September 17, 2020, I wrote a blog post entitled Circles.

In July, I revisited my childhood home. Then I almost purchased a building I used to own. In September, I performed a wedding at the house where I spent my wedding night back in 1990.

I had a feeling I would be seeing more historic sites from earlier times in my life. I didn’t know where or how, but I was working on a book which is now at the printers, called Rear View Mirror. I write. After my first book came out a couple of years ago, I just kept writing. Rear View Mirror continues right where My Hand Paints left off. It naturally became more of a look back on my life, but still talking about the themes of creativity and painting.

Tomorrow, I am setting out on an unexpected trip, and I will be staying for four nights at the summer camp I worked at the summers of 1980, 1982 and 1983.

I wasn’t ready for this until now.

It is special for me to be able to share these places and memories with my kids. Doubling back helps me to put my life into perspective. I am embracing times that I have not talked or even thought much about for various reasons.

In my twenties, I had a negative outlook. If I felt disappointed, I blamed others and avoided working on underlying issues. I often felt disappointed. I had a habit of shutting those people out of my life, and moving on. I didn’t look back. But I carried that dysfunction with me. I was a poor communicator, and hurt people along the way.

I think things would have been much easier and happier for me if I had learned to say what I thought much earlier.

Well. It doesn’t work like that. I can’t go back and change who I was. Nor do I choose to feel guilty for those times I can not change. So I reach out, the best I can, to friends I abandoned at the next exit. I’m not that way anymore.

I understand if it’s too late. If it’s too little to say I’m sorry.

It is not too late for me.

I can forgive myself and do things differently now.

The reason for this trip is a sad one. A tragic one, that we again, unfortunately can not change. And so we bring our heavy hearts, and I will look for any lesson, any gift in this grief. We go to remember the dead, but we go for the living.