Inside Out

Went to my brother's house for a weekend of shopping and gardening and bird watching. Jeff's wife Nancy maintains a bird paradise in their back yard, which is now home to blue jays, cardinals, gold finches, Baltimore orioles, orchard orioles, indigo buntings, chickadees, nuthatches, and two varieties of hummingbirds. In the early mornings we drank coffee and watched birds. In the early evenings, we drank coffee and watched the birds. Lovely.

Sunday morning I weeded the strawberry and rhubarb patches and put down weed shield around four raised beds. When noon rolled around, I reluctantly rolled the two-and-a-half hours home.

30 minutes from home, a small convertible passed me on a country road. The top was down and from quite a distance, I could see the bright white hair of a woman in the passenger seat. It seemed incongruous with the zippy little car.

When the car got past me, I realized that the white-haired woman was my sister. Then I looked in the rear-view mirror and realized other people probably think the same thing when they pass me in Paula (my VW Bug convertible).

I'm 55 now but don't feel a bit different than I did at 40. This morning, my knees are sore from hours of kneeling in the garden, and that surprises me. I rarely look straight at myself, but when I catch an unexpected glimpse in a mirror somewhere, I don't recognize that person as me anymore than I recognized that white-haired woman as my sister.

Time marches, but my vision of myself runs in place.