When my children were little, we would drive from Brookline, MA, to Squam Lake in 2 hours. It was reliably 2 hours. Unless it was morning rush hour heading into Boston – which might add a half hour, if I recall.

When Nika was a baby, she could ride in the car contentedly for any amount of time. With Hunter, she was willing to sit calmly if I could touch her: I would have one hand on the steering wheel, one reaching back to touch hers – that worked.

But when Ariella came along: 2 hours in a car seat was toooo long. We had to stop. Get out. Move a bit.

So, our strategy changed. Instead of leaving at a reasonable hour, we would wake up early, pile into the car wearing pajamas (the children anyway), and head out. When we stopped, it was for breakfast. The children loved it.

It was on one of those early morning drives leaving Boston – the sun slanting as it does at that time of day – that I saw these brilliant blooms of flowers – right where the road makes a V – so you ride towards and then alongside, these bright bright flowers waving in the wind of the passing vehicles.

They were cosmos. Common cosmos. Lighting up the drive. Brightening the morning for how many hundreds and thousands of passing cars.

Not in a garden, but right there in the middle of the black and white highway. Color!

Someone had had the forsight to plant them and we were watching them bloom.

I put some cosmos seeds in the ground this spring. I thought they would NEVER bloom. BUT here they are.

Just for me.

But in memory of the ones that lifted up so many, years ago.

(back on the trail)

If I sing loud enough, will the bears stay away?

• those are my words, not Peaches.

P.S. Who wants to hear about Lyme disease? No one. I haven’t wanted to share my ongoing ups and downs as I one minute, am sure I’m “all better” and the next, feel, again defeated and down. But last week I had a full 5 days of a much more peaceful body. I couldn’t help but spread the word, partly in my disbelief.

I now look at that as the promise of what’s to come, as I deal with “what’s next”.