Much as I enjoy our conversations, I’ve been bumping molecules with people in my more immediate vicinities this past week. Five separate visits with six different friends (one couple accounts for the math) plus a day with a granddaughter and a session with my trainer. All wonderful, so much refilling of the endorphin bucket, but also, for a (however social) introvert, energy-consuming.
I remember, in my 30s and 40s especially, how much I could get done in a day and in a week, how much I did get done. Four kids transported to lessons and playdates and games all over town, their meals and laundry somehow prepared, and then I’d be back home teaching my piano students, and after that was done I’d even occasionally go out to meet someone for coffee at 8:30 or 9:00. I taught twenty hours a week, and “on the side” I finished my BA, one year taking three, then four courses a semester. I remember my godmother telling me once how she admired my activity and accomplishments, but that those years were the peak. Not telling me as a lament or even as a warning, just an observation, an offering of a fact I might find useful. I think I was slightly bemused, possibly politely dismissive. Not sure how relevant I saw it at the time.
Now, though. Now, I know its truth. The energy of those early mid-life years has clearly dissipated, and I have to remember that even the activities I love to engage in take a toll. . . .
I could write more on this topic — perhaps will, someday — but you know this is all a preamble to hurrying my way out of this post, don’t you?
Because the most important bundle of molecules in my life has suggested we go cycling ’round the park this morning, before the sun gets too warm, and I have a hair appointment at 10 — that’s a tight little window to operate in for a 22K circuit, so I’m off in a minute.
The photos were all taken in “our” neighbourhood in Bordeaux just last month — stars of these sidewalk plantings are generally hollyhocks, jasmine, and the occasional climbing or shrub rose; the window boxes generally spill red, coral, or pink geraniums, sometimes impatiens. . .
My hollyhock opened its first bloom yesterday (I took a photo — will share later), and the geraniums and jasmine we planted when we got back home are blooming as well. Another of the ways I try to integrate There and Here.
The cycling, too, works to remind me that what we do and see travelling can be paralleled at home as well — we have our own attractive cycle routes right in our back yard.
And I’m off — hope you enjoy the photos. If, like me, you find yourself enervated by an abundance of social activity — or perhaps just by summer’s heat — pop over to Sue’s blog for a restful post about the pleasures of Lolling.
Comments welcome, as always.
xo,
f
