Styles of Scenery

When I was 14 years old I went to Germany.  It was beautiful.  I savored the crumbly castles, the stately manors, the beautiful Rhine River. 

When I was 21 years old I went to Japan.  It was intriguing.  I fell in love with the delicious food, the kindly people, the striking shrines.

Last year I went to Hawaii.  It was gorgeous.  I drank in the blue lagoons, I cherished the silky sand under my feet, I marveled at the exotic sunsets.

Lovely Love

I love love. Not in some sissy way or anything like that. I love love because it’s real and sustaining. I first met my husband when he and I were both 18. I know. We were terribly young. “Love, like youth, is wasted on the young.” It was love at first sight. Really. Neither one of us admitted it during the following years of our courtship, but I would have married him that first day if he would’ve asked. He was that good. And that real. And that solid. And that true. That’s how love should be.

We dated for four more years. Without kissing, without saying “I love you” too directly. Just by quietly understanding each other. We were both off to college at different universities. We both spent nearly two years living overseas in foreign countries, writing just enough letters to stay in touch, and gazing at the same stars in the Eastern Hemisphere at night. But between the lines we were living for each other, fulfilling our commitments, making ourselves better, learning about life — so that we could become a team when the time was right.

Trip Trauma

Why any family would try to go on a summer vacation is beyond me. Summer is a time for relaxing and doing nothing, right? Then the word "vacation" does not fit into a mother's vocabulary. Let me illustrate...