"I got nothing to do but today...."
Steven Stills
Two days off work, though it will really only count as one extra day as I have to work Sunday for the Foster Parent Appreciation event. My daughter and I were supposed to go the water park, but the distance combined with the prediction for thunderstorms caused us to reschedule. I have an entire day to myself a day, an unplanned day with no expectations or obligations. "Why," I ask myself, "are these so rare." And so, as I debate what I should do with an entire unplanned day, I decide to ride to Salem for a donut and let the day unfold from there. I love donuts, and a fifty mile ride will certainly give me the justification to eat one, if I even need a justification.
The weather is a bit cooler than it has been, though it is still humid. No jacket or vest is necessary. Shorts and a light jersey. Everything is green. I pass fields of corn and soybeans, hay and wheat, before getting to Eden Road and the forest. I am thankful for those people that still work the land, mostly male in this area.
I think about retirement. I don't want to wait until I retire to think about retirement and the life I want to have. I have gradually been trying to decide what type of things I want to do with my time, and I decide that during nine months of the year, this might become a once weekly activity. Fifty miles is enough to stretch the legs and to make you feel as if you have exercised, without leaving you with the residual tiredness that sometimes comes with longer distances. I know I will want to ride with one of the bicycle clubs at least a few days weekly, but I also know my proclivity toward solitude, quiet time with just me and my bike and the road. The thought of a new beginning, a new life, excites me, and I wonder how and if I will change. Oh, I know my basic personality is not going to change, but interests and activities do change. I think how disappointed I was looking into adult education to see that this has been ended at our local university. Going back to school, but without the tests and tensions, was alluring to me. I keep a list of things that I might want to do, and despite the fact the non-stressful option is gone, school remains on the list as a possibility.
I am startled from my thoughts by a deer as startled by me as I am by her, powerful haunches moving her deeply into the woods and into safety. I notice a multitude of road kill, and it saddens me. I think of something my husband said about aging and how he grew to feel more empathy for others, including animals, as he aged. So much wisdom he passed along. I think about how I miss my husband, and as I pass the sweet clover think as I often do of how after a ride I would tell him what bee pasture was in bloom. I don't talk about him much to others anymore, people are uncomfortable with it, the depth of my emotions even after all this time, and I no longer grieve him so, but I suppose I will always miss him.
I miss the whisper of his hands as they caressed me, as light as butterfly wings, and I think of how before we moved and our work schedules changed, he would kneel beside the bed and gently kiss me before leaving for work each day, even if he thought I was sleeping. I miss being cared for. I came to treasure him more and more because he treasured me. Love is different as the years pass: deeper, more accepting. I would not give up the passion of those early days for anything, but what came afterward was something I did not even know could exist, and I am glad our love had time to mature. Would that we could have grown even older together, but twas not to be. And yet again I am thankful that he gave me a bicycle and encouraged my riding, as if he knew the solace and happiness I would find here.
I see three dogs laying in the road ahead, stretched out, enjoying the summer weather, and I sing to warn them of my approach. They jump up barking. They are the most aggressive of all the dogs I see today, but never really a threat. I dismount and walk a short space keeping my bike between me and them. One dog, solid black, obviously with lab in him, has ticks hanging all over him,bulging tan with blood there are two right near his eye. He obviously has been hit or had some problem, one hind leg is held up to avoid touch with the ground. Another has some eye problem, the whites of his eyes are blood red and make me hurt to look at them. The third only appears a bit malnourished. As I often do, I ask myself why people get animals if they are not going to take care of them. It does not surprise me. I work with children who people have but don't always treasure, but it still saddens me. Retirement again comes to mind and how happy I will be to leave that behind me. I will miss the children, but I will not miss how their eyes sometimes haunt me, and I will not miss my inability to make things better. Sometimes things are broken that can't be fixed, merely mended, and sometimes they are broken even past mending.
I reach the donut shop and buy a donut and some cookies to take to a friend and a drink, and I sit on the store step of the closed store next door and enjoy every bite of my favorite carmel iced roll. I decide to take another route home. I pass Amish wagon after Amish wagon on that route, many with young couples or a woman with children, and of course green manure scatters the road, its scent filtering in the morning breeze and reminding me of my days working in the stables. I laugh as I wonder if there is any other animal whose excrement I would think of as smelling good. If I were wealthy, this would be one thing I would like to have in retirement, a horse of my own, but I fear it is way beyond my means. I wish these young families all the best and hope they appreciate what a special time it is when families are young. There is a comfort when your children grow and you reach the point where you know they will miss you if something happens to you but that they will be fine, that they can care for themselves. Still, there is a closeness when they are little that recedes so gradually that it is as you wake up from a dream and it is gone. Can you treasure something you are not even aware that you have?
I ride to Sharon's house and knock, but there is nobody home. I leave the cookies on a bag on her front porch chair and leave a voice mail for her that she has a present when she gets home. And then I ride the few miles home. I have decided the rest of the day, other than mowing the lawn and weed-eating, will be devoted to reading and perhaps a movie. As Steve Stills says, "I've got nothing to do but today."
I think about retirement. I don't want to wait until I retire to think about retirement and the life I want to have. I have gradually been trying to decide what type of things I want to do with my time, and I decide that during nine months of the year, this might become a once weekly activity. Fifty miles is enough to stretch the legs and to make you feel as if you have exercised, without leaving you with the residual tiredness that sometimes comes with longer distances. I know I will want to ride with one of the bicycle clubs at least a few days weekly, but I also know my proclivity toward solitude, quiet time with just me and my bike and the road. The thought of a new beginning, a new life, excites me, and I wonder how and if I will change. Oh, I know my basic personality is not going to change, but interests and activities do change. I think how disappointed I was looking into adult education to see that this has been ended at our local university. Going back to school, but without the tests and tensions, was alluring to me. I keep a list of things that I might want to do, and despite the fact the non-stressful option is gone, school remains on the list as a possibility.
I am startled from my thoughts by a deer as startled by me as I am by her, powerful haunches moving her deeply into the woods and into safety. I notice a multitude of road kill, and it saddens me. I think of something my husband said about aging and how he grew to feel more empathy for others, including animals, as he aged. So much wisdom he passed along. I think about how I miss my husband, and as I pass the sweet clover think as I often do of how after a ride I would tell him what bee pasture was in bloom. I don't talk about him much to others anymore, people are uncomfortable with it, the depth of my emotions even after all this time, and I no longer grieve him so, but I suppose I will always miss him.
I miss the whisper of his hands as they caressed me, as light as butterfly wings, and I think of how before we moved and our work schedules changed, he would kneel beside the bed and gently kiss me before leaving for work each day, even if he thought I was sleeping. I miss being cared for. I came to treasure him more and more because he treasured me. Love is different as the years pass: deeper, more accepting. I would not give up the passion of those early days for anything, but what came afterward was something I did not even know could exist, and I am glad our love had time to mature. Would that we could have grown even older together, but twas not to be. And yet again I am thankful that he gave me a bicycle and encouraged my riding, as if he knew the solace and happiness I would find here.
I see three dogs laying in the road ahead, stretched out, enjoying the summer weather, and I sing to warn them of my approach. They jump up barking. They are the most aggressive of all the dogs I see today, but never really a threat. I dismount and walk a short space keeping my bike between me and them. One dog, solid black, obviously with lab in him, has ticks hanging all over him,bulging tan with blood there are two right near his eye. He obviously has been hit or had some problem, one hind leg is held up to avoid touch with the ground. Another has some eye problem, the whites of his eyes are blood red and make me hurt to look at them. The third only appears a bit malnourished. As I often do, I ask myself why people get animals if they are not going to take care of them. It does not surprise me. I work with children who people have but don't always treasure, but it still saddens me. Retirement again comes to mind and how happy I will be to leave that behind me. I will miss the children, but I will not miss how their eyes sometimes haunt me, and I will not miss my inability to make things better. Sometimes things are broken that can't be fixed, merely mended, and sometimes they are broken even past mending.
I reach the donut shop and buy a donut and some cookies to take to a friend and a drink, and I sit on the store step of the closed store next door and enjoy every bite of my favorite carmel iced roll. I decide to take another route home. I pass Amish wagon after Amish wagon on that route, many with young couples or a woman with children, and of course green manure scatters the road, its scent filtering in the morning breeze and reminding me of my days working in the stables. I laugh as I wonder if there is any other animal whose excrement I would think of as smelling good. If I were wealthy, this would be one thing I would like to have in retirement, a horse of my own, but I fear it is way beyond my means. I wish these young families all the best and hope they appreciate what a special time it is when families are young. There is a comfort when your children grow and you reach the point where you know they will miss you if something happens to you but that they will be fine, that they can care for themselves. Still, there is a closeness when they are little that recedes so gradually that it is as you wake up from a dream and it is gone. Can you treasure something you are not even aware that you have?
I ride to Sharon's house and knock, but there is nobody home. I leave the cookies on a bag on her front porch chair and leave a voice mail for her that she has a present when she gets home. And then I ride the few miles home. I have decided the rest of the day, other than mowing the lawn and weed-eating, will be devoted to reading and perhaps a movie. As Steve Stills says, "I've got nothing to do but today."
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