Posts Tagged ‘time alone’
Watching Changes
Each afternoon that I have been up at the lake has brought melting temperatures, and yesterday was the warmest so far. It climbed to 58°F and turned the surface of the lake from white to wet.
That buoy I photographed the day before took on a whole new appearance.
Taking advantage of the mild conditions, I worked on a wood sculpting project on the deck in the bright sunlight. When it came time for a break, I laid down and faded into a nap on the deck boards, waking with my face in a puddle of drool that signaled a good sleep was had.
I stayed down on my back on the deck and listened to every sound I could detect, including the faint hum inside my head. Blood flow? A version of tinnitus, maybe. When I finally stood up and surveyed the surroundings, it became clear that I was watching the swift change from winter’s snow cover to exposed ground that was heralding the coming of spring.
Most of all, I was immersing myself fully in the pleasures of not needing to do anything by any specific time.
Mission accomplished.
Eventually, I will need to wash some dishes. I’m going to take advantage of staying in this lazy mode for one more day. Tomorrow, I will set things in order here to leave no trace and drive home to Cyndie and the animals. She leaves for Florida on Thursday and I will be in charge of the dog and horses for the week she is away, following their daily schedule of needs.
Having had these few days away on my own will go a long way toward making Cyndie’s next absence less daunting, especially since I love the routine of animal care just as much as I love these little breaks from it. When we finally end up at home together for a stretch of time again, it will be like a bonus.
Luckily, I love my time alone just as much as I love living together with Cyndie.
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Payback Week
All’s fair in taking turns covering the ranch while your spouse gets a break from the routine. Cyndie is out of town for a week, and I am chief cook and bottle washer, dog walker, and horse wrangler while she is gone. It’s a bit of a mixed blessing for me since I really do enjoy time on my own, but unlike my time up at the lake last week, now I am responsible for the care and feeding of our animals throughout each day.
It’s not that much different from when both of us are home, except everything tends to take a little longer alone. The benefit of getting two things done at the same time is gone. Luckily, our animals all demonstrate a respectable amount of patience with me. I think they can tell I’m on my own.
To my benefit, a January thaw has taken away a lot of the stress of doing anything outdoors.
I thought about doing some tree branch trimming, but for the life of me, I can’t remember where I put a new pruning hand saw I got for Christmas. Didn’t find it in the shop or the storage cabinet in the house garage, so it must be somewhere more ingenious that I picked so I would know where to find it later.
Think, John, think.
As long as I was rummaging around in the shop, I decided to bring a wood sculpting project to the house and spread it out all over the dining room table. It’s one of those perks of being the only one home for a week, leaving a mess out, and not having it be in anybody else’s way.
I’m ready for the week to go smoothly, so Cyndie won’t have anything to worry about while she is away. I want her to have such a great time that she will come home eager to pay me back with another chance to escape to the lake when no one else is around.
You should know that all my gleeful ranting and raving about having time alone lately is simply because it compliments the wonderful times with Cyndie when we are home together and times with my many friends when I get to let my gregarious side run wild. Don’t let my advancing age fool you into thinking I have become a crotchety old, anti-social curmudgeon.
I’ve got a couple more years left until I fully grow into that description.
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Fair Exchange
I have been given a chance for a mini-vacation for a few days this week in an advance payment for holding down the ranch solo next week when Cyndie takes a trip to visit friends. Cyndie arranged for a local contractor at our lake place in Hayward to do some work inside the main house and wanted to have someone here to let him in and be around while he worked in case he needed anything.
Her solution was brilliant, as far as I’m concerned. She offered me the chance to come up alone, and I accepted without hesitation. A solo road trip! Yahoo!
Not that I was excited or anything, but I packed the night before and snuck out the door at 5 a.m. yesterday for the drive to the lake. It felt reminiscent of my time commuting to the day job, except it took another hour and a half longer to get here than it did heading to the old workplace.
There had been just enough snow (you know, “nuisance snow” amounts) that I did a fair amount of shoveling to clean up walkways and stairs to both buildings for Brad, the contractor. He will also be doing some work for us in the little cabin while waiting for the sheetrock mud to dry.
Old seals on the hoses to the washing machine in the laundry room leaked when nobody was aware of it, and the resulting water damage included moldy sheetrock.
I took a picture while he was dismantling some shelving to show the yucky wall. After helping carry the frame and countertops out of the way, I gave Brad some space and listened to construction sounds from a distance.
With all obstructions out of the way, he made short work of ripping out the old and installing the new.
While Brad was doing real work, I enjoyed a leisurely day free of any animal duties and listened to my music library at high volume, set up a jigsaw puzzle, did some reading, took a nap, ate like a king (of course, Cyndie sent me off with oodles of good food!), and watched shows on Netflix that Cyndie won’t tolerate.
The hardest part of my day was learning that after a full day of the waterer in the paddock working fine and the temperatures moderating a bit from the most bitter cold, the line still froze again yesterday afternoon. Aaarrgh! Cyndie was able to melt it again and has the installer coming today, hopefully, to check out whether one of the heat tapes needs to be replaced.
I feel bad that the problem continued into her solo watch. One way to look at it though, maybe the added stress yesterday could help her to appreciate even more her vacation from animal responsibilities next week.
Giving each other separate turns to have an extended break from daily chores is a fair exchange. Right now, I’m soaking up my brief autonomy opportunity at the lake with maximum appreciation.
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Extra Day
Since circumstances led to Cyndie and me each having a car up at the lake over the weekend, we didn’t need to go home at the same time. I asked for an extra day at the lake and Cyndie headed home to relieve the animal sitters. With no responsibilities, I opted for a bike ride in the middle of a Monday in the north woods of Wisconsin.
There are some wonderful stretches of good pavement passing through wooded acres that offer a rewarding combination of forest bathing while sailing along on two wheels. It feeds my mind, body, and soul.
Returning to the Wildwood driveway brought me up to the empty house where I could enjoy the best of everything it provides in precious solitude. After a quick dip in the lake, followed by a shower, I stretched out diagonally across the bed under the sunshine coming through the skylight window for a luxurious nap.
For those of us who don’t live alone, having a spare day every so often when you can leave a trail of your belongings anywhere you please and eat and sleep when the whim arrives is invigorating. I also chose to watch a movie in the middle of the afternoon while eating a sandwich and some West’s Dairy Praline and Caramel ice cream.
Sure, having pets can add a lot to a person’s life, but being free from any need to tend to precious critters often gives me just as much joy. I wouldn’t have been able to finish a full-length movie while devouring delicious bite-sized portions of ice cream if Asher had been staring up at me with his big eyes and whining to play.
How do you describe eating ice cream from a spoon (I’m not usually a cone person), but not ever biting it? I don’t actually lick it. Am I lipping it? Sliding the spoon back out from my mouth while silently scraping a portion of the creamy goodness with my lips to be held back for my tongue and mouth to absorb it with glee. The spoon then goes back in for a second pass, maybe a third before it is clean and ready to be reloaded for another iteration.
Maybe there is a word that better describes the technique. If I weren’t so inclined to avoid interacting with AI sites, I might find such a descriptor by searching.
The movie I watched lasted much longer than my ice cream and it was almost as much fun, given the subject of Sherpas and Mount Everest. I highly recommend the documentary film, “Mountain Queen – The Summits of Lhakpa Sherpa,” which I found on Netflix.
Lhakpa was the first Nepali woman to climb Everest and survive. She holds the record for most Everest summits by a woman. What she has accomplished in her life outside of climbing is maybe even more remarkable. She is an inspiration of great strength, both physical and emotional.
She and her children deserve much broader recognition, which I hope this film will bring.
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Relative Something 