Transformation

I spent the day today at a conference by the ocean, about an hour's drive from my home.

It was raining when I left, and I went directly inside to the conference sessions; although I was within easy walking distance of the boardwalk, I never left the hotel again until it was time to return home.

During the course of the day I spoke with many people, both old friends and strangers... one woman who I had never met before mentioned that she lived with her sister. This gave me a lovely excuse to reminisce about my own time of living with my sister, and to remember how much fun we had with that.

You and your sister get along well, then? I asked, in an almost rhetorical way.

Actually, she said, we didn't get along at all for a really long time. At one point it was so bad we couldn't even stand to be in the same room together. When I told my mother we were moving in together, she couldn't keep herself from saying, "Are you sure that's a good idea?"

But it was a good idea, and somehow both sisters knew it.

I'm sorry that I missed the ocean, but glad that I had the presence of mind to make a little room in my reminiscing for someone else's very different story.