of the day

I am sitting on the GNER train at 8 on the morning at Edinburgh Waverly station. It is the second train I have been on this morning. I sat on one for an hour from 6:00. After getting up at literally 4:45 AM. A fire on a freight train in Musselburgh has grounded travel south to a halt.

But I am grateful for my decision to pull out the stops and upgrade for fancy First Class, Free WiFi. Sammiches being handed out. Friendly ladies asking if you need travel help. Many posh older gentlemen in suits making small talk and jokes with the beverage servers. And me. In my green comfort Dansko sandals and glasses and my shiny Mac. I feel like an first class impostor. But determined to stake my claim here in the comfy class. I love it.

But more to the point, today I travel to London to assist on coaching course with dear Lex. I look forward to getting into the warm tub of CTI love and immerse deeply in coactivity and coaching mindset.

Update - we are moving!

But this is all giving me pause, as today is the funeral of my dear Uncle Al. My nuclear and extended family is gathering together to pay tribute to him and to officially say good-bye. It was a sudden and sad death. And the first of that generation in my family. He has been a staple and a given in the fabric of my 39 years and feels wrong and disproportionately shocking that he has gone. I think of my dear Aunt Dorothy, married to him since she was 16. And my parents who together with Al and Dorothy have been a formidable foursome over the many years, sharing vacations, hundreds of days at the lake, pizza nights, drop by visits and often seeming to morph into the same people.

I may be in London today. But my heart is in Milwaukee with the Michalskis, the Faculjaks, the Krohns and the Giuntolis. And remembering where and who I come from.