I told my friend Judy Higgins, I would start blogging on a regular basis but I find it difficult to think about what to say. There are so many thoughts going through my mind and I find myself wandering about the worthiness of any of them. However, here is the recent thing I was thinking about. Marriage and the concept of "Women Flying Solo" to quote Judy.
I have been proposed to on several occasions. I found myself relating at least two of them last evening as I visited the Physical Therapist to continue working on the damage sustained in a fall in Ghana (another story for another day). My favorite proposal was from a Masai in Kenya. I was on Safari staying at a camp and we started talking to each other. When traveling alone, it is easy to start  conversations.
He looked typically Masai but not so tall as one would expect. We talked about many things and we walked around the camp at night. We visited the meercats and realized they were becoming quite upset. Apparently they do not like snakes and there was a green snake trying to extend itself upwards. I understand this is called a green Mambo and apparently quite dangerous. My failure to scream apparently impressed this young warrior and he started to tell me doubt what a fantastic wife I would make. Strong and brave and fearless. Interesting, as I probably had hoped for more like beautiful..... Anyway, it was quite a lengthy discussion and I finally had to tell him I was too old. I was in my early fifties at the time and he was 36 and besides living in the bush without running water and being responsible for plowing, cleaning game, keeping up the crops, cooking, cleaning, etc., etc., etc where not on the top of my list on ways to spend my weekend. He had a tough time believing this, interestingly enough and I had to finally pull out my passport to convince him of my age. A brief interlude and an interesting adventure to say the least.
My other proposals equally exciting were:
1) a dashing man on the back of white horse (seriously) dressed in Arab headdress with the long white robe and all I could see were his large, dark eyes --- and flashing (seriously) white teeth. Ah-h-h whatever was missing my imagination provided. This was in the desert Wadi Rum in Jordan and yes, I seriously thought about it for a while. But.........
2) the woman in the Bedouin camp who discovering I was single, offered to find me a man. She was very appalled to find I was over fifty and therefore could not have children. Needless to say, I was grateful. The concept of being matched for the sake of being married was not high on my bucket list of things to do.
Anyway, that is a bit of my trip down memory lane. I will write more as I remember my twenty years abroad and think about and remember my experiences. So many good ones and definitely some harrowing ones and all of them having brought new lessons.
Talk to you all soon.

winter cometh

I remember this day. It was shortly after I arrived back in the US and had started work. I had forgotten what snow was like. For the past few years my experience of this white powdery stuff was confined to viewing it from a nice warm hotel room. Now I was here in Virginia really experiencing it and low and behold, I loved it. It was cold and moving against it required bravery and resilience on my part. It required a willingness to get wet, to experience cold, cold hands that felt like they would never warm. But I loved it.

It was the first time in twenty years I had experienced seasons. For the first time in twenty years I saw spring this year. I watched the flowers come up. I ripped up the grass in front of my house and planted flowers. I watched the Azalea bushes flower and I ripped up more grass and planted more flowers. I experienced Spring, that magical time of year when life is born anew and then the season of maturity with lots of summer rain and now I move again into Fall and then Winter. It is so good to experience seasons. Little did I know how much I had missed them.....