Came across this quote by Audrey Hepburn on the Google home page: “Living is like tearing through a museum. Not until later do you really start absorbing what you saw, thinking about it, looking it up in a book, and remembering – because you can’t take it in all at once.”

I love looking back at my life, seeing the roads I took that led me here, marveling at how, had I take a different road, I would be in a very different place.  Doing that has allowed me to be at peace with my life and my choices over the years. Should Al and I have gotten married, considering one close mutual friend of ours at the time said it was like watching two locomotives headed straight for each other at full speed?  Certainly there have been some near misses, where one of us had to slow down and take the side track so that the other could forge ahead unimpeded.  Whenever I start to wonder about the why of it, and whether we should have just passed each other by so many years ago, I get all philosophical and realize that there are at least three reasons why we were meant to be together.  Joe, Andy, Jeff.  Boom.  I don’t know what they will do with their lives or whose lives they will touch with their humor and grace and intelligence, but that’s not for me to say.  I just believe with all my being that they were meant to be. And there was no way for them in their total uniqueness to be unless Al and I joined each other in a union of love.

This all brings me to my real reason for writing today.  Last night we went to an Angels baseball game.  “The Halos.”  It was a beautiful night – after living in the Bay Area it was astounding to not have to bring arctic outerwear for a night game.  It was Fireworks Friday – every Friday there are fireworks after the game, even the ones they lose like last night (hey it was the Denver Diamondbacks, split loyalties here…).  We were surrounded by kids everywhere.  I realized how mesmerized I am by the little boys – dancing their brains out trying to get on the monster TV screen, goofing off in general (is there a game going on? Oh, is that why we’re here?), wearing their catcher’s mitts on their heads, their eyes bright and joyful.  In the ninth we went over to join a friend, who has little ones, to watch the fireworks with them.  The little boy, about three, could not stop looking at me.  I wondered what it was – did he know that I’ve been there with little boys?  Did I exude joy and love when I looked into his little boy face?  The little boy in front of me did the same thing, playing peekaboo with me from his seat.  I swear I did nothing to engage these little guys.  Perhaps they just felt my nostalgia and gave me a gift of little boy sweetness, wondering how a lady who was not their mother could look at them with such pure love.

I never in a million years thought I would like it down here in SoCal.  My first words to Terri when Al told me he got a job down here was “NO @&^$@$*!” WAY AM I MOVING DOWN THERE.”  Last night I realized one of the reasons I love it here is that everywhere I look there are memories of good times we had as a family here.  The beach, the ballpark (a Father’s Day at the Angel’s game long time ago), Disneyland (I used to call it “the D word” – it’s a chore but a carefree one). I look around and just feel at peace.  Coming here was vacation from the stuff of daily life – no homework, no duties, hardly ever having to say no to anything except don’t get lost and don’t run into the campground street without looking. No being too cold or too hot.  Always knowing that despite the darkest morning marine layer the sun would come out eventually.  I’m suddenly on a permanent vacation whenever I step out my door on the way to whatever obligations I have that day.

After I married Al, whom I said back in college I would “NEVER” date, I swore off saying “never.”  I didn’t say it, but I was surely thinking “never” regarding living in Southern California.  Lesson learned once again, thanks to the little back room in my museum, hidden away from the major exhibits, that is crammed with memories of little boys and a young family foolin’ around in SoCal many years ago.