A long time ago, I was part of a prayer chain at my church. Whenever someone in the parish needed prayer the telephone tree went into action. Whether our prayers were answered as we hoped or in ways we never understood, we always did hear sooner or later. Although I did have one friend named Carole who said she felt a calling to pray at times for people or even outcomes she didn’t know. Driving down the road, she’s suddenly get a feeling that she needed to pull over and pray. She always answered that call and rarely ever knew who she was praying for or what.

In today’s world of interconnectedness, it often seems very much like that, except in a far larger way. In a brief Tweet or a status posting on Facebook prayers are solicited for everything from a missing child, to a shooting, to the loss of a soldier or the illness of a parent. More often than not, even when I do take a moment to answer that request, I will never know the outcome. This past weekend was rife with requests. A ship lost at sea with 38 souls on board, flooding in South Carolina, survivors of the shooting in Oregon and the families of those killed. And closer to home, a neighbor told me she’d just been diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer. Some of those prayers already have answers. The ship sank and people died in South Carolina, but many more were rescued even though they may have lost their homes and livelihoods.

I know that some of you will read this post and scoff. You don’t believe in God at all, or you don’t believe in prayer. Some of you once did believe, but when you needed God most, He seemed far away and not interested in your problems. I’ve been there. I know. I prayed for my husband’s cancer to be vanquished. I prayed for my mother when her mind was slipping away. I prayed harder than I’d ever prayed in my life when my grandsons were fighting for their lives. I even tried to bargain with God – offering my life in lieu of theirs. But that’s not how prayers work.

My husband died at peace, at home where he wanted to be with all his family about him, even his son who had been half a world away serving in the military just a few days before. My mother found unexpected enjoyment in the social life of the assisted living home where she spent the last two years of her life. There were blessings in both those events, but I am still struggling with why the innocent lives of two precious little boys were not spared, and I have to have faith that one day I will understand.

So, today I light my prayer candle and I ask God to bring peace and solace to the families of those who have lost someone they love, in Oregon, at sea in a hurricane, in the fighting in the Middle East, or anywhere else in the world. For the parents of babies and children fighting for their lives in hospitals everywhere, for those who feel so overwhelmed and sad that they are considering suicide, for healing for soldiers who have been wounded in mind or body, for law enforcement officers everywhere who put on their badges this morning and went to work in spite of the vendetta being waged against them, for refugees, the homeless, addicts and the ill and those who care for them. I will never know, nor do I need to know if or how my prayers are answered. It is enough to talk to God and leave my burdens and those of everyone who struggles in his hands. I don’t need to understand the answers – I need only have faith. God does not bring evil into the world, but he does grant us the strength to cope with whatever mountains we face.

So, to those of you who do believe in prayer – take a moment right now to thank God for the blessings in your life and ask Him to comfort those who need Him most.

There were a lot of things I expected to happen in retirement. Fun things I was looking forward to, like traveling and more time to write. And not having to dance to someone else’s piping or get up to an alarm clock. And, honest to God, it started out that way. My first move was to downsize my home which was a herculean effort and often a big nostalgic, but I did it with enthusiasm because I was headed off on another great new adventure. I moved to a fantastic little neighborhood in the oldest city in the US – which provided a whole new venue for my interest in history. I have a cozy little bungalow by the sea and I get to go for a walk on the beach any time I like, which is often and a whole raft of new friends, neighbors, fellow history enthusiasts and authors.

My bungalow isn’t new and there were lots of things to paint, repair, replace and fix up when I got here, and I got right into doing it. In between writing and visiting the beach. I got involved with the living history museum downtown and sewed myself several colonial outfits, learned how to do leatherwork as it was done in the colonial period, played a tavern wench at the fantastic little taberna that felt like you were literally stepping back in time and several other activities connected to historical reenactment. But then the Spanish Quarter was turned over to new management and volunteers, living history docents and any real feeling of being in another era was lost. I still love the downtown, but feel disenfranchised.

I still have a ton of neat things I want to try. I have lots of projects I want to get accomplished and, of course, I’m still writing books – especially now that four of them have been published and a fifth is on the way. I don’t know if it’s because I finally figured out that retirement is supposed to be leisurely, or, God forbid – I’m getting old. I still have places I want to visit, but lately I seem to do more talking about going than actually packing the suitcase and getting on the road. I have a huge tub of old photographs that need to be sorted and organized and Michael’s had a sale on photo files so I bought several. And there the project sits, right were I see it every day, but it’s not getting done. I promised my daughter-in-law I’d finish embroidering her Christmas tablecloth and it’s not done yet either. It’s a good thing I respond well to deadlines because she’s going to need it come December. I have another grandchild on the way and that means creating another teddy bear, but what do you want to bet, I’ll get to it two weeks before the new grandbaby is due?

I have become so proficient at procrastination if there were trophies for it, I’d have one. Not that I’ve been completely without achievement. I did publish four books since I retired. At the beginning of the year, I bought a FitBit and since have traveled over 2 and a half million steps since then - that's over 1,000 miles. In the six years since I retired, I've been to Ireland, France, New Zealand, San Francisco, San Antonio and Tonga, and that’s not counting my annual trips to New England in the summer and about three dozen jet-setting trips for family events. But there are still so many places on my bucket list to see. I want to go, really I do, but it seems harder and harder to get my butt in gear? Is this normal? Not that I’ve ever been what you would call normal, but still. It would be nice to know if there’s a club for procrastinators out there I can join. Somewhere, in a box of odds and ends somewhere, I have a Genuine Round Tu-It. Now if only I could find that box I might get around to all the things I want to get done.

   What current issues are important to you?   

Today’s Round Robin topic is what current social and global issues are important to me and do they show up in my writing. There are a number of current issues that I feel very passionate about. But, as a writer, knowing that more than half my audience is probably in the other camp on any given issue, I try very hard to keep that passion off my social media and out of my books. If I didn’t care so much about those issues that really touch home, it would be easy to take a middle ground approach, but more often than not, because I do care passionately, keeping my opinions to myself is the only way to avoid alienating half my readers. I do love a getting involved in a debate with people who take the time to understand the issues and who are able to weigh all sides of the argument, but far too often today people are driven by the media, have done little or no real reading or research and don’t really understand the ramifications of their own views never mind, keeping their mind open to the possibility that they might be wrong or that the opposing view might have some legitimate points to be considered. And in the social media of the internet, not much thoughtful debate takes place, so I do my best to stay out of it.

That said, there are a number of issues I feel deserve serious thought: Immigration, the economy, unsustainable debt and entitlements, the threat of terrorism, and a political process that has begun to fail the promise this country began with, thrived and grew strong on. But what most distresses me today is the disintegration of the moral fabric of our society. Every time there is another horrific shooting, the media goes crazy with talk of gun control, completely ignoring such facts as the city with the toughest gun control laws in our country has the highest gun death rate. Clearly gun control does not work there and it seems to clear to me that making new laws that will be kept only by people who aren’t about to commit a crime anyway is not going to change anything yet the clamor to create these new laws completely overshadows all the other aspects of what is driving this problem. When I was growing up everyone in my neighborhood (and I didn’t live in Texas) had a gun of some kind. Just about every man had been in uniform in WWII and some of them surely were suffering from PTSD. We had our neighborhood bully and kids had far less supervision out of school than they do now. There were killings now and then, but nothing like what we are experiencing today. So what has changed? That’s what I wish people would start getting serious about. Personally, I feel that a lack of discipline and respect is a big factor. The notoriety a disgruntled person can gain from perpetrating mayhem via the media circus is certainly another aspect. Maybe violent video games and movies and TV are partly to blame. Maybe we don’t have the right approach to mental illness. Maybe, as a society, we have turned so far away from God and having any kind of moral compass in our lives that evil has mushroomed. And just maybe it’s partly due to having created a populace that has come to expect certain entitlements. Instead of the work ethic of 50 or 100 years ago, far too many people grow up feeling like they are owed something they don’t have to work for and when they don’t get it someone somewhere is to blame. And someone needs to pay. Our country was founded on the principle of life, liberty and the “pursuit” of happiness - but not the guarantee of anything we weren’t willing to work for.

But do I put this passion into my novels? Sometimes. My first book, Whatever It Takes, includes a peek at some of the issues of our day and I was pretty even handed in my treatment of them. It is mainstream fiction: Blurb: The photo caught Matt Steele off guard, jerking him back to a time he’d done everything to forget, to emotions he never wanted to relive. In the midst of a hotly contested three-way race for the White House, the photo and the man who brought it will challenge everything Matt thought he knew about himself. The choice he faces to put honor on the line could change the outcome of the election and the fate of a nation. Considering the background is a presidential election, it was imperative to include some of the major issues of our day, from gay lifestyles, to immigration, to the economy and the US at war.

In my Camerons of Tide’s Way series, which is contemporary romance, the social issues are not as prominent, but they do appear. In Loving Meg, my heroine is a female Marine returning from a year in a combat zone, struggling with the issues so many of our veterans experience. Similar issues facing our military men and women is a major theme in the current book in progress, this time a career Marine who has been injured and is facing the possible loss of his career and the only life he’s known as an adult. While not as divisive as gun control or immigration, our veterans and the way we support and care for them is one of the issues I am passionate about. So much so that 50% of my proceeds from Loving Meg goes to a non-profit (K-9s for Warriors in Ponte Vedra, FL) that provides service dogs to veterans who are struggling with their re-entry into civilian life.

Maybe someday I’ll get brave, or really fired up and tackle a major social issue in a major way in a novel. But for now, amidst the turmoil of our times, most people read fiction to escape and readers want the good guys to win, so I’ll continue to write happy-ever-after stories and try to avoid writing about issues that divide us as a nation instead of uniting us.

Take a hop on over to some of these other blogs to see how other authors feel about the social issues of our day and how they handle the inclusion of them in their writing.

A.J. Maguire  http://ajmaguire.wordpress.com/
Beverley Bateman  http://beverleybateman.blogspot.ca/
Margaret Fieland  http://www.margaretfieland.com/blog1/
Marci Baun  http://marcibaun.com/blog/
Victoria Chatham  http://victoriachatham.webs.com/
Connie Vines  http://connievines.blogspot.com/
Bob Rich  http://wp.me/p3Xihq-vQ
Rachael Kosinski  http://rachaelkosinski.weebly.com/
Helena Fairfax  http://helenafairfax.com/
Judith Copek http://lynx-sis.blogspot.com/
Rhobin Courtright  http://www.rhobinleecourtright.com/

We all have moments that remain stark and fresh in our minds no matter how many years may pass.

Some of those moments are personal: The moment you hold your newborn child for the first time, look into its eyes and know you will never be the same person again. Or the moment you clasped your mother’s hand in yours as she passed from this life to the next and realized there would always be a hole in your heart where she had always been. Some of us have unspeakably painful memories of an event so awful that it took our breath away and made us feel like our hearts were breaking. Those are moments that made you a different person, moments that live in your heart. Moments stamped in startling clarity and incredible detail      

But there are other moments shared by many that change us as well. Moments that are indelibly etched in our hearts and minds. If you are as old as my dad, you can still hear the echoes of FDR’s radio announcement of the day that would down in Infamy.” For my generation, we often ask each other, “Where were you when JFK was assassinated in Dallas?” I can’t answer for my dad, but I can most certainly answer exactly where I was on the day JFK died. I can “hear” the gasps that greeted the announcement over the school PA system and I will never forget the sound of clanging locker doors in halls where no words were spoken because we were all in shock. My daughter remembers the day the Challenger blew up because she was home from school due to illness and watching the launch on TV. Her disbelief is as strong now as it was when the replays of the disaster insisted the impossible had happened.

And now there is 9/11.

Each of us has private memories of that day. Some of us more poignant than others. For some it was personal – a loved one was on one of those planes, their mother worked in one of those offices, or their firefighter husband was in the tower when it collapsed. Or the woman whose husband left the message on her answering machine ending with “…I want you to know, I absolutely love you.” How she must have ached to have been home to tell him the same thing.

For each of us there are both personal and shared moments from that day that changed who we are as Americans. Watching the mushrooming cloud of dust and debris as the towers collapsed. The unbelievable horror of people jumping to their deaths. And in the days that followed, the images of firefighters and search dogs desperate to find survivors. Discouraged men and women, exhausted and filthy but not willing to give up. All those images and more are as fresh in our memories today as they were when they were happening. They were defining images that changed us all. Some young people who had never considered a life in the military were eager to enlist. Many installed flagpoles in their yards – people  who had never flown flags before. Some people learned to pray that day. Others have never prayed since.

But these are the moments that make us or break us, as individuals and as a nation.

Brianna Reagan's life fell apart when her husband was killed in combat. Now, three years later, she and her son have started a new life in Tide's Way. She loves her job, and she’s convinced that eight-year-old Sam is all the man she needs in her life.  Then Sam joins the Cub Scouts and Brianna meets his scout leader. Will Cameron has a smile that could melt her socks off, and he isn’t shy about his interest in her or her fatherless boy. Unfortunately, he likes living life on the edge, and he’s a state trooper: another fearless hero willing to put his life on the line every day for the sake of others. As she struggles to remain "just a friend," Will offers so much more.

But how can she risk putting her heart in harm’s way again? Even for Will?

Here’s an excerpt to whet your appetite:

~~~~~

Will placed his remaining five letters on the board covering both the triple word and a triple letter squares. Gripy

“That’s not a real word.” Bree scoffed. She began to remove his tiles.

“Sure it is. Look it up.” Will covered her hand with his and flattened it over the letters on the Scrabble board. An unexpected jolt of excitement shot from the warmth of his palm to her heart. For a long moment neither of them spoke while their eyes were eloquent with so much that wasn’t being said.

Bree slid her hand out from under Will’s and snatched it to her chest.

“Why did you do that?”

“Do what?” Bree’s breath caught in her throat. She reached for the dictionary and tried to ignore the way her body had reacted to his touch.

Will took the dictionary and set it aside. “Are you afraid of me?”

She shook her head. She was more afraid of herself.

“Then why do you pull back into your shell like a turtle every time I touch you?”

“We’re friends. I’d like to stay friends.” And his touch made her feel things that were a long way beyond just friendly.

“Friends can be lovers too.”

“No. They can’t. Someone always gets—” She stood up and moved away from the table. Away from him.

Will got to his feet as well, but didn’t try to close the physical gap she’d created between them. “Someone always gets what?”

“Hurt,” Bree whispered. “Someone always gets hurt.”

“I have no intention of hurting you. I just want to l—”

“But what if I let myself care too much and something happened that you had no control over?” Bree fought the rising tide of confusion, alarm and desire.

His blue eyes widened. “Is that what all this has been about? You’re afraid to fall in love again because of what happened to your husband?”

Bree tucked her hands beneath her armpits to keep from reaching out to him.

Will took a step in her direction. She hugged herself tighter.

“And I’m a trooper so that makes me off limits?”

He loomed over her now. All six feet plus of him. He raked his fingers through his blond hair and left it standing on end. Tears abruptly swamped Bree’s eyes. She blinked furiously, trying to make them go away.

He cupped her cheek in his palm and ran his thumb across her lips. “Hasn’t anyone ever told you to live every day as if there were no tomorrow?”

Having no tomorrow is what I’m afraid of.

“Would you change everything if you knew what would happen to Ed? Do you regret loving him?”

Stricken, Bree shook her head.

“We could be so good together, Bree. Getting hurt sucks, I know. But shutting out love is worse.”

Then he swept her into his arms. There was nothing fleeting about his kiss. Nothing that could be misinterpreted as just friends. Just so much tenderness that her walls began to crumble. He didn’t try to force her lips apart, but she felt the yearning desire in him and opened of her own free will.

The kiss became a hot, fiery spiral. She clutched at his shoulders and let herself be overwhelmed by the sensations of Will’s mouth on hers and his body coming to life, touching hers in ways she hadn’t experienced in years.

It was Will who pulled back first. His eyes were closed and his jaw taut. His breathing as labored as hers. Then, he dropped his arms and stepped away.

When he opened them, passion still darkened the bright blue of his eyes. “Think about it, Bree. Think about how good we could be for each other. If only you can stop being afraid.”

Then he stepped around her and walked to the door. He let himself out and closed it soundlessly behind him.

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Do you feel certain genres stereotype men and women? Why do you think that happens? How do you prevent it in your writing?

Some genres do stereotype both men and women. Sometimes, especially in the case of books with a historical setting, it’s hard not to stereotype because it is the stereotypical man or woman of that era that gives the story its historical flavor. In real life, Deborah Sampson, who disguised herself as a man in order to join the army and fight in the Revolutionary War is an exciting exception to what women were like in the late seventeen hundreds and while it’s within reason to write about a heroine in her mold, it doesn’t show what society was really like at the time. So most authors stick to creating heroines more like Abigail Adams. The same goes for their heroes. A man who bathes the children and reads them stories might be typical of fathers in today’s world but he would have been an oddity in, say, Regency England.

But beyond the need to make a time and place believable, breaking out of the stereotype makes a hero or heroine more memorable and sets the story apart from hundreds or thousands of others. Action/Adventures nearly always involve an Alpha male, short on introspection and long on smarts, courage and physical prowess. While I’m a huge fan of Jack Reacher and Mitch Rapp (Lee Child and Vince Flynn) how much more impressive and memorable would be a man who not only doubts himself, but whose friends and colleagues see as a Beta personality, more likely to follow than to lead. And suddenly this man is faced with the unthinkable and he rises to the occasion. He possesses more ability than he knew, more determination to get the job done in spite of his self-doubts, and triumphs against all odds. Wouldn’t this hero stand out in the crowd?

As for romance – stereotypes have been and still for the most part, are the norm. How many slightly overweight, less than drop-dead gorgeous or over 40 heroines have you seen in a contemporary romance? Most heroines are spunky, smart, brave, slender and beautiful. And how many heroes are not Alpha males? Most often wealthy, or titled, or wildly successful in their careers? And tall, muscled, and handsome? They are CEOs not salesmen, Navy SEALS not Navy cooks, cowboys rather than clerks at the feed and grain store.

In my lifetime I’ve read hundreds of romances and of all of them one of the few heroes I have never been able to forget is Jesse Best, from Simple Jess, by Pamela Morsi. I’ve fallen in love with dozens of wonderful heroes in books by so many different authors, but days, or weeks or sometimes months after I’ve put the book away, I can’t even remember the hero’s name any more, never mind the plot. But Jess stands out. He’s not smart, or wealthy or accomplished. An accident of birth has left him with less than average intelligence, but he has been blessed with good instincts, pure intentions, excellent work ethics, enduring patience, and gentleness. As the story begins, his most pressing need is to prove that he is a man worthy of being called a man. He has the desires and dreams of a man, to have a wife and a farm and a family, but no one in his community believes that’s in his future. And that is what makes him stand out in my memory. Ms. Morsi colored so far outside the lines that I’m convinced only her reputation got this book into print back when it first came out, but by deviating from the stereotypical, alpha male in the romance genre, she created a totally wonderful hero. Check out the reviews now that the book has been re-released. I’m not the only one who holds this opinion. Which leads me to believe that other readers are just as eager for heroes and heroines that don’t fit any stereotype, who finagle their way into our hearts and memories because of they are different.

I’d like to believe I might one day create a hero or a heroine as unforgettable as Jesse Best, but in the meantime, I strive to fashion my characters from the bits and pieces of ordinary people. I admit to devouring all of Suzanne Brockmann’s books featuring Navy SEALS – all of them brave, strong men who loved the heroine the way all women want to be loved - but today I cannot recall a single one of those bigger-than-life heroes’ names, or any of the storylines. They were all stereotypical Alpha male romance heroes, but they were not memorable. The more authors think outside of the stereotypical box, the better and more lasting the impression their characters will leave in our hearts. In my efforts to create this kind of character, I consider people I know and like. Men who may be attractive, but not handsome, strong but don’t sport six-pack abs, men who have ordinary jobs that they do well and faithfully and women who aren’t all legs and slender bodies, but who manage to juggle motherhood and careers with humor and success. And I ask myself, what is it about these people I admire? What makes them special? Then I start building my characters and pray that someday someone will tell me they loved one of my characters the way I love Jesse Best.

Check out how these authors view the stereotyping of characters in today's world of publishing:

Beverley Bateman http://beverleybateman.blogspot.ca/
Connie Vines http://connievines.blogspot.com/
Rachael Kosinski http://rachaelkosinski.weebly.com/
Anne Stenhouse  http://annestenhousenovelist.wordpress.com/
Fiona McGier http://www.fionamcgier.com/
Helena Fairfax  http://helenafairfax.com/
Rhobin Courtright http://www.rhobinleecourtright.com/

When I was really little, my mom’s mother was cleaning houses for two wealthy families. I never accompanied her, but I knew some things about her job: that she liked and admired her employers and that she had once been a secretary, but during the depression had gotten laid off and in order to feed her four children with her husband gone, had ended up cleaning houses. Usually she walked down the hill to catch the bus to work, but during lent she walked in order to save the bus fare as her Easter offering at church. I don’t recall exactly when she retired, but as an adult, I remember visiting and finding her puttering about what was left of her WWII victory garden or busy in her kitchen, but never too busy to play with her great grandchildren. Retirement for her was truly a retirement from a life of hard work to one of leisure.

All three of my grandparents lived a long life, to 89, 93 and 102 and what I remember most clearly was lives spent reading, watching television and puttering. When my father-in-law retired my mother-in-law complained constantly that his games of solitaire were always in the way of whatever she was working on. He got active in his lodge, but other than that, he, too, puttered a lot. My father was the exception. He went from a lifetime of drafting and machine design to a pastime of building boats, furniture and dozens of other projects in his extensive shop. He enjoyed sailing and we went on some really neat week-long sailing adventures over the years, but I think he enjoyed the actual building of the boats even more than sailing them.

But now I’m retired, and my life looks nothing like that of my grandparents or even my own father. I was eager to be free of the nine to five rat race so I could spend more time pursuing my goal to become a published author. I spend at least as much time as I did working for someone else, sitting at my desk hard at work on my next novel.  And loving it.  A high school friend retired to Arizona, giving up his job with the US Customs Service, to end up delivering newspapers before the sun is even up. My cousin recently wound up her long time career with the US government and turned right around to become docent with the US Park service. I met a man on the beach the other day who introduced himself as the owner of a well known downtown restaurant and confided that he'd turned over the running of it to his daughter. But in the next moment he told me he'd just bought another long time landmark of St Augustine and was now rehabbing that before reopening it. So much for retirement! Half the baggers at the grocery store are my age and retirees everywhere are jumping right back into the working world in whole new careers. Some with paychecks attached but many as volunteers, sharing their time and their enthusiasm in new venues. Some of my friends have turned a life-long hobby into a whole new commercial adventure. And others, like me, have joined the Peace Corps for an unmatchable adventure in a far away place working harder than ever.

So, I’m wondering – does anyone ever just retire any more? Or does our better health and longer lives just give us a second chance at life and new adventures?  

Saturday was one of those rare days that end up standing out in memory as special. Not that anything particularly different was happening on this specific Saturday. I guess it was just an accumulation of little things and the sudden, quiet realization that it was a beautiful day, and I was here to enjoy it.

For the six weeks previous, I’d been on the road: two weeks in a cottage perched on the ocean’s edge in Maine, two weeks on an island in a lake in New Hampshire, two weeks visiting my kids and friends. But now I was home again. Home in my little bungalow by the sea in St Augustine, Florida. I’d unpacked the car, stowed all my stuff where it belonged, gotten caught up on the laundry and the errands. And here it was: Saturday with absolutely nothing on the agenda. No where I needed to be. Nothing I needed to be doing. No one expecting anything from me.

When I woke and took Duff for his morning walk, the tide was out so we continued right on down to the beach and walked more than half way to Marineland before turning back. Considering it was a Saturday – the last Saturday before school begins again in St. John’s County – it seemed amazing that we were the only two beings on the beach – well, us and the sandpipers and terns. By the time we got home, the temps had climbed, but there was still a breeze that made the day feel just right. I gathered up the Wall Street Journal weekender edition and settled into my chair on the deck to read while I ate my delayed breakfast.

Every now and then, I’d glance up, my eye caught by the vivid blue of the ocean. I found myself sighing at the beauty of this place and this day. Now and then my phone would chime to tell me I’d gotten a message or a photo from one of my kids. A neighbor stopped to welcome me home and I chatted with him and petted his dog for a bit before he moved on. By then there were surfers out catching waves and two paragliders buzzed along the shore. But still it seemed so peaceful and perfect. And it suddenly slipped into my consciousness how very blessed I was to be living in this place, to be alive to enjoy this beautiful day. To have color and sunshine, the ocean and the breeze. Neighbors to chat with and children who sent me pictures on my phone of what was happening on this day in their lives hundreds of miles away. It was a very special day, indeed.

Years ago, before there were any grandkids, my children, and I spent a long weekend at the island cottage in New Hampshire. My son-in-law declared at the end of the three-day weekend that it just hadn’t been long enough and next year we should all come for a week. We’ve been doing it ever since. Of course that first weekend there were just a half dozen of us, but over the years spouses have been added, my sister and sister-in-law and their kids and now grandkids. This year there were twenty-eight of us but other years even more. Some come for the whole week and others who can’t get away for an entire week, still manage to show up for part of the time. This year we missed my two oldest granddaughters, one who married an Army Medic who is stationed in Maryland and the other moved to Florida and couldn’t get enough time off to come so far.

If you are picturing an “English” cottage – the kind with dozens of bedrooms, cozy fireplaces and vast manicured lawns - don’t. This cottage began life as the 14-foot square platform for a tent the year I was twelve, then became a “temporary camp” with a larger one to follow. But that was before my father got his first tax bill, which is outrageous since New Hampshire gains all its tax revenue via real estate taxes. The bigger camp with such lovely facilities as running water, warm showers and real beds never happened.

But that doesn’t stop us from having a fantastic time together. Everyone has their own tent. The cottage is treated like a clubhouse with a kitchen and we eat at a sisteen-foot table under a twenty-foot canopy. We take turns fixing dinner, there is always at least one waffle breakfast and one featuring crepes. My grandkids love spending a whole week with their cousins in and out of the water, playing dress-up, exploring in kayaks, doing crafts and just having fun. The adults play just as hard – in boats, in the water and at cards. And every night ends with a campfire and s’mores and sometimes ghost stories that have the kids begging to sleep with mom and dad instead of in their own tents.

This year was no different. A little over a week ago we all began to arrive. Three college age grandkids, eleven grandkids from one to thirteen, fourteen adults and three dogs. Tents popped up everywhere and the usually silent island became a hive of activity and the laughter of children. One nice thing about an island is the freedom the kids have that they don’t get at home. They can find hideouts and explore along the shore, and just be kids without adults watching every move. Sometimes one just has to laugh when they decide that dancing in the outhouse is fun – or something equally beyond the imagination of the adults.

We also celebrate a holiday every summer – a holiday we don’t usually get to see each other on. Last year was Easter and eggs were hidden all over the island. The year before everything was about fairies – fairy houses, fairy wings, fairy bubbles. Another year it was Halloween and the kids put on their costumes and went trick or treating to all the tents. This year was Valentines Day all week. Mail deliveries were made when no one was watching and the kids had a grand time checking their little red mailboxes every day. Sometimes there are birthday parties, and wedding or baby showers. Years from now some archeologist will have to wonder what all the tiny glittery things in the shape of hearts, wedding bells, baby rattles, pacifiers, stars and over the hill slogans mean. We aim to keep them guessing.

But now it’s hard to believe the week passed so quickly. One by one the families took down their tents, gathered their gear, and rowed it all back to shore to be packed away in their cars. And once again I woke up alone on an island that was a quiet sunny haven in the middle of the lake with just the gentle lapping of water along the shore. And we’re already looking forward to 2016. Happy Mutt’s Nuts!

P.S. Mutt’s Nuts, for anyone who is curious, is a slightly tamer version of a British expression that refers to something really great – The Dog’s Bollocks.

For the past six years, when I’ve traveled to New England for the summer, I’ve spent the lion’s share of that time on a tiny island in a lake in New Hampshire. It sounds grand that my family owns an island with a camp on it, but think very small with mostly unusable waterfront and a camp that’s little more than a wooden tent, no heat, no running water, no hot showers, an outhouse for facilities and no connection to the outside world in the form of phone, internet or television. The only amenity we do have is electricity, so we do have a stove to cook on, but we also have to heat water on it to do the dishes. Most of us now have cell phones, but this lake is surrounded by hills and God only knows where the closest cell tower is. We get very weak and spotty reception. So, for the most part, we don’t have any connection with the outside world.

Every summer before this, I’ve taken the time and spent the money to visit the good people at Verizon and to activate a tiny device that creates a WiFi zone. Even that gadget has its limits and operates with the speed and reliability of the old dial-up connections, but I still got to check all my regular sites and stay in touch with people I was used to seeing online every day. But this year, considering I was only going to be here for two weeks, I didn’t bring the MiFi, and here I am, alone on the island, unable to check my email, visit facebook or access the internet. It’s only day one and already I am in withdrawal. The day after I first arrived my cell phone managed to bring in a signal strong enough to post a notice on FB letting folk know where I was and why they might see much of me for the next couple weeks. The day I wrote this, I didn’t even have that. Occasionally I drive down to visit my dad or do laundry and I get to log onto my sister's WiFi which is how this got posted.

I have a book to finish, two blog posts that I’ll have to go off island to post and a newsletter to put together for the end of the month, so I keep telling myself it’s a good thing to be unplugged. I’ll get more done. I won’t have the time-suck that FB and Twitter are to distract me. But I keep picking up my phone to see if I can check in anyway. The answer hasn’t changed in three hours, but I keep trying.

It might not feel quite so isolating if we shared this island with other people – then I’d have neighbors to at least say hello to now and then. But it’s just us – me and Duffy, and he doesn’t say much. Gives me a whole new appreciation for the character Tom Hanks played in Castaway. At least I have a roof over my head and my dog for company. But I still feel antsy to know what’s going on in the world and with my friends and acquaintances.  I want to check my email to make sure I’m not missing something important. Perhaps I’ve grown too reliant on having an electronic connection to my world?

Please feel free to comment on this post. It might be a few days before I can approve the reply and it appears on the blog, but I would love to know how you feel about going off the grid. Is it a blessing or not?