Life can change in an instant. In my 20s, I was an Army paratrooper with what seemed like a predictable path ahead. Those assumptions vanished during a nighttime tactical parachute mission. In the afternoon before the jump, I went for a run — an experience seared in memory because of how the day ended —…
My first blog of the year was called 20/20 Foresight. This essay will serve as a concluding bookend, an epitaph for the year that is coming to a close. I’ve now gone back a few times and looked at my 2020 vision book. I wanted to see why we had been blindsided. A vision board…
How about an air hug? A virtual hug? It just doesn’t cut it! Everyone misses sitting around a cozy fire together, eating popcorn and watching holiday movies or singing Christmas carols. Forced to examine our family traditions and find new ways to express our love and gratitude for each other, I now often cozy up…
In mid-November, we took a mini-vacation: riding bikes to to downtown DC. The sunny day and mild temperature contributed to the lovely fall day. We acted like hometown tourists, except for being in the midst of a tumultuous election aftermath and a still surging pandemic. A few weeks earlier, some of the Smithsonian museums had…
In September, we drove to Tennessee where we joined our son and his family for camping at Cades Cove in the Great Smoky Mountains. We hadn’t done much camping in recent years, but we had past experiences to draw on. My husband has fond memories of backpacking trips in the Rockies. We had both experienced…
