At the end of my sophomore year in high school I begged and pleaded with my parents to let me come home from boarding school and finish up at the local school. I had been away from home for three years, coming home only three or four times during the school term and for summer.
This is as far as I got writing a post for July 27, 2011. I had just come home from a trip to La Jolla to visit boarding school friends. Photo above was taken in the lovely white garden of my hostess. I was thinking about how much I like and admire these women I saw, how precious their friendship is, and what I would be missing without them. This got me to remembering that summer when I was so unhappy about being away from home. I could see houses in the town from my dorm window and thought about the family life going on behind lighted windows and longed for that for myself. But my parents were not moved by my entreaties, and so in September I was duly packed up and sent back. It's true, it was only to La Jolla, about 40 miles away, but it might as well have been Bangor, Maine to my unhappy heart. At that time I realized that I was going to be there for two more years so I'd better make the best of it.
As I sat at dinner on Monday night at the lovely home of one of my classmates and looked around the table at the collection of friends I was struck by how fortunately it all turned out. Had I left school as I wanted I wouldn't know these people and I wouldn't have been at that table. Even though it's been 50 years and we have moved in various and several directions we experienced our growing up together, sharing the same experiences at the same time. That's very powerful glue.
I'm not really sure why my parents sent me to boarding school. When I asked my mother she would wave away my question with some lame thing about getting a "good education." I have my own explanations but, at this late date, they don't matter. Whatever the reason was, I am, at this ripe age, profoundly grateful.
So now I'll move on to other things, filling in the long, silent gap between July 27th and today. Not only was I not writing here, I wasn't reading others' blogs, either. I completely missed the gorgeous re-do over at No More Commas Period. My friend Deborah, she of Thinking Too Much has started a new blog, Thinking for Myself. My niece and her family weathered (!) Irene back in Connecticut. Daughter Alex went to visit daughter Caitlin in Montana.
From all accounts, it was a great visit. Grandson Andrew and his main squeeze came up for a visit. Vegged out by the pool for two days. Mr. C took his annual leave to Ohio; I stayed home and vegged out by the pool. My friend Robin is about to take off for a 2 1/2 year stint as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Morocco. Read all about it in her blog, Tourist in Morocco. I went to the wedding of my neighbor's daughter. I've know the bride since she was 4 years old. Photo of B & G won't upload. I'll fiddle with it and see if I can make it work. Now Alex is here for a few days of, well, vegging out by the pool. I did quite a bit of reading during my hiatus, a bit of movie watching, most of it unremarkable. Oh, except for Marilynne Robinson's Gilead, a moving and rich novel that I know I will read again. Alex and I are going to see "The Help" this afternoon. Review to come.
I've probably left out some things that transpired around here. Nothing too important, I'm sure. It's good to be back.
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