Good day, I actually wrote for real though I didn't finish my chapter. Also I went to the guild meeting for the dancers and their parents at KK's high school - neat women of all generations and exciting opportunities for her. It was wierd to be asked her high school graduation year. Life is in fast forward. She's supposed to be in maybe third grade and they are talking about college visits! EEK! I am nervous about this school year and happy too. I remember her mother starting high school at the same school, but it wasn't an arts academy then. i remember starting high school, how nervous I was about my first day clothing choice. It's funny at this point I remember that I wore a blue reversable wrap around skirt I had made and was proud to have made. But I don't remember what I wore above the waist. I wonder what KK will wear. A week from tonight will be the night before her first day of high school. Again EEK!

I had an odd good day, not the productive writing day I'd planned. Maybe I should feel guilty but I don't think I do. I talked at real length with Joanna on the phone today, about everything and nothing, about writing, about kids. It was so much fun! Then Ruth and Chris and Liam came home from setting up Chris' classroom and made dinner. I discovered Gardens of Time on Facebook, which could be dangerous to productivity but is just fun at the moment. I read the chapter Bob wrote, talked with him through various media - funny how "talked" doesn't mean what it used to. Mostly I approve of all the different technologies that keep us in contact even if I do struggle with the lingo.

The degree of contrast in the world is just heart breaking and mind streching. I read about starvation in Africa, terrible right now, hear about race riots in London and black on white violence at the Wisconsin State Fair, cry over the stubbornness in Congress, and suffer with clients and friends who are ill or depressed or both. When I let myself, I get scared that my friends and I are all getting older and that losses and suffering abong us will only increase. I look at the sweet, eager faces of the younger generations and know they are vulnerable to all kinds of harm. I have to shake my head to shake out the tendency to speculate on what harm will befall each one. At the same time, living in my house is fun. I've spent the last two hours with Ruth giggling and making warm fuzzies (think pom poms) out of scrap yarn for Chris to use as tokens in a reward system in his new classes. They are pretty in all their bright colors. Bob called in, happy but exhausted after a couple of hikes on Mt. Ranier with family. Chris has keys to his new classroom, upbeat change into a hopeful new life phase.

So much to write and I need to sleep. Sometimes I just mark the place here to remind myself to come back. i've been writing in my mind off and onn all evening, while doing routine things like taking out the trash. Being past sixty is so odd. I really do have a twentieth century mind, still surprised dozens of times a day by the way reality is different from what I remember as a girl - so much if it the technologies and the way they affect thinking. And yet, I feel very much alive now and part of now, like every moment is precious and I get more aware how precious every time another friend gets sick or dies. I want to live well now, make a difference now. And the first step right now is a good night's sleep, but hopefully writing tomorrow.

I feel a little lighter today, despite difficulty containing concern about the medical waiting and scary news of dear family members. I jumped on Ruth's trampoline last night. Jump i maybe an overstatement. I bent my knees and bounced (good calf work out) and then did jump just a little, feet of the tramp. it energizing. The crazy fun though came from the game Ruth calls "breaking the egg". I lay in the middle of the tramp with my knees tucked up to my chest and my arms tight around my legs, trying to hold that tucked "egg" position and Ruth and Liam jumped around me, shaking me wildly. The bodily sensations involved were amazing - the FUN of childhood physical play. I am usually so contained emotionally, especially about laughter, and I was just cackling and squealing and hollering like a kid without having to choose to or not to. There is something marvelous for me about being out of control, not having to control, in a safe, fun setting. I've never been OK or felt safe with drinking or drugging to get there - doesn't feel safe. Physical play is my best G rated gate to release, and I sure needed a release last night.

Anyway, time to go home and clean my room and do my laundry after a nice short work day.

This is a hard time for me, and I don't know quite why. Catching the pace at work after the sadness and emotional connection of Diane's celebration of life has been challenging. The intense heat, 110. 112, 108, has me daunted, not so much physically as in terms of global warming, fears about what we have done to our planet, what we will leave our grand children. It depresses me, not like clinical depression but like existential despair. Also many people I know are struggling with medical and emotional crisis, real ones. I hate being only human, so limited in my ability to make a real difference, especially in face of illness.