Fiji and Me

Chicago Was My Home Town But I Grew Up In Green Bay Wisconsin. We All Loved Those Packers. I Went Back To Chicago To Study Nursing. This Was During Wwii When We All Wanted To Help In The War To End Wars. What I Had Wanted To Be Was An English Professor So I Could Read And Write All The Time. I Found That Nursing Was A Magic Carpet In Many Ways. . I Married A Doctor From North Carolina. We Moved To Southern Pines And I Was Glad To Raise My Six Children In A Place Where The Winter Wasnt Nine Months Long. My First Vision Of North Carolina Was In April. Everything Was In Full Bloom And I Remember Feeling That I Had Died And Gone To Heaven. People Have Said That It Must Have Been Difficult To Have Six Children But My Memories Are Of Enjoying It-- Most Of The Time. My Husbands Midlife Crisis Ended Our Marriage. At Forty Five I Went Back To College To Finish A Graduate Degree. I Began A Career In Nursing Which Included Teaching. My Writing During My Nursing Career Had More To Do With Work Sheets And Constructing Tests Than Fun. I Did Enjoy Writing Long Letters To My Children And Grandchildren As They Came Along. In Those Days People Wrote Letters. . I Have Always Loved To Travel. When An Opportunity Came To Circumnavigate The Globe With A Friend I Took It. We Spent A Wonderful Month In Japan Thailand Nepal India Dubai Uk And Canada Before Returning. I Remember Well How Grateful I Was To Be Home In The Us. Id Heard About People Kissing The Soil Of Their Homeland And I Understood. . I Married A Former Duke Art Professor Who Had Decided To Paint Full Time. He Said He Would Find A Place Where A Nurse And An Artist Could Live Happily. He Found Key West. I Rented My House Packed My Car And Started Driving Down The Keys. When I Got There I Found A Houseboat Named Miss Maggie And We Lived On Her. It Was A Real Adventure For Me. I Worked In A Mental Health Clinic And Met Some Of The Unusual People Who Inhabit Key West. A Lot Of Stories Were There To Tell. After A Year My Story Didnt Include The Artist. . I Returned To North Carolina And Went Back To Duke Medical Center Where I Was Head Nurse Of The Family Medicine Center. Residents Were There Learning To Be Family Docs Something I Admired. After Three Years I Found Myself Ready For A Change. My Children Were All Self Sufficient. I Met A Peace Corps Recruiter At A Party And When I Found I Could Go To Fiji I Said Yes Please Dont Give That Place To Anyone Else. It Was A Wonderful Two Years Of My Life. I Loved The People And The Beauty Everywhere. I Taught A Bit And Learned A Lot. . One Of The Things I Learned In Fiji Was What They Called Diridiri. It Meant Slow Down And Enjoy The Moment. When I Returned I Went Back To Duke To Work In Psychiatry But Never Full Time. I Arranged My Work So I Could Take Classes At The Duke School For Older People Now Called Olli. I Also Facilitated Classes On Reading Shakespeare And Great Books. I Taught English As A Second Language At Our Library. Doing These Things Slow And Easy Gave Me Joy. . Olli Gave Me More Than A Place To Teach And Learn. A Classmate Mal And I Shared A Number Of Classes. Finally We Decided To Share Life. Mal And I Traveled To Many Places. He Had Been In The Diplomatic Service And Knew Europe Well So I Got To See Some Special Places Off The Beaten Path. He Left For Heaven On A Train In Budapest After Saying That Our Three Week River Cruise Had Been The Happiest Time Of His Life . Now I Live In A Wonderful Village Called The Forest. I Enjoy Reading Writing A Bit Of Bridge Friends And Family. This Family Now Includes My Four Wonderful Children Ten Grandchildren With Spouses And Twenty Great Grandchildren. Life Is Good