Lately this is the difficult part. I have to walk past the front yard flower beds, and everything in them including even the weeds, invite me to stay.
Every day the Iris there seem taller, and today they're showing some color. Sometimes, just for the pleasure, I count their regal stems, and wonder how many more there may be.
Smaller flowers beneath them have already blossomed, but a few tulips seem no more eager than me to leave. I get in the car and start the engine, and as it warms, look at the beds again. Somebody planned them well, spaced between them for effect, and for color, and left areas altogether empty to walk on, or pull water hoses out.
Before I back the car onto the street, I scan the yard again. Besides the flower beds are trees of only a few years' growth. One was covered with tiny white blossoms that all blew away. Another's pink ones are mostly still around, while a third tree put out only leaves. I would love to dig in some rich potting soil, and stay as long as I wanted in a library, learning gardening, and finding books that teach me what kinds of trees I have.
Driving to work is an ever changing scene. Today it is easy to see winter's being replaced with various shades of green. As I pull into the nursing home parking lot, I notice more cars than usual already there, and wonder if an inservice I forgot about is going on without me. But when I reach the entrance door, an official looking notice there beads right down on me. State is here for their annual inspection. We may even do well on it. It's the getting through it that's so dreaded.
I breathe a long slow sigh of quiet dread, and not a small amount of relief. It's a little like our starting labor. Now we can look forward to the ending. I would much prefer choosing what to plant where in the yard, or picking out my next good book to read.
Two I connected with recently seem just made for me. I think I was suppose to find them. While struggling with whether to retire sometime soon, or to work a few more years, "Success Is A Journey" by Brian Tracy, and "My Twice - Lived life, A Memoir", by Donald M. Murray, answered many questions.
The first book is about having a goal, and how to persevere so you can reach it. The second book deals with the passions and challenges that aging brings. I would so love to write as well as Mr. Murray, but more than that, to be even nearly as honest as he about who and what he is, and how he got that way.
Someone said it's not the starting of your life that is to guide you through it, nor the accomplishments, or accolades you garnered along the way. It's not even the challenges, or why they happened to you. It's the journey, only the journey.
Not a lot exciting is in mine today. We did do well on the State inspection, and my son is over his last surgery enough that he's doing more repairs and upkeep for me. Today he checked the house cooling system, and discovered it is fairly new, and seems in good condition. He also worked on whatever's causing leaks in the sun room, and we'll either fix it, or put a new roof over that room. but now we have something else to contemplate.
Remember the neighbor's little boy telling me when I moved in he'd seen a fox around here, and how I pretty much ignored it. Turns out the kid was probably right, for there's some kind of critter down beneath the house. We see signs of where he's digging outside, and I'm getting information from federal and state. If it is a fox, (Federal tells me they're a protected species) I'll need to have it relocated to a certain area properly.
I had planned ending this a little poetically, with something like "I haven't read enough books in my life, or considered enough of the lilies". But somehow that doesn't fit anymore. Today I'm just glad we're only dealing with a fox, hopefully a small one.
