It was in the summertime

I suspect that my mother was happier in the summer than in the winter. I think that she worried about our being gone all day during the school year - that it made her feel anxious and maybe even lonely. Whatever it was, as I sit here at my open window on a summer evening, I feel the contentment of all the years of being one of her kids in the summer time. It was good. She loved her home and her kids in summer, and on an evening like this, all buttery and mild as the sun moves closer to the horizon, we might all take a walk down to the school to toss a ball around, or my dad might take the small TV out onto the deck and pop a huge bowlful of popcorn, and watch the Boston Pops as the warm darkness crept in.

It was during just such a summer thirty years ago that my love story began. By the middle of August, I'd had a few conversations with the man I would eventually love and marry. A couple of weeks ago, I told some of our stories to a friend, and she has asked me to write them down. To collect them, and arrange them. To make a book of them. To tell my love story.

Night before last, I asked my husband if he would be okay with that. After all, it's his story too. "Tell away," he said. And so ...

I'm starting a new blog. Come and visit. Tell me what you think.

Not Exactly Unnoticed begins today.