It’s sunsets through shimmering leaves and sitting around the back yard table.

The grill is warming up, and you laugh as your hosts are surprised to see a punctual American. It’s quiet and you have spoken a lot of English today, so you are wondering if your brain is going to be able to switch over to that new way of thinking you are trying to adopt… do you use the Formal? I don’t remember. They are forty years older than you, but they also give you hugs instead of the standard handshake.

They are forty years older than you, and there is something so good about that. It’s been while since you’ve been invited into the company of someone at a different stage of life. And somewhere between your first and second helping of potato salad, you realize that you have missed hearing stories of victories and tragedies from decades gone by.

You decide you want to tell a story too, and people laugh. Gosh, it’s good to get to make people laugh again.

The Ice Cream comes out, and reminds of late nights at Danny and Traci’s. There must be a connection between intergenerational hospitality and late night Ice Cream. The stories roll on, and it becomes clear that the stories are bringing a thicker and brighter background to life in your new home. They are words and pictures, acts and events that are everyday. Simply hearing them across the table provides a normalizing effect – it appears you are not the only one who gets yelled at for doing the dishes “incorrectly.”

Table, words, and shared stories. These things call you forward to participate and understand. They look backward and point forward, all while writing a profound now.

It’s life. It’s summer.

It’s simple. It’s beautiful.

Still Wandering,

Tony