One of my most vivid memories is when I was six, and Miss Wait, my first-grade teacher, stood at the front of our class in her prim, beige shirtwaist dress and smooth, dark hair and told us to write our names on the lined notebook paper on our desks.

I lit up. I loved to put things on paper. My sketches filled the blank pages of the books I read voraciously. Drawings of girls’ faces surrounded by curly hair, with names above the faces. “Trixie” was one of my favorites. I wanted to be Trixie…

When Ed and I first saw the house we’d eventually buy, a two-story grey house smack dab on the Middle Fork of the Snoqualmie River, I looked over the back fence, where the river gleamed as it rushed by, framed by cedars, Douglas firs, cottonwoods, alders, vine maples, and prolific ferns, and I heard the ever-present river sound, soft and strong. I hadn’t yet been inside the house, nor stepped into the yard, when I said, “Oooh, Could we have This?” …

Change that involves leaving people and places I’m attached to, has always been, for me, a stressful mixture of sadness and untethered anxiety. Ed and I recently left the church that’s been a major part of our lives for seven years, and though I don’t regret the decision, I’ve been lost as to what I’ll do next…

A couple of months ago, after telling Ed I feared I’d taken on too much volunteer work, I watched myself, as if I were a character in a movie, pick up my phone and begin organizing a fundraiser for Ukraine at my church. For the next six weeks, I spent close to every waking moment and a chunk of my nighttime ones immersed in figuring out the oh so many moving parts, in a role I’d never played before.

During my planning, I turned seventy-five. Three quarters of a century old. Given my past proclivities for things likely to lead to an early death, I thanked God and my caring husband for helping me change course in my mid-thirties to living life rather than destroying it…

I still get tickled that I chose Monty Python’s Galaxy Song to perform at my voice teacher’s online Christmas recital. I don’t know what drew me to it, as I hadn’t heard it in ages. But I listened to several arrangements and was particularly drawn to the version by Jim Post with an added “lighten up” ending…

Since the age of twelve, I’ve been nearly legally blind and have worn glasses or contacts. After recent cataract surgery, I now have 20/20 vision and the relief that, during my recovery, my older ego allowed me to go out in public without the eye makeup I’ve worn every day for sixty years.

The medication I took during my recovery caused “malaise”, which means I basically couldn’t get up off the couch without exhaustion. Now, I’m enjoying brighter colors and clearer street signs and “reader” glasses hanging from a rainbow-colored chain around my neck. My granddaughter, Sophie, told me I’ve advanced one more step in grandmotherhood. Ed loves my face sans spectacles. I see dirt I couldn’t see, so my housekeeping has improved a teeny bit. Well, less than teeny, but some.

But I didn’t write. No essays, no book reviews, no fiction….