We’ll be dog sitting this weekend because our daughter and son-in-law are traveling to attend a wedding. Their dogs are always so excited when they come here, running all around and wagging their tails. My husband often says that we can learn a lot from dogs about just being happy in the moment.

Word-art that says "Happiness is a journey, not a destination."

Nurturing Thursday was started by Becca Givens and seeks to “give this planet a much needed shot of fun, support and positive energy.” Visit her site to find more Nurturing Thursday posts and a list of frequent contributors.

February 26, 2019 · 4 comments · Categories: Musings · Tags:

On Friday evening, my husband challenged our daughter and son-in-law to a weekend Fitbit step competition. The weather wasn’t good enough to do anything outdoors, not only because it was cold, but also because we had strong winds most of the weekend. So we worked out at our local Rec Center both days. Of course, my husband’s manly pride required him to get many more steps than me, so he also went to the Y early in the morning. I decided that I would rather enjoy my sleep.

Fitbit with small purple band.

We both got more steps than the young’uns, and our daughter complained that it wasn’t fair because she had homework for her nurse practitioner program. So she got revenge by inviting us to a workweek challenge, but not until late Monday evening, after she already had enough steps to start in the lead. By then I had gone to bed, so I found out about it this morning. Of course, I didn’t see that coming and just sat around on Monday resting my feet, so they were all far ahead of me before I knew what was going on.

I went for a walk this afternoon and got some fresh air before the sun went down, but it was chilly enough that I didn’t stay out for more than half an hour. Then I swept the kitchen floor and some other areas, which didn’t count for a lot of steps, but needed to be done anyway. Meanwhile, I’m sure they were all at the gym feeling confident they had left me in the dust. Overconfident maybe? We’ll see.

I had a brief conversation on another blog this week about sadness and letting go of things. Everyone has memories of unpleasant events and hurtful attacks, which need to be worked through and tidied up so that they don’t fester. The old-fashioned advice of “forgive and forget” is of course much harder to do than to say, but it can go a long way toward a peaceful life.

Word-art that says "The first to apologize is the bravest. The first to forgive is the strongest. The first to forget is the happiest."

Nurturing Thursday was started by Becca Givens and seeks to “give this planet a much needed shot of fun, support and positive energy.” Visit her site to find more Nurturing Thursday posts and a list of frequent contributors.

Ever since Fannie, my imaginary 119-year-old future self, suggested a few months ago that I might want to invite the archetypal Crone to play tennis, I had been turning that idea over in my mind. It made sense on a basic narrative level—if I wanted to explore possibilities other than the usual negative beliefs about aging, then I needed to be more creative in how I pictured older people. That included expecting the Crone to do more than just sit and tell stories, as in my previous post about her last winter.

Tennis didn’t work, though, for several reasons. First, I never played the sport or had much interest in it, and an imaginary outing where I bumbled around cluelessly on the tennis court didn’t hold much appeal. Of course, I didn’t have to be as realistic as that; but I didn’t want to be the Crone’s opponent in a sporting event anyway, or even her doubles partner, which would carry another well-defined set of adversarial socially-scripted baggage about pushing one’s body to the limit and always competing to excel over others. I really did just want the Crone to tell me stories, but without the typical cultural strings attached.

So, after I recently spent some time browsing through winter landscape scenes and imagining myself (as I mentioned here) on a snowy forest adventure, I decided to invite the Crone to be my companion on a mountain-climbing trip. That would be active enough to dispel the old-woman stereotypes, but we wouldn’t be opponents in anything, and there would be plenty of time for insightful conversation. I’ve never been a mountain climber in real life either, but that was okay—a hiking trail along a mountainside, without need for rock-climbing gear, would be sufficient.

(Creative Commons image via flickr)

The crisp mountain air carried the scent of pine trees and snow. The wind was just right—enough of a breeze so that the Crone and I wouldn’t overheat as we hiked up the trail in our heavy winter gear, but it wasn’t blowing hard enough to make us want to pull our scarves up over our faces.

“Oh look, just over there!” exclaimed the Crone, as we went around a curve dotted by rocks and small bushes. I didn’t see much of anything else, but the Crone sounded quite excited indeed. She bustled over to a spot of green in the shelter of two rocks, where glossy leaves and a few bright berries could be seen poking up through the winter’s debris.

“It’s just another wildflower nowadays,” she explained, lovingly brushing away twigs and snow to give me a better view. “But long ago, skilled herbalists would have come out looking for this and other healing plants, even in winter. Many of them were older women, you know. They brought apprentices on mountain hikes very much like this, pointing out where the medicinal herbs could be found and how to recognize them.”

After carefully replacing the small twigs and dry leaves that protected the plant from the cold air, my companion stood up and went back to the trail. We continued around another bend, winding between several thick pines, while I considered the message in this little interlude.

“It’s just a myth, then, that old women didn’t do much but sit by the fire and tell stories,” I said after a minute or so, as I took a few quick steps to catch up to the Crone. She had gotten ahead of me while I was preoccupied with my thoughts, and she walked with plenty of vigor.

“Life was much harder in those days,” the Crone noted in a reflective tone, as if describing her own past. She slowed her stride a little. “Every pair of hands was needed. If an elder didn’t have the strength to work outdoors, she might indeed sit by the fire—but there would always be chores she could do while sitting. Of course, that didn’t prevent her from telling stories at the same time. When surviving through the winter couldn’t be taken for granted, stories and song went far toward keeping joy and vitality in the soul, just as herbal remedies kept the body healthy.”

We came out of the pines onto a steep ascent. The snowy peaks loomed majestically above us, just as they would have done thousands of years ago. I felt grateful for their enduring wisdom, as well as for my companion’s gentle words, as the imaginary adventure faded away.

My daughter is visiting for a few days. She enjoys wall decorations with inspirational sayings, and she has several of them hanging on the walls of her house. In general, she loves decorating and cheerful little things. I thought of her when I saw this image recently:

Word-art that says "Always remember you're braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, smarter than you think, & twice as beautiful as you'd ever imagined."

Although I haven’t spent as much time decorating, I do agree with her that the more reminders of positive things, the better!

Nurturing Thursday was started by Becca Givens and seeks to “give this planet a much needed shot of fun, support and positive energy.” Visit her site to find more Nurturing Thursday posts and a list of frequent contributors.

February 12, 2019 · 2 comments · Categories: Musings · Tags:

Last night I dreamed that I was a refugee trying to get away from a war zone, sometime long ago. I was helping a young woman who just had a baby. Although that made it much harder both to travel and to hide from the soldiers, it seemed the decent thing to do. Our dinner was rat and weeds soup. Rather than thinking about how yucky that was, though, I felt lucky that I had found an old pot to cook it over a fire.

Old pot hanging on a hook.

(Creative Commons image via flickr)

After I woke up, that dream certainly had put all of my trifling modern-day gripes into better perspective. People typically judge their circumstances by comparison to what they see around them, which is why surveys asking about happiness levels generally tend not to show any increase as populations become wealthier. We don’t often compare our lives to what’s in the history books.

Indeed, unless we regularly work to cultivate the habit, we don’t often reflect on our own personal history and all the ways we are doing better than in the past. Small annoyances get our attention instead. Given the fact that we have so many comforts in the here and now, we shouldn’t take them so much for granted.

Today was very dark and wet. I got rained on when I did the grocery shopping this afternoon, and then there was a power outage for about two hours. Meanwhile, my husband had to move the rowing club’s boat trailer to higher ground because the river was rising high enough to flood the parking lot at the boathouse.

So, even after the power came back on, I didn’t feel particularly lucky or glad until my husband texted me from the gym after work. He asked if I had checked the basement. I went down there to look, and the sump pump was running. The floor was dry, though; so even with all the rain, there hadn’t been enough water to flood the basement floor while the power was out. That left me feeling much happier about how the day had gone, as compared to what might have happened.

With all the water around here today, I decided this word-art was quite appropriate for Nurturing Thursday:

Word-art that says "Happiness comes in waves."

Nurturing Thursday was started by Becca Givens and seeks to “give this planet a much needed shot of fun, support and positive energy.” Visit her site to find more Nurturing Thursday posts and a list of frequent contributors.

February 5, 2019 · Write a comment · Categories: Musings · Tags:

Sunday afternoon was unusually warm for early February, so my husband turned on the self-cleaning cycle on the oven because we could open the windows enough to air out the house. While he was opening windows, I noticed that the wood blinds in the great room were dusty. This time of year, I like seeing the brighter morning sun through the blinds as the days grow longer. So I cleaned them while my husband went to the Y to work out on a rowing machine.

Wood blinds with sunlight behind the windows.

Although it would’ve been nice to get in some real rowing, last week was so cold that even though Sunday afternoon felt like spring, the river still had some ice and was not at all rowable. That was okay, though, because we spent some family time together anyway, when the cleaning got done, and we’re not far from spring now. On Saturday there was so much snow and fog, it’s no wonder the groundhog didn’t see his shadow; just getting out of his burrow must have taken some effort!