April 15, 2026
Life ebbs and flows, doesn’t
it? You hit a point in time when it seems as if every day there’s another
something new to be handled. Appointments to attend, meetings to navigate,
chores to be seen to or arranged to be seen to. The serenity of a steady
schedule will elude you, so you might as well not even long for that scarce
commodity “peace and quiet.”
Then before you know it, you
hit a calm patch, sigh with relief, and trust it only after a few days have
elapsed without any hair-on-fire moments.
There are ebbs and flows with
the weather, as well. David and I have gone from: listening in almost-disbelief
as our daughter described the older clients she sees. Folks who are either too
chilled or too warm, depending entirely upon their physiology and on any given
day; to understanding that little thing completely and believing it normal.
And it’s likely because her
clients are mostly elderly, she doesn’t even bat an eye when she comes downstairs
on a very nice day to find one or both of her parents under a blanket.
It can be a challenge to keep
yourself steady these days, too. At least I have found it so. I have noticed
lately that I don’t naturally cope well when things go off the rails as I used
to. After identifying that new little foible, I’ve tried different methods to
get myself back on an even keel.
I’ve found taking a few minutes
to sit quietly and just let myself breathe helps. I take note of my feet on the
floor, and my inhalations, and I wait until I’ve mentally chased away the seeds
of panic that are seeking to sow themselves into my psyche. It mostly works.
Patience, that Holy Grail of
human attributes, continues to grow, slowly, day by day. There was a time that I
had very little of that precious substance. Lately I’ve figured out that of all
the personal traits that can serve me the most, that one, patience, is pretty
close to the top of the list.
We’re chugging along through
the month of April at a steady pace. There are only a handful of television
shows we watch in the evenings—David watches more as he loves to stream, but he
does that on his own and on his computer. The ones we watch together in the
evening are winding down, now. Two have already ended their seasons, and the
rest will be there by mid May.
One of the programs I like the
best—The Voice—changed it’s viewing time from 8 in the evening, to 9 for its
two hour show. Egads! I can report that I am morphing into my mother, because it
was a struggle staying awake for the entire program. Now, I do tape it via our
cable company’s DVR feature. That is a precautionary measure. If something
comes up and we can’t watch on any given night, I know we won’t miss it.
I could have chosen to seek an
earlier bedtime, but that likely wouldn’t have worked. You see, after we’re
done our TV viewing on any given night, we retreat to our respective computers….and
our respective sly and alluring rabbit holes.
Day by day, the sun rises a
little earlier and sets a little later as Planet Earth makes its way around the
sun. We don’t notice the changes all that much right now: the sun rose here
today at 6:32 am and will set again at 8:00 pm; tomorrow those times will be
6:30 am and 8:02 pm. Incrementally more “daylight” that we only tend to notice
after we’re further along into the spring, and in summer and the comparisons to
early spring are no longer incremental.
If you’re wanting just “ten
more minutes” of sunlight, simply wait a few days.
David and I both enjoyed the
blast from the past—the Artemis II mission. We watched the blast-off, and the
splash down, as well as taking in whatever news items were broadcast—including a
clip showing the astronauts’ conversation with our Prime Minister, Mark Carney.
It was a nice distraction just
when we needed one and reminded us of something fundamental. Not much,
especially when it comes to humans and human nature, is ever truly brand new.
We have been here before. We
likely will be again. It’s up to the most astute among us to take notes.
Love,
Morgan
http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury
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