…so, I haven’t done a blog for a bit.  I am not even sure if I can remember how to do it.  It was a busy, fun-filled, and VERY happy summer.  Once the Japanese Contingent sadly left our driveway, I had to find something to do to fill the quiet, so I went back to reading.  Nothing deep –nothing-meaty – mostly easy readers to pass the time.  It is amazing that you can find something to think about – even in an easy reader.

I love reading books by Kathy Reichs.  I enjoy the show, but I LOVE the books.  I think it is because I can visualize the characters the way I want them to be. In her recent book, Bones of the Lost, she adds a different type of an epilogue.  She gives a variety of reasons that caused her to write this particular book...some of them professional and some of them personal.  She described how she changed some characteristics of a particular person that she knew to create a character in the book or adapted the setting of a case that she had worked on and wove them together. She ends with the following quote:  “Professional.  Personal.  Free -ranging data bytes in my brain.  Disconnected facts, memories, and impressions reconfigured.  Viola:  A new Temperance Brennan novel is born.”

That rang bells with me.  I guess when you get to a certain age your days are filled with disconnected facts, memories, and impressions.  Reichs says that she reconfigures them.  I have always said that they blend so that I am not sure if I am remembering them correctly or not.  However, it was that phrase that got be back to the thought of creating yet another blog.  I feel my children cringing.

It seems to be disconnected phrases that have caught my attention of late.  The one that got me thinking was ‘forward and back’.  I must have read it or heard it somewhere because it is not a term that I would use.  I would say back and forth – but however you say it, over the past many months, I have seen that phrase put into action repeatedly. 

Perhaps part of it was related to the countdown to almost all  of our family being here – here in the same place at the same time – if only for a short while.  But, there was a back and forth to the countdown.  It was wonderfully exciting to watch the numbers go down to their arrival – and it seemed to take forever. 

However, once they arrived, I had to remind myself to celebrate every moment that we were together and not to think about the speed in which the days were flying by.  I was not always successful.

I had two experiences with forward and back that took place in Maine over the summer.  This is where my disconnected thoughts became somewhat intertwined.  Somehow, the concept of age began to mingle with the concept of forward and back.  Forward and back and the aging process are clearly connected however you look at them.

In the first, David and I had gone to Wells for a short visit to enjoy the beach and see our old friends, the Kimball family.  I was sitting on the beach, watching people play in the waves.  I was smiling to myself thinking that in a few short weeks, we would be doing that with Louis, Mana, and the cousins.  Suddenly, I saw an elderly gentleman in dress pants and a beautifully pressed shirt wearing highly polished loafers striding down the beach.  He had a shock of pure white hair that was reflecting the sunlight.  He would leap over puddles that had been created by the waves and continue rushing down the beach where he walked up the stairs to the sidewalk.  He strode on and was soon out of my vision.  A few minutes later, I looked up the beach to find him walking down the second set of steps and repeating his rapid walk.  Each time he would come down the stairs, he would check his watch.  While I was watching, he repeated the process 11 times before disappearing from my sight.  I had so many unanswered questions about why he was walking back and forth in that manner.

In the second, we were there with the Japanese Contingent for several days. David and I were watching Mana play in the puddles as well as watching the others brave the waves.  I saw an elderly lady walking the beach wearing a bright purple dress, salmon crocs, and a wide brimmed red straw hat.  (My first thought was that it was one of my Aunts)  To complete the outfit, she had donned a bright yellow life vest.  She would walk down the beach and back – as if looking for someone.  I had so many unanswered questions about where she was going and where she had been.  If I were truly a storyteller, I would create a scene where the elderly gentleman reappeared the two lovers found each other after being separated for years…I digress.

Based on personal experience, I could not help but wonder if their mothers had instilled in them a fear of going too far…I know mine did.  I have many memories of day trips to Hampton Beach during the summer – but never being allowed to go down onto the sand because if I got too close to the water, I might be swept away.  I wonder what she would have thought if she had seen me in the waves in Aruba this year.  I must say that I could still hear that voice telling me to be careful.  I did not wear a life vest, but I never went in without my noodle.  (Moving forward, I have already purchased a doodle for next year – I will never have to purchase a noodle again.)

During the summer and even this fall, I have had the opportunity to watch boats going back and forth in beautiful bodies of water.  I have been told that some of them were trolling.  I find that an interesting way to say  forward and back.  We do troll our way through life - moving forward and back in regards to people, places, and things.  What is SO important to us in one moment becomes practically insignificant depending on where we are on our individual path.

At some point during the summer, I again saw the old quote about those important people in our lives that we do not see for years.  Suddenly you find a time to be together and you pick up right where you left off – it is like you have never been apart.  We go back and forth in our relationships with our families and with our friends.  Eight years ago this past summer, we planned a trip to Maine to see the Kimball’s.  We had dinner at Litchfield’s.  Although we said we would do it again, time passed by, and we did not.  This year when they said they were going to be in Maine, I decided that we were going to go come hell or high water – and go we did.  They cooked for us and entertained us and it did not seem possible that eight years had gone by.  We were all the same.  Although we had moved forward, it was simple to go back in time.  There it was again – forward and back.

It seems as though it has been a year where people have come back into our lives. My cousin Tracey has come back into our lives and is presently planning a second trip to visit her New Hampshire family. There was a day when I was thinking of my cousin Sissy and through the marvels of technology, I found her in less than an hour.  We have met and had dinner – and we MUST do it again!

When we were in Florida, I had the opportunity to spend time with my college roommate.  We shared good times and bad for our entire time at Lyndon State – and have not seen each other since.  Of course we do live quite a distance from one another – me In New

Hampshire and Tanya in Connecticut!  David got to see many of his relatives earlier in the summer, many whom he had not seen in years. When I look at the reasons for many – actually the majority of these ‘refindings’, most of them are related to sad events. Why do we let the time pass by without seeing those who have been important pieces in our lives?

Shortly after I started taking the words for this blog from my cluttered mind and putting them on my notepad, one of my newer friends made a post to Face Book.  Timing truly is everything.  “Some of the most precious things in the world are your true friends. Ones that you haven't seen in almost 30 years but they are still there for you when you need someone to support you and calm your fears. Ones that even though they're across the US letting you know that they're there for you and you for them. Hold your friends close to your heart...they help keep this crazy world sane.”

On each of our trips to Maine, we had to visit the Goldenrod.  We drove by Shelton’s, one of my favorite shops.  I mentioned to David that I did not ever remember going to York without stopping in and buying something that I really did not need.  I later thought about that a great deal.  Perhaps my life has reached a place where I am filling it with people instead of things?  There are things that I still love and want, but I don’t seem to need them as much any more.  I continue to need the people I know and love.

In one of my easy readers, I came across this phrase:   “Velvet Nights and Silver Mornings”.  I know that it came from one of the Eve Duncan books by Iris Johansen.  Two characters were talking and one wished the other velvet nights and silver mornings.  They discussed the fact that originally this was probably a phrase meant for lovers, but went on to say:  “They can come from mothers, fathers, sisters, good friends – yes, definitely good friends.  All of them can your change your world.”

In order to close this series of free ranging data-bytes before Christmas, I will share one more forward and back experiences that connects itself to age and friendship – and it made me cry.  Hell, it made David cry.

While we were in Aruba, we journeyed down to Hut 56 each morning and spent at least six hours there each day.  I had no need to visit the shops.  I had no need to visit the sights that I had seen before.  I simply wanted to sit and “be”.  Hut 56 is the closest hut to the beach and there were several huts just behind it.  A large group of people sat behind us each day.  None of them were young.  In fact, they made us look like teenagers.  It was evident from their discussions that some

of them were ‘family’ but families had connected with other families over 30 years of timesharing at the same place at the same time.  They had created a network of families who looked forward to seeing each other every year.  On any given day, there were between fifteen or twenty of them who clustered themselves around several huts.  We could hear them discussing how they had fared at the Casino the night before or which new restaurant they had sampled.  They told hilarious stories about each other that had taken place while they were together in their home away from home.  They shared stories about their children and grandchildren and remembered times that they were there with them.  Each of those conversations would end with a reminder to come on Friday.

Every day at noon, a bell would ring out across the beach.  That was the signal for half price drinks at the bar.  Every day at noon, the group would rise and slowly make their way to the bar.  When the bell rang on Friday, the group rose again, but they slowly made their way to the beach.  At the same time, elderly people moved toward them from the left and the right and formed a half circle facing the water.  The youngest of them faced the group and put his hand out to a beautiful lady and brought her to stand beside him.  He pinned a corsage to her beach cover up and kissed her cheek.  She handed him what looked to be a beautiful clamshell.  He held it up for all to see and said:  “Tony, we miss you this year.  You have gone to God.  You are with God.  But we know that this is where you want to be with God and with all of us.  See you next year.”  For the first time in all our days there, the bell rang again and the group slowly passed us on their way to the bar, many of them with tears streaming down their cheeks.  They were greeted outside of the bar where a luncheon had been set up and they continued their celebration of the life and death of their friend. 

They say that a picture is worth a thousand words.  This event gave me the true meaning of Velvet Nights and Silver Mornings – and that is what I wish for all of us, wherever our ships may sail.