on remembering

I'm leaving soon to get to Penn and onto a train to meet up with my Dad in Albany.  From there we will drive the five hours to my family in Vermont.  My grandma lives there and it's been too long since I've seen her, not since our family reunion there in July 2009.  She didn't know who I was then, and the time before that she thought I was my mom, so I'm not exactly sure what this visit will be like.  I think it's harder for us than it is for her, at least I hope so.  I like to think of her as she was when she knew me, humming in the kitchen after dinner and yelling that it was time for music, moving us all out onto the porch where my uncles and cousins and brother and I would play and sing for the next few hours while she watched on with pride. 

I will visit with her, but there will also be room for walks with changing leaves and time with the part of my family I rarely see, and with my Dad, who leaves for Mexico again in a few weeks.  And if I see a moose*, I will come home the happiest woman this side of the East River.

Have a happy weekend.

*Although the Vermont Driscoll's will not understand why I just want to "see" the moose, not aim a rifle at it (is that the kind of gun you hunt with? I have no idea. We're not those kind of Driscoll's).