A Life Worth Living

I recently wrote on this blog, January 13th to be exact on a blog entry which is now gone for reasons I can't fathom, "There are a thousand thousand reasons to live this life, everyone sufficient." by Marilynne Robinson from Gilead. I loved that quote from before I was laid off.

What now? The old life is behind me now. I'm developing new rhythms and patterns and I don't even know what my natural patterns are. I need to find out -- slowly. I don't really know what time I like to go to bed, or what time I like to get up. I'm willing to find out, but it has been so long, if ever, maybe never, that my rhythms weren't dictated by outside forces.

Husbands going off to work, I made Lonnie a fried egg sandwich every day for five or six years. I would ask him, "Aren't you tired of fried egg sandwiches?" and he kept saying "No, I'll let you know when I am." Then one day he asked for a bologna sandwich for work which I made for him everyday until the day he died. Then babies, babies, and more babies. Babies can dictate a lot of demands on your rhythms. Husbands, babies, toddlers, school age children, college, work, alarm clocks were the influences for most of my life, not my internal patterns.

How interesting -- learning about what really feels natural.

I can't remember if or when I've taken my medicine, what day the 27th is on. I almost missed Cathy's surgery because I thought the 27th was on a Friday not a Wednesday. Ian and I are passing each other in the hall more, used to I was gone or he was gone. Now it's different. A lot different, and its only been two weeks, not even a full two weeks. I'm spending more time on FB, more time on meal planning, less time on soup for lunches. Less time on grooming, sad to say. More all day PJ time. When do I get up, have breakfast, walk? I walked yesterday, another teeny tiny walk, from the back of the parking lot all the way to Target, all through Target and then back across the parking lot to the car. Not far, but walk I did.

Get more plants, go back to school, travel, vistas and horizons and opportunities surround me.

Most of my myriad tasks have been started, all their engines are running, all their buttons are pushed. Nothing completed mind you, no box ticked off as done and filed away, still dribs and dabs of loose ends, one more call, one more signature, one more cancellation, one more, one more, one more.

Would Jean like to go on another cruise. A drive across America. A trip to New Mexico, Minnesota? See Claire? All are possibilities.

I want to embrace the nobility and meaning of everyday life, the challenge and excitement of discovering the nobility and meaning of everyday life, the rhythms, the sunsets and sunrises, the Wednesday playdate, the well cooked meal. The simple act of living.

A well lived life is in the everyday. Making a fried egg sandwich, soothing a child, going to work, paying bills, it is all satisfying. I read someplace that there is more to life then going to work and paying bills, but really there isn't. A thousand years ago we had to go to work and pay the bills. The bills remain the same, food shelter clothing. We live, we pay.

Before enlightenment we chop wood and carry water, after enlightenment we chop wood and carry water.

New going to bed, getting up, bathing, taking a nap rhythms. Remember to put in hearing aids. Ian brought me a nice bar of soap, a really nice bar of wonderfully linden scented soap (he gets swag from his buying trips). Now I have to go find out what linden actually is -- retirement -- sigh.

I actually managed to stay mostly asleep in my bed till 5 AM this morning. That is mostly success. That might be a rhythm. What now? Same old, same old -- living -- but with new rhythms.

My life has changed before, more than once, and I suppose it will change again, but for now I'm doing the same old, same old. And the beat goes on. Grey skies stay the same, clouds still pass by, weather will come and go, traffic on I-5 remains unchanged, Humans are still born and still die and linden is a tree sometimes called lime tree and sometimes called basswood tree due to the linage of language not because it is related to a lime.

"There are a thousand thousand reasons to live this life, every one sufficient" I love that more now.