Skip to main content

Footsie~


I did today what I swore I would not do for the whole summer. I got up early.

I got up at the time my alarm goes off on school mornings-- 5:45 a.m.-- and I'd been awake long before that, having spent a tossy-turny night on a mattress that had been my parents'.

My parents' mattress was newer than ours, so after my mother went to the assisted living home, I brought it home. Bruce could sleep on a bed of nails, and convincing him to spend "what?!" on a "Sleep Number" bed just wasn't going to happen.

And maybe the mattress is not what's keeping me awake anyway. It could be hot flashes, or the cat that likes to groom my hair with her teeth several times a night, or Bruce's snoring, or . . . the mattress.

This morning I reminded myself of a kid who can't be dragged out of bed on school mornings, but is up bright and early for Saturday morning cartoons. I put on a sweatshirt against the unseasonable chill, and took my camera and went for a walk along the power lines just as the sun was drizzling her first honey rays on the treetops.

Apart from the fact that it was an hour well spent, and I'd do it again tomorrow, I could see myself veering into obsessiveness. Picture taking obsessiveness.

Everywhere I looked there was a scene crying, "Take me. Take me!" It was like bringing a camera into a classroom of eleven year-olds-- everything vied for my attention.

The sun pointed to some spots, others just drew my eye quietly. I saw caterpillars, dew drops, and sun-dappled leaves that I couldn't resist. There is so much beauty ready to be absorbed.

Later after a nap, well into the evening when the sun was slanting into the living room through the bay window, I sat and read in a comfy chair. At one point I stopped to stretch, holding my legs out straight in front of me.

That's when I knew I was obsessed for sure. I looked at my toes, backlit in the sun. I put my book down, and got the camera. My toes were a picture crying to be taken. Or maybe not, but I snapped the shot anyway. Okay. I snapped six shots of my backlit toes. I should probably get a pedicure, I now see.

I wonder why I never get obsessed with housework, but I'm sort of glad I don't. That would take away from my picture taking time.

Comments

Heather said…
great post -- and I love the pic!

(I'm definitely obsessive about picture-taking... I'll post some later, maybe)

Popular posts from this blog

For Alice~ She's home!!!!!!!

What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson Sometimes it's all about knowing that loved ones and friends stand behind you, knowing that support is there on the down days, the worry days, the days when you feel off-center, out of sync, bedraggled emotionally, and in pain, but knowing all the while that you're not alone. You're not alone... Alice is an online friend--she lives in Hawaii-- who belongs to the writer's workshop that I do. We've only "met" online, but those who have online friendships know that they can be just as strong as those in-person relationships. Alice was hit by a car while walking, and is in the rehab phase of things. She's working to regain mobility after a broken pelvis, a broken arm, and a broken nose. It's scary to realize how, in the blink of an eye, life can lurch and our plans for a time are displaced by survival and healing. We...

This retirement thing~

This retirement thing . . . it seems like it should be so easy, so effortless, so thrilling, to stop the daily grind. It is thrilling; at least I think it will be come September when I'm not following the school buses to work. But it's not easy. I had a plan book on my desk for 35 years, one I filled in weekly, scheduling new lessons at 45-minute intervals, meetings, parent conferences, and field trips. I knew what needed to be done and when. I got up at the same time everyday (5:45 a.m.), ate lunch at the same time (12:06 p.m.) and watched the kids pack their bags for home everyday at 2:15 p.m. I'm not sorry to give up that regimentation. But three weeks into the summer, I find myself making lists of things I need to do, and there is so much to do that I can't imagine how I managed while I was working eight hours on top of it all. There are the household chores, gardening, exercise (aren't retirees supposed to get fitter?), freelance writing, book reviewing, readin...

Quantico~

Quantico Marine Corps Base is home of the Officer Candidate School my husband attended back when the Viet Nam War still raged. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ With an eight-hour drive ahead of us, if all goes perfectly, we'll be in Virginia at 1500 today. On Thursday, my husband will join hundreds of former Marines for the 41st reunion of those who graduated from Officer Candidate School at Quantico Marine Corp Base. Most haven't communicated, let alone seen each other, since 1967. Email has been flying for nearly a year as the committee worked to make the reunion possible. And now with the event schedule in hand, we're off. Only it's not called a schedule. It's a sit rep. Actually, Sit Rep it says on the top sheet. "A what?" "A situation report," Bruce says. The three-day agenda is printed in military time. That's as bad as the metric system. So I draw myself a normal clock, and jot the military hours beside the numbers on the normal person's clock. I wi...