Women in my life

I wrote this poem over thirty years ago. Now I'm putting my published and prize wining short stories and poems in an anthology. As I entered it, I realized that only Llara and Susan are still alive. There is both a sadness that I can't telephone or email the others or message them, get on a plane and hug them, drink tea and share what we've been doing, yet in a strange way they are still part of me many decades later.

WOMEN IN MY LIFE

Llara

My daughter is thirty. I tell people

we’ve had twenty-eight wonderful years.

Five and thirteen are best forgotten.

She was always independent,

insisting

on holding her own bottle.

Insisting

on making her own decisions

which were almost always right

And certainly, as good as mine.

I am neat

needing things in neurotic order.

She marks her territory

scattering her possession

wherever she goes.

She is good at math and

can put furniture together.

I am good at words and

can put furniture together

but wrong

so she fixes it.

We lived in a small flat for nine months,

agreeing that our relationship

was more important than neat or messy,

making a lie of the saying two women

can’t get along under the same roof.

 

Susan

She knows if I’m well

by the way I walk through a room.

Maybe

Because we’ve walked in each other’s souls.

She saved my daughter’s life

and thus saved mine.

When we had a rough patch,

I thought that was reading my journal,

so I wrote in green ink,

“Susan, I know you’re reading this.”

In blue ink, the next day, I found

“No, I’m not, just keep writing.”

A problem with old friends

is they don’t let you fool yourself.

It works both ways.

Each year we go on retreat.

One year in Argelès-sur mer,

the next in Ocean Grove.

We walk on the beach,

eat fresh corn

lick ice cream cones,

listen to music,

rent movies, read to each other,

play Scrabble,

talk about men,

my writing, her teaching,

women’s studies, politics,

history and art.

Freed from chores

it is a renewal of all

that is good in our lives.

 

Mardy

A boy with beautiful blue

eyes dated Mardy and me at the same time.

At sixteen we decided

we liked each other better than him.

Tied by the telephone cord for hours

we told our dreams.

 When I was getting divorced,

Mardy held the glue pot

as I pieced myself together.

When we walked in the woods behind

her folks’ Maine cabin. We tasted wild

blackberries as she spoke

of nightmares.

And now that we are happy

she tells me we are not just

foul-weather friends.

 

Norma

My father fell in love with my stepmom

when they were both married to other people.

She swirled across the dance floor in a

white gown embroidered with violets

and into his arms.

They never had his children or her children.

“We have “our children,” she always said in

a tone that let everyone know

there was no alternative.

When she visits,

we play cards.

she wipes me out,

no dainty widow lady, she.

We go to restaurants,

share memories of my Dad

And build new ones of our own.

 

Lillian

They met I secretarial school,

Lillian and my mother,

agreed on nothing for sixty years,

stayed friends and fought

over every issue.

At eighty Lillian

picketed the British consulate,

marched for pro-choice,

and told of a man in an

Irish pub. He raved about her hair,

suggesting they sleep together.

“Did you?” I asked.

She shook her head.

”I was wearing a wig.

I didn’t want him to know.”

“And if you weren’t?”

She just smiled.

 

Dar

No one, least of all me, knows why I

called my grandmother Dar, but soon

the world followed, even her friends

from childhood. She never minded being

renamed in her fifties.

When she baked a cake, she used

all the batter but gave me the spoon to lick

read me The Bobbsey Twins, and made

mud pies that looked good enough to eat.

A high school drop out

she prodded me through algebra,

tested my Latin verbs,

knew more history than

The substitute teacher.

 

Despite her thick glasses

she told me I was beautiful.

She was a New England Yankee.

Right was right.

Wrong was wrong.

When she had eye surgery,

she didn’t tell the doctor

the anesthesia hasn’t worked,

thinking it should hurt.

And when she lost two children

She bore that hurt too…

And when I lost her,

I wore my pain

as she would have wanted me to.

 

Dar saw five wars,

Lillian only four.

Norma was a wave on WWII

while Mardy, Susan and I

can touch names on a

long black wall in D.C.

Names of boys we played with

who will play no more.

Llara?

She knows war as a media even

as men with mikes talk on CNN.

These women’s lives span

the inventions of electricity to email.

Dar abandoned her horse and buggy,

was called THE woman with Ford,

while the rest of us jump on

Planes to change continents at whim.

No Stantons,

Steinems,

Sangers,

Or Curies

In this group.

They march by history

Not create it.

No one will write books,

Sing songs,

Make movies,

nor sculpt statues for public place

Honoring their lives.

They honor themselves.

 

 

 

 

Witches and Halloween

 

One cannot grow up close to Salem, MA without knowing about the Salem witch trials.  

Lately there have been moves by governments to exonerate the witches that were drowned, beheaded, or burned to death.

Massachusetts did it for Elizabeth Johnson, although she was not executed. A group of middle school children fought for her exoneration, a great exercise in fighting the system.

Anna Goldi who was beheaded in 1782 in Switzerland was exonerated by the Swiss government in 2007. It did not restore her head to her body.

The Scottish Government is working on the exoneration of 2500 witches of the 4000 accused. They were killed by strangulation or burning or both. Scotland holds the record for number of witches found and killed.

 At first  I thought why bother. They will not be resurrected, but then in rethinking it strikes me that there is a similar ignorance today on a range of topics, especially when it comes to some religions be it Muslims or some far-right evangelical Christians, or Jews or or or... Ignorance becomes the motivating factor in injustice.

Granted there are not church-supported manuals such as the Witches Hammer (Malleus Maleficarum) that are being used today.

And there was King James VI's Deamonolgie written in 1597 which said witch hunting was fine. 

The majority of witches were women, usually women who didn't fit the society mold of what a woman should be. Their witchdom accusations came from an accuser's testimony: sometimes it was a person who would benefit from the witch's death. Crimes could include turning butter rancid or alleged dancing with Satan. 

Somehow the group belief in witches is no different from all the people who fell for the lie that the 2020 American election was stolen. 

There is the Wicca religion, a modern pagan religion. Scholars of religion categorize it as both a new religious movement and as part of the occultist stream of Western esotericism. Developed in England during the first half of the 20th century, it was introduced to the public in 1954. There is an estimate that it is practiced by a few hundred thousand. 

There are still places on earth where not following strict beliefs of a religion can cause arrest and even death. 

Meanwhile children may look for a witch costume to celebrate Halloween with no fear of arrest or death. They have little concept of the history of witches and the danger it represented even with the promise of exoneration centuries in the future.

 

I love Stories

 

I've always loved stories, from Old  Grandfather Frog talking to Sammy Jay and Jimmy the Skunk to Beverly Gray, the five children who spent the Summer at Buckhorn and lots more.

My mother was a great story teller while I had my bath. She read bedtime stories to me too. Sometimes we did double stories, where one of us would start, the other would pick it up and then we would alternate. We had a series where I was a philanthropic snake and she was the person who find people for me to help.

I was also a great reader and I made up stories in my head. I wrote stories as well.

As an adult I still love stories, fiction, non fiction. I will listen to strangers' stories with whatever emotion is called for. The same with friends, relatives and acquaintances. 

I love movies with good people stories. 

Hallmark's Christmas movies are now appearing on many French and Swiss channels. A day doesn't go by where you can't find one. I watch maybe one or two a year because it is the same story with different faces. I can almost predict the plot twists. I wonder if the screen writers have a manual that says at moment 24 introduce a problem and at moment 32 ... you get the idea.

I want to know why a character does this or that.

I want to check out the environment a character is in.

I was so lucky this year to be able to spend two days at the Edinburgh Storytelling Festival. https://duckduckgo.com/?q=edinburgh+storytelling+festival&atb=v338-1&ia=web I could have happily been there the entire month but the four events we went to were wonderful.

My favorites were the Hearth Nights, with four storytellers in front of a rug with a fake fire to their left.  Stories could be personal, mythical, magical or embody the soul of Scotland.  

The hearth reminded me of my childhood with a story log when we would tell stories until a log became embers.

I have no idea why stories are so important to me. 

Maybe because other people's lives enrich my own, not that my life is lacking. There is still only so much anyone can do in one lifetime. Other lives feed my greediness for more than I can consume.

Maybe because as a writer I'm always looking for a new story to write, although if I lived to be a 1,000, I couldn't write everything that has tiptoed through my head.  

Trump's Syllogism

People who try to over throw a government should be in prison.

Trump tried to overthrow the government.

Trump should be in prison.

Aberlady Graveyard

 

We were at the Duck hotel in Aberlady, Scotland. 

Rick was playing golf.

Although it was still windy, the sun was shining. It was leaf kicking weather. I decide to explore.

Graveyards  have always fascinated me. Graveyards are affiliated with a church. Cemeteries are not religiously connected. The older the graveyard, the more interesting.

Many of the gravestones were so old, whatever information about its tenants had long been blown away by the wind.

 Others seemed to be of mixed colored stone. I've long forgotten my geology from seventh grade.

There were a number of table like stones with a skull and bones. No information about the occupants below.

 

This was the only elaborately carved stone. I assume that the family who ordered it had more money than those that selected a flat piece of rock.

I walked to the rear of the graveyard through the shadow of the church. In the distance I could see the sea.

Graveyards have often provided names of my characters in different novels. I found local names in Insel Poel and in Argelès for Murder on Insel Poel and Murder in Argelès. The Aberlady graveyard was not helpful. One name that stuck out was Elsbeth who died in the 1800s, more because I had met an Elsbeth years ago and she was the only one. I am not planning on setting a novel in this part of Scotland in the 1800s.

Test for Congress

 

When I listen to some of the people in Congress, I shudder at their ignorance. As a friend once said, ignorance can be corrected, stupidity is forever.

And then I look at some of the candidates such as Hershel Walker. He is certainly ignorant. I can't imagine him making decisions for the entire country with his vote.

I wonder how many already in Congress and the candidates could pass the test given to candidates for American citizenship? I wonder how many citizens could pass it. It is not difficult if you are a responsible citizen.

I wonder, for example how many people know America has fought in 107 wars. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_the_United_States Maybe if the alleged leaders are to vote for war, they should know what wars have already been fought and why.

It won't happen, the test for the leaders of the United States, but it should. In reality, every American should have to pass that test just to be a responsible citizen.

High tea, Low pee

 

"You have to have high tea at Greywalls when you're in Edinburgh," my friend Catherine told me almost every time I headed to that fantastic city. Greywalls is located in the nearby town of Muirfield. I have great faith in Catherine's recommendations.

We had spent a week in Inverness where Rick played in the World Hickory Open Championship. This morning we headed toward Edinburgh for the Story Festival before heading home next Friday.

Rick made reservations for us to have high tea at Greywalls based on Catherine's recommendation. We thought we had built in enough time to drive from Inverness. WRONG!!!

The GPS lied about a left that left us in traffic jam on a country road where progress was marked by inches for miles and miles. 

The first hour or so wasn't that bad until my bladder started to fill and fill and fill and fill. Eventually we were back on a major road with an estimate that we would reach Greywalls close to our reservation time. However my physical needs shuddered at Rick's estimates of 34, 24, 15 minutes. As much as I love Scotland, their major roads lack rest stop with toilets. We are spoiled by those in France where rest stops are frequent and vary from those with restaurants and gas stations to those where there is cultural information, wifi, exercise alternatives, etc. along with toilets.

Scotland does have laybys, which are more like a slight pullover. No toilets. I wonder now how huge Scottish bladders are or how strong are the muscles to be able to close the door to unwanted urinary activity.

Finally free of the traffic jam, Rick was giving me the miles and times left to travel. I knew I wouldn't make it.

"Go into a layby," I said.

"Are you sure?"

"YES!"

We were the only car. I took of my coat. By opening the passenger and back doors, I had enough privacy when I squatted that no passing car would see me.

Relieved, we traveled on, drove through a small village, saw the white caps on the sea. We arrived one minute before our reservation time.

The Greywalls hotel built in 1902 was fantastic. A young man led us into a living room with a fire. A table had been set in front of a comfortable sofa.

We ordered the tea, which included finger sandwiches, natural and fruit scones, jam, clotted cream and pastries.

I think the tea was even better because of the delicate flower-decorated cups.

It brought back memories of another tea in Malta, where my good friend and I had gone to keep a promise we made to ourselves when an especially sad and difficult would be over. That promise had helped on days we juggled problems.

And there were all the teas on Wigglesworth Street that I shared with my housemates at the end of the day. They weren't as elaborate but there was the special teapots we used that often conveyed unspoken messages of the type of day it had been. 

Not able to finish everything, the young man, who had added fuel to the fireplace, offered to box the leftovers, which we accepted.

Leaving the hotel, we looked back. There was a rainbow, a colorful silent applause to a perfect high tea.

Irving's book The Last Chairlift

 

John Irving's new book The Last Chairlift took seven years to write. It's called a ghost story and a love story covering decades. He said in an interview it may be his last novel.

Although I've never met him, I've always felt a connection to Irving. We share an age. We've both lived in Exeter, New Hampshire. We are both writers although his success has exceeded mine too many times over to count.

I did my masters thesis at Glamorgan University in Wales concentrating on repeated symbolism in his early work. Bears, wrestling, Vienna, short people or people physically different, etc. 

We didn't have all that much more in common. I never wrestled, bears are bears, I'm short but not abnormally so. When Irving lived in Vienna did he eat the finger sandwiches, little sandwiches, served at Trzesniewski's like I have? I hope so.

I always have a hard time getting into his books. I start and stop, start and stop. Then something clicks. I can't put the book down. I will read in the bathroom, in bed, on the bus, train, plane until I finish. How he brings it together is wonderful.

Both of us were born in 1942 which means our writing lives and our lives in general are limited to how much more we can write. Time is not on our side no matter how many ideas we may have.

Irving's website https://john-irving.com/the-last-chairlift-by-john-irving/ and mine www.dlnelsonwriter.com 

Angela Lansbury

When celebrities die, there's some times a oh-sigh factor. That's too bad. I loved him/her for (fill in the blank).

Rick and were sitting in the BnB breakfast room in Inverness, Scotland. It wasn't raining. Outside the white clouds seemed to have arranged themselves over the black clouds to resemble snow-covered Alps. The BBC news was on and between the murder and mayhem in the world, Angela Lansbury's death was announced along with the proper tribute.

Along with her character Jessica Fletcher, she played a small part in my daughter's and my relationship during Llara's teen years. Every Sunday night we would watch Murder She Wrote after we'd opened our Jiffy Pop popcorn. 

I remember the episode where the term "Down East" referring to Maine helped us solve the crime.

At that time I was writing and trying to be published. "I want to be like her." I was referring to Jessica Fletcher, Lansbury's character. There was always the line in almost every episode "I think I know who did it."

"If you come across a murder, you are going straight into a nursing home." 

"Why?" I asked my daughter.

"Because it is usually Jessica's relatives that get accused of the murder and I'm your closest relative."

Fast forward a couple of decades. I was spending a month with my daughter in D.C. having traveled from Switzerland for the Christmas holiday. She used the time I was there to have dental surgery, and we were hunkering down between the cold and her discomfort. We were planning to binge watch Murder She Wrote. 

At that point I had published several Third Culture Kid Mysteries. My daughter made it clear that her nursing home threat still was on the table.

To date, I've never come across a murder. The series is on Swiss and French stations and there are times I will watch an episode without Jiffy Pop popcorn or my daughter who lives in the Boston area. There is always that flash of good memories triggered by one very talented woman and her television series.

R.I.P. Angela Lansbury. You had a great run.

Inverness

 

Inverness by night. This is the view out of our BnB window at 4:30 a.m.

Every time I start to go out, it starts to rain. I can see by the trees bending over and a howl or two, it is windy. I am thrilled. After the heat of the summer which almost did me in, my BnB room is cozy. I've enough tea. I'm living my July and August fantasies.

My husband is off to a hickory golf tournament. Last night he described the challenge and fun of trying to hit a ball when the wind has much more control of the ball than the golfer.

I will make it a writing and reading day. There is no laundry to do, meals to cook, beds to make, dog to walk, people to meet, correspondence to deal with. There's the peace of me and my laptop. There is the sense of peace that I've sought, a gift in itself.

This is my 7th trip to Scotland. I love this country. After the golf tournament, Rick and I plan to visit Culloden Battlefield and Clava Cairns before going on to Aberlady and then Edinburgh's Story Festival. 

I saw Culloden once before in the pouring rain. There is something about the peace of a battlefield that makes one shudder when thinking of the violence and death that occurred there when about 14,500 soldiers between the two sides fought with both old and new weapons. It is a reminder of the futility of all wars when given enough time no one remembers why, no one remembers how many lives went unlived.

 

Outside my window there's the statue of Flora MacDonald, the Jacobite sympathizer who helped Prince Charles escape. It was the one thing I really wanted to see. It is not my photo. Today she's surrounded by construction workers who are renovating the castle behind her.

I need to add her to the book I'm working on. I want to find 365 amazing women, not the most famous ones, one for each day in the year.

I've thought of two scenes I want to add to my future novel Twins. 

Tonight Rick will either return with food or we will go out. If we eat in it will be fine. The room is cozy and I love its Scotch plaid rug and the pillow with the Scotch cow. We have a tiny Scotch Cow stuffed animal we named sCOWt as a souvenir of an earlier trip. If we go out it will be fine. I've already eaten a few of my Scotch favorites already.

 It's a good day. I'm so happy.

hickory Golf

 

A few years ago while spending a few weeks in Edinburgh, my golf-loving husband went off to play at Musselbourgh Golf Course. He came back thrilled with the experience, not because of a hole in one which he didn't have, or a low-low score, but because he had played with hickory clubs from the 1920s. The clubs were later replaced with metal shafts and many golfers don't even know that tidbit of golfing history.

The game had been founded in Scotland in the 17th century, but there are those that say it goes back to paganica and Roman times where a leather ball was hit with a stick.

Rick kept saying he would like to play with the clubs more often. They represented a different challenge.

We found Joe Lauber, a Swiss watchmaker, who also makes modern hickory golf clubs to old^time standards. There are those golfers that only play with the originals and those that play those made recently. Some play with both.

We were off to St. Gallen and ordered a set. We also learned there was a whole subculture of hickory golfers who not only play with the ancient clubs but recapture the clothes of the 1920s and 30s.

Since then my husband had participated in many tournaments in different countries and even ran a mini tournament in Southern France to introduce others to this variation of the sport. Last winter there was a tournament in the snow in the Swiss Alps. Besides the beauty of the Alps and the match, we were able to watch a now polo game.

He joined the board of Society of Hickory Golfers with the goal of bringing the the fans of the sport on both continents together.  

And he also made sure he had the right wardrobe, although the Swiss flag knickers in the photo were probably never seen before.

Thus today, we are in Inverness, Scotland for a four-day tournament. I needed to no encouragement to join him, not on the course but in the city. Having been forced to play golf as a kid, I tell people I speak golf and love listening to Rick's stories about his adventures on the links. I don't have to ask what terms like birdie and eagle mean. I just don't want to have to play. I do love the socializing with the players and spouses from many countries at the dinners after the tournaments. What a pleasure to see people enjoying themselves so passionately.

A few of the many websites that tell people more.

• https://www.hickorygolfers.com/tournaments/
• https://www.golfheritage.org/history/
• https://sehickorygolf.co.uk/
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hickory_golf
• https://www.swisshickorygolf.ch/

I'm not sure what tournaments he will play next year, but I do know I will enjoy his stories after and his pleasure. I go with him to see the places in different countries and often to visit friends who are either on route or nearby. It's a totally unexpected twist in our lives, but a very welcomed one.

Small world

 

OK the saying that it's a small world is a cliché.

Rick and I had gone to breakfast in our B&B in Scotland, a country we love to visit. For me it's the seventh time, but only the second in Inverness. 

For Rick, Inverness is the first time. He is scheduled for a four-day hickory golf tournament and no way, was I going to stay home and think of him in Scotland without me.

I've been fascinated with the country since I read about Mary Queen of Scots as a child and over the years, I've visited places in the country that meant something to her. I've seen her wig and a piece of fabric from the dress she was wearing when she was beheaded by her cousin, Queen Elizabeth I. I stood on the spot where she was crowned as a baby. It was as if I have met her personally.

Our waitress was wearing a t-shirt that said Missouri. I told her that was where Rick and I had met.

The woman at the next table said that she was from Missouri (Not the same way my father would say, "And I'm from Missouri" to mean he didn't believe whatever he was told.) We mentioned Tan Tara where Rick and I met in the seventies. She talked about being in Tan Tara as a child.

Inverness has a population of about 48,000. It is steeped in Scottish culture and history. Tan Tara was a resort in Missouri and in 2017 became a housing development. 

The chances of four people having breakfast in a small Scottish B&B in Inverness who had been in Tan Tara the same year as we discovered in our subsequent conversation was probably less than winning the Euromillion Lottery.

But the more we chatted the more we discovered we had in common such as being in journalism, sharing political points of view, the men sharing golf as a sport, etc.

A totally serendipity moment in what is indeed, a small world.

 

Rich or poor

 

 

I never wanted to be rich. I never wanted to be poor. I always thought having enough was enough.

I grew up in my grandparents home, bought in 1917. My parents lived up the street, but my mother was usually there before I woke up and was there when I went to sleep. I never knew why.

My grandmother's house had a long porch, great for roller skating. Our ping pong table was there as well. In summer we closed it in with screens. Take that flies and mosquitos..

The house had a semi-circular driveway with 38 pines in the center. In winter, a plow would push snow halfway. The snowbank became ready-made fort. We had 14 acres of land, much of it woods.

The side yard had roses, lilies of the valley, iris and lilacs. A hill going toward my grandfather's garden became purple with violets each spring. 

My grandfather's garden meant until he died, I only ate home grown vegetables. After he died, the little house with its two windows he used as a tool shed, became my playhouse. I had great plans for it and my father put up ceiling tiles. I imagined curtains on the windows and the walls painted white. I imagined a toy kitchen set and dishes and tea sets, a table and chairs. In my mind it was beautiful. I wonder if my desire to beautify every place I live came from never bringing my imaginary playhouse to reality.

My mother had a cottage industry, designing cloth dolls sold through direct mail ads in leading magazine. Women around town did the assemble and my grandfather the silk screening. The man who distributed the toys was named Rupert. I called him Ruppie. I loved his mustache

Before school opened each year, we went to the Children's Shop and selected five dresses one for each school day. There was an additional good dress for birthday parties, and play clothes, which we had to change into the second we got home from school. I had Keds sneakers, boots, oxfords or saddle shoes and pattern leather dress shoes.

When we bought the shoes The store had a machine where I'd stick my feet to check the fit.

I hated that I had to wear knee socks in cold weather and slacks under my dress. It wasn't the grownup look I wanted.

When my parents divorced I was starting junior high. My mother did not want to be away from us all day as she would have to be with an ordinary job. Even if she was a great typist and knew shorthand, she didn't want to be a secretary. By then she was living with my grandmother full time. My grandfather had died. 

My brother and I never were left alone. She started a fashion company, selling clothes on the party plan. It was so successful she only had to work six months a year. I was considered her billboard and once I stopped growing, my wardrobe allowed me to go a month without wearing the same thing.

A schoolmate at a high school reunion told me she thought I was being rude when she asked me where I bought a certain dress, skirt, blouse or sweater when I answered, "my mother's business" until she realized it was my mother's business, literally.

We had the first TV in my mother's circle and lots of company as people came after dinner to watch whatever was on. I could smell the popcorn they popped to nibble during the programs. 

When I was six we moved to West Virginia and they had not learned how to transmit TV waves over the mountains. Only when we moved back when I was eight did we have another TV. I was allowed to sit up nights to watch I love Lucy on Monday nights and Uncle Miltie on Tuesday nights.

 

I remember everyone in the family reading to themselves and/or to me. I read to myself as well. For being good at the dentist, I was allowed to go the local hardware store that sold Bennett Cerf's Landmark Series books by known authors. It brought history and science alive.

In West Virginia my mother found the local schools wanting and for two years I attended Miss Blanche's in afternoons. If anyone thinks three hours isn't enough to teach a child, when I return to the Reading MA public schools, considered a good system, it was fifth grade before I covered anything new. I was reading at a fifth grade level in the third grade and couldn't get enough books to keep me happy. Although we had to write script neatly at Miss Blanche's, I was thrown back into printing on two lines. I blame my poor penmanship on that and the change of type of handwriting in a tongue-in-cheek way.

I told my husband in first grade my grandmother had drilled me in the times tables up to 12. "How much is 12x12?" he asked. "144." I shot back. Amazing considering how bad I am at math, the times tables were the only thing that stuck.

We never took vacations, barely ever leaving town. The golf club, where the family was a member, was the hangout. I dutifully with only major complaints, took my lessons every Saturday from third grade to high school hating every minute of it.

I dreamed of travel and packing a suitcase to travel around the world. I was thrilled to go to New Hampshire in my junior year of high school. Boston was as much impossible to see as the moon until my senior year when I went to a friend's Northeastern classes as a possible place for me to go. It was about 12 miles away. I ended up living not far from the university in my 30s. Northeastern was just a few blocks from my Wigglesworth Street address.

Writing this, it makes me sound privileged. As an adult I learned that there were times money was tight, especially after my parents separated and before my mother started her business. Before the divorce, I remember my father threatening my brother and me that when we had our own homes he would visit and put on every light in the house and leave the doors and windows open on a cold day. Money doesn't grow on trees, was something we heard over and over.

My grandmother would patch socks and play clothes. Leftovers would be used to the last scrap. Some of the economies during my kindergarten years were war savings. We had a giant aluminum ball made of every scrap of aluminum. Today I tend to use reuse aluminum. It seems wasteful to throw it away.

I still shudder at the use of paper towels rather than a rag. I could make a roll of paper towels last a couple of years using them only for bacon drippings and dog throw up. 

As an army bride of a Spec 4 Army band member stationed in Stuttgart, Germany, at the end of the month we were often food insecure. We knew it was temporary.

As a college student after we returned stateside, even the $400 tuition was a stretch. More than once I pleaded for a couple of weeks more to pay. The controller must have felt sorry for me or my tears got to him. I wondered what he would have done if I'd brought the payments in in change.

 

As a single mom, every penny had to be watched. My disposal income was 25 cents a day after basic bills. I ended up with a roommate and despite lack of funds we had fun just being. Our vacation was a weekend at a New Hampshire amusement park with one night at a motel and a cowboy movie. 

Once we splurged on a special coffee, feeling exotic as we drank it. Sometimes now in France when I'm in a café, I laugh at how naive I was then, but the excitement of creating a special moment either time and place is almost the same. The secret of creating something special exists in the mind more than the pocketbook.

Over my adult years I've gone from having barely enough to having enough to having extra. I realize how blessed I was and am.

My husband often says, "We need to buy," when my reaction is "Why?" when we have one of whatever that still works.

Years ago my beloved stepmom asked why I bought a used refrigerator. I told her the difference in price was a ticket to Europe which I wanted more. I know I was lucky I could have both.

With one exception in my life, I have never had credit card debt and that was caused by my mother's final illness when working full time was next to impossible. If I can't pay it off at the end of the month, I don't buy it. No sense charging things at sales because interest will wipe out any savings.

I have always considered savings necessary, a cushion against the unthinkable which I thought about. 

We drive a used car that I could pay cash for. We won't buy another until this one can no longer go back and forth.

Some people think we're rich. We live in Switzerland and the South of France. My original place in France was a studio that I paid $18,000 for cash so I would have no mortgage at retirement. I figured I could live wonderfully well on about $600 a month there. Fortunately, because of some decisions, I don't have to.

Everyone makes choices of what they want, although events are sometimes forced on people such as illness, natural disasters, economic setbacks beyond their control. I like to think I haven't given into the pressure of keeping up with the neighbors or advertising saying I need this or that. 

I'm lucky that I was able to earn a living that made my income exceed my outgo while controlling the outgo.

Overall, I've had everything I want in life except maybe the playhouse decorated the way I wanted in my childhood. There have been times of poverty but nothing, nothing, nothing like the majority on the planet over all of time have experienced. 

My riches would not impress Musk or Bezos, but I'm so rich in friends and experiences. I have enough, more than enough.

 

Flowers, Apps and Customer Service

  

The tourists are disappearing. 

Mondays many shops are closed in the village.

I had just done a wardrobe change over. We are heading for Scotland where it will be colder, than Geneva where it will be colder as well.

I needed file cards for the novel I'm working on. It helps to do notes on each chapter for reference and to easily switch chapters around if necessary.

A stop at L'Hostalet's terrace and a good cup of Yorkshire tea seemed necessary before starting to work. Sherlock was with me and we sat by the cat door to give him an advantage over the hotel feline that has murder in her heart whenever she sees him.

Someone in the music school across the was playing the piano.

I chatted with L who is a jill of all trades at l'Hostalet trades at the hotel and café. She is one the most smiley people I know. It doesn't matter is the terrace is overflowing or like today or just one like me today. She always makes one feel as if they are welcome. 

From time to time someone strolled by. Mostly it was deserted. Then two women came into the square, a red head and one with gray hair. Probably they were in the early sixties. They took pictures.

As they walked by,they said bonjour and showed me a photo of purple flowers. They asked if I knew the name.

My flower knowledge is limited to things like rose, carnation, iris, lilac, mimosa, violet. When I add flowers to anything I'm writing, I choose one of those.

They asked L, who said, "No, but I have a solution." L is totally bilingual. She went to get her phone. "I've an app." The app looks at something and tells you what it is. It worked. The flower's name was something I'd never heard of.   

The four of us chatted a bit about flowers and how easy it is to get information on just about anything. Not like the old days and going to a library to look at an Encyclopedia if you didn't have one at home or a neighbor who might be an expert.

The ladies moved on. L went back to work after once again going beyond ordinary service. I finished my tea. Sherlock did another check for the cat and I suspect he was hoped his positioning at the cat door kept her away. 

Back to writing and another reminder of the joys of village life.

 

Immigrants/refuges

 

I have often written when people come out against immigrants/refuges who have suffered greatly in their own country only to be abused when they come into American and not given what international law requires and(or their kids separated and thrown in cages,) that anyone of us could become refugees. 

Now people in Florida are facing exactly that situation -- displacement. 

There only contribution to their own disasters was to move to an area that is known for regular hurricanes and select a place within that danger zone. 

          The view from my parents Florida Room. Is it still there or did the lake swamp it.

My parents, who are no longer with us, loved Florida. I joke that my father's first words after he was born in Nova Scotia were "When are moving to Florida?" Their former home was directly in the path of Ian. I wonder if it survived.

I am relieved that I don't have to go through the almost annual worry wondering will they be okay in a hurricane. Still I have friends in Florida that I worry about.

Many have lost everything. I doubt if any of the people displaced this past week would have the strength to walk to Canada to ask for asylum so they can start over. Or even walk to another state. 

And what if other states once they reached safety refused them help? Jailed them even though they had the right under law to ask for help?

Or if the federal government refused them help, calling them potential criminals or just plain stupid for living in a danger zone? 

After hurricane Sandy, DeSantis did not think government money should be used to help the area. Now he is asking for help for his citizens. He will get it. Those who suffered in the storm should not be punished for DeSantis's earlier heartlessness. It is a time when hypocrisy is needed for the greater good. It is not the time to call it socialism even if it is in the best sense of socialism.

My point is, we all need help at times for things beyond our control. We are all human with the same needs. Compassion is a commodity that is as important as money. 

Maybe we should remember the saying, "There but the grace of God go I."