I had a lovely conversation with Mom early this morning. It was raining and thundering, and I was in that half conscious state. It was wonderful.
We were sitting around the kitchen table at the family home. The radio was on 'CCO, and Mom was eating a piece of toast. My nephew, just turned 9, was there too. Mom told us this story.
She and her sister Mary Anne were 5 or 6 years old at the time, and their dad was driving them to my Great Aunt (their Aunt)Teeter's place in Wisconsin. The road to her place was gravel, and had a lot of hills. If you drive fast, your stomach does that rising up in your belly thing as you go over the top of the hill and back down. They were sitting in the back seat of the car, leaned back against the seat, heads back and staring up at the sky through the rear window, enjoying that up and down, almost falling sensation as they rode over the hills. All of a sudden, that falling sensation didn't stop, they were falling, falling, falling. They looked at each other, and asked "Are we gone?" (As in, had they died?) Nope, they had gone off the road and into the ditch, landing in two feet of snow.
This is the story as told to me in my dream. I have no idea if it is a real one, that Mom told me years ago, or if my head made it up. I do know that I loved going to Great Aunt Teeter's, and enjoyed the ride there, always urging Mom to drive faster so we could get that rollercoaster effect. I don't remember ever going in the ditch though.
It was great having a conversation with her about our shared past, whether she was sharing her love of riding to Teeter's too, or I was just remembering mine, which she was a huge part of.
Anyway, how have you all been? I've been busy trying to keep up with the mowing, both of the yard with the riding mower and of the pastures with my scythe. I rode (on bicycle) the Tour de Pepin, 32 miles half way around the lake, and then a paddleboat ride back across the lake. It was great fun and amazingly enough I wasn't even sore the next day!
