Ten minutes to write. Less time to read.

I am blessed to spend time alone with each of my grown children. It’s not that I don’t like their partners or friends or live-in cats, but it’s special to have one-on-one time with someone you brought into the world. I was the first cuddle, the first rocking arms, the first finger to grab.

In truth, motherhood didn’t come naturally to me; I much preferred the rants of teenagers to the mews of newborns. But we’re all past that now. My sons are middle aged and, if you’ve read this blog recently, you know I turned seventy-five two weeks ago.

This passage of years makes time alone even more precious, and in the first six months of 2019 I’ve had the privilege to spend it with my academic offspring and my artistic one. (Not that ‘academic’ and ‘artistic’ are mutually exclusive!)

With the former, I talk about running, tennis, politics, literature, and his father whom I divorced in 1976. With the latter, I talk about alternative lifestyle, crocheting and other forms of yarn work, as well as cars and theater. Even the value of the French language.

My close friends are envious, because they rarely get the opportunity to relive that symbolic first cuddle in the form of time together. Time to remember all those things that passed during the half century we’re talking about. And time to look forward together.