My January birthday, thoughts of a “new year”, combined with the book I’m reading, have created a mind full of musings about how I spend my time. I’m reading Being Mortal by Atul Gawande. To be honest, I read the beginning of it months ago, but put it down and picked up something lighter. The topic is aging, frailty and the realities of one’s declining years, and since by definition I’m “elderly”, it was not relaxing reading! For some reason I am finishing it now from a more detached state of mind, and am grateful to have the distance of good health as I navigate the realities that may face me.
My
intention when I started to write about the “stairway to heaven” was to help me
be fully conscious of the precious present – the time I have, right now! My birthday week provided several very
different opportunities to seize the moment and look for the joy in the
mundane. I keep chickens, ducks and
rabbits in a large animal pen in my yard.
Dabbling at a little “backyard farming” is a hobby, but as anyone who
has ever done it will tell you, there’s work involved. I can let my vegetables go for a few days,
but animals give you an every day task.
Some days it just means a few minutes to feed, water and pick up eggs,
other days it involves some heavy lifting. I have plans to re-do the pen, adding more
solid roofing (not just wire) over the whole area, not just the coop and
hutch. In preparation for this I took
off some temporary plastic roofing panels.
Then it rained – for days
It
stopped raining the weekend before my birthday and was supposed to rain again
that week, so I had a brief window to work.
First I had to muck out the mixture of straw, mud and poop that covered
much of the pen. This involved a
wheelbarrow, a large shovel and a lot of effort. The weight of the water made
my usual task of raking it out seem like child’s play. Fortunately I have knee high work boots and
heavy gloves so I could wade right into the muck. As I was shoveling, hauling and dumping it in
the compost pile, I had the same feeling I do when working out – satisfaction
that I can still work this hard and pleasure knowing it would soon be over!
I
finished on my birthday by putting up a temporary sheet of heavy mil plastic
over the whole area. I fit in my Monday
weight lifting class and tea with my BFF Rose who gave me beautiful
earrings. My daughter Lauren came over
to prune roses (a great birthday gift) and our son Max and our daughter-in-law
Jess took us to a small restaurant for a lovely dinner. I enjoyed every piece of my birthday – the
ordinary and the special. I am reminded
of some of the things I just read in Being Mortal. Studies show that life threatening illness at
any age, and aging, give people a shared perspective on what’s important. It is not achieving and acquiring but comfort
and companionship that people want. “…
as your horizons contract – when you see the future ahead of you as finite and
uncertain – your focus shifts to the here and now, to everyday pleasures and
the people closest to you.” That’s how I
spent my birthday, that’s how I strive to live – with consciousness and
gratitude tor everyday pleasures and the people closest to me.
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| Chickens looking for tasty treats in the muck! |
