September 8, 2021
The heat and humidity for the
moment are gone, and it sure is nice to have the outside air cooler and fresher.
We took the opportunity on a lovely, breezy day this past week to prop open our
front and back doors as well as a couple of windows. I’m a huge fan of airing
out the house on a regular basis.
My daughter feels the same way,
and her devotion to this custom isn’t relegated to the good weather. She will choose
a Saturday in the middle of winter when she has the day off, to open both doors
for an hour or two, very early in the morning before David and I even get out
of bed. Then she’ll close them after the house has been aired, and (hopefully) the
heat comes back up before we get out of bed.
And as this is a planned event,
she warns us the night before.
I’ve sat out on our front
porch a bit more over the last week than I had previously, because it has been so
much nicer out. I’ve taken my blanket with me, of course, because I do have to
guard against drafts on my knees, primarily. I love my front porch. I can’t
tell you how much time, over the years, I’ve spent out there. David and I will
talk there, or we’ll just sit side by side and read. We have a nice neighborhood.
Every property on our street is neatly kept, there’s no litter on the streets,
and there is an abundance of flora to please the eye.
The last few months have
taught me something new. But it’s not necessarily something I was happy to
learn. I’ve added to the list of conditions that exacerbate my arthritis one
more thing: humidity.
What I find completely
interesting is that I don’t have to be outside in the heat and humidity for
it to affect my joints. As with the cool rainy days of spring and those later
in the fall, this building I live in, complete with efficient central air and a
relatively new gas-fired furnace, does not protect my arthritic joints a whole
lot from the affect of the outdoor elements.
Now, the house isn’t
hermetically sealed, so that could be a part of the problem. It’s an old house,
and there are cracks here and there, and maybe the doors don’t fit as tightly
as they once did, but still, there’s a part of me that wants to protest that
when I am inside, darn it, the weather should not be able to touch me. My
daughter thought that perhaps it’s not the rain or the cool or the hot humidity
by themselves that get to me. She thought it might be the barometric pressure.
Maybe she’s right.
We are approaching the end of this
gardening season, and just as it was last year, our box gardens provided us
with the unsurpassed pleasure of being able to eat fresh tomatoes, and green
beans, in abundance. It kept us busy and made us feel just that little bit more
self-sufficient. This is especially true for my husband. Lately he’s been
feeling his age, and while his COPD hasn’t progressed to the point that he
needs breathing equipment yet, he had been feeling useless. Those gardens make
him feel useful, and for that alone, they’re worth more than the sum total of
their parts. He’s in charge of them, and does the work, and so the credit for
the fresh produce is all his.
He made the decision to get
the lumber next year to build a box to grow potatoes in. You may recall that we
used a large plastic tub this year as a planting box for the spuds, and we did
get some potatoes this season. But he believes he’d have a better yield if he
planted them the way he had originally planned to do. He's also going to do
some more research over the winter to see what other kinds of veggies he might
be able to grow. He does keep busy most of the time on YouTube, and that
pleases me. I also do my best to keep busy by writing, and playing a few games,
and doing what chores around the house that I can manage to do.
It’s important, when you’re
older, to feel useful. It’s important to feel as if your life has value—that you
matter.
I’ve always believed that our
seniors should feel that value, simply because they lived their lives working
and raising their families, contributing to their communities as their talents
allowed, voting and paying taxes. Now I understand that while I can lay claim
to all of that for myself, there is something about getting older I didn’t,
when I was younger, understand at all.
A younger person might believe
that a senior should be able to stand on their laurels for all they’ve done over
the course of lives; that they should be content to enjoy the rest they’ve
earned.
But now I understand that said
senior will, as likely as not, wave that idea off and declare that they haven’t
finished doing yet, thank you very much.
David and I are two such
seniors.
Love,
Morgan
http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury
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