Every day is a Gift -- 07-20-25

 

Age is just a number, right?  We hear that frequently.  Everyone has an age, and it changes every year, continually rising unless you die, till you die.  So?  Well, when that number shoots to 80 as it has for me, it takes on new meaning.  Remember when we couldn't wait till we were "older," so we could do cool stuff like our older friends?  Haha, now it's the opposite.  I envy my eight-year-old granddaughter who can cartwheel all over the grass and I wanna scream, "no fair!"  Yikes, my own body has gone from lithe and limber to bent and groaning.  I blame Gravity, though, because its job is to push me down toward the dirt.  Yet it's not something I expected no matter that it happens to each soul who makes it to 60, 70, 80, 90 -- those added years take a toll on the ol' body.  Many of my friends these days are talking about their upcoming hip or knee replacement surgeries or are recovering from one or the other.  Or we're comparing diseases.  Organ recitals, we call them.  

It's a given that beyond a certain point, our bodies begin the slow (usually slow) descent into decrepithood.  We can get prescriptions, surgeries, and physical therapy to help us feel better in the meantime.  Possibly even slow down the process, but add another candle on the birthday cake and watch the wrinkles multiply.

My mother-in-law once told me that she still felt like a girl inside her old body, a contradiction if there ever was one, certainly hard to digest at times.  Who's lying?  Tell me the mirror!  Yup, in a way, the mirror is the culprit.  This nice lady kept a smile on her face, pep to her walk, and a glow that all would be well, regardless ... despite the 80+ body she saw in her mirror.  She acted like she felt inside, NOT like what she saw.

Can you recall the first time someone, maybe one of your kids, grabbed ahold of your "bat wing," the flabby skin on your upper arm, like it was a new toy?  "What's this?" they'd giggle.  I can tell you what it is -- the beginning of the end!  How many other age-related references have you and I heard through the years?  All in good fun, ho ho ho.  I've done it myself.  I did it to my mother.  Karma is hell.

What's my point, you ask?  Gratitude for what I do have keeps me going, makes it possible for me to greet a new day without wanting to jump in the river or commit homicide.  Never mind what I don't have (youth, great health, perfect teeth), skip over my leaks and creaks and sore feet, mangled fingers and crepey limbs, and barrel straight into the fact that I'm upright and my brain isn't all Swiss cheese!  A daily dose of silliness helps, too.  As Popeye said, "I yam what I yam!"  With my attitude of gratitude, I live each day the best I can, instead of being an old fart just waiting for my number to be called.

Something different -- Saturday, 5/3/25

 

Age makes the miracles easier to see 

By Anne Lamott  (from Jan 2024)

Every so often, even in heartbreaking times, the soul hears something so true out of the corner of its ear that it perks up, looking around like a meerkat for the source. Mine did this when, decades ago, I read a quote of Albert Einstein’s: “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as if nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”

There are the obvious miracles all around us — love, nature, music, art. We drunks who somehow got sober call this the central miracle of our lives. Some of you have children you were told you couldn’t have. Some of you were sent home to die, years ago. And have you ever seen a grain of sand under a high-powered microscope? It looks like a jewelry store.

But what do we do with the seemingly unmiraculous? For instance, former president Donald Trump is a bit of a stretch for me. How do we see the miracle in the madness of the months since Jan. 6, 2021? Well, we saw that democracy held. It might have gone either way. We here in the colonies rejoiced, in our quiet and fretful ways.

My spirits are regularly flattened by the hardships of the world, of our country and of the people I love, so I find myself turning to the saints: Molly Ivins, for example. Decades ago, she said, “Freedom fighters don’t always win, but they are always right.” When I heard her say this at a benefit for the ACLU, my soul leaped up off its chair.

I spend a lot of time looking out the window. Age has given me this time and intention. I didn’t have so much of either when I was younger. My brain went much faster. There was so much to do, so much need and striving, and I had my trusty clipboard. Now I study the coral-colored abutilon buds right outside our window, little cups that hold the rainwater. Hummingbirds swing by all day to drink, and so it is a treat both for the eyes and for the spirit, for the bird and for the flower.

One of the blessings of age is that most of us get along with ourselves better than when we were young. It is stunning to accept yourself: I am always going to have a womanly butt and now I appreciate it: It’s a nice seat cushion. When my son was young, I hired a teenage girl to help around the house and one day she was folding laundry. She held up a pair of the nice roomy underwear I prefer and said, with wonder, “Do they even make bigger underwear?” That was 25 years and 10 pounds ago — and yes, honey, they do. I’ll show you where to buy them someday.

It’s a miracle that Earth exists at all, let alone is populated by humans who came up with antibiotics and Oreos, let alone Scandinavian detective shows. I love this joint a lot of the time. Even our modest local mountain looks majestic to me. Just today I saw beautiful slants of ground near the base that appeared lighter than the main portion, below the fog. They looked as if an artist chiseled them out of the rock, like doors. They said, “Come on over. We will let you in.” That is how I got sober in 1986: People said, “Come on over. We will let you in.” Today the moist sky looked like the inside of an abalone shell.

That we are no one else but our very own selves is a miracle. About one hundred million sperm were released each time your parents made love, and one dogged little guy made you into exactly you, the exact being who woke up again today. Our eyes open, our ears open and, if they don’t work that well, we have devices to help them hear better. Our hearts are beating. Our lungs are bellowing in and out, our diaphragms rising. The muscles release and contract and get us up again. Sometimes we need others to help us. Both are amazing, the strength to rise or the loving help.

One of the hardest aspects of getting old is that time races by like a slot car. I guess everything speeds up when it’s going downhill but still, it’s unnerving. On my grandson’s ninth birthday, I said jovially, “I thought you were six or something.” He said, “I live here! How can you think I’m six?” Then he rolled his eyes and patted me gently. Poor darling Nana.

Age has helped most of us care less about our outsides. Of course, I wish we had known about sunscreen in the ’60s out here underneath the California sun. My inside person is of no particular age and finds the person in the mirror confusing, a computerized version of what young adorable me will look like as an older person. So twice a year I go to Sephora and announce that I’d like to buy a miracle, and wonderfully, they always have the exact right thing. I use it for a month, and then I put it in the bottom drawer with the other miracles.

The miracle brain pills are in a different drawer, with the kerchiefs. Friends swear they work, but nope, a month later my mind is still perforated like a pie crust poked with a fork and memory slowly leaks out. So into the drawer they go while I walk around the house trying to remember what I was trying to remember.

I like to think that they have organized a nice book club for the kerchiefs and the other bottles of brain pills.

I can still walk the flatter trails of our mountain, where the streams have begun to fill with rainwater, though not enough to actually flow yet. The peace of nature wears down the fear and hatred that arise in me on bad days, until I remember at some point that all we can do is the next right thing. I often remind myself of something the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. said that helps me focus: “Don’t let them get you to hate them.” When they do, I lose me, I lose my center and my goodness, which will be needed for the hard work ahead of being older and saving democracy. There’s an incredible reflective herringbone design in the stream of rock and shadow and rock and shadow. I breathe in the cool air. My soul settles.

*****

My friend, Sue, sent this to me a while back.  I liked it so much, I decided to share it with you.  Perhaps you can identify with Anne's words, or at least some of them!  Hope you enjoyed her musings.

Almost Labor Day, thank goodness, 9/2/17

It doesn't seem to matter that we live in the Sierra Nevada foothills at 3200', surrounded by tall trees ... Incense Cedars, Doug Firs and a long, tall Ponderosa pine ... all shading the house and yard. You might think these would keep us cooler in the face of 100°+ temperatures, and you would think at this elevation, lower temps would prevail. No, that's only in my dreams; the heat is a blow torch in-my-face as soon as I step out the door. Yet, I'm not a hermit, step out I must. Inside, with air-conditioning, life is good. Outside, the air is stagnant and opaque; the plants I've lovingly taken care of are toasted and I no longer care. It's too much, this heat. Summer is the bane of my existence. You've heard me say this before? I can't help it. It's soul-sapping. I hate summer.

When we moved to the area five years ago, we didn't imagine for a second that summers would get this hot. A heat wave or two, sure, I could see that. But, 2017 has been shattering records. The first day of summer, June 20th, Nevada City recorded 97°. It hasn't improved. Think there's no global warming? Even the mountains are suffering from excessive heat, with Truckee pulling in 92° degrees today. Aieeee, the entire west is burning up, acrid air stinging eyes and noses! Daily, we hear Cal-Fire planes flying into the airport to fuel up (the opposite of those terrible flooding rains, go figure).

In June, Jimmy and I signed up for pool privileges at our local park, and loved being in the water, but the pool closed on Aug 15th. Walking is only doable really early in the morning and we're out hoofing it sometimes. Friends say they're hibernating. So are we.

The valley, where Everly Rose lives is even hotter ... Sacramento set a 110° record yesterday.  She's the only good reason to go down there (well, and seeing her Mom and Dad, of course).  At five-and-a-half months, she's sporting two upper teeth and two lowers and working hard at more of both.  Mommy has started her on solids, with avocados the first big hit.

Here's a little prize I wrote 20-plus years ago when I was penning poems.

You might enjoy this one.

It's finally September, back-to-school and all that, with its suggestion of autumn briskness and golden tones.  But, on the cusp of leaving in our motor home for points south and east, it's just too blamed hot to load the RV, but load it we will.  And when we're away, we hope to find cooler, pleasant days, chilly evenings.  I really hope we don't have to wait till the end of October to find them! 

At it again! Wednesday, 8/09/17

I didn't know what to title this post, though I considered several ideas. Jimmy and I are home in Nevada City this month, preparatory to a long trip beginning next month. And it's high summer, full of fresh produce with its promise, via preserving, to carry us through winter ... at least in part. We gathered no crops last summer when we were Out and About in Tergel and then in Alabama with my dying brother. But this year, well, our cupboards are stocked and the freezers are filling up. That's a good thing, and it makes us happy.

We've been helping out at our friends' farm (lotta labor, whew!) a few miles away, and in return we've been fortunate to gather wonderful organic fruits and veggies. Tomatoes are IN now. We've "put up" stewed tomatoes, made salsa, and now it was time to make a mouthwatering Marinara sauce. One of my ideas for this blog title was Canning 101, tho truthfully, I think Marlene suggested it first. 😀 😄

Fran, our across-the-street neighbor/friend, couldn't make it to the marinara sauce undertaking, although you see her in the foreground picking tomatoes.  Marlene is at the far door.  So many tomatoes!  The dang things are breeding in that high tunnel like they're being paid!  There's peppers and melons and other goodies under that domed roof, too.

The buckets aren't quite full, but they are heavy.

Marlene is just adding more to the 'mater pile-up in the kitchen.

Oops, missed the opening.  Bad shot.

Look at the purty Marinara sauce.  I netted eight two-and-a-half cup freezer bags full of delish sauce (one bag was accidentally left out, below).  Marlene canned about the same. Maybe more ... she had no shortage of tomatoes!

* * * * *

At the farm a few weeks ago, this lovely lady (an Ameraucana hen) decided to fly the coop, so to speak, and lay a clutch of eggs atop a stack of hay bales five feet high under a shed overhang.  A rooster had been introduced into the yard not too long before ... so ... one can imagine her eggs were fertilized.  Or, she could've been fooled.  We waited.  She'd peck your eyes out if you tried to look at her eggs.  She rarely left her position, but once when she did, Marlene counted the eggs and tried to see, uh, something (below).  Couldn't determine a thing.  Then ...

Two mornings ago, Marlene heard a "cheep cheep" as she neared the shed.  Aha!  The rooster knew what he was doing, and so did this fine lady.  Of course, it's the wrong time of year to hatch eggs, but they're new at it and probably didn't know this fact.  As of this photo, three cute (CUTE) li'l chicks were peeking out from beneath Mom's feathers.  This evening Marlene texted me to say there are now seven!  Good job, guys!

* * * * *

Another possible heading for this post was:  Farmer Jones is in the house! I ix-nayed that one, as you see.  I've always had a garden, even if it was postage stamp-sized -- planting runs in the family.  My dad was a chemical engineer by trade, but a gentleman farmer was his real calling.  So, I offer no apologies for blogging about tomatoes and canning sauces and such.  Oh, wait a minute, I have a bucket of tomatoes on my counter, cajoling me, calling out to me to turn them into Tomato Confit.  Take a guess on how I pronounced that the first time?  Hint:  It was not correct.  Confit is on the schedule for tomorrow morning.

Their corn is near-about ready. I walked through the row, listening to the loud humming of hundreds of buzzy bees. Another good thing to have on the farm -- bees to pollinate. That corn reminded me of another peppy little verse I penned over twenty years ago. Enjoy! Click on it to enlarge it and use your back arrow to return to this post. I'm hitting the couch!

Our Golden Smiles are Sugar Sweet

We're the Ones you Want to Eat!

* * * * *

Tis the season ... Friday, Aug 4, 2017

... to enjoy and store summer's bountiful produce.  Marlene, our friend from Tumbling Creek Farm, has an abundance of tomatoes, etc., right now.  It is the height of the growing season and ripe tomatoes are one of those crops that seem to multiply while your back is turned.  Sashito pepper plants (as well as other kinds) are literally drooping to the ground under the weight of their fiery or sweet peppers.

What can a person do?  Can is the word!  Or freeze.  Preserve.  And that's what Marlene and I did early today.  A few weeks ago I canned peaches, and made blueberry and strawberry jams.  Now it's veggie time!  We used the inside kitchen to chop-chop, and used her outdoor kitchen for the heating processes, thereby keeping tons o' heat out of the house.  That's using the ol' noodle!

This pic doesn't tell the whole story; there's lots more veggies out of the photo that you can't see.  Marlene had already picked buckets of ripe tomatoes (thank you!), so half the work was done!

Tomato peeling has begun.  I could barely lift the pot in the foreground.

Chopped onion, peppers, and tomatoes bagged for the freezer.

Ready to toss in a cooking pot come cool weather for chili, soups and beans.

Aha, cucumbers are plentiful, too.

Marlene has a good bread 'n butter pickle recipe.

Several hours later -- what a haul:

Canned tomatoes and pickles, and bagged "salsa."

Look at this huge tomato Jimmy's holding!  This one DID NOT go into the pot.  The thing weighed well over a pound -- big enough to look like a pumpkin!  Hopefully, it made wonderful bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwiches. 😋

Since I'm writing about veggies, I thought I'd throw in this slick little rhyme that I penned over twenty years ago (wow, where do the years go?).  It was fun to make up the double word play, and then add a dash of color around the edges.  Click on it if you want to make it larger.  Use you back arrow to return to this post.

Next week, we make marinara sauce and/or tomato confit. 

But now, my feet are tired and so am I

It's time to rest, so I'll say goodbye.

And then there was the time ... 6/11/17

One of the books on my table now is Bill Bryson's newest, The Road to Little Dribbling (Adventures of an American in Britain), published in 2015.  Anything written by him tickles my funny bone, and this book is no exception.  The guy cracks me up.  For instance, this excerpt below made me snicker, followed by a gradual nod in agreement: 

What a joy walking is.  All the cares of life, all the hopeless, inept, f**kwits that God has strewn along the Bill Bryson Highway of Life, suddenly seem far away and harmless, and the world becomes languid and welcoming and good.

Well, it didn't take my mind long to drift, recalling some memorable walks I've taken over the years. Oh yes, what a joy walking is! I bet I've put a gazillion miles on my feet, beginning with back and forth from home to kindergarten, a very long time ago! While my feet have grown weary plenty of times, I feel like I grow with each walk I take, and my walking has taught me a few things, or maybe I should say opened me to some of the better aspects of life.

If I hadn't been pushing a stroller (almost daily) with my colicky son in 1980, I would've missed meeting my long-time pal, Lyn, in our Santa Ana neighborhood.  Her son was two at the time, and she reached out to me, the new mother.  Lyn and I don't see each other often enough anymore, but when we get on the phone, we'll reminisce and giggle over crazy shenanigans that made us LOL even then.  We had such fun.  We're kindred spirits who relish being outdoors. 💓

As an office worker, I was cooped up inside from 8 to 5, except at lunch, and then if a park or a lake was nearby, I'd take my sandwich and head outside on fine days. I always saw something of interest on these walks -- birds, turtles, clouds. People, too. One lunch hour while walking around a lake in Baton Rouge, I saw a young man slouched in the grass near the shore, and something didn't look right. I walked past him, stopped, turned around and approached him. A troubled teen. I asked if I could sit next to him and he replied yes. We commenced talking. He was despondent. I offered him a caring ear, and shared a few bits of wisdom (gained from age) when needed. I didn't leave till I felt he was okay, though I was overdue from lunch. Sometimes we're in the right place at the right time. In my heart I believe I helped this youth, though I got in trouble at the office. Serendipitous walking.

Call 'em what you will -- walk, stroll, ramble or roam, even hike. These days it isn't always easy for me to define "walk." Sometimes walking turns into a hike, or vice versa. Many of my walks were lone junkets, quiet and contemplative, but walking with friends or family can be such a delight! These days, Jimmy and I love to be Out and About, walking or hiking. (I am so looking forward to him getting the "all clear" from his knee doc, allowing him to hit the trails once again.)

My creative juices flow like a river when I'm out walking, at least when I'm on my own. I can dream up stories, "write" paragraphs and poems, create a menu, a letter or an email, or plan a trip itinerary. I've written, keeping a journal or diary most of my life; in fact, some of my stories have been published. And many of my ideas popped up while I was on my feet! Nowadays, most of my creativity is unleashed on this blog, each post a story via text and photos, but here's a little rhyme I wrote back in 1999:

Not a Pulitzer prize winner, I know!
(Enlarge to read it and then use your back arrow to return to this post)

Walking is a spiritual experience for me, as I behold earth's bounty and beauty, the smiles and greetings from strangers I encounter. I can walk out my front door feeling heavy and doomed (maybe over politics?) and with each step, I can shed the mulligrubs and angst like a trapped fish escaping a net. I hate seeing litter and graffiti, but feeling negative emotions when I see so much that is good simply doesn't work for me. Good overpowers bad.

But some walks involve nothing more than the thrill of being ... like the time my high school chum, Jean, and I decided to go for a walk ... in a full-fledged Niagara Falls blizzard, and almost got caught in a snowplow's path! Well, heck, we wanted to see our boyfriends play in their band, and it wasn't our fault a blizzard was raging. We were young and obstinate, sure that we'd be okay. It was already dark, so how my parents let me out of the house is still a mystery. Bundled to the max, we set out on our country roads, and a couple of miles later, we made our dramatic (unintended) entrance at the club. We screeched when we heard that snow plow behind and almost on top of us and dove into a snow-filled ditch. Crazy. We laughed the rest of the way to the club. Memory tells me a kind heart drove us home. The wonder of walking!

This has been a slow month for me, meaning not many walks and no hikes. (Lots of gardening work, tho, and drives to see Everly Rose in Sacramento.) Jimmy is one-month post-op on his total knee replacement. He's walking well, and in two weeks, we're anticipating his doc will release him ... to walk wherever and whenever. Based on this post, it's obvious to me I'm missing this. 😊 So is he. Woot-woot! We have lots more miles to put on our feet! Yep, for us, walking is a joy!