November already!! Working on Reflections

Middle of  November already -- hard to believe! With a half dozen wonderful women I'm deep into editing the next issue of Reflections which will be the 20th issue--a special landmark. This one has more content (and it seems to me a higher caliber) than the previous ones.  I am not a believer in the all-American motto that "Bigger is better" but in this case I think it's true. It's also more work and I'm grateful to have the  "comma crew" go over every submissions.

Indeed, we're add a great many commas, also hyphens and corrected much grammar. One committee member, Cathy holds her cell phone ready to check many spellings and facts on Google. It sounds awfully nerdy, but I really have enjoyed the sessions for the past six weeks. One more meeting on the editing and then a subcommittee will work another three or four weeks and lay out the anthology. I enjoy the discussions and decision making about what can follow what, where we need to add in a lighter poem, what photos works where.  Perhaps I missed a career that would have been satisfying, not getting into publishing. But then most people miss many possible accomplishments. I'm happy with this bit of work at this stage in my life --- and especially so because I'm not alone, I have compatible and trustworthy and admirable help.  How often can people in business say that? 

Sign and photo

Many months ago I noticed this sign on  two-lane street that is a connection to downtown Hyannis and popular Rte 6A which runs along the north side of Cape Cod. It comes shortly before a railroad crossing where only one train a day crosses. I told Rachel about it and we've thought of taking a photo but it's never happened until today when we also had Rachel's friend Paloma with us as we were all going for a walk at an Audubon reserve. I visualized a photo of a couple of old people bent over canes, their backs to the sign. But that was not the idea the others had so here we are ... I'm the "Old person"  being guided by Rachel. The sign is the focus which IS what I visualized. I drive that way frequently but I have yet to see a person, young or old, actually walking along that stretch of the street.

Our walk through woods and down to the harbor was fairly long but perfectly wonderful on a sunny, slightly cool autumn day with many fallen leaves beneath our feet.  We passed an enclosure with about ten goats, the sign identified them as "working goats". They are apparently taken to weedy areas where they are allowed to eat all the weeds and such (even poison ivy, I'm told). They are an ecological preference to the use weed killer in places like the right-of-way beneath power lines. They're attractive animals to watch  ... unfortunately they have in inevitable goaty perfume.

Meeting a far-flung friend

A meeting of friends, acquainted via the internet, on a site called Swap-bot where people from all over the world take part in "swaps" of many sorts, from various crafts, to letters, to email questionnaires, etc. Jan, on the left is another Cape Codder but I met her on Swap-bot before I moved here. I'm in the middle and Donna is on the right. Donna and her "guy", Charlie, did a leaf peeping trip through spectacular upstate NY and New England and swung down to  Cape Cod specically to meet Jan and me.  Jan's husband, Paul, and Charlie are not in the photo. I find it interesting that we all chose black and B&W clothes. And I can tell you that, noting that I am about 15 years older than they are, nevertheless, I'm headed to a salon this coming week for a short hair cut and a (possibly hopeless) search for looking a little bit younger. 

As Donna observed a few times, it's remarkable how much we already knew about each other because one segment of Swap-bot is sort of chat room for women over 50 and we have all posted about personal events and backgrounds (Donna and Jan both did count-downs to their retirements). We had a good dinner and an even better talk that went past the closing hour of the restaurant. The internet has brought us together in a happy way -- a wonderful friendship for Jan and I and a very memorable vacation for Donna and Charlie ... plus the absolutely necessary experience for Donna and Charlies of learning how to eat a Maine lobster.

A delicious autumn

It's been a delicious past few weeks. We had a warm and sunny September. Rachel brought me tomatos from a farm where she gets fresh veggies and also from her own tomato plants.  Plus I have a new neighbor (since spring) who says he has ADHD and must stay busy.  He's tending many flowers around his patio and planted several tomatoes.  At six some mornings he could be seen watering my solo hanging flower (name was never discovered), which grew abundantly with his attention. He has been giving me tomatoes too and today it was four little green ones.  I hope they'll ripen because I'm not of the southern type who liked Fried Green Tomatoes.

It's been too many years to count since I've had tomatoes that are actually flavorful and sweet. These have been, a memory from what seems a very  long time ago, actually at least 20 years.  I've also had, from the normal grocery store, very good Italian black plums -- actually ripe and sweet -- and lately some very flavorful pears. Tasteless tomatoes were so blah I have not been buying them for a couple of years.  And I positively will not buy rock-hard little peaches of plums or apricots.  I think there are people who actually do not know what a truly field-ripe tomato -- or strawberry for that  matter -- actually tastes like. 

Apparently many city born and bred young people don't actually know where milk or eggs come from. -- cartons!! And they have no idea what really fresh fruit tastes like.  I know and I've enjoyed it enormously the last few weeks.

First hints of autumn

We've just had a one of the most beautiful Septembers I can imagine. Sunny skies, occasional over night showers, a few foggy mornings (but they were lovely!) mostly in the 60s and 70s -- what more could anyone want? Now it is the last day of September and the air has had a nip, a morning asking for a light sweater.  That's exactly as it should be.

Granddaughter Cori just sent a photo of Stella sporting one of the first partially colored maple leaves of the season. A great-grandmother has every right to say, what could be more charming? 

I love the "sweater weather". This is what the head of the Chamber of Commerce, in an interview on the radio yesterday called "the shoulder season." And that I call the season of the leaf-peeper buses trundling through town. A last opportunity for local businesses to make more sales, a chance for visitors to enjoy our beautiful blue skies, our seashores, the Cape Coddy trinkets in the stores and the seafood in the restaurants.  The irksome hordes of tourist autos, slowing traffic, making left turns difficult and parking spaces scarce, are mostly gone. The school buses are slowing early morning and mid-afternoon traffic -- and that's exactly as it should be. Over and over I hear people saying, "This is my favorite season" Yes, I
think it's mine too.

Concidences galore.

Our little writing group which calls itself LOL (could be, of course, laughing out loud, could be ladies of literature, laughing old ladies) -- etc. met today. We usually talk more than we read our writing. Today very much in spades. The suggested prompt was "teen memories". One was the concidental meetings that lead to a marriage (one very shy girl, meets one very straight forward young man -- and they've been together for over 60 years!), another was an introduction to great theatre (a preview performance of Mary Martin  as Peter Pan). But the coincidences that caused the most discussion was that a guest grew up in Johannesburg, So. Africa, and one of our regular members did too... and they were close enough in age to know many of the same people. So many stories!!

Writing groups, especially those largely made up of women of retirement age, often bring to light revelations that have been buried for many, many years. I've found this in the classes I've taught at the Academy for Lifelong Learning. A time comes when we realize that those stories of pathological shyness can be told, those stories of long correspondences with young men who were recruited and sent overseas to wars that seem ancient, stories of brothers and sisters, loving parents and difficult parents... that seem to have sunk deep into the murk of memory's bottom layers, come back, now, through the wisdom of a long life, they have taken on truths that were not possible sooner. 

Writing, not for publication, not out of ambition, but for the sake of revelation and self-discovery, which remains possible even to people in their sixties and seventies ... yes, their eighties too --is cathartic, healing and deeply satisfying for both writer and audience. To allow that to happen is a large part of why I continue teaching these "telling stories" classes -- with all the ambivalence of that term -- true stories or untrue stories.

Change in Temperature

We had our taste of climate change last week -- 8 or 10 days of high 80s and high humidity made everyone fussy and very uncomfortable. Like this little quilt showing the heat of the sun--its overwhelming dominance in the sky, I was miserable with sweaty skin. I slept at night with only a sheet which was simply there to maintain some habit of modesty. Our usual afternoon sea breeze sometimes blew in some comfort, but not enough. I thought of the many thousands elsewhere who were  enduring heat in the 100s and felt grateful it was not that here. 

I'm doubly aware of how lucky we were to endure only a few days of the discomfort.  For the past couple of days the temperature has dropped into the 70s and yesterday I was happy to sit in the backyard at Rachel's house wearing  jeans jacket and long pants.  I go to bed and am happy to pull the sheet and quilt up and find them as comforting as usual.  Summer is a magnificent season ... when it is the reasonable summers we're used to. Probably future summers will be even less comfortable for even longer times.  We are living in a greatly changing world. Today's issue of National Geographic that I  glanced at when I was having dinner is largely about the melting of the ice in the arctic and the disintegration of the tundra. Massive changes worldwide. Plus a really horrifying set of photos about the plastic stuff that washed up on the ocean beaches.

I am grateful to be a little cool, to get ready to settle down for my evening's reading wearing a robe and possibly with a throw over my legs and feet to keep me comfy.

W