It’s nice to know we’re heading into June with 60 degree mornings. I’d like to send an official thank you to New Mexico and everyone to the northwest for sharing their cool air with us. Keep up the good work because the cool air is also creating moisture and rain as it meets its warmer Gulf cousin. The pasture behind the house is all pastels and soft colors and the late season wildflowers are going full tilt. It will be nice this weekend to be out in it, camping by a cool river with family and friends.

Packing for the trip continues. The floor of my den is littered with gear. It’s amazing what you accumulate during fifty years of traipsing over the rivers and through the woods. Part of me thinks it might be time to pass along some of the gear. Wrap things up. Make sure it gets a good home. But another part of me, a bigger part, thinks it might be time to get back in the game. Take inventory. Clean things up. Move ahead. I’m ready and more than able. I have a new tent. A good inflatable mattress. I might even go pick up an inexpensive sleeping bag today. Most importantly, I have the will. So, I guess it’s a go in that regard.

This may well be one of those milestones you pass on the grief journey. Rediscovering an old thing you did and enjoyed as a couple and realizing it can be a new thing you do alone or maybe on your own because I’m not alone. I’m surrounded by a lot of love, those I love and those who love me. So this is now a chance to make new memories to go with the sweet old memories and that feels good and right and I don’t even care if it rains, because rain is just part of nature, and I’ll be out in it this weekend.