are you having fun yet?

Not yet.

My son Matt is my favourite, that is, only travel companion. When I don’t go alone I go with him, usually to Boston (Quincy) to visit my daughter, his sister, who is very good to him and so is Jonathan, her husband, who is his favourite brother. Matt is wonderful to travel with: he is patient and never complains, no matter the delays, and you know what they’re like now: the line-ups, the kiosks (and I never seem to punch the right buttons and have to do it again), the boarding passes (scrutinized), the passports (ditto), t he shoes (off), the bags (open), the shaving cream (confiscated), the water bottle (abandoned), on and on and on. It’s an obstacle course and as we traverse it, Matt says “Are we having fun yet?”

Not yet.

But it has become a standing joke and it comes in very handy when we run into a real delay, in fact a set- back , like a cancelled flight. Are we having fun yet? Not yet.

Shortly after I was widowed I got involved with a Dream Group: only four women, not frequent, so not onerous. We had to report our dreams, of course, for shared analysis. I usually do not remember my dreams, the REM or moving pictures of the final stage of sleep; most people don’t. They vanish the moment you wake up, with some exceptions, but that’s another discussion. While I was hanging with the Dream Ladies I recalled my dreams - and quickly recognized the pattern, the story-line. One way or another they were all obstacle courses: going some place by various vehicles but always with obstacles, some of them quite forbidding and dangerous.

That’s what travel is like now. Life, too.