It's been a week

Cornwall Park

I walk by this spot several times a week. It's part of my usual path from the Rose Garden where John lets me off after we leave the coffee shop. From here, I can walk home and get the bulk of my steps for the day. The distance between my home and this part of Cornwall Park is about 2.5 miles. That, plus the distance from home to the bus early in the morning, gives me well over three miles of walking and close to 10,000 steps. 

Right at this point on the path, I can hear the pickleball players in the courts off to the left. The pok-pok sound of the ball hitting the rackets, along with groans of a miss, or happy laughter of a good play, makes for an interesting backdrop to the sound of my steps on the gravel. Plenty of birdsong and the raucous cawing of the crows adds to the symphony. 

As usual on a Sunday morning, I rise and make myself some tea and bring it into the bedroom with my laptop and settle in for the task of writing this post. It's become such an ingrained routine that I cannot imagine not sitting here, casting about for the subject of the day to emerge. Today, as most Sundays lately, I'm continuing to look for ways to take care of my hold on serenity and not allowing the world's ills to dominate my outlook. I read somewhere recently that this state of anxiety is not just happening to those of us here in the US, but it's become prevalent worldwide.

Therefore, what this says to me is that I am actually right in the emotional slipstream that many of us are experiencing. But one thing I have learned in recent years is that I am in charge of where I place my state of mind, and that I can choose to be happy or sad. Although many aspects of life's trajectory are not within my power to change, where I place my attention makes all the difference.

I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today. I can choose which it shall be. Yesterday is dead, tomorrow hasn't arrived yet. I have just one day, today, and I'm going to be happy in it. —Groucho Marx

 Truer words were never spoken (or written). It's what I've decided to concentrate on today as I write here: how to be happy in this moment of time. And I've got a head start on it, since I woke from a good long sleep in weather just right for me: cool with a light breeze fluttering the curtains at the open window. We are in one of the few places in the Northern Hemisphere with decent temperatures right now. I read that Europe is experiencing a serious heat wave, as is much of the US. Not us, though: yesterday was cloudy and we never reached 70°F (21°C). I know some people love the heat, but I'm not one of them. So that is another reason for me to be happy: I live in the Pacific Northwest, the place we chose for our retirement years.

Although I am approaching my eightieth birthday, I am still in good enough health to walk and hike in this beautiful environment. My friends and family keep me entertained and provide plenty of intellectual stimulation. I have subscriptions to many different entertainment venues and watch movies and series that I enjoy very much. Recently I re-watched the musical Chicago and really enjoyed seeing it again; after so many years it was like watching it for the first time. I am so happy that I can do that, watch old favorites or new series, with the touch of a button. 

I am also thrilled that the James Webb telescope has been officially considered an enormous success, and last week the first pictures were released, showing astounding images from galaxies, with light reaching us from more than a billion years ago! That reminds me of how much I appreciate being able to learn about our universe and the concepts that are still puzzling our astronomers. A billion light-years is mind boggling, don't you think? The concept of a billion of anything is hard to grasp. If you were to count a billion seconds, it would take 31 years! So a billion light-years is, well, impossible to wrap my brain around. But we now can see galaxies that far away and that long ago.

What else is happening in the world? Well, I could concentrate on the marvels of science, such as that new telescope, or what is available to me through the internet, which is considerable. I hardly remember a world where Google wasn't available to answer any question almost as quickly as I can frame it. And here I am sitting with a laptop that gives me instant results to my queries. Not to mention that once I finish this post, I will be able to publish it and send it into your home, almost instantaneously. I am grateful that I have lived long enough to see and experience the world of today. This also gives me the ability to know about all the ills of the world, and all those who are suffering, but I also get to choose where I place my attention. I think I'll join Groucho Marx is choosing to be happy today. 

My dear husband turned over and is awake, which is unusual for him at this time. But he'll most likely drift off again while I finish this post. My tea is gone, and this Sunday morning I'll head off to breakfast with my friend John. I'm going to take some time to stretch and do some yoga postures to help keep me limber. So far, my quest for a happy day is working out. I do hope you will have a good day and week ahead before we meet here again next week. Until then, please spend some time with me in being happy. I wish you all good things.

Summertime

California poppies and Dame's rocket

 Although it's not my favorite time of the year, it's certainly the most beautiful, especially here in the Pacific Northwest. I love to see all the flowers after a very wet and cool spring. And we are still having cool weather, although I think we may have begun that period when the rain pretty much stops, and we will continue to warm up, week by week, until we have weather that borders on hot.

But not really hot, not like what is happening in much of the rest of the country, and places around the world that are almost too hot to support human and animal life. With climate change causing disruptions to our weather, too much rain here and scorching droughts there, we are, I fear, going to be forced to get accustomed to change on a large scale. It's scary. I live in a town where home air conditioning is not all that usual, since we have a built-in air conditioner because of onshore flow, breezes that come in off the Pacific Ocean, cool and moist. It happens almost every night; the wind might come from land all day long (offshore flow), and then shifts to onshore flow and give us much cooler temperatures when the sun goes down. I love it!

I've been re-reading a favorite book, partly because I'm lazy and not wanting to start another book that might not deliver what I'm looking for. It wasn't all that long ago that I first read A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki. While rummaging around in my Kindle looking for something to read, I decided that this book was such a winner the first time around that I'd enjoy a second reading. So far, I am. Ozeki's novel was a finalist for the Pulitzer and the Man Booker Prizes. I then read several more of Ozeki's books, but this was the one that I still think about. It's written from the perspective of a sixteen-year-old girl who wrote in her diary, and Ozeki herself narrates the present time. Nao (the teenager) wrapped up the diary and a few other things that somehow washed up on the Canadian shore to be discovered by Ruth. It is likely that Nao was washed away by the tsunami that killed tens of thousands in 2011. But the mystery that is gently revealed in the story still comes to mind. Once I'm done, maybe I'll move onto something new, but for now I am in stuck in Ozeki's novel.

It's not all that easy to take care of myself, my mental state, when the world is in such turmoil, but I'm managing. I am very grateful for my friends and dear life partner, so that I don't have to face everything alone. I'm still limiting the amount of news that I consume, since once you've learned the basic stories, the newscasters just repeat the same stuff over and over. And I am fortunate to have a massage therapist and an acupuncturist who both give me plenty of help in navigating through to the other side, where peace and tranquility reside. Or I could just follow Lily Tomlin's advice.

Reality is the leading cause of stress among those in touch with it. —Lily Tomlin

I read a wonderful and uplifting article about an elderly blind dog who wandered off from her home in Alaska and was given up for dead, but after three weeks she was found by a construction worker who saw her in a ditch and rescued her. Although she had lost lots of weight and was dehydrated, little by little Lulu is recovering. I found the story so moving, I think, because it has a happy ending for everyone. And her family was worried about the vet bills, but members of the community took care of that. It is inspiring to read about people coming together to help each other.

John is not picking me up for breakfast this morning; a friend who is in town has asked him and my fisherman friend Gene to join him at a favorite restaurant, and although I was invited, I decided not to go. It's uncomfortable for me, still, to go into crowded spaces, and more and more people seem to think that the pandemic is over, not wearing masks or keeping distance. The latest Omicron variant is everywhere, and it's especially worrying to think I might get it and bring it home to My Guy. So I am taking precautions and staying home, mostly. In all indoor situations, I'm wearing a mask except to take a sip or two from my coffee cup. It might seem like overkill to some, but it makes me feel better to be cautious.

I continue to be amazed at how quickly time is passing. The week hardly begins and then it's over. When I was working and had a schedule to keep, it seemed like the week had at least one extra day. These days, no sooner is the weekend over, but it's already halfway to the next one before I have a chance to catch up. Is this just because I'm getting older, or what? At least my days are pleasant, and I know that the seasons are only three months long and summertime will be over before I even get used to it. Fall is my favorite season, and it's up next.

Well, this has been one of those posts where I cannot seem to focus on anything special. That's partly because of trying to avoid all the bad news these days. I'm going to see if I can take Lily Tomlin's advice and avoid reality. It helps to have a book like Ozeki's to get lost in. My tea is gone, my partner still sleeps, and since I don't have to finish this quickly, I just might work the Wordle and mosey out of bed, in no hurry to be anywhere special at all.

I do hope you, my dear readers, will not be too disappointed in me not trying to inspire you, but remember that love and joy are not in short supply, and you are sent plenty of both from my small little corner of the world. Until we meet again next week, dear friends, I wish you all good things. Be well.

A life well lived

Eight decades of of life changes you

There is no doubt that I was doted on by my parents. As the firstborn, I think I am the only one who was taken alone for a studio sitting; subsequent photos always have other siblings included. I love looking at how my mother curled my hair into ringlets. So pampered and secure in the love that surrounded me is in every aspect of this brief moment of time, captured in this picture. I was born blessed and surrounded by love.

This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness. —Dalai Lama

Kindness. Of course, that small little deed is more important than just about anything else I can think of. When I was a baby, it surrounded me. That, and laughter and plenty to eat, lots of fascinating toys to play with, a world to discover, and the belief that I was the center of the universe. And here I am today, still the center of the universe, since I'm the one who still sees everything through the lens of my own eyes, through the beliefs of my own heart.

I mentioned a while back that I was reading a book called "Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals," by Oliver Burkeman. I finished it recently, and I'm still pondering some of the concepts he introduced that were new to me. One is the philosophy of Martin Heidegger, who wrote a book in the early twentieth century suggesting that we don't actually have time, but instead, we are time. Somehow that makes sense to me, since the time before I was born and the time after I die are both infinite, and I am a finite being.

That, and the sense that if life has any meaning at all, it is only for the short period during which I am alive that it matters to me. If kindness is a philosophy that one can live by, then being happy and spreading joy into the world might be the only thing my life is about. I can live with that.

Yesterday I walked, as usual for a Saturday, with my friend Melanie. It's now summertime in my part of the world, and although it's more sunny than we usually experience here in the Pacific Northwest, it's not terribly hot. Yesterday we made it to 66°F with a brisk cool breeze and fluffy white clouds scudding across the sky. It was just about perfect, weatherwise. We walked for around five miles in Whatcom Falls Park, where the numbers of people out and about surprised me. Usually we see perhaps a dozen others, but yesterday it seemed like most of the town had also joined us outdoors, wearing summer sandals and shorts, mostly. After our cool and wet spring, everyone is anxious to get outdoors and enjoy the change in weather.

You might notice that when I'm at a loss of what to write about that I often throw in a quote or two. (I just spent a few minutes looking for one but deleted it.) I am especially feeling the need to find some direction for this morning, and there is always a need to remind myself of what is important, as I sit here staring off into the darkness of my bedroom. 

To set the scene, most of you know that my dear partner is asleep next to me. At this time of the year, there is light in the sky that slips through the curtained window, and I start the morning with a cup of tea, which is now finished. I have exactly one half-hour to finish this post before I must get out of bed and get ready for the rest of my day. My friend John will pick me up in front of the apartment so that we can head to Fairhaven for breakfast. We have become so predictable that our barista has our coffee ready for us when we arrive.

A change I can live with

I had decided that I would begin the post with that cute little baby and end it with the reality of today. Mel took this picture of me last Thursday, and it shows that the baby has been given the blessing of a long life, which still continues today. Although nothing is guaranteed, I do know that my life won't be snuffed out prematurely. So many people never get a chance to make it to old age, but I have, and I am trying to spend my days making my world a little better place. 

I started eight decades ago being surrounded by love, plenty to eat, a world to discover, and today I have much the same. With so much that has changed in life, one thing is still the same: I am extremely fortunate. Even if this were to be my last day on earth, I would not want to be anywhere else. Or anyone else. And to have this blog to share with my loved ones (I consider you to be in that group), is an incredible gift to me. I am surrounded by miracles.

Okay, with that realization, I will finish up this post by wishing you and your loved ones to also be surrounded by kindness, and that you will find some way to spread your joy out into the world. Until we meet again next week, I wish you all good things, dear friends.

Peace and Love

Raindrops on Peace and Love

It's the name of this beautiful rose, which I photographed on Friday, after John dropped me off at the Cornwall Rose Garden. So pretty, don't you think?

Love and peace of mind do protect us. They allow us to overcome the problems that life hands us. They teach us to survive... to live now... to have the courage to confront each day. —Bernie Siegel

This has been quite a week of hard news, and I'm working hard to find some peace and love to bolster me. And the Rose Garden handed me this rose to admire, smell, and appreciate. Wouldn't you know it would be entitled "Peace and Love"?

There are plenty of other events going on in the world, but in my own news cycles, with two January 6 hearings that had me wide-eyed at times, the war in Ukraine not going so well, and then Roe v. Wade being overturned, with many more similar rulings likely in our near future, well, I'm finding it hard to just stop and smell the roses.

But really, what else can I do? Yesterday I just had to turn off the news, since the news anchors just keep going over and over the same facts, and after awhile I could feel myself shutting down, a heaviness coming over me as I reached for a glass of wine. Of course that only helped temporarily, and I knew that I needed to face what is bothering me so much. I'm old enough to know that nothing stays the same, life is constantly changing, in flux, and that nothing lasts forever.

On top of all that, we are also experiencing a warm spell that is allowing us here in the Pacific Northwest to share what most of the rest of the country has already been feeling. Until yesterday, we had not gotten much above our normal temperatures, but now we are under a heat advisory until late tomorrow night. Then we'll return to our normal moderate weather, at least for awhile. My friend Melanie and I decided to walk the Interurban trail yesterday, which is shaded and quite comfortable. It was only when we were out in full sun on city pavement that it really felt hot. Plus I was able to stay inside, with fans and cool drinks, where it was quite nice during most of the afternoon.

Last year at this time we had a very unusual heat wave, setting temperature records for highs all over the area. I remember sitting in the living room with the TV on, fans on full blast everywhere, and barely able to tolerate the heat. We even reached triple digits on one day before it let up. We had never before gotten that hot in Bellingham. So, when I look back, I can be grateful that this heat wave is just normal, not exceptional. I do, however, realize that the discomfort we are dealing with is nothing compared to many parts of the world. So yes, I am grateful.

I looked up online what ways people can use to deal with despair and found this wonderful article on Psychology Today, which I also discovered has numerous blogs on every possible human condition. This one, however, is about how to deal with despair, and lists these five coping mechanisms:

(1) Take your despair for a walk. Good advice. I always feel better once I get outdoors and into the beautiful green environment that is my neighborhood. And after a few minutes, my perspective usually changes for the better.

(2) Give your sorrow words. It always helps me to find other people who are feeling the same as I am, and to read words of wisdom from authors and poets who know how to articulate what it means to be a human experiencing a tough time,

(3) Honor your despair. The article points out how pushing away or avoiding the situation doesn't help, but really makes it worse. Everyone in every life will have moments of despair, and acknowledging it actually helps to make it better.

(4) Seek out fellowship. Finding others who you can share your feelings with will definitely help everyone. I spent some time talking with my neighbor yesterday, and both of us shared tears over a glass of wine. Both of us felt somewhat better afterwards, I think.

(5) Avoid toxic positivity. This was a new one for me. I realize after pondering its meaning that what it is saying is that it doesn't help to put a happy face on it when you're feeling really bad. I cannot hide my despair, and I surely shouldn't even try.

Maybe it's time to start to think about all the wonders that surround me here. First of all, I'm sitting up in my bed, as usual, tapping away at my laptop, and looking forward to purchasing a new one in a month or two. I love my MacBook Air from 2019, but now that Apple has upgraded it, I'll be buying a new one. You wouldn't think that three years is a full lifetime for a laptop, but it really is. I use it every day, and it's become the main way that I watch videos. When I binge-watch a series, it's usually on my laptop with headphones. 

I talk to my sister Norma Jean once a month on here, too, and seeing her face in even more detail on FaceTime will be like she's right here with me. She's still swimming a mile every morning, and she looks good, which makes me very happy. My connection to her is essential to my continuing happiness. Between Norma Jean and SG, I have two wonderful people with whom I can share my ups and downs, and that makes all the difference. So, looking at my life from a new perspective, I realize that I will get through this rough patch without any permanent scars (at least that's what I'm hoping). How about you? How do you deal with... whatever? 

And yes, it's that time again. I am finished with my tea, my dear partner still sleeps next to me, and the sun has already raised the temperature, even early in the morning, by a few degrees. I'll put on my Big Girl shorts and sandals and share a nice breakfast with my friend John, before returning home for some good conversation and hugs with my guy. Yes, life is good, still. I have so much gratitude for everything. That includes you, my dear readers, and I do hope you find a way to experience the wonders that are everywhere, if we just stop to look. 

Until we meet again next week, I wish you all good things, and that you will find a way to remain comfortable in your own world. Be well.

Bringing up the past

Norma Jean and me, picture by Daddy

I looked back at previous Father's Day posts, and all of them have pictures I've used before. Maybe it would be fun to remember Daddy from another angle, looking at who he was to those two little girls when we were growing up. For the first seven years of my life, it was just the two of us, and then my sister PJ was born.

He was a big man, especially to us, who were much smaller and dependent on him and Mama for everything. Daddy would often be the one who would send us off to school with our lunch pails, with sandwiches he prepared. He often told me stories of how life was for him when he was a little girl (which of course he wasn't, but I didn't know that then. I thought I'd grow up to be a man like him.)

Daddy was very soft-hearted. He would cry at the drop of a hat and often lost his composure when reading stories to us at bedtime. I don't have any memories of Mama reading to us, but plenty of them when he did. As a child, I didn't wonder about why it was always him, because I thought that it was the same in every family. These days, I do wonder, since I remember that Daddy was a morning person, like I am, and Mama was not. Maybe she had her nose buried in a book she was reading and Daddy preferred reading bedtime stories to us. Who knows?

My parents went on to have a big family of six (seven if you count our sister who died after having been born prematurely and only lived for a few hours), but the second family didn't come along until I was a teenager. My brother Buz was born when I was sixteen, and then the next two sisters were born after I got married and left home myself. I have never been as close to them as I am to Norma Jean, since it was just the two of us for so many years. Daddy looms large in my memories of growing up, although as an officer in the Air Force, he was often absent for months at a time.

Daddy had a darkroom where he developed pictures and was a pretty good photographer. He took many pictures of his two daughters, like the one I've included here, and Mama was always nearby if not prominent in many of them. She was the one who kept us looking presentable and probably sewed those little beach outfits for us. I well remember the smell of the chemicals in the darkroom, although I was only allowed in a few times. It's a very clear memory, flat pages with the images slowly appearing as he carefully worked with them until they were developed to his satisfaction and then placed on a clothesline to dry. I suppose there are still darkrooms like his somewhere, but it's really a relic of the past for most of us. Now I take pictures with a simple click of my camera phone and if I don't like it, off it goes into the ether. No more waiting to see what you captured.

Daddy liked to read, but nothing like the way my mother did. She had reams of books from the library surrounding her, and she would read in bed, while Daddy was asleep next to her. (This was when we were older and no longer had bedtime stories read to us.) The activity never seemed to bother him, and I remember sitting and talking (quietly) to Mama at night while Daddy snored away. As a teenager, Daddy introduced me to his favorite science fiction books, some of which I have reread as an adult. I think he would have loved the way so many of his children became avid readers. He was a philosopher at heart, too. He filled my head with some amazing ideas, mostly when he'd become a little inebriated, which might explain why many of those thoughts are still so vivid in my mind. I blame Daddy for my overactive imagination.

Daddy was only 62 when he died, and I was 36. My sister Fia was only 16. Events like these take a huge toll on us all, but at least I was an adult and had some life experience that helped me put it into perspective. My youngest siblings, Fia  and Markee, were just high school kids. We all suffered through, and gradually, as it always happens, we took up the threads of our lives and moved on. Mama was devastated, having lost her husband of 37 years, but she also managed to establish a good life for herself in the fourteen years she had left on the planet.

Mama was only 69 when she died. It astounds me to realize she was only 55 when she became a widow. To me, at the time, she seemed much older than that. Of course, I realize that as I grow older myself, what once seemed to be ancient is now, well, not so much. Someone who is 55 seems young as I look back at the almost three decades that have transpired since I was that age. When I see in the obituaries that someone died at 85 (for example), it feels a little premature. But it's not, is it? In the Bible (Psalm 90:10) the length of a life is supposedly 70 or 80.  

The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.

Although my father didn't get to be very old, he lived a very full life, filled with love and laughter, family and friends. After he retired from the Air Force, he continued to work at General Dynamics (GD), which is now Lockheed. Although I had left home long before and wasn't around at that time, my brother saw this side of him: he often piloted his boat to work, since GD was located across Lake Worth, where my family lived. It was remarkable watching him take off into a strong wind with lots of white cap waves on the lake, on his way to the office.

That's a memory my brother has of our father that I didn't know anything about. I had started making my own way in the world. And now, here today, many many years later, I'm taking this time to remember and reflect on a wonderful man, my father, who gave me part of my genetic makeup (along with Mama), and who counseled me over the years we had together. The sense of loss is gone, replaced with a deep appreciation and indebtedness for having experienced it at all.

 

Thanks, Daddy, for being my father and giving me so many vivid memories of you. I hope that someday in one of our future lives we will again have a chance to compare notes about what we learned this time around. The bonds of love and happiness are very strong when I think about my childhood, and you are very much a central figure even today. 

If there is a heaven, I like to think my parents are together on the celestial golf course, where long drives and accurate putts are the norm. And that Daddy outdrives Mama most of the time.

And that's it, for this Father's Day remembrance, and me hoping that your week is a good one, with lots of love and laughter in whatever is just right for you. My dear partner still sleeps quietly next to me as I finish up this post, and I look forward to the rest of my day ahead. Until we meet again next week, dear friends, I wish you call good things. Be well.

Roses and rain

Cornwall Rose Garden first blooms

We seem to be stuck in a never-ending loop of rain one day, partial sunshine the next, and cool temperatures overall. We're lucky if we are able to leave our gloves at home. But I do know that I'll be complaining about the heat at some point this summer, the start of which is less than two weeks away. We have yet to see any really warm weather. I've learned that in the local gardens, everything is delayed one to three weeks because of the cooler and wetter weather. 

I really don't mind, since I am not a fan of heat. But there are many people who miss the summer sun and warmth. My favorite temperature is right around 60°F (15°C). Right now my old home state of Colorado is baking in triple-digit temperatures, which is one reason why we decided to move to the Pacific Northwest when I retired from my job at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder. We've lived here fourteen years now and we've never been sorry we moved here.

Today I think I'd like to explore some old memories of memorable events that I've experienced in the past. As many of you know, for more than two decades I was an active skydiver, and for many of those years I was an instructor. For years I taught the First Jump Course at Mile-Hi Skydiving Center in Longmont, Colorado and took students out on their first jumps. These were not tandem jumps, since I don't think I was ever capable of such feats of strength. Few women are tandem instructors; instead, I became an AFF (accelerated freefall) instructor through a rigorous process. I failed the first time I took the week-long course. But in June 1994, I became licensed to take students on their first jumps.

Looking back, I realize I truly enjoyed that time in my life, and the people I taught were fully capable of saving their own lives in case of an emergency. The first line of defense is always teaching a person what to do in every possible circumstance. Since they would need to land a parachute for the first time, they were given a harness and container system with a large main and reserve parachute and needed to know how to use them. Once they were trained on how to activate the main, and what to do in case it failed, I made sure they had practiced enough to gain muscle memory in that event. I taught hundreds of students.

There is a real sense of accomplishment when you help someone learn a new skill and know that if they needed to, they could carry out the appropriate activity competently. Of course, I had to learn all this myself in my early days of my career. Under my tutelage, few students ever had to use their reserve, but there were plenty of other things that could happen. The way AFF works is this: two instructors are holding on to either side of the harness of the student, right at the center of gravity at the hip. Then the threesome moves to the door of the airplane and jumps out together. The student is taught to give the count and upon exit, thrust their hips forward as they leave the airplane. This helps us keep the threesome stable, and just like that, we're in freefall. The student then has tasks to do: touch the main ripcord handle three times, look at the instructors for instructions, and then to keep looking at the altimeter on their wrist to keep track of their position in freefall. We exited at 13,000 feet and by the time they get to 5,000 (about 30 seconds later), they were to pull the main ripcord. This would then cause the two instructors to let go as the student is pulled out of their hands and is now under a main parachute.

At least 99% of the time, that is exactly what happens on a student's first jump. While the student is left to orient themselves and fly the parachute back to the Drop Zone (DZ), the two instructors track away and open their own mains, locate the student (now above them), and fly back to where we began the adventure. The student had a radio attached to their chest strap, and someone on the ground usually directed them back to the DZ, while we landed ourselves safely. I would take as many as six or seven students in a single day during the long summer season.

It makes me tired just to think of how much work that all was, but I was younger then and could deal with it well. Tired and happy was the way I usually went home after a long day at the DZ. Occasionally a student would twist an ankle or land in an unceremonious heap, but hardly anybody was anything other than ecstatic and happy after having accomplished such a life-changing event. A good number of them returned the following week for another jump.

It was an exciting time in my own life, and I am very glad I never had to deal with a student fatality. One time a student was flying his parachute back to the DZ and hit a barbed-wire fence and ended up with a broken pelvis. That was the worst accident I remember, although other instructors did have students with more serious injuries. Broken bones were the most common, and the student was whisked off to the local hospital. Sometimes they would return to proudly show off their cast and let us know they were all right. But injuries didn't happen often; it was much more usual for the students and instructors to be just fine after a day of jumping out of airplanes.

Today, my excitement comes from more sedate activities: wearing myself out on a long hike or learning a new yoga posture. How grateful I am for those years of such adventure and accomplishment. Those memories will never fade completely, as long as I am alive, and it gives me great pleasure to reminisce with you, and relive those days.

With that, I've gone as far with this digital adventure as I can for today, but perhaps I'll recall more of these activities in the future and share them with you. For now, I've got to begin the rest of my day, now that my tea is gone and my dear partner still sleeps next to me. It's time to move on. I do hope that you will find happiness and love in your week ahead, and when we meet again next week that you will have had some adventures of your own. Until then, dear friends, I wish you all good things. Be well.

Four thousand weeks

Whatcom Falls on Saturday

Yesterday Melanie, Dianne and I walked just under five miles in Whatcom Falls Park, stopping (as usual) in front of Whatcom Falls to see how the water is running. As we expected, it's totally roaring, with all the rain we've had lately. We were so lucky to have had a dry day on Thursday, when the Senior Trailblazers had their annual Start the Summer potluck and hike. I joined the group, but Mel went out on a solo hike. The group was really large, with around fifty Senior Trailblazers from two different hiking groups all gathered together. It's too many people for comfort on a regular hike these days, but I sure enjoyed myself. You can read all about it on that link.

But today I'm going to talk about time, once again. The title of this post is referring to the number of weeks that a usual mortal gets to spend on earth during one lifetime. One of my blogging friends pointed me towards a book by that name: Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman. And you know how much I enjoy writing about, and trying to figure out, what the heck the whole concept of time really means.

Although I haven't finished this book yet, I'm finding it fascinating to consider how time has been perceived in earlier civilizations. It's interesting to think what it was like before people had any sort of clocks or need for them. In medieval times, people woke at sunrise and went to bed when the sun went down. Burkeman says that monks had to figure out how to get up before the sunrise, so they assigned a monk to stay awake all night and watch the stars to tell when it they should wake up, but if he fell asleep or it was cloudy, it didn't work. I laughed at that, realizing that something else would have to be considered. We humans are nothing if not a resourceful lot. 

But to come all the way from sleepy monks to thinking of us as being stuck on a conveyor belt that constantly speeds up to help us get everything in our lives done, well, it's a real stretch. When I consider how little actual time we humans have to get anything done before we die, it's amazing that we actually accomplish anything. I am beginning to understand why some people have long to-do lists and are constantly trying to keep up within the constriction of our short lives. Four thousand weeks is surprisingly brief, isn't it?

I looked up on one of my favorite sites, timeanddate.com, how many weeks I've been alive and found that I've already had 4,184 weeks of life and have another 26 weeks or so before I turn eighty (and might have another 500+ weeks after that. Who knows?) It's not much time, but then again, the whole of human civilization is only four to seven million years old. We are definitely a young race, but look at how much we have accomplished, both good and bad. We've changed the entire world, and explored much of the universe beyond, but look at what we have done with time itself. We have become its slave.

There is an alternative: the unfashionable but powerful notion of letting time use you, approaching life not as an opportunity to implement your predetermined plans for success but as a matter of responding to the needs of your place and your moment in history. ― Oliver Burkeman

And we are actually standing at a critical place in history: right at the end of a pandemic and trying to figure out how to use our limited time more appropriately. I know that I am endeavoring to enjoy each day, especially when I consider how lucky I am, having a warm and safe roof over my head, enough food to eat every day (too much sometimes), a partner to share my days with, and friends and family who care about me, and whom I also care about. I can still read, even if my eyesight is not perfect, and I can sit in the dark and type on my laptop and reach out to infinity through the miracle of the internet.

But still, I am also lucky because I can look back on a life well lived, with lots of memories of people and places that I cherish, and it feels like enough to me. I had a productive career as an editor and helped to create many books that now sit on countless shelves; I had a productive avocation as a skydiver, piloting canopies, teaching others how to fly their bodies in freefall, and I am satisfied. Getting up and greeting each day with a sense of wonder and happiness, happy to have another day to find a way to manage time instead of letting it manage me. I'm determined to change my vision of time from being on a conveyor belt into one of being a creature IN time, with infinite possibilities ahead.

Using that calculator on the timeanddate.com website, I realize that I've also been alive for almost 30,000 days (29,040 to be exact), and have breathed in and out for 41,900,000 minutes (almost 42 million!) and find it possible to inspire myself to continue creating many more Sunday posts, one a week here on this blog. Why not? I enjoy it, and some of my followers enjoy it too. While my time might not be infinite, it's enough once I step off the conveyor belt and consider the expanse my consciousness can reach. 

I have all the time I need. And I am hoping that you will consider for yourselves what you would like to accomplish in your own life, hoping that the possibility of rethinking your life to become one filled with infinite possibility will give you another way to ponder how to spend your days. It's possible to find fulfillment with every breath, if we allow it.

It's time (!) to wind up this post and begin the rest of my Sunday. I do hope you will find love and joy in your day, and that you will smile as you consider your options. I am listening to the drum of rain on the roof, and realize that I'll need to wrap myself in some of my rain gear when I go outside to meet my friend John for a breakfast trip to Fairhaven. Until we meet again in another week, dear friends, I wish you all good things. Be well.