Nostalgia

This morning is cold, gray, and rainy, and I am cozy in my office with some toasted homemade wheat banana currant bread (thanks to a dear friend) and a cup of coffee in my favorite mug. I have already changed my pouch this morning, and I am pleased that it was an easy morning – my stoma was absolutely quiet, so no messes, no juggling between trying to get that barrier ring on and catching output at the same time – and it is always a peaceful feeling to have that behind me, knowing that I shouldn’t have to worry about it again for a few days.

Since I have no kids, I am only really cognizant of the beginning of the school year the first day that real fall weather kicks in, and in Denver that day is today. Each year, around this time, on the first cold rain, I get a little nostalgic for that boisterous happy schoolgirl that I was, so terribly excited to go to school and wear my new school clothes and, more than anything, to wear my bright yellow plastic rain boots. I don’t know what it was about those yellow rain boots with their fur lining (too warm for most California winters) and two easy buckles. But I think it was that I delighted in the fact that they were specialty shoes, a luxury, shoes that were reserved just for the special occasion of a rain day (and I think California was in a drought for just about all of my elementary school days, so it was truly a special occasion). My family had little money to spare, and I can only imagine that my mom resolved to work a couple of extra hours at the Egg & I, or go heavy on the lentils one week in order to pay for them.

But when I visit that little Emily in my mind’s eye, I can’t help but to wonder at the fact that that little girl was heading swiftly and directly into the swamps of disease. And her little yellow rain boots would be no match for that.