She's back!

Sue has been off on a grand adventure in the Dordogne region of France with two of her sisters and a brother-in-law, walking 15 and 16 miles a day on a route planned by an adventure travel group in Oxford. It was her first time to visit France, and she loved everything about it except the pervasive cigarettes. She came home with vibrant memories, a coffee mug for me, photos to process, and a journal full of sense-memory and the kind of detail I love to read. 

I had the great privilege of living in southern France for four months in 1978 while I was studying the Cathares, and Sue was able to visit some of the places I'd loved and make photos to show me how they look now (more cars, but not profoundly changed).

I was thrilled she could make the trip and bring home stories and images, but the space she normally occupies in my days and nights was a hollow whang of lack for eighteen days. She's gifted at playing, which doesn't come so easily to me. She makes laughter happen; she turns off the internet, puts down the books, and whoops it up. Her touch is comfort and life. No one else in my life is like that. 

And now she's back, and the dogwood tree in her back yard is in full blaze.