ZOOM!!!

 my surprise Mother's Day flowers from Nick

 

 Zooming is such a modern day miracle!  Yes, I know that makes me sound like an old lady, but at 72, I guess I am entitled.

Courtney -oldest child and only daughter- set up a mother's day/ birthday zoom with all five of my kids, my husband and my sister .

 I don't see the kids very often.  They are all adults and their lives are busy.  The are scattered around the US, so none of them or is is able to get together in person very often.

When we had a houseful (did we really do that??) we saw the kids ALL the time.  Eating together, watching TV together, attending back to school nights and teacher conferences.  We went to concerts and sports driving everyone here and there. 

I enjoy my selective memory that allows me to fantasize about  how wonderful it all was.  Well, truth be told, it was not always fun.  It was exhausting and often frustrating.  Sometimes it was the kids, sometimes it was something or another concerning their schools, teachers, nasty neighborhood kids.  Messes.  Homework.  Laundry.

Do I regret having kids?  No.  There are time that I wish things were different- like contacting me and writing all the time.  But, wait, that would mean that they were clones of me and that's not who or what I want. And of course I wish that I had been more patient and kind all the time and I was not.

I love my kids.  Of course I do.  But the depth of my love and the intensity of how I feel about them is beyond words.  And each one of them is so unique and different than the others.  But they are all ours.  Nick's and mine.  They are Sherwoods for better or worse!

Happy Mother's Day

 

  

 

And now this!

 My cousins, Geri and Cheryl, sisters and friends sent me a fun birthday gift!

 I just turned 72 and Geri turns 72 in a few weeks, so we are especially close.

 

 

 

  

 Here we are, sitting on our grandfather's knees when we were around a year old.  Our moms are sisters!  Aunt Geri, Geri Lynn, Grandpa Rivers, me and my mom, Ruth
 

 

 

Baby pictures and now

 

 I posted a photo of myself in my "birthday suit" as a baby in a life preserver.  We were traveling to Greece for my dad's assignment at the US Embassy.   It was labeled that we were on a holiday to Greece, but in fact we lived there for two years.

Of course as you can see in that picture, I was a baby so don't remember a whole lot about Greece.   I was three years old when we returned to the States.

 Now I am going to post a passport picture that was taken for that trip.  In 1955, children were on their mother's passport, so Carol, Dale and baby me were all in the photo with our mother.

 There have been many iterations of all of us since 1955!

 

Here's a picture of me now, at age 72!

 

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Happy Birthday to me!

 

 

And now I am 72.  What next?

 

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Austin turns 39 on May 3rd

 

Thirty nine years ago at this time I was in labor with Austin.

 

 

Sewing Machines

 Journaling by hand while watching TV

 

 

 

Jessica sewing on my mom's- her great grandmother's sewing machine!

My mother's Featherweight

 

 

 

Life is like a river

You can't truly go back

 Tulips and grape hyacinths come back every year.

I wonder how.  They are not the exact same flowers as last year.  I saw them bloom, dry up and fade away.   And yet here they are again. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have been thinking about how you can never really go back.   

I spend a lot of time reminiscing and remembering the places we have lived.  The houses, our home for a period of time but eternal in my memory.

I look at old photos and recognize the blue flowered upholstery and drapes in our [second] house in Chiang Mai.   Christmases we celebrated there and friends we had visiting.  Small details like the rock garden beneath the stairs and the fence we had built to keep a crawling baby from eating the rocks.   Morgan was the baby.  

Lots of places.  I have decided not to try listing them all here.  I think a while ago I wrote about the various kitchens we have had.    The rooms and feelings and memories.

Going back.   I dreamed about the house we lived in when we lived in Tromsø.   When we (Carol and the girls and I) in 2015-eleven years ago, it was almost exactly as I remembered it,  The changes that the current owners made did not render it unrecognizable, just different.  Familiar.  And somehow I realized that that house, in my dreams, was totally different than the reality of it.

I look online at the places we have lived and imagine going back.  Just to visit, not to stay.

I ask myself, why?  Why do I want to go back?  Is it to re-live what was?  Is it to affirm that I didn't just imagine or dream it all.   Is it to affirm my past?

The two places I reminisce abut are Tromsø, Norway and Perth, Western Australia.   I know that the houses we lived in are still there.   

But even eleven years ago Tromsø, though very recognizable, is not the same.  There are traffic lights and fast food places.  I say "those weren't here when we lived here" somehow making it feel like it was better back then.   

And Perth.  The city has changed.  There are more freeways.   There's a whole different look to the Foreshore than I remember it.  Oh what a great place it was to be and to live.  But I am not who I was.  The city is not the same.  I just want to capture the good parts of my past.

And, as just about everyone who is aging, I want "me" back.   I want to be in my 20s again and even my 40s.  Have that energy and mobility.  Feeling beautiful again.

Am I in my final chapter?    I am not currently dying as far as I know.  But I am never going to be any younger.  

My babies are all grown.  Adults.  A memory of their babyhood fills me with joy and dreams.   And regrest of all of the things I wish I could undo and do over better.

And that's what I mean when I say life is like a river.  It flows but the same water goes past and doesn't return.  It just keeps flowing.