Brotherly Love

The approach into Philadelphia by air is beautiful. The plane comes in low over the river, and you can see the boats and the industrial buildings before the runway appears. When we arrived on Thursday afternoon, a perfect early fall day, everything was still green, the sun was out, and the water was sparkling blue.

I had a moment of real surprise that it was in color.

My memories of Philadelphia were shades of grey. I guess that's what grief does.

Even now, it's a bit like walking on thin ice. There are places I don't want to go because I mostly went there with John. His absence is tangible.

But even so, the visit was wonderful. I was there for a conference (and actually went to a good bit of it, amazingly enough), but we were able to spend lots of time with our friends. We walked around our old neighborhood, caught up with people and dogs at the park, and bought some treats at the farmer's market. We drank lots of wine and ate delicious food and reconnected with people important to us. It has not been an easy year for some of our friends, but everyone is getting by, doing well.

We had a flaming pu-pu platter in Chinatown, wandered through a mini-festival (pictured: the Mummers), and soaked in the city life. We rode the trolley and popped into City Hall and caught up on the local politics.

It was very very good.