Before and After

I was cleaning up my files this weekend, making room for stuff my granddaughter needs stored for college during the summer months. I came across these two pictures, the first one is our present location, Port Orford, Oregon. The second one was a visit to Portland the year we retired.

Our plans had been to travel as much as possible during winter months when the winter weather would be too demanding for us.

Well, even that visit came at a time when things were different:
~before a couple of operations slowed us down
~before we discovered the possibilities in our neighborhood
~before we spent a ton remodeling this place
~before the market crash reduced savings


Yet, those days were actually difficult in other ways:

~our children lived far and visits were expensive
~our weather was harsh for newly arrived Californians
~we had not yet made friends and forged alliances
~we possessed only one computer and one mobile phone
~digital cameras were very imperfect and expensive

We tend to be either pessimistic or optimistic, counting our pains or our blessings. The facts are much more nuanced, all the time, now and then. For one thing, had we not slowed down, neither one of us would appreciate all the writing and media contacts we have made.

Progress tends to leave us nostalgic for certain things, while taking for granted those things we never dreamed we could actually accomplish or possess.