Till We Meet Again

 I have been waking up with/because of the birds, but it is all OK.

It is hard to start a post when one has be absent for so long.  As I wrote in a comment on my last blog, life has taken me on a detour and I am going down a road that is not totally unfamiliar to me but has become a little more winding.  At times, I just want to jump out and go home but that can't be.  

I do not know if I will write again on Blogger but maybe I will be able to pop in every now and then.  My computer  problems continue and besides not being able to comment most of the time, there are some blogs that I cannot read because of the font.  Oh how I wish Old Blogger had never changed, but all things do, don't they? 

I want to thank so many of the kind and wonderful people I have met in my ten years on this site.  I don't have the words to tell  you how much you have meant to me and how your comments have truly lifted me up and made me feel like I mattered.  We come from different places with different lives but yet, we all share being human, with feelings of joy, sorrow, pain, and gladness, and oh, how we all love to laugh.  I have been enriched because of all you shared with me.

Some years ago, the lovely Susan of  “The Contemplative Cat”, started a photo prompt meme and asked people to send in pictures for them and others to write a story.   It was a fun exercise and I did enjoy participating in it.  I wrote the following and it is somewhat autobiographical. It is the one I want to leave with you.  Like all that is grown and all that is born, every life force that enters  into this world has a chance to show their magnificence.  We have our time in the sun and time to spread our seeds and gifts and if we tend it well, our legacy will be here forever. 

The Gardener

She lived at the end of our road in a small, neat, white clapboard house.  I used to pass her by as I went for my walk in the morning and I would see her again at night when I took Kerry, our dog, for his evening constitutional.  She was always working in her garden.  She was a lady up in her years and dressed in a big brimmed purple hat, a blue dress with a green apron and big yellow rubber shoes.  She was a staple in the neighborhood, but I never knew her name.  We always just called her "The Gardener".  Once or twice  a year I did stop to talk and tell her how I admired her plantings.  She would always say, "Thank you, but I can't seem to get it just right this year."  She seldom looked up and I wasn't sure if she was talking to me or herself.   Her yard was lovely and and there was always something new to see.  I wish, I had taken the time to speak with her longer, but we all live busy lives and other than say hello, I went about my business and she with hers.

The lady has been gone for a few years now and the new owners have done away with most of her gardens.  As I passed her home the other day, there, in a crack in the pavement, lay the daintiest of plants clinging to life among the weeds that were also choking to get out.  I thought of leaning down and trying to pull it out, but then I thought of her, and it occurred to me that this might have been a seed from one of her flowers that had fallen between the sidewalk and laid dormant until now.  I smiled, said hello, and walked on thinking that "The Gardener", in a way, was still there.

I wish you all beautiful days and please take time to smell the roses. 

Long Time, No Write

 Getting through these days, and  I am doing OK.

I haven’t disappeared, I am just in the shadows.  Blogger has not been kind and has caused me all kinds of aggravation and frustration these past few months.  Being part of the “older than dirt”generation, frustration is the last thing that I (or anybody else) need now, and throwing in the towel has been considered. My problems started when I was not allowed into a few blogs because a new security app that was installed deemed them “Red Alert”, Do Not Open. I contacted the company and after investigation, the red alert was removed and I could read those blogs.  However, my problems continued, although this time it had to do with sending comments. Now, after reading posts and writing a comment, the comment disappears and a “Whoops, Sorry, Try Again” page appears.  At first, I did try again and again but kept getting that message.  I followed their instructions to no avail.  Now, some comments do publish every now and then and if I power down and reboot hours later, I can get a few more to publish.  I feel bad about not responding to all your posts.  I read them every day but until I can get help from someone technically smarter than me to fix my problem, I do not know what to do.  My feeling is that a new iPad will probably have to be in my future.

On a positive note, My Retired Man and I are fully inoculated from Covid and we are past the two week wait period.  I know that we will still have to be careful and wear our masks in public because of variants, but in the past week we ate at two, not crowded, outdoor restaurants.  I can’t remember what we had to eat, but that wasn’t the point. A few days later I got to hug my grandson on his 21st birthday and yesterday I picked up my one year old granddaughter and held her tightly.  A hug is worth a million dollars to me, so that makes me a very rich woman.

Fingers crossed that this post gets published.

It Could Never Happen Here

 But it did!

I am not OK. 

My country is not OK.

Our hearts are broken.

Healing starts today.

Because it must.