Sometimes life makes me think of that watermelon a neighbor left on our front porch when we lived most of the year in the beautiful mountains of Western North Carolina in a special place called Rice Cove. The watermelon was round, sweet, and full of juice.

It’s only been a month since I posted last, but savoring all the rich moments of life in all its improbability brings me back to the page to drink deeply from the mug of memory (and Peet’s Espresso Forte freshly ground this morning).

Buck and I celebrated our 42nd anniversary on February 17. I can’t exactly call it a wedding anniversary, since (at the ages of 46 and 33), we eloped to Dothan, Alabama and were married by the sweetest old judge. Some new friends, W and S — the kind you feel like you’ve known all your life — joined us for a special lunch I made at home. It was W’s 93rd birthday. He’s a noted pediatric surgeon who saved and improved the lives of many an infant. At the symphony with them one beautiful evening, where they’ve been members for decades, I witnessed a young-ish woman approach, arms out, smiling: “Dr. W!” Before he could fully register her approach, she had wrapped this small, elegant man in her perfumed arms and thanked him for saving her life when she was three months old. After she left, he looked at me with a crooked smile and adjusted his glasses. “That’s the second time this week something like that has happened.”

The lunch was fun to make: poached local shrimp and diced lobster with a homemade New Orleans-style remoulade sauce and Buck’s cocktail sauce, along with icy gazpacho, followed by coffee and key lime pie.

Our friends brought along their pup, G, a golden doodle heavy on the poodle side, who was such a happy girl, we halfway thought about finding a companion for Lulabelle. They hit it off big and I was sorry to see them leave to return to their downtown riverside condo.

There was even a silly moment of delight, when I asked our new toy, an Amazon Echo Show 21, to help us celebrate our friend’s 93rd birthday, whereupon (much to the surprise of our guests) Alexa (in it’s so-called “calm” male voice, one of 4 male/4 female versions) wished W a happy birthday and delivered its robot self of a rather good meditation on longevity. And then it played a simple version of Happy Birthday. You should have seen W’s smile. Actually, he laughed out loud. We all did.

Look, there’s two ways to view artificial intelligence: burrow into a tunnel, stop using computers, and fughetaboutit. Or, understanding that once we’re born it’s too late anyway, chill and enjoy the absurdity before the robots enslave or kill us all.

More later. A lot has happened. I’ve even learned how to get rid of intermittent tachycardia that was starting to be troublesome. Ta da! So stay tuned.

If not for my serendipitous discovery seven years ago of artist, author, and teacher, Kasia Avery, who along with her husband, Jamie, started Everything Art in 2015, I still wouldn’t have the nerve to draw a stick figure with a pencil, much less to “let my creative wolf aloose” and play with paints and all the other fun accouterments of art journaling.

Wanderlust 2026 is self-described as “a full year of guided mixed media art for curiosity, growth, and joy.” I first participated in Wanderlust 2019. Once you buy a ticket to the party for each year, you have ongoing access, which is great, since I don’t necessarily follow the weekly lessons in real time, but more in spurts. The library of past years’ video lessons is a real treasure, since most of the time I don’t realize what I’m learning until much later, and it’s enormously helpful to be able to go to the Everything Art archives and revisit certain classes, teachers, and techniques when I’m finally ready for understanding to seep into my hard head. “Oh, so that’s what she was trying to teach me.”

I believe it’s never too late to have a happy childhood. Kasia and her team at Everything Art have convinced me I’m right about that!

These things on my mind are a torrent of events, dreams, anxious moments, thought drifts, existential questions — and we haven’t even gotten to the possibility that, (living in Florida as I do), a frozen iguana could fall on my head.

Can you hear my deep sigh on this dark morning? I mean, it’s nearly 11:00 a.m., but we’ve hit the high of the day, the cloud cover is complete, and damn it all I have to go wash my face and throw on some jeans to go with Buck to Mayo Clinic’s dermatology “spot check clinic” so they can look at and most likely biopsy a weird growth that has come up rather suddenly on his forearm.

Mayo has a patient portal and I use it sometimes to send Buck’s dermatologist pictures of anomalies on his cancer-prone skin. So my cell phone is full of these scary-looking close-ups. He was a lifeguard on Pensacola Beach in 1956, that era from the last century when pale folks slathered on baby oil to broil their skins to a sexy bronze. Who knew, right?

I’m the kind of person that can be annoyingly even-tempered, cheerful, and optimistic. But these last few days, I’ve been feeling a little frail, a little old. It doesn’t help that my Apple watch keeps popping up with High Heart Rate alerts. Man.

I dreamed last night about trying to find my way into a Walmart. Yes, friends, it’s come to that. This was no ordinary Walmart. The employees were on the outside and marching bands filled the spaces inside. I wandered through the throng, but no one seemed to be able to see or hear me. At last, on some invisible, silent signal, doors opened all around the building. The marching bands came out, trumpets and tubas and piccolos and all, and the employees streamed in. The whole place was a big rectangle of bright light. Next thing I remember was being a passenger in a vintage champagne-colored Lincoln Continental. The driver looked like Sam Elliott and was talking to me in his gravelly voice, just as the dream was ending. That was the best part of the dream, but I can’t remember what he said.

Being Present is my life theme for 2026. Being present for every moment of life with my fabulous 88-year-old husband of 42+ years, who is my lover, running buddy, and best friend. Nothing is going to get in the way of that.

Sometime during the night, I realized I would need at least two 3-D printers for my project of printing the world. When light began to shimmer in from the pond under the glass doors and Lulabelle the old chocolate Labrador came to my side of the bed and poked my overhanging arm with her nose, I had a moment of panic. The project!

Of course it was a dream. But why? Maybe to play God and make a new world?

7:15 a.m. Time to grind the espresso beans I keep in a jar and go watch the geese fly in and the sun rise.

We’ve been together a long time, Buck and I. When we met, it got serious fast. Like 5 seconds fast. He fretted about our 14 year age difference. After talking through a lot of whiskey, we concluded if we could get 20 good years, it would be worth doing. He was already nearly 44 and I was 30. The year was 1981. We eloped to Dothan, where Buck had a cousin named Patt with two t’s, who set things up with a county judge. Now he’s 88 and I’m 74. Pretty sure it’s gonna work out.

Nike had a special deal about ten years ago where you could add your own text to a pair of jogging shoes. Buck said, “Go for it,” and so I did. They fit like squishy bathroom slippers. I love them. Wish they were new again. I’ve always liked the little secret text: “Buck’s” on the left foot, “Girl” on the right.

Last year, I downloaded decades of my old WordPress blog archives, stashed them in the Cloud, and declared “I’m done with blogging.” But here it is, the tail end of this newest January, and it’s driving me a little nuts that I don’t have a WordPress blog anymore.

I have a perfectly adequate space for scribbling thoughts, pasting art journal pages and photos, all that, at OneNote. But, dang it, it’s just not pretty or fun, like this format can be. It’s dull and — I don’t know — somehow disorienting.

And so, I’m back amongst ye, at least for today.