 |
|
TIME TRAVELERS |
|
It’s the last day of April and I have a great May
coming up.
I'll be traveling to visit my sister in Lakeland,
Florida and a book signing at Barnes & Noble thrown
in for good measure surely means a full week. I’m
really looking forward to both. A Writer's
Conference in NYC at the end of May rounds out an
interesting month.
Part of my promotion of the George & Bob
Books is this self-directed mini tour across the
country. Luckily, I also get to visit with my family
and friends along the way.
These jaunts across the U.S. have to coincide with
my evening adult education classes I am currently
teaching. Every Monday afternoon until the end of
May, I sit in a classroom with some pretty
remarkable women who are writing their life stories.
Talk about drama, and I mean the good kind. The
youngest is 79, the oldest 88.
These women come from all walks of life, different
economic and social classes. Yet they all blend in
well together; they are friends. They have known
each other for at least 50 years.
They are teachers, business leaders, and one is from
town royalty.
What is most interesting to me is they answer the
question recently hidden in the back of my mind of
late – what does it feel like to be old?
“I look in the mirror and every morning it is a
shock to see my mother standing there.”
“I feel exactly like I did when I was 20. When am I
supposed to ‘feel’ old?”
Sure, they admit to some aches and pains, but these
women are a tremendous example of what it means to
take care of ones self. They continue to get their
hair done at the salon, they exercise, and have not
smoked in eons.
One never married; only two still have their spouse
by their side. They visit their siblings in Florida
when the need arises, and smile knowingly when I
tell them I am visiting mine this year. Their minds
are sharp and they rib each other constantly,
laughing and joking about fashion trends and
changes, remembering when their children were in
school together, marriages and deaths and everything
in between.
Surviving the depressions, the wars and the 70’s,
they are stronger now than they ever were. They are
what I hope I am when I am their age.
The fact that we have been thrown together in this
situation is not lost on me; I am more the student
than the teacher at this class. I have never thought
of myself as a teacher, except perhaps to my
children and their friends.
Another gift from above; to be able to look into
their eyes and have them tell me
their stories.
The answer to my question is really quite simple.
Never allow one self to see the end of the road.
Just keep traveling it.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Robert Frost -
The Road Not Taken
TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
|
|
|
2007
© EileenLoveman.com |
Developed by: KCS Systems, Inc. |
|
|
|
