I was in the 8th grade, a pivotal year, and I owe so much to those walks!  One day in particular, the wind nearly knocked me down, but I charged into it rather than go inside to be “safe”.