Oh to be here.
January in Bavaria. The drafts so bad all the hot tea in the world barely warms anyone up.
But home. Years in Africa bouncing around country to country wherever the foreign office says. The Pacific after with the same effect. A treat. One’s home country and own language. Funny. So many dialects heard but the other never forgotten.
Husband napping and the children coming later. Daughter to make the sauerbraten. English, her family is, with the others still in Italy. One country they all were once but spread out all over now like bees swarming out of a hive. The wars and everything rearranged. Places needing to be gotten out of and going wherever they will give you a visa even if it’s hotter than a Finnish sauna in mid-winter or so cold only a polar bear could smile.
But journals at the end of the bookcase shelf to help remember it all with. Photo after photo with the best at the end. First husband and honeymooning at his grandfather’s estate in Poland. Being a bride and a walk down the lane . . .umbrellas but no rain that day. . . no . . .sun and country air and a joy in being together . . . mind gone in the first war and it never came back but no way to know that then . . . a blessing . .
Image: Archduke Karl of Austria and Hungary and Archduchess Zita taking a walk. Ca. 1911. Collections of the Library of Congress. http://www.LOC.gov. https://www.emperorcharles.org/blog/2018/10/7/blessed-karl-a-humble-king
