Well of course when you finish your writing with the phrase “on a day like today, life is very, very good” you are most likely going to experience a change in that feeling on the next day. David used to tell me quite often, until I understood and didn’t need reminding, that as humans we tend to go from one extreme to the other. It is more of a challenge for us to remain in a place of calmness in the center. We easily vacillate from extremes of joy to depression. What’s in the middle of those two states? Contentment, acceptance. So after that day of blueberries and peaches delirium I began the next day similarly, with those succulent, visually contrasting fruits in front of me in a bowl. They tasted exquisite once again.
It was another sunny day, a good day to begin more exterior painting on our snug house. I am usually the leader in this matter. David does participate, but I am the keener. He was at work so I set myself on “full charge” and began to scrub all the beautiful green mold from the balustrades of half of our kitchen deck railing and floor, and our front entrance steps as well. Then I primed and stained this area. Sounds simple, doesn’t it?
Countless hours later I stopped and admired my work. It did look nice. One of the costs was my aching hands and back. This I addressed with a hand practice and a back practice, both of which helped. I was pretty beat though. Then after a prolonged search on my computer I did indeed find the original files of my drawings that I’d photographed a while ago, the ones I’d lost track of recently, but I still couldn’t seem to find the photoshop versions that removed the “yellowing paper” look that many of my drawings now have. You know you are getting old when the sketch books you drew on a few decades ago are visibly aging.
So, I took my visibly aging body to bed early, read a few chapters in my current book, Eat Pray Love and drifted off. Soreness aside, it was a pretty great day. I did notice that a few decades ago I would have finished both decks, front and kitchen in one day. Those whirlwind years are no more. I still do enjoy the whirlwind, but I realize I have to get off that carousel ride earlier. This year I need to space out that kind of manual work. I sit back and cherish the sun instead as it blasts away on my garden. I’m grateful that I have a snug little house to paint. I’m grateful period.
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