Saturday Is Mostly a Day Off

Laying in bed I move my feet slowly. I stretch and stretch like Cheshire Cat waking up from his nap. Extend one ankle and twist it around and around and then do  the same for the other ankle. I roll over until I feel the cool part of the covers and then quickly I snuggle back in and sleep another 20 minutes. It's Saturday morning and I don't have to be anywhere. The wonderful thing about  a five day a week job is it produce a heightened awareness of free time. Before I worked five days a week I sometimes squandered instead of savored free time. Not any more! After 27 years of having to be up at O Dark Thirty, five days a week I have learned the art of savoring Saturday mornings like  the last chocolate in a a box of fine candy. Let it melt slowly and turn into energy to use  as I need to make the day exactly as I want to. I can do  laundry and get caught up on my housework and reacquaint myself with my home.  I can have a date with puttering around the house and yard that both feeds the homey, nesting part of me and makes the place glow with my touch. Or I can go for a hike or to the farmers market, or take a long time to cook lunch or dinner. I can wear my pajamas til 11am. I am older now and working this long you get a few aches and pains. Saturday lets my body recover. By Saturday night I will feel like a peach again, ready to enjoy Sunday and to join millions on Monday in the rat race.

Give me SUN

It has been too long since we have seen the sun. I know other parts of the country are having a heat wave and record highs, while we in the greater Seattle regions are just waiting with baited breath for a hot day. We haven't had a sunny truly sunny day since last July. That's 2010 folks. We are longing for sun to dry out our houses and clean up our mood. I want to feel the heat so to speak. Instead day after day it is dreary, rainy, yuckie, and just right not the way I want it to be this time of year. There are no cold Colas in my frig waiting to burst open and quench my thirst. There are no popcicles waiting in the freezer to join me for sitting on the the edge of the porch. There is no watermelon waiting to satisfy that sweaty body who just played volleyball in the yard. It is hot chocolate and warm rice pudding still filling my tummy after all these months. I hope to someday put away my hooded sweatshirts and bring out lovely filmy gauze tops and capris. Until it comes once again I will just take yet another Vitamin D tab and look into the sky and hope the color is not dark gray.

Moody Blues

Moody Blues

Today the South Wind blows outside my window. It's raining, which is no big deal. After all this is Puget Sound. The water flowing through the channel below our house looks like a river instead of salt water. The wind is constant and all the waves move more like the current of a river all running in one direction. It is dreary out. Dark clouds, rain, wind, moody ocean dominate the day. I am dreary on the inside as well. Life has sent me too many storms this week and I am beyond repair at the moment. I am like a spent flower. Wilted over beyond a drink of water. The week was long, exhausting, emotional, thought provoking, and I am empty. I am not sure how to refill the tank. I tried napping and sleep evaded me. I tried shopping but it felt small and empty. I tried eating but the calories just kept looming over me like a shark attack. None of it was fun. In fact I long for night time and sleep. Sometimes you need to just wash the day away and start again.

I think again of the water below my house. It just keeps moving along. I guess this is also a lot like life. It just keeps moving along. We may try and be a log on the beach but in spite of our desire to detach the high tide comes and the current moves us along. By tomorrow my mood will change. A shower will wash me clean. Fresh clothes hopefully will reawaken my sense of readiness. A nutritious meal will elevate my mood. And I will just keep moving along. I know in my heart I want to keep moving along.

Run As Fast As You Can

I have worked at an elementary school for 26 years and for that 26 years I have told the children "Don't Run!" Don't run in the hall or in too fast from recess. All of us staff say this on the assumption that we are trying to keep our students safe.

Today it occurred to me that what I really want to say is RUN! "Run like a deer free and graceful. This will be the best running of your life. Your body obeys you now. So run far and fast with great joy. Leap and gallop across the valleys of life. Be like a pony invigorated in the fresh morning dew. Kick up your heals. Let the exertion feed your limbs with that lovely life giving oxygen that will be your natural high. Let swift movement be your M.O. Revel in how well your body works. There will be plenty of time later in life where you can stroll."

While you are young, run and rejoice in your youth. It only comes once and when it passes it is gone forever. But the memory of racing across fresh mowed grass can last forever. The feeling of running across breaking waves on a sandy beach is like no other. Dashing through the snow is a real experience, so do it as often as possible. Run hard and often so when it comes to your older years you will have no regrets. Life is the greatest of amazing races. So run with all your might. In the book of ITim. it says: "I have gone through the glorious contest; I have run the race. Enjoy the glorious part of the journey. Remember it's fun to run.

Married

In ten days we will be married 41 years. What a process. When I see young couples with firm bodies and tons of energy and full of promise I remember us. I realize to many we are just an older couple but I would like to lay down a few observations. As we become older and more invisible to others (especially the young) we are coming into a newness in our relationship. We have become like two older warriors defying the odds. We are companions in all the ups and downs of life. Life has handed us shocks and losses and we have stood. We have been through tough stages in our marriage. Periods of distance , driven by our own needs to be fulfilled rather than being selfless for the common good. We have had high times of amazing accomplishment, travel and experiences together. We have suffered losses where I wondered if I would ever get over the numb, defeated feeling inside. We have gone through periods of bickering too much because each wanted so bad to be heard. We shared the birth and raising of both kids with its joy unspeakable. We are still together both emotionally, spiritually and physically and I am so grateful. He strengthens me in every way. He cares for me and shows it by looking after all we have worked so hard to build. Nobody I know works as hard as he does. I know he is not perfect. Neither am I but I can count on him to look after, tend and care about all that is us. This gives me a lot of security knowing whatever comes, we will face it together.
What I have learned in 41 years is that relationships take a lot of thinking about your own motives. You have to deal with how self centered and self absorbed you are. Have I ever wanted to run? Yes. Has he? Yes I am sure. But we both stayed and now something inside us has slowly changed. We keep growing closer together. We are better,
stronger, more effective operating as two joined together as one. The sum is greater than the parts. Each of us is stronger individually because we are together. We make each other a better person. He's outside now cleaning gutters in the cold and damp. His walk is slower now. He's a little dinged up and slightly bent over. We both are. He has taken to wearing very unusual outfits to work in the yard. Like rubber boots and shorts with no shirt. He looks the part of a quirky old guy in those outfits. But he's my quirky old guy and I love him still.

Fall Again

I tend to dread the days of darkness ahead as summer slips into fall. Then I get a crystal clear day where the sunlight shimmers through the filter of amber and yellowish leaves and I think I can make it through one more giving up on daylight savings time.

I use to love fall but as I enter the age of "restricted driving in the dark hazards" ( I am the hazard) I know I must stay close to my Island home and surrounding area. In other words, "leave early and don't drive much after dark!" Every body in America would be safer if all the older people got a grip about this. The plus of being home earlier is that you get a ton of work done and you get to see old movies on cable. Plenty of time to make chicken and dumplings, zuchinni and banana bread and other fall specials is another plus.
Try making meatloaf and and baked potatoes and squash of any and all kinds.

And then there is the moon in fall. Nothing better than a cool, crisp, night with moon light on Puget Sound.

I wonder what it will be like when I don't have to be at work at O-dark-thirty in the fall. Now that I am 60 I find myself daydreaming about the possibilities of retirement. To dare to take a new path, go new places, take my time, plan a September trip sounds so divine.

I am starting to change my mind about the coming darkness. Instead of fall I may begin to call it the Gold Rush and savor each turning leaf and moonlit night. I will drive in the shortened daylight to somewhere beautiful with woods and shimmery light filtering through each stately turning leaf ready to give up life in a blaze of glorious color. I will savor these colors and look forward to every lovely daffodil that is a sure sign of spring.

Reflections on My Shallowness

I wait to have something worth reading and find so many of my thoughts are too trivial to waste anybodies time on. Things I am realizing about myself is that I am often shallow and self absorbed. I want to learn to become more of a listener with my heart. It is not so hard to discipline the body to listen but disciplining your inner man to really hear and feel what is inside someone elses heart is a whole other animal. I wonder if anyone else has these realizations about themselves.

I am still moved by the wonder of a childs curiosity. Children are such a wonder to behold. They awake the part of us we allow to be put to sleep by the cares of life. They are a chance to renew our outlook with new eyes.

My faith in God has been and remains the reason I am a stable, productive member of society. I am constantly aware of this. What good I do is because of His presence. Sometimes I am ineffective in communicating this. This makes me sad because I want others to know the hope I feel. I want to be an instrument of His Grace.