Treasure Chest

I left my childhood home heading to Hawaii first and then on across the Pacific years later, so many years ago, that many of the memories sadly have faded to misty gray. It was a farmhouse at the edge of town on the 'other' side of the railroad tracks. I could walk to school but lived just far enough to catch the school bus which stopped at the turn by my driveway. The only kid that owned a car was the Doctor's son. In those days it was not an uncool thing to ride the school bus. That was the time you had to visit and gossip and I luckily got on the bus at the beginning of the route. My friend from the farm nearby would put on all her make-up on the bus because her father was a very religious conservative. The population of the town was under 2000 which did not seem at all small to me when I lived there because my experiences were also small and I knew almost everyone in town.

My parents have since passed and the farm was sold a few years ago. I probably will not go back that way again as the few friends I have stayed in touch with have moved far away or to nearby towns. A very sad thought, something that probably happens to most of us if we are blessed to live past our usefulness.

I had moved 99% of my 'things' (invaluable stuff ya' know) from my parents' home except for an old camel-back trunk that I had purchased at the Salvation Army store for $5 when I was about 13. I always had BIG plans to restore it, restoration which was needed as can be seen from the photo above, but I never did. (Admittedly it did not have all that white paint on it when I bought it...I think since my brother is in construction he can take credit for that.) I kept it at the back of my closet in the old farmhouse and put inside school annuals, record albums, letters, prom dresses, scrapbooks, etc. For years after I returned to the States I kept forgetting to make the arrangements to have it shipped to where I lived. The trunk was moved to my brother's house when the farm was sold.

Last week it came via UPS wrapped in plain plastic and had been left outside next to the deer fence gate as we had gone shopping for the day. I had been planning on getting it crated, but I find that it weighed more than 70 pounds with all the junk inside. I have not asked my brother how much it cost to send, so I will find that out and send him a nice fat check. We struggled to load the monster into the back of the car and got it as far as the garage floor where it has sat since. I am finally going to open it up today (although I am fighting a sore throat from germs generously shared by my grandson) and see what treasures are tucked inside.

After grabbing another tissue and pouring a glass of wine, I will begin this good memory trip or maybe it will be just an emotional one or maybe a surprising bore. After all, we are so much in love with our own history. My treasures, my junk, who knows...

360 degrees

Colleen had made a comment on one of my posts about how "the Native American only concerned themselves with the medicine wheel of about an 8 mile radius of where they lived." And that the global world we live in is hard to grasp. The Internet certainly exposes us to much more than we can possibly take in fully. That got me thinking...sort of stream of consciously.

This morning Tabor heard the cry of the loon.
Today somewhere a woman kisses her lover for the first time as a married woman.
Today somewhere a man sees a hawk dive high in the clear blue sky.
Today somewhere a farmer plants a papaya tree.
Today somewhere a baby cries for the first time.
Today somewhere a woman visits her sister in the hospital.
Today somewhere a boy learns a new language.
Today somewhere an 82-year-old gets a high school diploma.
Today somewhere a man breaks a world record.
Today somewhere a policewoman earns a medal.
Today somewhere a young man hits a land mine.
Today somewhere an uncle hits a child.
Today somewhere a woman looks through the ashes of her house for her wedding ring.
Today somewhere a young man loses his job.
Today somewhere a young woman tries on a new suit for her first job interview.
Today somewhere an old man finally retires.
Today somewhere a naked woman begs for rice.
Today somewhere a country leader lies to his people.
Today somewhere a child is molested.
Today somewhere a father is deported.
Today somewhere a daughter disappears.
Today somewhere a doctor saves a life.
Today somewhere a nurse makes a patient smile.
Today somewhere a teacher reaches a student and changes his life.
Today somewhere the sun rises with new possibilities to change the world.

Being in the Moment

Honoring my ongoing promise to myself to be more 'in the moment', I fixed a dinner of rosemary lamb chops, garlic and curry roast potatoes, and a healthy baby spinach salad with orange-wedges (from my favorite clementines), thin red onion slices and almonds. The meal was beautiful to look at and in honor of being in the moment I did not rush away to take a picture for the blog. (The picture above was taken on another day with silly glasses that do not match.) I took my time to inhale each captivating smell as I sat down for dinner, and while we do not say grace, I was thankful in my heart and soul and to the powers that be for this meal. I slowly chewed each bite of food and let the flavors linger before swallowing. My husband and I respected the value and precious quality of this meal and the quiet time we had to linger over it.

My husband had made a fresh pitcher of cold green tea and in keeping with the spirit of the moment I brought the glass to my nose to inhale as if it were a fine wine before taking my first sip. The green tea had been enhanced with a sliver of the little kaffir lime that had clung to the tree for months before falling to the floor when I turned the tree in the sun that morning. When I inhaled, the aroma was like a verdant spark. It was lime but not lime. It was like a sweet floral perfume but not heavy or out of place. It was better than even drinking the lovely green tea itself. This gift from the 4 foot citrus plant in a green plastic pot tucked in the corner window was one of the best gifts I got over the holiday season.

I will try to be in the moment more often.

If the Shoe Fits

The luxury of both wild and domestic raspberries!

I have been retired almost two months now---58 days. But I still feel that the shoes don't really fit. It is like I bought a lovely pair of Manolo Blahniks on sale and have worn them for 58 days straight and am still conscious that they are on my feet and that they fit a little stiffly. They also are so luxurious and attention getting that I keep thinking I don't deserve them and they don't quite go with my personality or my pace.

Don't get me wrong. I have no regrets about quitting work. I do not feel lost when I get up in the morning and do not have to rush off to work. In contrast, I luxuriate in the opposite, pacing my morning with a slow cup of coffee and reading while the sun comes up.

I do not feel badly about being on a tighter budget and once again in my life looking at price per unit and looking at coupons when I shop. I am so lucky in having everything I want that a little frugality is a nice seasoning to my life. (Of course, if this administration continues to ignore the downward spiral of this economy, I may be wearing tennis shoes soon.)

But I have so much time to ponder my future. The work that I am doing now (gardening, cooking, decorating) does not require focused thought and so I have time to let my mind wander in other directions. To overwork garment analogies I guess I am waiting for the other shoe to drop!

Every Day IS Saturday

One of the jokes and truths about retirement is that you lose track of the days of the week and the months of the year. If one does not have a mandated schedule, everyday becomes a Saturday with chores and errands, but nothing really essential to complete. Since my retirement I have started another list. It is a learning list --- things I have learned from recent observations since my retirement.

1. Every day IS Saturday. There is just no pressure to get everything done before dinner, because tomorrow is, after all, Saturday!

2. Some of the working friends and family are jealous, so you have to be very low key about your new life. The more mature former working mates are more than happy to smile at your pleasure. And, of course, the really young are so happy that they are not old like you even though you do not have to work and they do. They would not trade places with you for a second.

3. Some days it does feel like you are free-falling. Free-falling is both exciting and scary...so you don't think to much about the end of the fall.

4. Yes, you do realize that the ultimate change ahead is death. And yes, you do think about it. But not often or with too much trepidation. After all, today is just Saturday.

5. On day 5 of my retirement I actually felt a teeny, tiny bit of trepidation about not having anything important to do...while gazing at the creeping phlox beneath my oak tree that feeling soon passed.

6. I spend more time observing since I don't have to be thinking about managing my time. Remember all those old people you see sitting at the mall or park who steadily watch the busy people hurrying by? I am now one of those old people.

7. Sitting at an Austin Grill eating a pre-midnight dessert on Friday evening I was watching dozen of couples of all ages 'dating.' Lots of eye contact and lots of joking and some flirting even among the 50-somethings. The place was full and busy and I found it hard to realize we are in a recession. Clearly this recession has not hit the restaurant trade in this area. I have several months yet to see how my retirement budget is going to work.

8. Sitting in the Pannera on Saturday morning savoring my coffee latte I watched a group of attractive women in their late twenties gathering at a table for some meeting. Some knew each other and some didn't, and watching the body language and the banter was interesting and reminiscent of another time in my life. Most of my observations now bring back such memories.

9. My daughter's retirement gift to me is several hours with a fashion consultant. Close your mouth and stiffle that laugh. Yes, I love her to death and I have learned in my many years of gift recieving, that gifts you get from others that seem odd are actually gifts the giver would like for themselves. This woman will visit my closet and tell me what works (perhaps that black tank dress) and what doesn't (certainly that navy blue flower bordered mini I bought in Hawaii ten years ago) and then we will go shopping together so that I can buy clothes...silk pajamas, perhaps, because I think she will frown on those elastic band sweat pants I have had my eye on.

10. I have finished two books already. House Lust, which is certainly a thoughtful look at our real estate addiction in light of this mortgage crisis and Eat, Pray, Love which is was a quick and fun read about a tremendously insecure woman who seems to find her place in this world. I am now reading The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri and Into a Desert Place by Graham Machintosh. With my eclectic tastes in reading material, I will have thousands of books to read in my retirement.11. Industrious things besides reading include washing the four rattan chairs and table that were stored in the garage, laundering their cushions, mopping the tile floor of the newly finished basement, and dusting everything in the basement including the elliptical glider which I have not returned to using as I promised...using energy to clean the damn thing, but not exercising on it, that says a lot about me doesn't it?

12. I have always loved the end of the day after work, anticipating the slow exhale as the sun heads toward the horizon. Now the late afternoon arrives with so much more peaceful acceptance on my part. Yes, the melancholy of goodbye to another day is still there, but the anxiousness about stuff undone for tomorrow is no longer eating at the edges of my mind.

Happiness is Overrated

The February 11 issue of Newsweek has an article titled "Happiness: Enough Already." The gist of the article is that melancholia "generates 'a turbulence of heart that results in an active questioning of the status quo, a perpetual longing to create new ways of being and seeing." And the authors conclude that this is a good thing. In other words if you are perpetually happy you no longer long for anything and become constipated, boring, and coasting through life. Some of the article is based on a new book coming out - "Rethinking Happiness" by a father and son team --the Dieners.

Since I have not read the book, I cannot comment on it. But I do tend to agree with the Newsweek article on the popularity in our society of medicating anyone who finds themselves depressed. The clinical definition of depression is too easy to fit most of us at many times in our lives. Medicating this feeling away seems to me a false approach to growth and understanding. Yes, there are people who become suicidal and therefore need medical intervention. But too many of us in our wealthy and self-stimulated society are taking pills to avoid normal pain, to pretend that feeling depressed is not natural.

Pain/depression is a lesson. It tells us something is wrong. It tells us we must step back and move in a new direction. It reminds us that we cannot make it alone in this world and we should turn to those who love us for help. It tells us we are alive and when we begin that time of happiness (and it will come) -- great or small -- we will only fully appreciate it if we can contrast it with the sadness. We can also be more emphathetic and understanding of others' sadness when we take time to go through our own periods of the blues.

The cliche that great art results from great sadness seems to be true. Therefore, will our society not produce any great works of art because we are counting out pills from a bottle with each hiccup in our life's path?

I also think that if our society accepted mild depression or sadness as a temporary transition rather than a permanent setback, we would have fewer suicides. If we accepted that folks are going to be gloomy for a little longer than we like, than we would be more tolerant of their struggles. We need a little patience in this solve-it-in-24-hours-so-we-can-get-on-with-our-lives. We need to hold their hands and see if they can turn it around. We need to remind them of the good times or share our good times. We need to be patient. It is a fine line, but if we follow our instincts we will know the difference.

As Lucy would say, that will be 5 cents please.

Little Bag of Tricks

Anna at Self-Winding found this link which is such a good fit following my earlier post.

Don't Think Too Far Ahead

I am probably not the most upbeat person to be around. I do love life and I do find each day an adventure, but I am one of those people who is always thinking too far ahead.

For example, when my daughter was a baby, each time I nursed her, I would think sadly about the day I would have to start weaning her. Then when she became a toddler I would get sad thinking about the day that she would head off to school and how I would miss our hours together. Then, as you can probably guess, the years in junior high for both of my children were filled with my thoughts about the empty nest when they would head out to college and their bedrooms would be filled with dusty prom trinkets and forgotten basketball photos.

I really do try hard to live in the moment. I certainly think that is the healthiest way to get the richness out of each day. Having written that though, it seems I am always hardening myself to what I am going to miss when something good comes to an end. I can remember an really odd moment during (probably) desert storm in the 1980s when I saw a handsome and healthy group of sailors at DisneyWorld on leave. They were having a wonderful time. I was sitting at a table with the family eating a hotdog and suddenly tears filled my eyes and my hotdog became a lump of clay in my throat because I thought about what they would soon be facing. I was embarrassed needless to say, and my husband tried to make light of it so that the kids wouldn't misunderstand.

I really try to be an upbeat person...I am sure that is what my family would say...

The Sweet Sadness

I am sitting alone in my room watching the first feathery light flakes of a new snow drift onto the gray shingles of the roof outside my window. In the background I can hear the sweet sad horn of Chris Botti playing on the stereo. I had been to a concert of his recently and remembered that I had not listened to his wonderful music in a long while and pulled out the three CDs I own.

Today is one of those days of strange dichotomies. I am lonely and yet savoring it. I am sad for no reason but know that this sadness can only be appreciated because my cup overflows with happiness. I feel the pace of my breath and heart slowing to a rhythmic peace in sync with this silver gray day. This sadness is bittersweet. This melancholy is the one side of the whole that keeps me from flying off into space.

I am savoring 'Empress of China" tea in a cup I had made with my daughter at a pottery place a number of years ago. It is an ugly green and purple and thus fits completely with the strange day.

I know that part of this strange feeling is the nearness of my retirement. I have told the important people at work and therefore solidified this leap. In the spring, I will be retired. No matter what angle I look at this, it is another milestone in my life. It is another major corner turned. It is like a gift that I have been given, but it is like a large beautiful bowl in which I must find beautiful things to place. There is a real danger of filling the bowl with bits of flotsam and jetsam.

This milestone also means that I have definitely moved away from those parts of living that meant so much. There is no innocence, there is no pureness, life is what it is. When the bowl is full there is no more pleasure in finding new things to place there. At the very end, there are only old memories after all. All the fresh new memories will be made by those that follow us.

It is sad, but it is also wonderfully sweet this little bit of life we have been given.

Life on the Planet

I enjoyed my time in Williamsburg mostly because there was no agenda. The first two days my hubby and I just goofed off, enjoying not having any kind of schedule. We slept late and then went to bed late. When my daughter joined us with the littlest one several days later, the pace slowed down even more due to stopping for diaper changes and feedings.

Then the very next week daughter and her family headed to Orlando for time with the in-laws and some last minute Florida sun--the condo was paid for, so why not? Hubby headed down to the house and this left me with a week of time alone at my daughter's house between working. I did receive a call two days in from my daughter with the reminder to not set the alarm on the day the housekeeper worked, water the mums each day, take the garbage to the curb on Tuesday morning, pick up the mail and make sure the bags and boxes in the garage were also taken to the curb. (Just a few directives! I kind of felt a deja view like the roles had been reversed.)

But for the most part I was all alone, eating what I wanted when I wanted, watching what I wanted when I wanted...sort of a third dimension experience. I was totally laid back and not quite prepared for the re-entry,

Friday here was drenching rains and this weather made my normal 30 minute commute drag out to an hour and a half. Daughter and son-in-law returned with kids late on Friday. Two hours delayed due to the rains

Time for Thought

I have been thinking a lot about aging these days, probably because I am looking forward to retirement and realize that I must plan my future carefully if I expect to get the most out of my remaining years. I think when you reach that certain age, if you are lucky, you begin to realize that life is giving you a second change chance. When you are young and raising a family you are busy living in your waking hours. Each day is auto-filled with necessary deeds and tasks. People need you, so you spend time working on filling those needs---whether it is earning a living to pay bills or cooking and cleaning and kissing boo-boos or consoling a broken teenage heart.

It is a daily race and you fall into bed at the end of the day, hoping your mind will slow down enough so that you can sleep.

Then, almost suddenly, but not without warning (children entering college, getting married, having their own little ones) you realize that the race is slowing way down. You have time to look to each side and not always ahead. You are going slow enough that you now no longer worry about tripping or mis-reading signs and taking the wrong side road. As a matter of fact, a side road is most appealing.

If you have good health and your finances are secure your side roads are more interesting and more available. But even if life didn't end up like a bushel of sweet peaches, there are still different opportunities and angles that you can think about.

I watched a movie starring one of my favorite actors, Judi Dench, called Ladies in Lavender last night. A scene in which Dench is lost in thought about missed opportunities in her life and future choices she must make remains in my thoughts. Dench is lying casually on her bed with daylight crossing her face showing how lost in thought she is. The scene hangs in my memory because the impression given was that she had been lying there thinking for a long time. I realized that I have not had an opportunity to be lost in thought for quite a while.

I remember days as a young child daydreaming for hours. Do children have time to do that today? Are their days so programmed with activities or so filled with technological temptations that they fail to exercise their thinking muscles and in turn their imagination growth? Are we becoming a nation of doers and not thinkers?

I guess this is why activities such as camping and canoeing appeal to my soul. There is usually time for thought. Walking is another thought-provoking activity I enjoy.

I have decided that getting a little more peace in my life for thought and helping others realize how important thought is will be a new goal in retirement. The next time someone asks me what I will do when I retire, I will answer "Think more."

Summer Succulence

The morning’s warm humid caress
Falls upon the child’s perfect arm.
The spicy smell of a vine’s blossoms
Halts all but our soft intake of breath.

Elegant petite red jewels
Catch the angled sunlight.
The promise of their rich sweetness
Barely lingers from yesterday’s memory.

This summer’s day gift
Will not endure beyond tomorrow
It is accepted with the reverence
And wonder that miracles deserve.