While walking in the morning my dog and I often come across a rafter of turkeys wondering around in the same neighborhood. They stop traffic and create a scene occassionally. It's fun to see them all but kind of weird too. They don't belong in the city, but here they are. Balt doesn't seem the least bit interested in them which I suppose is good, he's eager to be on our way and stop for other smells. I'm sure he'd be more interested if they were roasted.
I've been thinking about all the turkeys in my way, the things that slow me down, distract and complicate my life. I am plagued with emotions that ebb and flow, physical ailments that keep me constantly worried about my health, and a dog that wakes me up hungry at four in the morning. I often gaze at closed doors in my life with sadness and forget that there are open doors all around me. "When one door of closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us."- Helen Keller
I have to remind myself on a daily basis to think happy thoughts, to see my life as the wonderful experience that it is. I have to remind myself of the many blessings that have been bestowed upon me. I am rich beyond belief even when I worry about debt. Coming from years and years of so much busyness, it is hard to deal with this new found freedom and abundance of time that I am now experiencing. I can finally bring simplicity to my life and take each day fully in. As I age, time goes by so much faster, so a full day with nothing planned is no where near as boring as it used to be in my youth.
While reading the New York Times this morning I found a nice article about simplicity by
David Brooks. He mentions Henry David Thoreau's drive for simplicity and quotes him, “as you simplify your life the laws of the universe will be simpler; solitude will not be solitude; poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness weakness.” I know there is a spirituality to clearing away materialism in order to focus on humility, but there is something kind of spiritual to clearing away one's schedule as well. As I look at my empty evenings and weekends, I am tempted to fill them with volunteering, movies, services, clubs or social outings. But I can see now that all of the activity that once filled my schedule allowed me to live my life with my head in the sand-- to be without thought. Now I find myself thinking, too much at times and I have to learn to clear away the thoughts that tear me down.
As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.-- Thoreau
I think I wrote of my 40's as being a time on the fast lane of a freeway. Now that I'm an empty nest-er, in my 50's I'm seeing how life is quite different. I've gotten off the freeway and now am making my way through a new neighborhood at a slower pace. Life is as fast as I make it. A friend of mine who turned 50 five or six years ago, warned me that the focus of life would change. She shared that yoga had helped her transition. Now that I am practicing almost every day, I can see the difference of why I need it now as apposed why I needed it five or six years ago (which I will write more at length at a later date). My physical needs have gone from not being a priority in my twenties, to becoming priority number one. If I am not taking care of my health then I will not be able to take care of my family, create my art, etc.
Food is a huge issue or "turkey in my road". I'm realizing that I can't eat as much as I used to. As we age our metabolism slows down 2-4% per year. By 50, we are looking at a slow down of more like 5% every year. Does that really mean that I have to eat 75% less today than I did when I was 25?? I think about the how much I could eat in college compared to how much my grandmother ate in her 70's-- the difference was huge. I certainly don't need 3 meals a day anymore and forget about snacks unless I'm up for gaining weight. It's all part of the simplifying life. There is less to do, and less to eat. On the flip side is exercise. While there's a lot I can't do anymore, there's plenty I have to keep up as a priority for good health. Weight baring exercises for my bones and to help increase my metabolism, yoga for balance and my back, cardio and endurance for my heart, diabetes and mental health. So while I have to remember that I can't eat as much as I used to, I also have to keep in mind that I need to exercise more than ever. Sometimes I think that by the time I'm 80, that's all I'll have time for-- making healthy food, cleaning up after, exercising and then cleaning up that.
As for my work today-- it was another glorious one! I worked on the studio art garden during my lunch and sweat buckets. I took Balt for two long walks before and after school and then went to a late yoga class. I made banana muffins to send to Jessi for her birthday on Monday and left the clean up for tomorrow so I could get to bed at a decent hour after having to write my 1000+ word blog post!
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