Ego Trip

It may be too soon to say, but so far this vacation has been a real jolt for my ego. I'll be back to normal in Hoboken by this time next week, but the month of February was full of unexpected adventures.

I thought it would be a time for contemplation, writing, reading, and visits with old friends, but from the first this one held promise of other things that are still in progress. I drove to Florida for a book talk and met some wonderful people in the process. I stayed overnight in a lovely guest cottage and had a great meal with congenial people--and the audience for my informal speech came prepared and asked intelligent questions. Having that kind of attention can make one feel very important.

Arriving back at home base, I found myself with lunch dates, coffee dates, and parties in my honor all month long. Two men from my distant past--childhood, in fact--approached me to talk about possible relationships in the future. With another friend, I saw one of the best movies of the year (Crazy Heart). The weather cooperated as best it could in February; temperatures were chilly, some nights going as low as the high 20's, but there was lots of sun and most days the high was in the 50's.

After a day or two I got I realized my computer was on the wane, and called upon my computer-expert friend here to help me clean out the trash. In the process the hard drive gave out completely and I had to buy a new laptop. This oddly affected my ability to write. I was too occupied with the mechanics of operating the new laptop to stimulate my creative urges. Maybe that's a copout, but that's the way it worked out. I wrote a few blog posts but started no major literary works.

I have a new laptop anyway, and had a lot of stimulating talks, and have a great deal more material for anything I might want to write in the future. And, okay, I know you want to know about the two men. I spent a day with one, talking about old times and found that he has grown up to be a wonderful human being. He is much as he was as a child, and I looked on him as a brother even then. I don't see the future holding anything more, but it is nice to have reconnected with a long-lost brother. The other man just left, after a nice meal and a good long talk. He hugged me and said, "Thanks for being a friend." Hmmm. Nothing in the world wrong with that. A little disappointing, perhaps, but in my eternally optimistic mind, the door is not completely shut.

The vacation is drawing to an end with a lot of promise. I've relaxed, indulged myself, looked at my life, and touched base with a number of special people in a number of ways. When I get to Hoboken Monday afternoon, there will a lot of snow on the ground, and it will still be winter. But I can carry the touch of spring in my heart, the spring that is Fairhope all the time.