Remember when friends came home from a vacation, and you had to sit through a boring slide show? And you stifled yawns through the hours? I’ve saved you the embarrassment of yawning through my slide show by writing about my fabulous vacation, and I have included some unique photos I know you’ll love.

My son Steve and his domestic partner, Terri, took me to Florida for a week in the sunshine. We did some lying in the sun, as you do in Florida, but mostly we were on the move. We did a lot of walking, averaging more than 10,000 steps a day, through nature preserves, on boardwalks by the gulf, and along beaches. Terri and I swam laps in our beautiful heated pool, while Steve fished off the peer just a short walk from our condo. On one of our walks, we observed an osprey couple protecting their young. We also gazed at Venus and Jupiter from the balcony of our luxury VRBO condo. We bought fresh sea bass to grill for dinner and dined at upscale trendy restaurants. But I want to tell you about some highlights I will always treasure.

Terri had long dreamed of swimming with manatees, so that was first on our agenda. When Steve and I collected her from her adventure, she was bubbling over with excitement. Imagine floating face down in a crystal clear river, when suddenly a manatee was swimming right next to you on your right, and her baby was swimming on your left. Your heart beats wildly, because you know it’s not good to get between a mother and her calf, but they seemed to be fine with it. Another one swims directly under you, only inches below. It is nothing I would ever want to do, but I loved hearing every detail.

Steve and I had a similar experience as we kayaked with manatees the next day. We shared a tandem kayak, while Terri was in her own. I always checked with Steve before I dipped my paddle into the water so I could help propel our kayak, and not hit a manatee. Dozens of them swam without a care through dozens of kayaks with dozens of gawking people with cameras. We paddled along what could be called the main thoroughfare and then turned off onto a quiet channel, which was lined with opulent homes and thousands of birds of many kinds. It was there that I could paddle too and get an upper body workout. But while it was exciting to know we were sharing the waterway with these cow-sized creatures, it was Quiet and peaceful as well.

One night we dined on a restaurant’s dock and enjoyed watching dolphins frolicking nearby. Another night, we took a break from shopping and strolled on the boardwalk. We watched in wonder as a boat sailed through the raised drawbridge, while pelicans, sea crows, and seagulls, all sitting atop posts, kept a keen eye out for “dinner.” Another night we ate at a Cuban restaurant, where three roosters strutted around our picnic table. The biggest one declared me his new best friend, after I tossed him some bits of crust from my Cuban sandwich. Still, he scared me to death when he suddenly crowed right next to me. The server said they just showed up one day and stayed. How did they know Cuban food could be so good?

It’s hard to convey my joy in just one page, and I have several photos to show you. Maybe you’d better come over and see my slide show after all.

Mary Hiland

SeeingItMyWay.com

Author of

The Bumpy Road to Assisted Living: a Daughter’s Memoir

and

Insight Out: One Blind Woman’s View of Her Life

Available from Amazon

Columnist for Our Special Magazine

and Contributing Essayist for Light Magazine

This is a personal day of reflection for me. Forget about the insurrection. It’s a blight on my birthday. On that sad day in our country’s history, I was completely unaware. I was walking with my friend Dan and my beloved Dora in a quiet park, giving thanks for the winter birdsongs and the joy of watching Dora have a happy doggy day.

Today, as I start my celebrations of my birth, lo these many years ago, I suggest that it is not a day for celebrating me, but a day to celebrate my mother. I know very little about the story of my birth. Words like snow and ice, bus trip, almost too late come to mind. It was very inconvenient for me to make my appearance on one of the coldest and snowiest days of that winter. My dad was working in a nearby town, and I think he had to take a Greyhound bus back to Cincinnati, as his car had broken down. How my mother got to the hospital in time is a story I either forgot or never heard. When my kids have a birthday, somehow the stories of their births are always a feature of the celebrations.

I was an only child, although I had a half brother from my mother’s previous marriage. Thus, my parents, as well as Dick, doted on me, and I will always argue that I was not spoiled. My every need was met and most of my wants. I am thankful for all the gifts, loving family, middle class values, a strong work ethic, lots of humor, nice clothes, good food and plenty of it, and a happy childhood, all of which I took for granted. But here are some extras that were bestowed upon me.

My mother taught me to appreciate and love classical music. My aunt gave me dance lessons and nurtured my desire to become a serious student of tap and ballet. My grandmother gave me and my cousins the precious gift of country living, something I treasure and write about to this day. My dad set a valuable example of hard work and to get work done before play. He also took me on expeditions to collect nightcrawlers for fishing, which involved going to some place in the dark with a flashlight and my plucking up the worms with glove-covered “finnies.” He and I would walk to the drug store hand in hand, singing “Me and My Shadow.” He adored me.

My mother never complained about my vision loss. She taught me touch typing long before female high school students of the day were encouraged to take it. She worked all day as a typist and then as soon as we were finished with the dishes from supper, she helped me with reading assignments and proofreading compositions. She even had to read tests to me and much to her discomfort, write down the wrong answers if that’s what I told her to do. She was honest, supportive, and most of all, loving. She was proud of me, to a fault, even at the end of her 98 years.

When it’s your birthday, Dear Reader, do you give thanks to your mother and father for the gift of life? Do you forgive them for any shortcomings, as you see them? Nobody is perfect. We all make bad choices. But in the end, we hope that God has forgiven ours. Do I want to live until 98, just as my mother did? You bet, because I still have much to be thankful for. Happy birthday, Mom

Mary Hiland

SeeingItMyWay.com

Author of

The Bumpy Road to Assisted Living: a Daughter’s Memoir

And

Insight Out: One Blind Woman’s View of Her Life

Available from Amazon

Contributing Columnist for Our Special Magazine

Lies, Nothing But Lies

As I lay in bed this morning after the alarm went off, I was so happy nobody wanted to put her paws on my bed with love and happiness that I was finally awake.

I can stay indoors all day and not have to see what the world feels like, just listen to the radio for the weather report.

I can sit in my recliner all day and not take a walk.

I don’t need to be out in the sunshine.

I can ignore my need to go to the grocery and wait until someone can drive me. Riding in someone’s car when it’s convenient for them is much better than walking to the store when it’s convenient for me.

All the dog toys stay put in the toy box so it looks like nobody lives here.

I can leave snacks on the coffee table without worrying that someone will gobble them up.

I can leave half a sandwich on the table while I go get something to drink and not worry that the other half will be gone when I return.

When I get into a car, I have all the foot room I need.

When it rains, I don’t have to take anybody out for a potty break.

When a friend comes to visit, they don’t have to be bothered greeting my dog as well.

When I go to church, I don’t need to bend down and stroke anybody to reassure them that they’re being a good girl and that I love them.

When I come home from an outing, I love coming home to an empty house.

I love talking to myself, so nobody has to listen to me.

I love sitting on the couch by myself to watch TV.

I love it that nobody barks when there’s a noise outside my door.

I love having to hang on to someone’s arm whenever I go somewhere instead of trotting briskly along with a guide dog by my side.

I love hearing “Any news about getting a new dog?”

I’m enjoying a lot of practice choking back tears.

I love calling the guide dog school and hearing that they still don’t have a space for me in a class any time soon.

I’m very patient, but it’s wearing thin.

Just take everything I have written so far, and know that it’s all lies, every line. I would ask for prayers that a new guide who is beautiful and smart and loving becomes available soon. But I don’t believe in those kinds of prayers. You’re not going to influence God one way or another. But if you wish, please pray that I can turn all these lies into positive statements of truth.

Mary Hiland

SeeingItMyWay.com

Author of

The Bumpy Road to Assisted Living: a Daughter’s Memoir

And

Insight Out: One Blind Woman’s View of Her Life

Available from Amazon

Contributing Columnist for Our Special Magazine

If you’re like me and are just now coming out of “hibernation,” due to the threat of Covid 19, you are feeling a little braver to venture out into the world. What better way to celebrate that freedom than to go to an outdoor concert of classical music. This past Thursday and Friday, my friend Anna and I enjoyed beautiful music performed by the outstanding musicians of ProMusica, a chamber music orchestra.

Every summer for the past 10 years, they have offered a free concert on the grounds of the Franklin Park Conservatory. We bring our chairs and something to eat and plan to get there almost two hours before the concert begins. Musical activities for young children are offered behind the stage about 45 minutes before the concert to help them with the wait. For the grownups who would like an adult beverage they could purchase one during that time as well.

In addition to enjoying a beautiful summer night with friends while soaking up live music from both traditional and contemporary composers, we were invited to stroll among the topiary gardens outside the conservatory before the concert.

Before Anna and I settled in our chairs with our beverages, we checked out some of the creative plant artistry. On Thursday night, the conductor mentioned that one of the musicians had sat on the camel’s back and encouraged us to go take a look. . So on Friday, we did just that.

Now you might wonder how a person can sit on a camel constructed by a live plant, and so was I. The secret was that there is a set of steps behind the camel that you use to climb to find your way to the saddle. Because I’m always thinking of you, dear reader, I just had to sit on that saddle and have my picture taken. Thank you Anna for being my photographer.

The weather had suddenly changed from ungodly hot and humid to pleasantly cool, so we didn’t need the paper fans they distributed as we entered the area. You remember those fans that funeral homes had for their services? But this year, the program was printed on the fans, which made them serve double duty. Even though we didn’t need them to fan ourselves, we kept them to remind us of the names of the soloists and the pieces we heard. Coupons for discounts on tickets for their regular season were also printed on these fans, another stroke of practical creativity.

And one last appropriate addition to this lovely experience was that during one of the pieces about the beauty of spring and summer, a pair of geese flew over, honking to each other, prompting titters of laughter in the audience. But I heard the geese say to each other, “Listen Honey. They’re playing our song.”

By now you know that I lost my dear sweet Dora to cancer on April 3 of this year. Without going into the heartbreaking details, I’ll share with you what comes next. As with any kind of grief, I needed a few weeks to recover from this life-changing loss. Eventually, I was so lost without her that I finally contacted The Seeing Eye to apply for my next partner in life.

Most people who have no experience with dog guides, or guide dogs, as they are often called, have no idea of what goes into the preparation for a new partnership. I’ve been asked when I will go pick up my new dog. It’s not a store where you pick one out, plunk down some money and take the dog home. They don’t realize that months of training have gone into making a puppy into a dog guide. It takes many skills, which a lot of people don’t even notice because they are executed so smoothly with gentle commands.

Dog guides lead their humans around obstacles, slow down and stop at intersections, stay between the lines at a crosswalk, show them where the elevator is, find the doctor’s office in a complicated building, stop at the top of stairs, keep them from getting too close to subway tracks, find their way out of restaurants, lie quietly under the table, don’t beg, don’t chase squirrels, waits patiently while her human works out or swims at the Y, sits quietly at the feet of his human on a bus, in a car, or on a plane, and a myriad other tasks that a pet dog would

not know how to do.

When a puppy at The Seeing Eye breeding station is old enough to be weaned, a “puppy-raising” family adopts her, she lives with that family for about a year. She learns her house manners, how to get along with other dogs, children, and baby humans. She gets to go to stores and restaurants, to the library, to church, and many other public places. She learns to walk on a leash and keep on the sidewalk. She learns to ignore squirrels and birds and all the basics of a well-behaved guide dog in training.

The next stage of her education is to return to The Seeing Eye, where she learns how to guide people who can’t see. This process takes about three months. It’s a complicated course of study, because sometimes she is expected to lean into her harness, and at other times, she is expected to lie quietly under the table until it’s time for the next task. Then comes the day when she and about 20 of her classmates each meet a person who will change their lives again. For the next two weeks, her new person will be giving her commands, instead of her trainer. They will learn together to be a team. Sometimes she will make mistakes and will have to do a certain task over, and sometimes her person will make mistakes, and they will work together from 5:30 in the morning until 8:00 at night. There will be times during the day when she will be allowed to play with her person in their room or go for a stress-free walk around the grounds. At night, she will be expected to sleep in her crate without her doggy friends or her trainer, but her new human will be with her always.

And finally, she will board an airplane with her new person and travel to her new forever home. She will learn a whole new set of skills, like knowing which house is hers and where she is allowed to empty. It’s a very exciting time, a lot of work, and a truly rewarding life.

Meanwhile, I wait; wait for an opening in the class and wait for the trainers to find just the right dog for me.

My darling Dora died of cancer six weeks ago. While there are times that something sets me off, a word, a song, or just the overbearing feeling of loneliness, and I weep, even sob, in self-indulgent sadness, I know that sooner or later, I must replace her with a new Seeing Eye ® dog. I hate using the word replace, because a dog like Dora cannot be replaced. Yet, I can’t go on needing to hold the arm of a kind person to go anywhere outside my home, and I’m terrible at using a white cane. It’s time to go back to the Seeing Eye to train with a new dog to regain my independence.

In this post, I’d like to describe how the process begins, because most people don’t realize what a process it is. To start with, people seeking a guide dog go to a training school such as the Seeing Eye, which is located in Morristown, NJ and stay there for training with their new dog for two to three weeks. Then you might wonder why the person who has had guide dogs before should have to train each time they get a new dog. Each dog has its own personality, strengths in certain skills and must learn to obey the commands of someone he or she has never met before. Here’s where I come in. The dog needs to put their newly learned skills to use with an actual blind person. At the same time, the blind person must adjust to a completely different dog’s personality. Together, they work on becoming a team.

It’s hard work. Their days start at 5:30 in the morning and continue all day until lights out for the pups at about 8:30. They are tired and go to sleep easily . Throughout the day, there are learning opportunities, everything from guiding a person on the sidewalks of Morristown to stopping at corners to lying quietly under the table at mealtimes.

But the first step begins with a visit from an instructor at the blind person’s home. Today, I had that visit, and although I didn’t think I was ready for a new guide dog before, I do now. The instructor and I talked about what kind of breed and gender would be my ideal dog. Of course I said I wanted another Dora. I wish they could have cloned her. After a long talk about my dream dog, we took what is called a “Juno” walk. The instructor held the front end of a harness, and I held the handle, as if there were a dog in it, and we started walking through my neighborhood. I gave her commands, so she got an idea of my style of working with a dog. She asked me if this was the pace I liked, or would I prefer a faster pull or slower.

When the Juno walk was over, so was our visit. The instructor will go back to the Seeing Eye for the next step. As the group of 10 dogs in her class mature and learn the basic skills of guiding, she will keep an eye out for one that will fit my needs and will make a good guide for me. The next step is to wait. I wait for the call when they think they have the right dog for me and that there is an opening in a certain class in the coming months. It could be sooner or later. In the meantime, I wait as the wheels are turning at the Seeing Eye. It’s exciting to think that there just might be a young dog in training as I write, who will be the best one for me. Stay tuned. I plan to give you updates on this new chapter in my life. But don’t think for one minute that I’ve stopped loving Dora. She will be there in my heart with every step I take with the new dog. It will be a challenge for me to not compare them, but I’m ready to give it a try.

Mary Hiland

www.seeingitmyway.com

Author of

The Bumpy Road to Assisted Living: a Daughter’s Memoir

And

Insight Out: One Blind Woman’s View of Her Life

Available from Amazon

Empty Nest emptiness

When a guide dog has been at your side for the past eight years, anticipating your every move, responding to your every request, waiting for your next walk, treat, game, or tummy rub, and in one minute, it’s gone, the hole in your heart is all that is left, or so you think.

Memories of your pride in her remarkable skills at working, her joy in catching a ball by jumping up and grabbing it in mid air, her ferocious bark when the doorbell rings or a squirrel passes by the window, her patience when you were almost out the door when the phone rang or you couldn’t find your key, the expression of love and devotion on her face when she gazed at you, are also there and will be forever. No matter how many future dogs you will love, none will compare to this one you just lost. Your heart is broken, and you think maybe you should never have another dog, because losing her is too painful. But as you wake each morning without a greeting of a lick on the nose or a sniff in your hair, and all you feel in that room is emptiness. And when you think you heard a flapping of ears or padding paws on a carpet, you wonder if her spirit is visiting you, or maybe it’s just the house settling. And now and then, for a split second, you think you should check on her water bowl, or you discover you forgot to put away her leash, or you find a ball under the couch.

In time, you admit that you really don’t like all this silence. You really want a dog to jump into your lap when it thunders, crawl into bed with you when she thinks you’ve rescinded the rule about no dogs on the bed, look up at you with imploring eyes when you’re eating something dogs shouldn’t have, back up to you for a scratch above her tail, jump up and down with joy when you return from being away, dive into her harness when it’s time for a walk, and walk proudly slightly ahead of you, because she loves her job, and she knows she’s the top dog in the neighborhood. You will tire of walking through your door without a leash and harness, talk to yourself and then feel foolish, because there is no dog to pretend to understand you. You will feel selfish when you lie in bed in the morning and then casually go about your routine that does not include taking care of a dog who depends on you for meeting her needs. You will feel lazy and depressed, because you aren’t taking walks in the sunshine. You will feel resentful when you climb on that treadmill, just to keep in shape for that magical day when you go back to training, and you are presented with the next love of your life. Each dog you’ve worked with over the last 40 years has been the love of your life at the time, but when you lose each one, your world comes crashing down once again. Mine did on April 3, when Dora died because of cancer. Since her diagnosis in November, I have dreaded this day. No surgery nor medicine nor prayers could make it go away. Now I wait for the next love of my life to be born, to be trained, and then be taught to be the next best guide dog ever. I pray that Dora’s spirit will be trotting right along with her, giving her tips on how to do it right. Dora got tips from Pippen, Sherry, and Mindy, all angels in Seeing Eye ® Heaven.

To see a photo of Dora and to read about the beginning of our journey together, go back to my entry on Feb. 24, 2014.

Mary Hiland

www.seeingitmyway.com

Author of

The Bumpy Road to Assisted Living: a Daughter’s Memoir

And

Insight Out: One Blind Woman’s View of Her Life

Available from Amazon

Home Sweet Home

I just got back from vacation. But I don’t have a tan. I don’t feel smarter after Chautauqua. I don’t feel rested from a cruise. I don’t have sore muscles or feel in tip top shape after cross country skiing. But my daughter Kara gave me the gift of her time and her undivided attention for 4 solid days. Words don’t do justice to the care and love I received last week, but I’ll give it a try.

She came alone, prepared to tackle my to-do list that kept growing, the more I thought of what I needed to accomplish while she was here. Kara is a very perceptive person. She could tell that too many tasks that I couldn’t get done because of the pandemic and the winter storms were weighing heavy on my natural tendency to keep my life in order. I needed help, and she resolved to leave her family for 5 nights and take 2 planes and an Uber to walk through my front door with a smile and her sleeves rolled up.

Day 1: Top on our agenda was a trip to Meijer. Even though I normally use Shipt to have my groceries delivered from Meijer, it was pure luxury to walk up and down the aisles, touching products I was considering, examining them for the features I wanted, and doing a little impulse buying too, which is hard to do when somebody else is shopping for you. I hadn’t been shopping like this for 2 years, and while it was refreshing, it was just the beginning. Because we had taken Uber to Meijer, we loaded up our back packs and walked through parking lots to our next destination. Who needs hiking in the mountains when you have piles of snow to navigate with purchases on your back?

Our next stop was the $ store, where Kara selected all the birthday cards I would need for the year, plus a few other greeting cards to have on hand. Later, she would address them each and put them in order of when they should be mailed. I had resigned myself to not sending cards this year, but I was delighted to get that job done after all. She also picked out bright yellow daffodils for my window boxes, another task that would have to be skipped this year. Later, she would plant them and set the boxes in the window, so that my neighbors would know I was alive after all.

Our last stop that day was to have lunch in a sit-down-wait-on-you restaurant, a treat I hadn’t enjoyed since the last book club I attended in 2021. We even split a bowl of warm peach cobbler, since we had a half hour before our next Uber was to pick us up and take us home.

Days 2 and 3: You might not consider cleaning out an office much of a vacation, but to me, it meant cleaning out the clutter in my life. Like my mother before me, I was starting to buy duplicates of items I couldn’t find. Mom’s items were scissors and shoe horns and hundreds of other things. Mine were ear buds and batteries and other gadgets of technology. I also had several gadgets I needed to learn how to use. Except for having dinner with my son and watching a movie with him, we spent the entire weekend working our way through my list. In addition, Kara volunteered to take Dora for a walk, even though it was bitter cold, but it simply wasn’t safe for me to attempt it.

Day 4: Trader Joe’s is one of my favorite places to shop, but most of my friends who help me have not returned to shopping for food inside a store. Because Kara shops at her TJ’s at home, she was able to introduce me to even more than what was on my list. But before that happy experience, we had 2 other impulse purchases to make on our retail therapy trip. To make it a true shopping spree, I needed to buy one piece of clothing. Kara knew exactly where to look for the fleece sweater I wanted, and then our last little kick-our-heels-up stop was to buy a fancy doughnut to have for later. After paying for my TJ treasures, we loaded them once again in our back packs and waited for our Uber. How I wished she could have stayed for just one more day. They say that’s the way it should be, so I’ll get back to life as I used to know it, thanks to my getter-done daughter.

Mary Hiland

www.seeingitmyway.com

Author of

The Bumpy Road to Assisted Living: a Daughter’s Memoir

And

Insight Out: One Blind Woman’s View of Her Life

Available from Amazon

Skating on Thin Ice

My last entry about walking in the Metro Parks around Columbus was back in November. Although Dora and I continued to walk around our neighborhood, our trips to the parks came to an abrupt halt, for several reasons. Fortunately, not one of them was for illness or injury. Our winter was not particularly brutle, but we had a lot of rain and wind and generally nasty weather. Then there were the holidays , and Dan went back to working part time. Meanwhile, I managed to get to the pool at the Y twice a week, but no walks in the park. It was a gloomy season.

But today, I am happy to relay to you another unique experience at our favorite Metro Park. Although we’ve had a snow storm on top of an ice storm, we were fairly confident that by now, the maintenance crews would have cleared the trails, so off we went for a new adventure—walking on ice.

Normally, Dan describes the beauty around us, but on this winter day, he mostly had to keep his eyes on the trail just ahead. Once in a while, we enjoyed relaxed walking on pavement that was dry and cleared of all snow. Then suddenly, we’d be sliding on what is called black ice, a thin layer that is not seen until you’re on top of it and fighting to stay upright. I had considered wearing my cleats, which I attach to my boots, but then I changed my mind at the last minute. Bad decision. I tried to keep my knees bent and relaxed, so that if I did fall, it wouldn’t break anything, a habit I picked up from cross country skiing, and Dan was busy, not only doing the same thing but also making sure I was not going to fall. Meanwhile, Dora was happily frolicking in the snow alongside the trail and wondering why she couldn’t detect those wonderful smells she enjoyed in the summer. She did spot a wild turkey, strolling down the trail, as if he owned the place, and she began to follow him until Dan called her back. I’m sure her intentions were only to investigate what kind of weird thing this was, but I wasn’t so sure about the intentions of that turkey. But he was pretty cocky, pun intended, since the holidays were over.

Because this was our first outing in over two months, we quit at 2.25 miles. I felt like we should have done at least one more mile, to make it worth the drive, but it was wise to quit while we were ahead. A broken hip or elbow surely would have ruined our day. But nothing ruined this day, because we were finally outside in the winter sunshine and doing something good for our bodies, our minds, and our spirits. The whole experience reminded me a little of skiing, which made me a little sad, because Ski for Light was cancelled this year. But it also made me a little glad to be out of the house and to smile at the joy that playing in the snow can bring.

Mary Hiland

www.seeingitmyway.com

Author of

The Bumpy Road to Assisted Living: a Daughter’s Memoir

And

Insight Out: One Blind Woman’s View of Her Life

Available from Amazon

When was the last time you peeked out from the inside of a tree? Unless you’re a squirrel, it’s probably been a rare occasion, if ever. This tree might have been hit by lightening, judging by the shapes of the “windows.” It happens that this was my second opportunity to walk inside a tree, the first being at another Columbus Metro Park. Over the last 19 months, my friend Dan has taken Dora and me to a metro park once a week for a change of pace, literally. When we step onto a paved trail, it’s like Dora is trying to win a race. If we have the trail mostly to ourselves, I take off the harness and let her walk freely. Ironically, she doesn’t run ahead but stays about six feet in front of us, walking at our pace.

Even though I get a kick out of Dora’s enjoyment, what I love most about these walks in the parks is stopping to listen, to touch, to smell, and to learn. In one park, we were startled as we walked across a little bridge. We thought we heard a woodpecker under the bridge, but we learned later that it was a squirrel making a warning sound to his forest friends. In another park, I touched the most interesting moss that covered the whole tree. At every park bench we encounter, we stop to read for whom the bench was dedicated. We also take that opportunity to rest my back and give Dora a drink.

On the walk last week, we thought at first that we were hearing a gaggle of geese in the distance, but as they approached overhead, we saw that it was a murder of crows. Murder is a good word for a bunch of crows, because you just know what their motivation is. They flew not in formation like geese but in a bunch, and they made a huge circle, coming back around toward us. For a minute, we thought they might have had murdering us on their minds. But they soon settled down by a pond, where no doubt, there was some disgusting scent whetting their appetites. This week, we returned to one of our favorite parks where hundreds of tall pine trees stand at attention all year. But now that we have cooler weather, their fragrance floats all around, causing us to stop in our tracks and breathe in the memories of Christmas that pine evokes. We stand and sniff the air, just savoring the peace of the pine forest and the quiet that surrounds us. Because not many people know about this sanctuary of trees and birds, we usually have the trails to ourselves. Meanwhile, winter is on its way, and I hope we can visit some of these parks when snow changes the entire scene, and we have a whole new park experience to enjoy.

Mary Hiland

www.seeingitmyway.com

Author of

The Bumpy Road to Assisted Living: a Daughter’s Memoir

And

Insight Out: One Blind Woman’s View of Her Life

Available from Amazon