Marching to my own beat

Otherwise known as: How did I get here again?

If you'd asked me growing up, I would have said that I was the type of person who would be living in the hometown she grew up in, having gone to the local university, married a classmate and be managing my 3.2 kids and life quite nicely.

I went instead to the humongus state university an hour and a half from my hometown in Michigan. A university where I knew no-one going in...

Upon graduation lived for 6 months in Paris, France. A stint that included selling muffins from a shop near the Pompidou Centre, and fond memories of my little studio sublet apartment with a view of the Eiffel Tower in the distance.

A move to Sacramento, California for a few years. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but ultimately not for me.

New England beckoned. Rich in history, and someplace I had never been, I moved in with a friend from high school who had arrived a few years earlier for grad school. In what feels like the blink of an eye I fell for H and we are now chasing nearly 2 year old Daniel past the slate headstones and through the old New England Cemeteries we previously traveled as "just the two of us." Who woulda thought it?

(My Grandpa B was a sign painter and a glass blower (neon sign tubing) by trade. A superb craftsman, he made intricate models of ships and cars, a doll house and many other woodcrafts. I can recall a Nativity scene one Christmas season. A gruff ol' Grandpa, he was a fisherman and a golfer, and even when his eyesight was going he loved to play cards. It was only years later that I learned that while I knew he played the trumpet, he also did so in a clown band. Marching to his own beat on big floppy feet. He's on the far left in the above photo...)