Six weeks, take three @Liz Flaherty

I know it's seven weeks--pretend!

I am so amazed at my own inabilities today. This is the third time I've started this blog post. It is, I have learned, harder to write one every six weeks than it is to come up with something every Monday morning. Maybe it's because if I blow a Monday morning post, I can make up for it the following week. If I blow this one, I can't make up for it until sometime in May...or so. So, on this third time, I'm just thinking about six weekses in my life.

In elementary school, we got report cards every six weeks. We took them home, had our parents sign them, and took them back. I always got all S's for Satisfactory. I was rather envious of people who got I's for Improving or even a wicked U for Unsatisfactory. (That last thing was probably a portent of my tendency toward liking Bad Boys later on.) I thought the variety of letters on their grade cards made them more interesting. More popular.

Also in elementary school, after six weeks of summer, I was ready to go back. I was bored with summer and tired of not seeing people every day. Six weeks after school started up again, I was ready for another summer because, yes, I was bored. And yes, I was tired of seeing people every day.

The summer between my sophomore and junior years, I took driver's training. It lasted six weeks and gave birth to a lifetime of freedom behind the wheel. Not that my parents saw it that way--they most certainly did not--but I did. To this day, I love to drive. I would, in a heartbeat, get in the car and drive across the United States and then back home across Canada (or vice versa), taking my time and staying in hotels and B and Bs that looked fun and cozy. Nan Reinhardt would go with me, too, but the ones we refer to as D and J wouldn't think much of the idea at all. They wouldn't want to go with us, but they wouldn't be crazy about us taking off on a six-weeks-long trip, either.

Six weeks after I met Duane, he left for basic training. I didn't know then that we'd be spending our lives together, but I was pretty sure we'd always be connected somehow. Two years later, on New Year's Day of 1971, I knew it would be six weeks before he came home from Vietnam. We and our lives had both changed immeasurably in the 14 months he'd been gone, but the connection was there waiting when he got back. Still is.

I read this morning that the cheapest time to buy plane tickets--and I still buy the cheapest ones--is six weeks before departure time.

I remember when six weeks was a long time. It was half a season! That's not so anymore. Six weeks is only a few heartbeats in time. They need to be used and enjoyed. It's still half a season, but time really does fly when you're having fun.

I hope you are. See you in six weeks.