Authoring Myself Late in Life
We pull into the parking lot of the Old Saybrook train station. "Oh no!" I moan, looking at the full lot. "We'll never find a parking spot." Rosemary reminds me that when we first got together, I used to visualize parking spaces for her. She is right. Why have I become so pessimistic in my old age? I try my old visualization skills. It works! As we round the last corner, a parking space appears. ... [Click on TItle to read more]
I groaned as I rolled over in bed. The idea of facing another day was an ongoing struggle. I tried to think of something I looked forward to in the upcoming day. I would be all right once I was up and dressed; I knew I would.
In the autumn after Rosemary’s death, a friend and his wife drove from New York with seven cartons which contained the contents of Rosemary’s office at the college in Queens where she had worked for 21 years.
One thing I must tell you is that loons played a big part in our lives. A pair of loons came to our lake in Maine every summer, the same ones each year, for loons stake out a territory in the north and return to it to breed. They arrived moments after ice out, as... Continue Reading →
I was not young when I lost my mother in the mall; I was probably in my mid 30s. We had walked into the huge department store together, side by side. Once inside, I somehow ended up a few feet behind her, looking at her back as she walked along the front of the store, past the wide-open area between the cashiers and the end of the aisles, and disappeared before my eyes. [Click on title to read]
I had never gone on vacation alone before...Another first to face. COuld being in a strange place by myself really be fun?
That perspective I encounter when I re-enter a place that I have left, and find a sense of solace, the warmth of home and the gladness of return. [Click on Title to Read]
Buying this new condo was a way of acknowledging that Rosemary was not returning. It was not a place that she would have chosen. It didn’t have views. It was at the end of the complex, down a rabbit’s warren of streets, at the end of a cul-de-sac. Except for one window in the den... Continue Reading →
It occurred to me that all stories have unhappy endings. If you read on in any story, past the written word, there is inevitable loss in the end. No good time endures; no one lives forever.
Rosemary climbed the stairs to the furniture section faster than I could, and when I arrived at the top she was sitting on an L-shaped sofa that was the color of amber, lighter than her own dark brown eyes which smiled at me as she bounced gently on the soft cushions. She patted the seat beside her in invitation.
Becoming Brynna 