Moving picture windows

Thanks for tuning in to the second half of this story -it is not exactly an easy one to tell but I do feel it is important to share. Hopefully, my tale will help someone who is dealing with loss of a loved one and the overwhelming grief that comes with it.  As you have read, I was safely tucked in the back of a car on the way to Yosemite with two incredibly supportive women  -great writers both and unutterably kind. Though we had buckets of alcohol in the back, I sipped a single mimosa slowly and wondrously. Champagne is celebratory and I marveled I would be drinking it again as I slipped and slid around in what I had come to think of as "My Slough of Despair." I considered feeling guilty about  it but I pictured Robert looking down upon me and saying."That's my hen. Look at her go." In my imaginings, he would be highly amused at the slightly absurd sight of our boozy and bookish cabal zooming up the side of a mountain in a stretch limo. It might have amused me, too, except I had forgotten how to laugh. 

The beautiful scenery passed by my window at 60 mph and was soothingly meditational. Gorgeous flowering fields, wild weedy meadows, turning into a vast sentry of trees marching to Yosemite. We picked up a couple more writer riders along the way.  I  mumbled just enough niceties to get by before I turned back to the moving picture window that had become my escape.  I was curled in the very comfortable back corner when, to my dismay, we suddenly arrived at the lodge and I was forced to emerge into actual daylight and try to pass as a human being.  There was a big crowd at the check-in desk which delayed simply checking into my room. Finally, I was handed keys and ushered into a spacious room with a view and my very own balcony overlooking a meadow leading into a forested path.  The path was a lure.  It called to me silently and seductively.

This being a conference, nearly every moment was scheduled. I had 20 minutes to myself before the first meet and greet. I flung my suitcase in a corner, kicked off my boots and had a good cry for exactly 15 minutes allowing 5 for Visine, facewash, make-up and costume change. 

Next installment- I finally meet Nick Belardes