Speaking of Loving Life

The morning has dawned bright and sunny. Cold, but it will warm up later. I awoke loving life. Not just my life, although I do, but life in general. The resilience of it. The wonder that a person could wake feeling so good and refreshed after a night like that.

I didn't cook a fresh dinner, but relied on Sonny's left-over ribs, slaw, and mac 'n' cheese. That was my first mistake. My second was that I was multitasking and didn't eat mindfully. Seniors need to chew.

I was working in my exercise notebook, organizing the sets, and adding a few new exercises from physical therapy. Almost none of you realize when I go there (I don't announce it on Foursquare) but it seems like a constant outing. Needed. It really helps.

I felt a bit pushed for time, the rain was coming down, and I decided against the cantata. I admit it. I have been spoiled by Fred's chancel choir and, if I lived in Wilmington, I would attend his church. A lot. I finished the dishes and my project, watched some television, crawled into my covers.

From midnight until 2AM, I stayed awake within the fresh white bedclothes. If I kept very still,  I felt as if I was riding on a billowing wave in an ocean at the ends of the earth. As long as I did not move, I seemed fine - so I begin to plan my Easter weekend menu, then recite a few Psalms, then count breaths, then relax my limbs through concentration, finally empty my mind and allow myself to feel the physical turmoil inside. Any motion at all brought a seasick feeling of not only falling off the edge of the earth but also of throwing up while I fell.

The sneezing attack pushed me over the edge. I must have sneezed fifty times. Every one of them wracked my injured neck, pulled my weak adductor muscle, and sent a pain through my back itself.

Get up! You are going to be sick! And sick I was!

If I had known at eight o' clock that I would regurgitate from two am until four, I would have fortified myself with a half-dozen gin and tonics! Doubles. Given myself something to be sick about.

Between bouts, I sipped a little ginger ale and ate a few saltines which were, mercifully , already stale. I moaned. I whined to the cat whom I had wakened. I mentally tore up all the Easter weekend menus that I had planned. I disinfected. And finally, the cuckoo chirping four am,  I slept.

Isn't life itself resilient? I woke with Belle's face in mine. "Not dead, are you?" " Can fix breakfast, can't you?' "You see me looking, don't you?" Outside, on the perch, Squirrel sat wringing her hands and peeping through the blinds into the house.

Why is everyone so worried? So? I am only running an hour late. Give me a smile, because I feel wonderful! No worse for wear.

As I write,  pets are resting apres breakfast! I'm having coffee and getting ready to clean out the refrigerator! Plan a new menu for today through Sunday. Go to the grocer. The nursery. The cleaners. Did I make myself perfectly clear?  I love my life, this morning,  and I love life in general!