Reaching 72

 New year's day 2011, Luxor, Egypt.
Birthday card from friends in Ukraine.

The days pass.  The seasons pass.  The years pass. The pages turn. The children grow.  Grandchildren become adults, have children. Work becomes past experience.  College teaching is a highlight. Travel becomes stories.  Parents and loved ones transition into the unknown.  The losses pile up. The moments become memories.  The memories remain vivid.  And then here I am,  celebrating 72 years of a personal history.

It’s quite a journey: a long and winding road full of twists and turns, ups and downs, good times and bad, the expected and unexpected.  The student and graduate student.  The wife and mother.  The teacher and historian.  The nonprofit worker.  The sound and the fury.  The joy and the light.  The retiree.  The explorer.  The writer.  The coming to terms, the letting go, the reaching beyond.  The Peace Corps Volunteer turned 70 in Ukraine, voted by much younger colleagues as "the toughest” in our group.  And now, another chapter, the mom and grandmother, rooted in a place and time, coming full circle.   I’ve reached a number that the child in me never thought possible.