You're Only 50 Once

I have been pondering lately the relationship between my obsession with time and my ability or lack thereof in making decisions. For someone who dreads the end of a day or the passing of another year, I certainly have been spending a lot of time frozen unable to get even my daily activities accomplished. You would think that the rhythm of the tick, tick, ticking would somehow pull me along, coax me to the next thing on the agenda like a Pied Piper melody.


 I have always been keenly aware, as Frances Mayes put it that...
 “Any arbitrary turning along the way and I would be elsewhere; I would be different.”
 But how did I let this knowledge bring me to a place of no turning whatsoever?

Fear!

Of course, that enemy of all things filled with life; all things creative.
embracing life in the center of the ticking clock with my face turned outward, forward is the only remedy.

 Say “yes” to trying, yes to different, yes to the passing time, “no” to stagnant, no to the frozen places in my heart.

Yes to 50 years of smiles, wrinkles and gray

Yes to new life

and child-like play

 Ice cream on a November day

And arbitrary turnings along the way.

 More...  Florida Snapshots  

Mother Of Mine

Evalynn Mae Brumbaugh 1954

What where your dreaming mother of mine when you perched upon your makeshift tower?

Where you thinking about the children you would one day hold or a special night in this gown of tulle?

Did you worry that your children might not gain your classic sense of style? :)

How long did you practice the melody of  faith

your soul would teach my heart?

Sapp Ranch Toroda Creek July 1969

Omak, Washington  Summer 1978 

I tip my hat to you mother of mine

Happy Mother's Day

“Who Knows Where the Time Goes”

There is a song by Judy Collins with that title and it still sends me back to younger and less complicated times.
I have the pleasure of celebrating the graduation of several beautiful girls this week. The most near to my heart is my niece Ryann who will take her diploma from the same hallowed halls that I walked when I was looking out upon a road full of possibility.
This of course got me thinking back to where and what I was doing the year of my graduation
So please indulge me in the stroll, allow me to weave a memory of the year 1980.

It was a year of reward…

My parents and I on the day I was chosen Washington’s top soprano at the WMEA state solo contest singing Rossini's 

"Una Voce Poco Fa"

It was the year I learned to ride a lawnmower instead of pushing one,

but I never learned to like my picture being taken.

On a cool June evening, wearing Pioneer red and black

I sang “Who Know Where the Time Goes” before receiving my diploma from Omak High.

It was a year of reaching new heights…

I captured this view from the top of the Empire State looking out toward the Twin Towers.

and flying far afield…

Versailles Gardens with other members of the “America’s Youth in Concert” choir on our month long trip through Europe

And it was a year of Love…

My Michael & I with the Harley of course

Happy Graduation dear Ryann

may your year be full of sweet memory.

Ryann Joy Hill