What goes around comes around. History repeating itself. Arriving full circle.

Never had I imagined bicycling around Lake Harriet, Bde Maka Ska (formerly Lake Calhoun), or Lake of the Isles on a Monday morning with my grown son.

Never had I imagined reading the same books to my grandchildren that I read forty years ago to my children. Now The Big Orange Splot and Sailor Dog are on their bookshelves.

Never had I imagined returning to winter, moving from Tucson’s 300+ sunny days to frigid Minneapolis.

When I was in my 20s there was no way I would consider leaving my native New England. Working for George McGovern during the 1972 presidential campaign my ex-husband and I were offered teaching jobs in Montana, big sky country that I loved.

But it wasn’t New England. Now I figure it’s a good thing to have lived in three different parts of the country.

The other day a cyclist wearing an El Tour Tucson spandex shirt stopped next to me.

“I just moved here from Tucson,” I of course blurted.

“Two great places,” he replied. “I’m going back in mid-October.”

“I’m not.”

“You must know what you’re in for,” he said. I told him I had lived most of my life in Maine. When I moved to Tucson in 2002 I was done with winter.

“But here I am, wanting to live closer to my grandchildren.”

“We all grow and change,” he offered. I was grateful for the comment.

And I got to thinking: perhaps when I’m REALLY old, when my grandkids busy themselves with teenage friends, I’ll return to Southwest Harbor, Maine.

Perhaps I’ll sit rocking on a big veranda with my dear women friends. We’ll repeat our old stories about borrowing each other’s maternity clothes, writing groups at OZ, or our fears of menopause, of becoming empty nesters. Never fully imagining what it was like to be grandmothers.

And none of us will mind.