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| Elena playing in Nana's yard |
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| Carlene and Luci watching church on Sunday morning |
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| Jocelyn made a yummy strawberry shortcake for Lloyd's 100th birthday, March 19th |
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| Bob wore his FORD shirt the day we went to Monroe, not knowing there would be a car show in the streets that day. |
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| Jocelyn and Luci |
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| Jocelyn and Bob at a car show in Monroe |
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| Luci was a great traveler and guest |
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| So much fun to overlap my trip with Will and Bonnie and Elena |
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| Carlene took us all out to dinner at Longhorn's |
Just a quick note from Georgia: We are having a good time all around! I'll post pictures and details later--but for now, the most amazing photo of the trip. Carlene has never been a dog person, but Luci has won her over.
The interviews by Maria Shriver on Sounds True are no longer there. I liked watching them so much that I'd planned to watch again, but I waited too long.
Here are a few of my takeaways:
Never stop being curious and creative and playful. The child part of us needs to be active every day.
Get good sleep, eat well and exercise--as good for the brain as for the body.
Instead of giving other people advice, say, "This is my experience."
Nurture your beginner's mind by doing things that are new. One 95-year-old interviewee said that she loves to read books that are outside her comfort zone, books she has to strain to understand.
Friends and family are essential to good health. Those who live alone should maintain friendships, maybe get a pet.
Don't construct a life around the opinions of other people. Do what you love to do.
Be a lifelong learner. I'd like to add Carlene's adage that has helped me to avoid obsessing over regrets and mistakes: "Everything is tuition."
Today I booked a flight for Georgia, leaving on Thursday. I'm excited and frenzied as I pack for ten days of winter and spring in a huge suitcase borrowed from Kate.
My carry-on will be a doggie carrier and I'm slowly getting her accustomed to her traveling bag--as this is our first time to fly together. Luckily, we got non-stop flights each way. Coincidentally, Will's family will be in Georgia for part of the time I'll be there and they will be able to pick me up at the airport on Thursday night.
I wish I'd arranged this sooner, so we could share a flight, but I had to wait and see if my epidurals did the trick. I had planned to drive, but decided today that flying makes more sense. I'll get to see my Georgia family and Betty and watch Elena explore Nana's house for the first time.
As it happens, I have had no pain at all since the second epidural. But I don't want to tempt a recurrence on the road alone.
I'm so happy to get to share the date of March 19th with family--the day that would have been my daddy's 100th birthday!
Over the years some of the people who have inspired me--like David Whyte, to name one of several--have come from CDs produced by Sounds True. (Now I don't play CDs, but the same writers are available for digital downloads).
This week--thanks to a link sent to me by Freda--I have gotten to listen to some amazing speakers talk in positive upbeat ways about aging. Maria Shriver interviews Jamie Lee Lewis, Vanessa Williams, Anne Lamott and others during this free week of inspiration.
They are talking about soulmates, marriage, creativity, curiosity, friendship, diet, exercise, meditation.
If you are interested in this, you can go here: summit.soundstrue.com
Freda sent me this poem this morning.
I've walked twice (a piece with Luci, then later to meet Freda for the Real Walk) since reading it. The air feels clean and the temperature now reaching toward 70--a perfect day, except it's not. What happens in Ukraine affects us all. So many Americans cheering for Putin is shattering.
We walk to run into artists and music and trees--and to watch dogs who don't know much about anything wagging along happily, as if life is normal.
Go For a Brisk Walk
by Gene Guntzel
Go for a brisk walk every day
Either around dawn or sunset
And you may run into Chopin or Monet,
Charlotte Bronte or a mysterious brunette
Who turns out to be Maria Callas.
Bessie Smith, Jack Benny, you never knew,
The Duke of Earl slipping away from the palace,
Kafka and his fiancée strolling in the snow.
Melville whose book you meant to read,
Cornelius Vanderbilt, Princess Diana, Van Gogh,
Out walking, despite all they’ve been through.
“To comprehend a nectar requires sorest need,”
Said Emily Dickinson. (She’s here, too.)
Life is hard. Oh Lord, the miseries we bear
And yet it’s good to get out in the open air.
On the personal good news front, I have had six pain free leg days with a flare only on Wednesday. This, it seems to me, is evidence that I'm on the right track with these epidurals. It's amazing how much longer days seem for getting things done!
I do have to have a tooth extraction on Friday. A tooth recently filled is now split to the roots and can't be fixed. It's been bothering me since the filling and I thought maybe the filling was just loose. The dentist says that our teeth just get softer as we age and we need to be careful about what we bite.
I get another epidural on Wednesday--my hope being that the effects last a long time and I'll be able to travel by car to Georgia before or after my April trip to Virginia.
Our Can-Do-Anything Janet Oglethorpe paints and designs awesome rooms, writes beautifully, teaches exercise classes, inspires and wows her friends, and matches certain dogs to certain humans to perfection.
Yesterday she hosted Charlotte's birthday lunch and served us Julia Childs' Boeuf Bourguignon, cauliflower rice, sautéed green beans, and chocolate mousse, along with Bill's yummy homemade bread. The music was a chorus of repeated Ummmmms around the table: Kate's, Janet's, Charlotte's and mine. Every bite was delicious!
Not only has Janet mastered Julia's 42-steps-to-make stew; she does a spot on imitation of the French chef!
Here she is with our girl Luci who--when hearing I was going to Janet's house, where she lived for two days before she moved in with me--insisted on going along to see Janet and Bill and their three dogs, Mia, Val and Molly.
What a perfect afternoon, celebrating Charlotte's birthday, February 23rd!
1. Being Brave
Having gone to bed early last night, I just woke up and thought it was morning. Little Cuddle Bug was missing from my bed but when she heard me get up she ran from the living room to greet me. Yesterday she napped so much I wondered if she might be a little sick, but she's her sweet playful self.
She came up to the side of my bed and asked me ever so politely if it might be okay if she went outside for a minute. She rarely makes requests or gets up in the night, so I could tell she had business to attend to. "I didn't want to disturb you, I could see you're sleeping, but if you don't mind, I would like to go out," she says.
When I ask, "Do you want to go outside?" she runs to the door with great joy--I can only call it joy! When she gets near the door, she tenses up as if for a brave attack on her imaginary prey. She holds that position until I get the door open, then she runs to the same spot she always runs to, barking and growling. She thinks she's huge in these moments and a force to be reckoned with--quite the opposite of the docile little thing she is during the day. The night brings out the wild in her.
Once, she must have seen something real in that spot--maybe a possum or skunk or cat--and forever after that one siting, she goes there with a clear intention: kill the interloper! If not mortal danger, she hopes to, at the very least, warn the critter that she could inflict some serious damage.
On these middle of the night trips into enemy territory behind the jasmine trellis, she runs very fast. She doesn't stop until she checks out the whole back yard and gets an all-clear. Only after her patrol ends is she ready for more mundane business, like having a pee next to Jan's house.
Makes me wonder how often we bulk up ourselves for battle just remembering something scary that happened way long ago? I know I do. I can do the Luci-equivalent of tensing up my muscles at the prospect of approaching a problem that lives only in my head--though I'm more apt to run away from than toward.
Several neighbors have spotted a coyote recently. So when I do open the door after dark, I stand guard in the doorway scanning the yard for anything wild that could give itsy bitsy Luci a run for her money, or worse. (She thinks she's protecting me and this vast-to-her estate; I think I'm her protector. Maybe we're both deluded and naive?)
Now I have returned to my bed and she has lifted up the covers to burrow all the way down under where she likes to sleep right up next to me, curled up in a ball. She loves her little cotton cave and I can return to sleep with peace of mind, knowing that if any interlopers do come near, she will announce and pounce.
2. Correction...
To yesterday's post:
Kate assured me that native Texans do indeed--contrary to my generalization--say "love you to death" and "Fixing to." I stand corrected. Turns out, after she reminded me (indignant that I would draw such a line), she does share almost all my linguistic Southern! But you have to have been born and raised (not reared) here--and she was.
Most everybody we know, turns out, is what Kate calls a "transplant." Including me. I noted upon my arrival in Texas that people gave me a look when I said "I might could" and certain expressions not shared by transplanted people from north of here. Once a college professor at St. Mary's stopped class to ask me, "Where in the world are you from?"--which got him laughter from the class and embarrassed me into silence.
(I wish I'd been bold enough to ask him the same question, but I knew: Chicago. And who makes fun of Chicago?)
Once Kate and I took a road trip to Georgia together. We braked for thrift shops and butterbeans.
The red clay sweet tea humid air of Alabama, along with one of the five-in-a-row Jesus stations we turned on just so we could imitate and say "Amen, Sista!" --got us both hamming up the Southern. Whatever country church revivals I've been to, turns out Kate can do back-woods Baptist with the best of 'em.
3. My poor ole leg.
Several of you have called and texted to say that you hope the shot I got fixed me right up. The jury is still out.
Some nights I wake up moaning just like before, but yesterday afternoon, I had a few glorious pain-free hours.
It may not be one and done like I'd hoped, but I know I'm on the right track. I get a second shot on March 2nd. Then I'll see a back specialist and find out if I'm up for a road trip.
