Reclaiming my time

The rain patters on the roof and I think, Where did the day go?  Our sky dawned heavy with fog, or smoke, or the lingering dew of the Delta valley in which we sit.  But the wind whisked that weight back towards the ocean and our spirits rose.  We walked, we visited from house to house, we drank tea in the open air.  The sound of the neighbor sanding a plank of live-edge drifted down the row.  I breathed easy.

As the sun set, the heaviness overtook the sky and the storm broke.  Saturday slipped away unnoticed, without a backwards glance. Darkness enveloped me.  I scrambled to compensate for the hours squandered in idle conversation.

Over an evening mug of coffee, I reflected on the years which have flitted by as quickly as today has done.  I reclaim my time.  I yielded for too easily, to the wooing voice, the easy walk, the insubstantial friendship.  My eyes have been pried open.  I see what I have done.  Was it my folly or the treachery of others that brought me to this moment, to the wrinkles of time stamped on my face?

My only consolation lies in the promise made twenty years ago, to a little boy who asked if I would die before he got big.  No, Buddy, I assured him. I’m going to live to be 103, and I’m going to nag you every day of your life.  Forty more years between today and the fulfillment of that pledge.  I cannot restore the vigor with which I met the past, but I can summon the joy which once propelled me forward.

It’s the eighth day of the sixtieth month of My Year Without Complaining.  Life continues.

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