Archive for the ‘Chronicle’ Category
Vacation Planning
Like this has never happened before. The faster I go, the behind-er I get. It doesn’t surprise me, but it seems so wrong. I am quickly running out of time before I leave for a week of vacation and I find myself unable to get into gear to prepare for departure. I feel like I have been afflicted by some zombie disease. My thought process is slowing to a crawl and motivation seems to be going with it.
I am thrilled at the idea of being free of the usual daily responsibilities and spending extended time with a group of very precious people, but that has not resulted in any rush of energy toward getting valuable tasks addressed in preparation. Most notably, since my vacation will involve riding a bicycle all day long for a week, this year I failed to get enough miles on the saddle to condition my butt in advance of the trip. I may finally have found a reason to test the use of a chamois cream, but my concern is less about skin hotspots and more about tenderness from prolonged pressure on the sit bones. It’s feels like a bruise until the body adjusts and builds up the equivalence of a callous in the region.
Yesterday, as I toiled away on an unexpected kitchen sink plumbing adventure, it occurred to me that I have done very little in the way of mental preparation for the annual week of bicycling and camping that kicks off in 4 days. I think that is because the trip is something I have done many times before with a common group of precious friends. I know what to expect, so I am less inclined to fret over preparations.
Unfortunately, it is feeling like I may have swung too far in the other direction and am at risk of finding myself unprepared at the last-minute. If something ends up being neglected, I’m hoping it is a chore at home that I overlooked which I can just deal with when I return. As long as I have my bike gear, the tent and sleeping bag, and a few things to wear, I’ll be ready to vacate.
Sunday, after a bit of anxious searching, Cyndie rescued me by finding where my tent and sleeping pad were stowed. The most critical elements are beginning to accumulate into a pile in the basement, so I’m probably in better shape than my foggy mind is making me feel.
The next phase involves the irritating challenge of a nagging perception that I am forgetting something. How do you figure out what you are forgetting if you don’t know whether you are forgetting anything or not?
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Pure Joy
Even though there was much in the way of work being done on the main day of ‘Work Weekend,’ at the lake place we call Wildwood, there was no shortage of fun in the endeavors of the day.
After toiling away on the beach to reclaim the area from the unending processes of Mother Nature to take over our sandy little oasis, I pitched in, literally, to help others in improving the landscape in front of the lodge. The grass grows really well in the spaces near the building where it isn’t wanted, and I assisted with digging it up using a garden fork that looked like a very close relative of the pitch fork that has become one of my primary tools at home. A beautiful array of perennials were planted into the newly turned soil.
Throughout the tasks, conversations blossomed in an annual renewing of connection with members of the community who scatter to their city lives for most of the winter.
Taking a pause from the work, I stopped back to the house where Cyndie was resting her hip and reading a book. I sat with her for a bit, until I noticed she had nodded off into a nap. Figuring I might as well go get my computer to take advantage of the time, I climbed the stairs to our room, finding my laptop beside the great big bed. Since she was already asleep, I figured I didn’t need to take it back downstairs to be in her proximity, and so laid on the bed to check in with the world.
I awoke in a slobbery mess of drool, after a most delicious unplanned nap of my own.
Hearing the words, “soccer game,” I descended the stairs to rejoin humanity and rediscovered how much joy I get from playing the beautiful game. I think it started as 4-v-4, but soon grew to include more people than the space actually allows. Maybe that is why the decision gets made that we won’t use borders, and play continues regardless the fact the ball is within the jungle gym play area, around the SUV parked on the driveway, or even behind the goals, like a game of hockey.
Slowly, in a reverse of how the numbers swelled to the maximum, players wander off to other pursuits, often without saying a thing. After battling situations that feel a lot like playing short-handed in a game of hockey, the game is paused and a player volunteers to switch so play can resume with reasonable balance. In the end, it came down to me facing one last challenge from 6-year-old nephew, Beck, for some 1-v-1.
He said, “Go over to your goal.”
“No, that’s an awful long way away. Let’s just play a small game right here,” I encouraged.
He kicked the ball around me and headed the length of the field to ‘my goal.’ What could I do? I chased after him to protect my goal. He was a tenacious foe and I soon realized he would not quit until he succeeded in getting that ball in the net. I was tired and wanted to be done, so I provided an opportunity. He missed. The ball rolled wide. A few near-misses later, the ball found the target and he was satisfied. Game over.
Pure joy.
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Work Weekend
Awake at the lake! It is always interesting to arrive in the dark of night, and then open your eyes in the morning to see that beautiful lake out the window.
Back at home, the leaves popped overnight Thursday, and I was shocked when I stepped out to feed the horses yesterday and couldn’t see clearly through the trees to the paddocks anymore. Up here, a 2-hour drive to the north, the growth is a few days behind.
The trillium blossoms are just beginning to show.
Memorial weekend at our lake place is traditionally dubbed, “Work Weekend,” as it is the time when the community of families here clean the beach, wash the boats, sweep the tennis courts, and put things in order for summer activities.
It is funny to me now, to think of it as ‘work weekend,’ since it feels a lot like the effort I put forth every day. There is one big difference: the view of that lake makes all the labor feel that much less laborious.
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Totally Unexpected
I have been using WordPress.com to host my blog from the time I started it in 2009, publishing one post per day from the beginning. Long-time readers will note that I make very few changes to the appearance of my blog. I chose a theme I liked, and I have stayed with it. I have been focusing my energy on content, not the vessel, which is/was supposed to be the advantage of WordPress.com. Now it appears that a change has been forced upon me.
Yesterday was an interesting day for me, as I monitored the forum activity on the topic of the recent WordPress update to the image editing option. I am not alone in my grief and frustration over the loss of control. Plenty of other people were struck with the same brutal discovery, a fair number of them trying to maintain multiple blogs and/or business blogs. All of us bewailing the unexpected and unwelcome loss of features.
At this point, the limited response from WordPress representatives has been distant, somewhat evasive, and pretty unsympathetic. It doesn’t make any sense to me.
It is like someone turning off a light while you are working, and you holler, “Excuse me, I was using that!”
Would you be satisfied with this response? “Well, we made some improvements in the way you can open and close the curtains. It is much easier now. You don’t have to walk over to the end of the window any more. Now you can just grab the curtains anywhere and move them. Many people have worked long and hard on this change. It may take some time to get used to this new way of doing things, but we’re confident you will enjoy it after you become used to it. We welcome constructive feedback, but we will not be going back to the old way of doing things, so if you have something constructive to offer, we will seriously consider it for future versions.”
“Um, what about the light I was using? Could you please turn it back on?”
From WordPress “Happiness Engineers” [yes, that is how some of the staff responders are labeled in the forums], the response we are getting to the equivalent question we are asking has been mostly silence.
Hmmm. What is up with that?
Snowing Again!
As of last night, it looked like this out our back door:
Cyndie ended up staying in town overnight, and I am trying to get out of here in the dark wee hours of the morning to get ahead of the mass crush of other commuters, on my way to the day-job. Sadly, that means dragging Delilah out of bed before she is awake, to put her outside in her kennel, and then trying to get horses fed a couple of hours earlier than they expect it, in the wet, snowy darkness. Oh joy.
Those tricky tasks are on top of my otherwise tight routine of simply waking up and getting in the car to get on the road as early as possible. If I don’t leave here early enough, it’s traffic jam city and commuting anguish for me.
An overnight winter storm doesn’t help things one bit. It’s a good thing I signed up for this adventure, or I could become one grumpy bunny.
Actually, I’m a little bit of a grumpy bunny anyway, this morning. Yesterday afternoon, I learned that the plaque detected in my heart by a recent test places me on the wrong side of the healthy curve for men my age. I have been welcomed into the club of aging folks who must take cholesterol medicine and the once-a-day baby aspirin to keep that bad boy from rearing up and surprising me someday when I least expect it. “Preventive medicine.” Gee, my favorite, except I like it to be from exercising and eating well, not from taking meds for the rest of my life.
Actually, when I asked the doctor how long I need to take them, he gave me an out. He said I would probably only need them for another 40 years.
I wonder if I will actually follow his prescription… Right now, I’m thinking that my previous ignorance was bliss. I was just fine until I went in for my latest “well-health” physical.
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Building Bonds
With the paddocks recently freshened up —can’t refer to them as clean, since the horses have already followed up Saturday’s major effort with a hefty new distribution of piles— we invited Cyndie’s niece and nephews to come inside the fence to brush the horses. It was a good chance to allow the 1000 pound animals to bond with the kids and receive the nurturing care being offered.
Hunter, in the foreground of the image at left, and Cayenne, far in the distance, were wonderfully cooperative. Legacy, hidden from view, was less so. He wasn’t on his best behavior.
I’m told that horses don’t hold a grudge, but I saw how frustrated he was with us Saturday when we locked the horses out of the paddock while we worked to clean it. I wouldn’t blame him if he was still miffed. While I was scraping manure with the New Holland, he was at the gate, huffing and snorting, scratching away at the ground with his hoof, and shaking his head to and fro. He definitely wanted back in. Cyndie said that when I was putting away the tractor and she opened the gate to let them back in, they didn’t rush in with glee, but casually sauntered in as if it was no big deal. I returned from the garage to report that we had worked an hour-and-a-half past their usual afternoon feeding time. Maybe that was what Legacy had gotten all worked up about. It was past the appointed hour for dinner and we were showing no signs of doing anything about it.
Yesterday’s temperatures had plummeted down to a solid freeze again, so when I stepped out in the morning to get a picture of the new manure pile we had created in the paddock, I was able to walk on top of the crust of snow without breaking through. I decided to hike out and up the hill into the big field, where the snow cover has receded enough to reveal areas of exposed ground. I was curious as to whether this would attract the horses or not. They have barely stepped in the big field ever since the last big snow accumulation. It had gotten too deep to make it worth the effort for them. I expect the horses would feel an increased vulnerability in deep snow.
There was one little trail the horses had trampled into the field, and that single route was what they now confined themselves to on the few occasions they did wander out. While I was taking some pictures from up on that hill, with the sun behind me, Hunter ventured up that trail, stopping where the path began to arc away to his right. Wondering if he was interested in coming further, I approached him with an invitation to join me.
Tentatively, he stepped onto the crusty snow beyond the packed path. Hunter isn’t light enough to stay on top like me, but he found it was no longer too deep, and carefully proceeded in my direction. In the distance, Legacy was keeping a keen eye on the scene.
While Hunter wandered around on the hill with me, checking the spots where the snow had melted away, Legacy and the other horses moved out to just beyond the paddock, but no further. I think they didn’t want to deal with the crunchy terrain, yet they were obviously interested in what Hunter was up to.
He was with me, and we were alone —make that, alone with Delilah— up on the hill. It was pretty special. Unfortunately, since I wasn’t grazing, my interest quickly waned, and I was soon ready to head back down. It didn’t feel right to just walk away and leave Hunter alone, so I tried to let him know my intention to go, slowly stepping down toward the paddock. In seconds, Hunter was following. In fact, he started to increase his gate and I needed to hustle along to avoid getting run over. I wasn’t sure if his rush was to make it easier for him to navigate the crusty snow, or if he was just that eager to get back with the herd, but his sudden haste took nothing away from the sweet experience we had shared in his choosing to join me up there.
It seems as though Hunter and I are building a special bond of our own.
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Life Review
We attended an incredibly moving memorial service yesterday, followed by a celebration of life for a man who made everyone feel as if they were his best friend. What a gift he was to us all. Rob White left us way too soon. I couldn’t help this feeling that I failed to communicate to him, in words, how great a guy he was to me. I have to rely on my sense of how large a percentage of our communication is non-verbal, and that he picked up on my vibe of appreciation for him. It is an honor to have known such a special person.
That leads me to the realization that we are all special people. I guess there are too many people in the world to come to know them all, even casually, let alone well enough to be bathed in each individual’s specialness. Luckily, love is boundless and unending, so I can endeavor to non-verbally communicate love to everyone, whether I know them or not. I am far short of words to adequately express how I feel to those of you who have come to mean the most to me. Being somewhat of a sequential processor, my failing to fully convey my love and appreciation in words to those closest to me would keep me from ever getting around to beginning to tell mere acquaintances, let alone total strangers.
Do other people find themselves mentally wandering into the “it’s all about me” thinking at ceremonies like weddings and funerals and subsequently processing their own life review? When I do it, there is an embarrassing sense of selfishness that comes with it, but it is in my nature. My life feels beyond my capacity to comprehend. Trying to remember things about my past tends to reveal how much of it I can’t recall at all. It is fragmented, and the pieces are disjointed.
I don’t need past lives to explore. I’ve got this mysterious one, right here. Who was I all those decades ago? I hope someone took pictures.
Even if I can’t recall every detail, I do carry that non-verbal sense, the “vibe” from all the people who have contributed to helping me become the person I am today. If I adjust my focus, I can notice that I feel the love of others, even when they haven’t verbally expressed it.
It goes both ways. If I can practice sending out love to the world of souls, I can also practice detecting the thoughts of love which I have been receiving from others. In the end, I think that just might be the more important of the two.
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Cyndie’s Day
When I saw my wife coming up the driveway in our truck late yesterday afternoon, I steadied myself for what I anticipated would be a days-worth of angst. Her text to me was typically understated: “It’s been a really crummy day.”
Both Cyndie and I have come to see that there are often specific lessons for us in the challenges that unexpectedly entangle and derail our daily affairs. Sometimes we don’t know the impact or lessons these challenges offer for the other people involved in the events, but we believe each individual has something equally specific available to them, whether they recognize it or not. If nothing else, like getting results from taking a placebo, looking at it that way helps us to embrace the angst of our challenges as having purpose.
photo provided by Cyndie
When I came inside after clearing the drifted snow from our front steps and walkway, Cyndie was preparing comfort-food for dinner. I prepared myself to hear about her day. I was pleasantly surprised. On one of the most dangerous of cold days, her car suffered a flat tire –a shredded tire, really– miles from any commerce. It is the very reason travel is not recommended, and many schools around the state call off classes, in these weather conditions: you don’t want to get stuck while trying to travel to your destination. Yet, there she was, alone in the severe wind-chill with a tire that needed to be changed, and her car perched dangerously on the edge of traffic.
As I dove into the dinner she set before me, Cyndie began to describe the number of good things that seemed to come out of a situation that completely destroyed her plans for the day and will ultimately involve costly repairs. First, I heard about the number of people, citizens and law enforcement, who stopped to check on her welfare and offer help while she waited several hours for the tow truck to arrive. Then there was the tow truck driver who safely executed the near impossible task of changing that tire in the dangerously cold wind. Finally, her discovering the auto repair business I referred her to, that I had found in a hasty online search for something close to our home.
Courtesy Auto Repair is not only conveniently located, it sounds like it will be the perfect resource for us. The owner provided double the service, first guiding Cyndie through all the factors involved with her tire failure, (diagnosing brake issues that are likely contributing to the early failure of her tires –another tire was also splitting apart), then also helping get our truck fixed up, too.
Cyndie had first tried the truck in the morning before setting out in her car, but it failed to start. Later, when she got her car to the repair shop on a spare tire, he asked if she had other transportation. When he learned about the truck, he offered to have one of his employees give her a ride home, and then check the battery. They jump-started the truck and the driver followed Cyndie as she drove it back to the shop so they could give it a complete inspection.
photo provided by Cyndie
After she parked it at the shop, it already needed to be jumped again. The battery was shot. After doing a multi-point inspection, the technician mentioned the windshield washer nozzle was frozen up. The owner insisted that the tech flush the lines and drain all the questionable washer solution out, refilling it with a fresh solution. This guy is thorough.
Cyndie was able to leave with the truck in good working condition and with parts on order for her car. If she just focused on how the flat tire in dangerous conditions had wrecked her plan for the day, it would be a lot worse than just “crummy.” As it is, there were enough good things happening that we are almost glad for the hassles she experienced yesterday. We are extremely pleased that for all the undesirable outcomes that could have resulted from the risks of the ailing brakes and failing tires, she was able to pull over with the relatively minor incident of one flat.
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