Happy Sad

Oldest son Peter left home today. He's taking a gap year before starting college, and has a job and apartment lined up on the other side of the country, in the Bay Area.We have family there, thank goodness or I think I would be completely beside myself instead of only half beside myself.  It's hard to explain the feeling: perhaps a mixture of happiness, pride, shock and utter desolation.

Last few moments at home!

At the airport, almost gone...sob! Smiling though.

Edward Hopper, Sun in an Empty Room , 1963

IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS
We visited family there right after Christmas...beautiful! Like walking through a world made of picture postcards.

TRAVEL
is today's theme at Photo Friday. There was a horrific accident just scant minutes ahead of me on the highway yesterday. I was racing off to Henry's IEP meeting and had inadvertently cut it a little fine. Oh well, I thought, what's five minutes? Well, I guess it can be a lot! Traffic parked on the highway for about an hour, while emergency vehicles and police rushed to the scene. With such an obviously serious disaster just a short ways away...I doubt anybody could feel impatient or irritated by the wait. Medevac helicopters hovering overhead certainly put one's own little "emergencies" into perspective. Very sad and sobering, the realization that tragedy had struck, just around the bend of the road and the reminder that "In the midst of life, we are in death". Finally the Fire Police routed us off onto the median and back the direction we had come. Having no natural sense of direction at all I fumbled (extremely carefully) for my phone and got my personal pathfinder (my husband Paul) to direct me via a different route.

I arrived at the IEP meeting, shaken, tired, and over an hour late. I was just in time to catch the end of the meeting, sign papers and shake people's hands. I guess It's an ill wind that blows no good. - John Heywood (c.1497-1580)