Ten Things

Due to the Giant Storm, I decided to skip my Tillich class today and drove home from seminary last night ~ apparently a good idea. The last 25 miles on the interstate were treacherous, an hour-long trip with cars every which way, since no one could see the lines, and judging from the looks of things, I would not have been able to come home tonight. I thought that I would spend the day holed up in the house finishing a paper, but I am still procrastinating (actually, I just got up) and have given myself a 10:00 am start time.

Therefore . . . since I see that my friend Stratoz is playing one of those list memes, I thought that I would make one up for myself. I am 55 so: ten things about myself, one for every 5th year starting with age five (and ignoring this one, which has nothing to recommend it):

1. When I was five, I went to the second half of kindergarten in a church in Vero Beach, Florida.

2. I rode a horse for the first time, on the trails of Grand Teton National Park, when I was ten.

3. I went to the Harvard-Dartmouth game in Cambridge when I was fifteen, which was followed by an unfortunate double date involving my boarding school rommate and two Dartmouth freshmen.

4. When I was twenty I used to wake up in my dorm room in Williamstown, Massachusetts listening to classical music on Morning Pro Musica with Robert J. Lertsema of WGBH-Boston.

5. When I was 25, we lived in an apartment two blocks from where we live now and one of our upstairs neighbors, now a city councilman who lives two blocks in the other direction, led our tenants' revolt when the furnace broke down during a storm like this one.

6. When I was 30, we had a large and silly black dog, named Renko for the character in Hill Street Blues.

7. I don't remember many details, but I would venture that 35, with two four-year-old boys and a year old daughter, was one of the most perfect years of my life.

8. When I was 40 my three children were in Montessori school and I opened my family law practice.

9. When I was 45, we took a family trip to Italy. Our favorite parts were ~ everything! The Duomo, the monastery out in the middle of nowhere, Pompeii, the Cinque Terre, the Vatican Museums, the Roman Forum, the gelato, St. Peter's, the full moon over Florence. Lots more.

10. And when I was 50, I had one of those completely unexpected and life-changing encounters, when I resignedly signed up for a graduate class with the Jesuit who would a couple of years later guide me through the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises and become the mentor, counselor, guide and spiritual father who would nurture me through the seminary process and now through this horrible past year.

I see that I did not make my 10:00 deadline. Guess I'll procrastinate a bit more and look for photos of Florence.