Old Dog/New Tricks

"Those who seek growth, embrace life and learn from the journey."

“No matter where you are in life right now, no matter who you are, no matter how old you are – it is never too late to be who you are meant to be.” Esther and Jerry Hicks

Well who'da thunk it?  My couch potato hubby has turned into a dedicated walker. He is by nature a confirmed introvert, comfortable in his nest.  At one time in the not too distant past I had to drag him kicking and screaming, grumbling and moaning, for a stroll around the neighborhood.   Psychologists say it takes, on average, 21 days of a repeated practice for an action to become a habit. These gurus never met my slightly obsessive/compulsive hubby. We started with a daily one mile jaunt. I'll admit it took a bit of prodding the first day to get him out the door, but within a couple of days it was he who was prodding me.

I sensed that walking had "stuck" when he asked for new sweats for Christmas, something with a hood. Granted, he sports a Unabomber look, but a little wind and chill doesn't stop him.

Then, one day, I returned home from work and he casually reported, "CoCo and I had an adventure today."

"Really?" I asked. "Did she go to the drive-thru with you?"

"No. We walked all the way up to the high school."

What!!!??? They walked...without me! Don't get me wrong--I wasn't resentful. Just mildly, well...shocked.

Clearly, my hubby's daily walk has become a spiritual practice. More times than not, when I work the early shift, hubby and CoCo Chanel head out on their own. Most days, their one mile stretches into two.

And I am so...proud. Not that I had much to do with this healthier lifestyle choice. I believe the seed of being a walker hid within my hubby's soul all along, waiting for the right moment of cultivation. And I marvel at the miracle our Creator has awakened in him. I stand in wonder that after all these years he still surprises me with growth and change.

A little epilogue to these observations:

Last week I joined hubby and the puppy for the first time in several days. As we rounded a corner, blocks from the house, a woman I'd never met called out, "Hi, CoCo!" and approached to pet our little diva.

"Making friends, are we?" I teased him.

"Everybody loves CoCo," hubby murmured.

I know better than to mistrust this love of my life whom I married thirty-one years ago, but I might need to rethink the introvert assessment. I cannot imagine what other seeds the Source might decide to nurture. Hmmm...

The Kitchen Garden Novice: Along the Way

Did you feel it?  The excitement in the air approached ebullience, beginning Thursday evening. I was driving home from the grocery store when traffic slowed to a crawl.  Neighbors whom I'd never met

wandered out of their homes, looking...up.                                           

Something about the balloon festival brings out the inner toddler in all of us. From the moment I spotted the first gliding orb of silk, my spirit became...well...light.  I felt like a kid again, hearing rumors the traveling Labor Day carnival was back in town. As evidenced by the stopped cars, lawn chairs in the front yards, and the squeals of children others shared my joy.  For one weekend, instead of a humdrum trip to work, I looked forward to the drive (although I stayed off the highway for as long as possible. I'm sure the city's fender-bender rate increased exponentially for the last four days. Any insurance actuaries out there?)



Hubby and I once took a hot-air balloon trip on our twentieth anniversary over Lake Tahoe. It was, without a doubt, a "bucket-list worthy" experience. We're not in the financial position to repeat that thrill anytime soon, but I wonder if I truly appreciated the trip back then.  It seems I now truly relish the brilliant colors of the silk, the quiet whoosh of the burners, and the awe those balloons inspire in each of us, the neck-craning onlookers.



And just like Christmas, I wish the spirit of Balloon Fest could last all year long. Sigh....

Here's to Another Trip Around the Sun

Happy New Year!

Before you jump to conclusions, let me assure you this is NOT another blog dedicated to someone's pathetic attempt at making/keeping New Year resolutions. Not to belittle those who take their resolutions quite seriously, but I guess I'm not the resolute type. I do respect the concept. Yet, I've always thought that commitments made simply because it's the first day of a new year are doomed to fail. What magical, mystical power does the stroke of midnight, on this particular day, conjure, anyway?

When you think about it, the concept of a calendar "year" is a fairly meaningless abstraction. Since the earliest civilizations, humans have created their own calendars as a structure to explain change of seasons, lunar cycles, solar patterns, and the position of the stars. If mankind could explain/contain such universal things, then it followed that mankind might harness...well... mayhem.  (And we can all see how well that worked out.)  But I digress.

So this past week when the island of Samoa decided to "skip a day," I'm sure it had Gregorian monks and Mayan holy men spinning in their graves.  By dropping one day from their year, the Samoans thumbed their noses at the calendar and placed themselves at the front of the line in the world trade markets. Now that's thinking outside of the calendar box. Samoa waited until December 30-31 for the transition, making them one of the first countries in the world to ring in the new year. Talk about getting a jump on the party!

But what of those Samoans whose birthdays and anniversaries fell on the 30th? Weren't they left feeling a bit...well...uncelebrated? Then again, it might be a gift. You could claim that you're 39 for another year. And if your husband is asked how long you've been married, well who can blame him if he gets it wrong?

The concept of skipping a day kindled whimsical conversation around our backyard firepot New Years Eve. If you could get a do-over for 2011, what day would you like to skip altogether? Hubby's answer was quick and decisive.

"I would have skipped the day I spent prepping for my colonoscopy."                 

"What if you could go the opposite way and stretch one day into two?" I asked.

"I would want to go back to July 4th when we were back in Missouri with the family."

Both good choices. "How about you? What day would you slow down?" Hubby countered.

"Probably our daughter's wedding day," I said, laughing. "It was all such a blur--I should like to at least remember some of the day."
"And what day would you have skipped?" Hubby asked.

I searched the cobwebs upstairs for any memory of a day in the past year so dark, so painful that I'd prefer to wipe it off the calendar. It was a hard year for a lot of folks. I thought of the residents in Japan and Joplin who had lost everything to natural disaster. I remembered the Americans who had lost their jobs and then their homes. And I recalled the losses of so many of my friends and families this past year--personal health crises, failed marriages, and the passing of beloved mothers, fathers, and sons. So much sorrow. What one day would I choose to erase?

"Sweetie?" Hubby prodded.

"I wouldn't skip a single day," I murmured. That's right. As bad as things were for many, how do you change the course of life by erasing one day? And how do you savor the joy of a 4th of July or a daughter's wedding, without first tasting the salty tears of sorrow?  Perhaps I'm showing my age with this lack of druthers, but...life is too short for regrets and too full for skipping a single day.

Skip a day? I think not. This Kitchen Garden Novice wants another full trip around the sun.