life’s intersections

All posts tagged life’s intersections

Reflections On Change

Posted by pausesandclicks on 05/17/2017
Posted in: Military Life. Tagged: , , , , , . 2 Comments

My thought process has gone down several rabbit holes as I’ve ruminated about refections this past week so bear with me.  It’s a bit of a winding road!

The word reflection immediately took me back to this photograph….the one and only time I’ve used Photoshop to add a reflection to a picture, to alter the reality of what was in front of me.

Which took my memories back to the phone call that put us in motion towards this particular airplane at Tinker Air Force Base.

I was painting a wall at the time. It was the very last wall in the very last room of a home that we had bought in Virginia in 2004. After more than 25 years of marriage in which we had never been homeowners Jim had been assigned to the Pentagon for the fourth time and we were tired of paying other people’s mortgages so we had jumped into the market.  Real estate was crazy back then. Jim was already there and working while I stayed behind in South Dakota until the school year ended. Homes were snatched up in a matter of days.  I only saw the one we ended up with in photographs. When I finally arrived in Virginia I found it to be a house in a gorgeous neighborhood but it certainly needed some TLC…mainly in the form of stripping wallpaper and painting every single inch of the interior.

So I set to work.

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One Of Life’s Intersections

Posted by pausesandclicks on 11/26/2014
Posted in: Military Life. Tagged: , , , , . 1 Comment

IMG_9090I’m in my hometown for Thanksgiving and part of that experience always includes reconnecting with the people and places that formed me.  One such place was a warehouse called Medicus, that used to sit to the left of this road, just before this bridge.  Much to my parent’s chagrin I lived there during my senior year in college.  My husband was working up in Cleveland, waiting for his report date for Air Force pilot training, and I was finishing school.  Six of us lived there on a permanent basis, others came and went.  We had only a trickle of warm water in the bathroom and no kitchen but the rent was right at $40 a month.  One of my favorite memories is watching snow fall outside the floor to ceiling, multi-paned windows, on the industrial neighborhood that surrounded us.

Looking back, that year was a huge intersection in my life.  As soon as I graduated I packed up the few possessions I had and drove over this bridge for the last time.  I didn’t know it but from that moment on my life would be radically different as I drove towards life as a military spouse.

Medicus is no longer there, torn down years ago to make way for new development and so the Roebling Suspension Bridge is what I return to when I want to connect with the memories of that very young version of myself.

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Yesterday was perfect.  The day was cold and crisp, the sky perfectly blue, and the bridge’s strong angles fit in well with this week’s WordPress photo challenge: angular.

Come to think of it, intersections are also angular.  I had no idea back in 1980 what was around the corner but I sure am glad I made the turn.

Yet another reason to be thankful tomorrow.