Last night, from about 7:00 to 7:30, I decided that, come hell or high water, I was going to get Ernie down to Nashville for the rest of Americana week. I furiously googled hotel rooms and rental cars and did my best to convince him. I laid out the schedule for him, "Look, if you leave mid-morning you'll be there in plenty of time to see David Olney at the Five Spot, and then....." My only demand was that he find Julie Christensen and tell her that she needed to come do a house concert for us. He was tempted briefly...I SAW it flicker in his eyes....but he is getting the cold we have all had this week, and cooler headed than I am, so home he stays. Damn...for a minute there I was so excited....
It was similar to the frenzy I worked myself into a week or so ago when I decided we HAD to go to Maine in early October. I don't know what the hell gets into me. Yearning of one sort or another I guess. This morning his cold is taking hold and the whole idea did seem faintly unrealistic.
Maine. Nashville. Next year, next year.
Throwback Thursday it is....here is a picture of me and my beautiful sister Judi. It's from spring break in 2004. We were visiting her in Clemson and working in her yard. Owen saw this picture and said, "Oh my GOD, did you SEE this? Mom is holding a rake or something!" Jerk. The boys were little....only 2 and 4, Ernie hadn't been diagnosed with cancer...that came just a week or so after this. Judi was healthy, my parents were doing fine. It was this little golden period before life rained down on us for a couple of years. The skies are much clearer now and I guess in many ways we are back to another golden period. Ernie is doing well, the boys are wonderful and impossible and loving and maddening...all as they should be. We are blessed in so many ways. So from one golden moment, looking back to another.
I do miss the part of me that was Judi's sister.