Lemon Cake is my favorite.

When I start with this picture it usually means I am thinking it through like over the back fence.

I  noticed that my last post was about childhood friends. What a serendipity - yesterday I began thinking how fortunate I am in the people I have met and known over the years.

Out-of-the-blue Thursday I received a message from Sas Colby, a super creative artist from Berkeley, CA, asking if I had time for a meet-up on Friday. I have not seen her in easily 15 years, if not longer - so  - there was no choice even when I was facing a wall to wall list and deadlines due by Sunday - I said yes.
We settled on meeting at The Phillips Collection at 11:30 am for lunch, conversation, and to see Helen Frederick's show.

It snowed over night but the roads were clear next morning. As I started out the sun came out. A good sign.

I met Sas in the 1970s through another mutual friend, California artist Joyce Aiken. Joyce and I were working together as leaders of the newly founded Coalition of Women's Art Organizations. When she showed me slides of Sas' work I loved it and hoped one day I would meet her face-to-face - and I did.

March 15, 1979 I was in San Francisco for the Opening of Judy Chicago's Dinner Party Project at the San Francisco Art Museum.

It was a landmark event and women artists from across the country crowded into the huge room where they had set up a mammoth table and the vivid ceramic plates of the Dinner Party.

Joyce invited me to come with her to a  party afterwards in Sausalito to celebrate - and that's where I really talked with Sas for the first time - and she was what I had expected - lively, friendly, fascinating and easy to talk with.

This was California in the 1970s which was quite a different world than 1970s in staid and proper Washington, DC. From the front porch of the party-house we could look across the Bay to San Francisco which was shimmering magically with a bright yellow moon hanging in the sky over it. Later  when I described it to Jim, a native Californian, he nodded and allowed as how he had been under the same spell many times himself.

Before meeting Sas at the Phllips I retrieved CELEBRATION from my bookshelf just to refresh my memory. The book was dusty and squeezed in between two bulky text books. It is a large paper-back book I bought from her that night at the party.  It is a reflection by the participants in a week-end retreat with Anais Nin in Connecticutt several years before (1974?).  It was the first book I had encountered about a gathering of women artists for discussing their art work, difficulties and life-issues. In addition - - the typed test was printed in a faint purple. As I turned the pages it brought back the excitement and magic of being in San Francisco for the Dinner Party Gathering.
Sas had signed it: "remember the Sausalito moon on moonless nights". March 15, 1979.
Obviously I still do.

I have seen Sas over the years when she came to DC to teach her wonderful workshops on artist-books, which is her forte. She has one of them in a show at the Smithsonian right now. I took several of those workshops at Pyramid Atlantic and she does not disappoint in creating a joyful and creative atmosphere and leading people to think outside the box.  How could she not - because she rarely thinks inside the box and that freedom lights up a room. Her work and the word of her creativity draws very interesting people together - which makes for a remarkable workshop experience.

When Sas and I met at the Phillips yesterday all the intervening years dropped away. We hugged and decided to eat first. When settled in at the Cafe we started talking as though we had been together yesterday. The lunch was delicious especially the lemon cake. However, although the food was tasty, it was the memories accompanied by giggling and laughing that was the nourishment.

Our conversation slid easily from the 70s, bounced through the 80s and 90s  to the present as we caught up with each other. We also talked about things in the world that matter.

We left the Cafe for the treat of sharing some time seeing Helen Frederick's brilliant show at the Phillips - Acts of Silence - a strong and provocative show that speaks to the endangered environment.

We are both long-time admirers of the work of Helen Frederick - which adds a another dimension to appreciating the work.

I asked a friendly stranger passing by to snap a picture so we could document the moment and share it with Helen.

It was a grand afternoon but I have realized there is much more to this meeting for me than just a fun reunion between two friends.

Tomorrow is the fourth anniversary of Jim's death. Since the 1970s The Phillips was a favorite stop for Jim and me where we had a lunch in the Cafe and then visited the collections or special exhibitions. Since Jim died I have only been to the Phillips twice. I let our membership lapse. I stepped out of that piece of our life together.

Yesterday was my first time back with a quick step - to see a friend. It turned out to be a door opening to me with an invitation to come back to a the world I love. I walked into the galleries where I felt the warmth of a welcome from familiar paintings.  Before I left I re-instated my membership.

As we walked through the galleries Sas and I talked about the art. We rushed up to a large Milton Avery painting gasping over the composition and colors. I was captured by an over-sized and vivid painting by David Hockney.  I told Sas I would have to come back and sit with it soon. The guard heard me say that and stepped over saying, "Come soon - before the cherry blossoms bloom and all the tourists flood these rooms." Good advice.

It was a Celebration - -
                  and now I know Jim will be along with me.

Thankful for childhood friends.

Thinking and thinking. So many things swirling through my mind as I once again live through the last days of Jim's life, working my way to the day he died four years ago.

With all that hanging around in my memories I have been grateful for a few unexpected phone calls from childhood friends. They called to connect not because of this impending anniversary. 

Early this week my friend Jennie called out of the blue from the Mid-west where she and her husband moved a few months ago. Jennie and I met each other in the Second Grade at the Elizabeth Elementary School in Charlotte. We went to school together through our high school graduation. The we reconnected in 1964 when we discovered each other here in Maryland where I have been proud of her for 37 successful years in the Maryland State House and Senate.  The other night we talked of her new dailies, of what she and Bill are doing to build a new community for themselves - which includes new shopping areas, meeting with groups of people and finding interesting places in their new home-place. I admire them and the way they are just jumping in and finding a new place for themselves. We did not talk about it but we remember her being here during those last days for which I am forever grateful.

Then several days ago I called my cousin Jim in North Carolina to ask him for a phone number I have  lost. Hearing his voice, the accent and the familiar way he paces his words, takes me right back into the bosom of my Dad's family. He gives me the phone number and then we launch free wheeling through some things on our minds - other than politics. I don't risk any of my family relationships by talking about politics. Jimmy and I enjoy laughing together and if we argue its over who has the correct memory of where something was then. I love it - because I love him. I can feel that he knows this is a prickly time for me - we don't have to talk about it. 

Then last night after supper the phone rang. Karen read off the ID numbers and says, "Mom, its from North Carolina." "Well answer it." I heard her saying something like, "No, I am not. She's here. Just a minute." "Mom its your friend Bill." In just a minute I heard a very familiar voice that yanked me right back to Piedmont Junior High School in Charlotte." I hear him ask a question and I start laughing, "No, that was not my care-giver - - its my daughter Karen, you know her."

He then says,  "I was looking for somebody else's number to call and then I saw yours - so I called you."

"Gee, thanks - that's not the most flattering thing you could have said." We laughed and laughed - you know the kind of laughing that makes you feel good because it wraps you in warm memories. "I am OK." I told him. "good days and not so good days." 

He and I will both turn 80 this year - we have history. I don't care how he decided to make the call. I am just glad he did. 

Glad to talk this week with Bill, with Jennie and with my cousin Jim. So glad that I called my forever best friend Betsy who lives in PA this morning to tell her about the calls.  We laughed and laughed and laughed.

I love technology - that makes these connections possible. And, I agree with Norman Cousins - laughter is good medicine.

This is a story from the Ninth Grade - and Bill plays a part.

Friends are the real treasures, aren't they?

Stepping Back in Time

March 8 I will be telling Pushing Boundaries at the American University Museum at the Katzen Center (6 PM Free) in conjunction with an exhibition - IMPACT: The Legacy of the Women's Caucus for Art. I went over today to see the show - to "get into" my story - which contains a big bit about the 1970s and the women's artists movement. 

The AU Museum's fine space is a good place for this show which is smallish considering that it spans a large group of women artists over a 35 year period. I can imagine the WCA budget was stretched to bring these works together; even so I was sorry Mimi Shapiro is represented by a small paper work instead of one of her glorious fabric works - however the luscious piece by Joyce Kozloff gives a rich taste of the decorative work of some in those days. 

I laughed out loud at the full frontal male nude by Sylvia Sleigh - wondering who would remember the statement she was making in those works. 

After enjoying the wall works I sat for an hour watching the digital images of the "life achievement " awardees on a large monitor. It was like sitting down with a blown up version of your high school year book and memories assaulted me. I knew many of these women, remembered their art work as well as the times when we were speaking up and acting out to have a better place for women in the art world. 

When the images for my good friend Joyce Aiken popped up before me - I admired the work but wished she had sent them a picture of her red wood coffin embellished with cupids instead. It is a great statement on making a personal statement in your art work. I came to know Joyce when we worked together leading the new political organization The Coalition of Women's Art Organizations which established  women artists as an activist group in the large women's movement. We did good and we had a wonderful time doing it. Not to mention the serendipity that when we were elected together - she in California and me in Maryland - it turned out that Joyce and Jim had grown up in the same Fresno neighborhood and gone to college together. 

As I looked at the words about these women, particularly those missing - it hit me. I am an eyewitness to a special time and as such I have things to tell that I have not told before. In sight of this show is probably the best place to bring it up. Hmmm!!! Feeling grateful to have a chance to add a tad to the record.

In my opinion -

When I woke up this morning I looked out the window to see that the world had gone white again - covered with a thick blanket of shimmering snow.

When I was a youngster I would have jumped up and down but not this morning.

After the 26 inches we had here a few weeks ago - some of which is still mounded on the right corner of my front yard - I am not thrilled. All right, so it is pretty.  And it is fairly harmless compared to what I am thinking about - Ice. Please don't freeze. Ice is a whole different can of worms isn't it?

Everybody is dealing with weather somehow. That's how it is. Today it is snow here in the Washington, DC area - my daughter says the wonderful and beautiful warm days in northern California are different this year because they are a daily surprise. Sun and warm breezes sound good to me but I get what she means. Things are changing.

The world around us is changing. And, its not just the weather.

I don't usually talk about politics on my blog having decided it might be better to keep my thoughts to myself these days. But I think about what's happening in our world. How could I not be thinking about what is blared out through radio and television 24/7.

I don't like having my opinions formed by entertainers and arguments between quasi commentators who report and talk about most anything in order to fill their time. So I watch Hallmark Movies.

I stopped the newspaper shortly after Jim died four years ago because I was not reading them. One  morning I decided I did not want to pay for the pile-ups of unread newspapers collecting near my back door or carry them to the trash.  When I need  to catch up on obits I stop by the near-by library.

But I pay attention. Follow the news, read a bit and talk with people whose opinions I value.

 Now the words are piling up behind my teeth pushing because they are ready to burst out.

I hate what has and is happening to politics and the election going on in our country. I was raised to respect the office of the President of the United States and to expect decent leadership from Congress. I cannot relate to the ideas being strewn around and to the loss of decorum and intelligence in the debates and comments from one candidate or commentator to another.  In my opinion the individuals who are candidates are not showing themselves as anyone I would be proud to have representing our country.

Are you as boggled by and ashamed of them as I am?

But maybe its hard to notice now after the past 7 years when many of the legislators elected to Capitol Hill seem to have lost their sense of what governing means to the point that they don't or can't provide any leadership for the country. .. other than how to bully each other like in the good old days in junior high school.

Today feels like a sad and barren time here.  I keep hoping someone will offer something better.

It feels cold - and its not just the snow or ice, is it?

PS: Someone took the time to write a comment which I appreciated - and it gives me a heads-up that I may not have said what I mean clearly enough.

I am not afraid - for myself. Although as an aging widow who is watching my husband's pension  dwindle before me daily  thanks to financial games - and who feels vulnerable in today's health care system - I guess I should be.  I am angry - that a group of like-minded folks who seem to me to have little interest in anything except their own agenda have landed in Washington and stalled governing and government because they are too partisan to mediate compromises on important issues = and they don't appear to care who they hurt as they play their games.

This is what I fear most - each citizen has one vote - it is precious and it is powerful.  Will the voters use their vote to really solve problems - in a way that takes care of the needs of all of the people in the United States.  This is not reality TV - this is real life - and the United States needs the best person for the job -

Short cut to Memoir.

Today I received a notice from Face Book that I joined FB seven years ago. WOW. I know its a long time but I had never but a concrete count of the days and hours into years. That's a lot of time.
Time I have taken away from so many other things.

Face Book attracted me because I love to write. Used to be that I wrote letters but we know that's over. So I have used FB to record and remember. Lately FB takes time away from writing on my blog where I said I was doing the same thing. Both of those take the time I could use to finally write my "memoir." 

Sometimes I feel I was born with a "memoir urge." Maybe the idea stems from the boxes of journals stacked in my studio. Now there is a daunting chore - reviewing thirty plus years of journals which I am afraid say mostly the same things. The important question is - do I want anyone to read them? 

Seven years. Wow. Seven years.

Can I re-capture some of that time by picking up bits of memory from FB posts to create blog posts which will become a memoir for me. Make those pieces of spontaneous writing more permanent and savable. 

So with this blog post I am trying something new - copying in the FB posts I wrote the other day in response to marketing Pushing Boundaries which I will tell March 8 at American University.

It could be a short cut to my memoir - or maybe it IS my memoir.

Snow Gifts

Friday daughter Karen and I moved out to Silver Spring with son Jim and his wife Monica. Being snowbound has had many good times to catch up with each other. We have spent hours talking about nothings and about the important stuff you don't have a chance to cover during busy work days.

We brought two non-talkers with us - a cat and a dog - who settled in quickly and learned the language to get along in new surroundings on their terms. A cat that rarely sleeps on my bed at home has been sleeping at my feet all night and snuggles on the familiar quilt I brought with me. Karen says she's happy because her humans are here and she trusts us to feed her.

We watched as the snow piled up 30 inches. The world became very quiet because the roads have been blocked and the cars are stopped.  Its now the third day and I am getting itchy to get home - knowing I will miss this unusual "being together" with my East Coast family.

I have learned some important things while I have been here.

Our two grand-daughters are living away right now - -one at an out-of-town law school and the other following her business to the West Coast. But SYPE keeps them close. Watching their warm conversations about life's dailies left me wondering why I have not been using SKYPE with my West Coast Family and other friends, particularly my sisters. We talk and text a lot - but there is a deeper connection when you are face to face.hmm - 

This is one of the reasons I love technology - so many options on ways to keep connected with people you care about. I already have SKYPE and FACE TIME on all my "devices" and anyone who knows me can probably guess that I have many of those things --so what's been holding me back?
Good question. Time to put them to action.

Snow is pretty to look at and a big job to remove but I heard laughter coming from the outside during the doing of the
hard work - that is a good sound!

Now we are waiting for the snow plow to get to our street -

and I till be glad to be home - and taking a few lessons with me

I am happy to have had this extra time with my family - local and extended  through calls and texts - hearing their voices is great - but now I realize Apple can show me their faces as well.!!!!!!

Blizzard 2016 - One

For days last week the weather TV reporters kept up talking about the story of the coming storm they called the "Snowmagedon". Prepare. Prepare.

Well when I prepared the chimney sweep discovered a problem with the woos stove. So, that changed our plans.

 Yesterday my daughter Karen and I and our two pets, cat - Angel and dog Leia, packed our cars like the old pioneer Conestoga wagons and drove 30 minutes away to Silver Spring to stay with our son and his wife in Silver Spring.

The snow started at 1 pm yesterday afternoon. We settled in quite comfortably in Silver Spring. I slept well in our grand-daughter Alison's bedroom while the snow steadily fell to earth. This morning the world was coated with white. It was peacefully quiet with no cars moving.

I woke to find a guardian watching me from the end of the bed,

The snow has continued steadily all day. Cars have disappeared as have yard furniture. The world has begun to look like a black and white line drawing. 

We have spent the day working on the computer, watching a few movies. some shoveling, and watching the snow being tossed by the winds as it continues to fall. We hardly know what is ahead. Snow continues to fall.The roads are closed by snow. Our lives are altered for a time. No hopping in the car and running errands. There are questions about what comes next. We are here for the duration. Tomorrow I plan to settle down into my work plan - - - but the snow is distracting.

37 Days is Coming Back - A memory of Before

There are so many ways we "inhabit our lives" and many people who nudge us forward. Author Patti Digh has been one of those nudgers for me since she started writing her blog "37 Days" in 2005. Her writings spoke to me at a time I needed it. After a number of years her work expanded and she stopped writing on "37 Days". I missed her.

I followed her on Facebook - busy, busy, retreats and books and raising her family. Today she announced on Facebook that she is re-opening the blog and will be writing every day. Read why - here. Along with others who admire her I wrote a comment on her blog - "Welcome Back, Patti. I have missed you."

 She talks about her first book "life is a verb" as being her favorite. It is mine too. I remember her talking about her excitement as she worked on it and as it went to press and was launched. She let people in her world-wide community share the experience with her.

 Then she went one step further - she invited artists from her "community" to be a part of the project by sharing drawings made for specific subjects. I felt the excitement and was thrilled to have a chance to participate. Worked hard and submitted two drawings.

  "life is a verb" was published eight years ago. I knew it was on my bookshelf. Dusty yes - but where I expected it to be. It felt familiar as I thumbed through looking for my two drawings. Ah! Ha!

Live an Irresistible Obituary

 "It doesn't matter who my father was; it matters who I remember he was." Anne Sexton

Patti Digh writes:
Are we leaving behind numbers or stories?
I vote for stories.

The page is illustrated with my art work - honoring her father. I used a young picture of him with my childhood WWII picture of
me to salute him - - - with orchids as the background.



The art is followed by another quote.

All sorrows can be borne if you put them into a story or tell a story about them.  Isak Dinesen

Today when I read this quote it took my breath away.

I cannot say that I actively remembered this quote or this page when my husband Jim died in 2012 -
but it is an excellent back up for explaining my creating a story for my healing - Arlington National Cemetery: My Forever Home, which I am telling still.

More - I was touched and delighted by my small piece on another page -

 I used a picture of the shadows Jim and I cast on a California beach and topped it with children who danced past us .

The quote for that page is:

To watch us dance is to hear our hearts speak - Hopi saying







Thanks, Patti.

An Evening of Stories told by Elizabeth Ellis

Tonight The Grapevine Storytelling Series featured Texas storyteller Elizabeth Ellis. Her reputation as one of the outstanding storytellers in the country preceded her and the room was packed.

Elizabeth Ellis does not disappoint. Her rich stories touched hearts and revealed the complexities in human relationships. Her story program included a wonderful history story, a folktale,  and two brilliantly crafted personal stories.

I have admired Elizabeth's work for years and have heard many of the stories in her repertoire but every time I encounter a repeat I hear something new, something different. She is a skilled word-smith who fits words together into metaphors that give deep meaning, add to the power of the story, and paint pictures you remember.

Elizabeth Ellis beguiles the audience with her soft southern accent, her sharp sense of humor, her compassionate delivery and world-view. Her gestures and facial expressions enliven her performance and pull you closer into the story. The audience is with her from the first word. Even with waiters bumping between tables and taking orders the audience is caught in the web she weaves with her storytelling.

When she closes the show she thanks the audience for coming -
if they feel as I did - -
they are glad they came,
grateful for her stories,
and look forward to hearing her again - soon.

Thank you, Elizabeth Ellis.

The Grapevine Storytelling Series is produced on the 2nd Tuesday of the month by storytellers Noa Baum and Tim Livengood at Busboys and Poets in Takoma Park, MD.

A Series of Prompts - The Ninth Steet House

The stack of blank books on my shelf is as tempting as a bakery because I know things are hidden inside that I have forgotten. Today I paused my work at the computer to take another look. And it was loaded with sugary sweets.

 At one time I pasted copies of pictures in a blank book. I used the photos as prompts for my memory to gather family stories. Have you tried it?

 I was glad to see this page when I opened the journal today. I was five years old when we lived in this house. I remember the Sunday that the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, the Christmas Santa brought me a metal kitchen sink that really held water and the day it snowed and Mama made "snow cream." You know - the days when life is simple for a child.

The Ninth Street House - Charlotte, NC

From an Afternoon in Baltimore: May 2000

The book shelves in my office are bulging with books, stacks of files, three ring binders stuffed with papers and stacks of sketch books. It is space that cries out to be cleaned out and neatened-up. The other day I pulled down a sketch book thinking I could toss it. Wrong. Its dated May 2001 - the notes are from a Doug Lipman storytelling workshop in Baltimore, MD. Storyteller Gail Rosen had organized it. This was one of my first workshops. It was held in a fine old house downtown. A lovely space. The notes are interesting but the drawings on most every page from doodles to contour drawings of other storytellers were the surprises. They hold the memory of the experience more vividly than the notes.

Several potted plants on the window sill with light filtering over them now look animated and amusing. This head of someone pleases me.

 Some one's story prompts me to think of my father in Presbyterian Hospital dying in the town where he was born, Charlotte, NC. Hmm. I never worked with those memories to create the story - whether to tell for an audience or just to leave for my children.

Ah, me. This is a bit of treasure for me. It is the quickly assembled outline for my Africa Story.

That afternoon as the light faded in the room where we were gathered was the first time I organized my thoughts on that adventure and told it as a story.
The next year I told it - as my first one-woman show - in a solo performance at the Washington Storytellers Theater - quite a thrill.

This is an except from the Africa Story told for a performance with Better Said Than Done.

Interesting to look back  - all from a few pages in a journal - which I am NOT tossing out.

Would you? Do you?

60th Wedding Anniversary

Jim Schoettler and I were married December 30, 1955 -
at Assumption Catholic Church, Charlotte, NC.

This was the beginning.

December 2005   Jim  and I celebrated our 50th anniversary with a  reception at our home in Chevy Chase, MD.  It was a wonderful party shared with family and friends - and Jim's toast was sweet and funny. 

I am thinking of that today - which is our 60th anniversary. I am pretty sure I can guess what he might be saying if he were here.

A long marriage is a beautiful gift - you have the time to know each other so well, the satisfaction of making it through tossing winds and troubled seas together, 

the  joy of many blessings, large and small, and most of all  - - love.

Remembering 60 years ago

Several years ago I opened a box of papers and found this Hallmark Date Book 1955.

Memories are the food for my stories so finding an old personal calendar to fill in gaps is a great blessing.

By January 1 1955 Jim Schoettler and I  were a couple. Most dates are marked with something to do with "dating" Jim from a "coffee with Jim" to "marrying Jim today" on December 30.

So - today --- 60 years ago - - I was excited and nervous as I packed the last items in my suitcase so I would be ready to leave home tomorrow  - - for a honeymoon week-end in Washington, DC before we put the key in the lock at our waiting apartment in Baltimore. We never guessed that we would return to the Washington area in 1964 and live out our lives there.

During the polo epidemic of 1944 my mother became so frightened for our safety that she arranged for me and my sister Lynda to live with the Sisters of Mercy at their "mother house" in Belmont, NC. She felt that living on their farm would be safer for us. I celebrated my ninth birthday there that summer - and I also learned how important receiving mail can be which has left me with a particular appreciation and love of letters.

My love of letters continued whether they were mine or written by strangers. Years later as I delved into genealogy and storytelling I became enamored with old letters because of the stories they hold. I look for letters in old boxes in back rooms, in library collections and in local history files. 

One afternoon at the Historical Society in the District of Columbia I asked to read "domestic files" and I found this letter - 

In 1845, from her parental home in Washington, DC, Normanstone, Dora Barnard writes to her finance John Higgins three days before their wedding.

Normanstone, 1845

My dear Sir,

I fully intended writing yesterday but was prevented. I have attended to your requests and I have finished sewing much to my relief.

I believe all planning is done, everything goes on smoothly. I went into the store room today to pack something away ready to be sent up and I deliberately sat down by the side of the trunk and took a good cry. That's just the way I am when I am excited.

Do not think it is regret, for my determination to leave all, and cleave to thee, Oh, no.
But this leaving causes struggles. I tremble also at the responsibility I am incurring. I suppose you are calmer than myself.

Now, good-bye till Tuesday.

Yours - - for the last time - - S. Dora Barnard

What a lovely surprise to find this sweet letter. When I read it I felt connected to Dora Barnard across 110 years.

Finding the little calendar brought back memories of how I felt the night before Jim and I married.  Writing this tonight reminded me of Dora's letter. I knew just where to find it because I often use it in a program about stories written in letter by ordinary women across the years.

Another gift from storytelling.

Dream traveling

I woke up dreaming again this morning. I think Jim was there - in the dream - but .... I am not absolutely sure.

As I woke up I could see that I was in a bedroom in a lovely B&B somewhere else, say like England. It was in an older time - not today. I recognized that immediately because of the furniture and a small fire burning in the fireplace.

People talking outside the window. Not that I understood what they were saying because they were speaking with a beautiful accent - no doubt British. It had to be British to sound that precisely clipped and correct. Ah, I love to hear a British accent.

By now, I am opening my eyes. I looked around. Darn. I am in my room in my very own bed warm under my favorite quilt. And - -  since my bedroom is on the second floor there is no one talking or walking-by outside my window.

"Why was I in the other room in the dream",  I asked myself out loud. The cat moved at my feet disturbed by hearing my voice.

When I lifted the quilt so that I could sit up - I got an inkling of the why.

The iPad tells the story. Instead of reading in bed, like I used to,  I watch Netflix movies on my iPad most nights.

This morning Netflix is paused but the screen shows what I was watching when I fell asleep -

Foyle's War  - which is set in Britain, with the marvelous man of few words, Michael Kitchen starring as Foyle.

The rooms are of another time ---- another place ---- and most rooms do look like a B & B I would like to book a room in.

Hmm. I do have a new Passport - Could I be telling myself to take a trip - "across the pond?"

Dreaming stories

Jim was always willing to listen and to talk when I was thinking my way into a new story.

As I woke up this morning I was still in a dream with my arms around Jim and his holding me. He began to melt away as I became more awake so I quickly whispered "thank you for coming."

The Christmas holidays are a testing time for me and the family. We miss Jim. The games and days have lost a bit of their sparkle and joy without him. "Dad always added the happy" Karen said yesterday. "That's true," I said and added, "now we have to work hard on our own to make the "happy" happen." That feels like a tall order and I am grateful I feel more up for it than I did for a long time.

Our 60th wedding anniversary is this week.

Last night my son Jim called to set a date to go with me to see The Force Awakens, the new Star Wars movie playing at the Uptown movie theater on Connecticut Avenue. I am a devoted Star Wars Fan and I love the Uptown Theater.

New Years Eve, 1955, on our honeymoon in Washington, DC, Jim and I went to see 'What Happened to Harry" at the Uptown Theater.

Change is ever-present in this city. Buildings regularly fall to the wrecking ball and rise ugly. However, very little has changed in the l930s-1940s low-rise shopping area where the Uptown theater is located. I often think about it's timelessness as I drive down the long familiar stretch of asphalt and pot holes.

Jim rides with me. Even though he has been gone almost four years he would not be a stranger on this path. Connecticut Avenue is the primary way we traveled to and from DC after we moved into our house in 1970. Memories crowd every inch of the way from Constitution Avenue to our turn off at Manor Road, Chevy Chase, MD.  For ten years Jim's favorite office was at the corner of Connecticut and R Street. When I worked for the League of Women Voters their office was located on M Street so I rode with Jim mornings and evenings most days. Newly empty nesters   with our kids off at college we often stopped along the way for supper out.

When I talk with him now I point out any changes - like favorite restaurants that have moved or closed or an empty lot where once there was an old building. I also remind both of us of things that happened like the morning we drove to George Washington Hospital for his surgery or a hurry-up ride to National Airport to put me on a plane to Africa. This is my way of keeping our story alive.

I do miss hearing his take on things but I know him well enough to sort of guess what he would say to recapture his good advice or to have just a bit of friendly sparring.

Right now I am working on several new stories - one a history story about women and the other a new take on Jim and me and our life together for sixty years.

So it does not surprise me to wake up with my hands beneath his jacket hugging him close  - - -  I know that, just like always - he's helping me with the story.

Stage Kiss - at Round House Theater

A few days ago my daughter Karen and I decided to extend our Christmas "doings" so we bought tickets for a play.

This afternoon my daughter Karen and I laughed out loud, along with the rest of the audience at Round House Theater , Bethesda, MD, during a performance of Stage Kiss.  It was great!!!

As I expected Excellent reviews are posted on Joel Markowitz's fabulous site, DC Metro Theater Arts.

It feels so good to lose yourself in a play as actors work hard to keep you laughing and to draw you into their world on stage. In addition to outstanding performances I have always appreciated the sets designed for plays at the Round House Theater - and today was another winner for me.  I particularly enjoyed seeing several characters wearing ridiculous orange clothes from the 1970s. Could not help wondering if they were the "real thing" or successful copies.

The run of the play ends tomorrow. We were lucky that we caught Stage Kiss on the next to last day.

On the drive home Karen and I agreed we need more real-life theater performances. We have already checked theater schedules and picked a few we want to see. Come on 2016!