In My Mind...

Dear Maria,

Well, I can vouch for only 12.5” of rain in the backyard gauge this month as I was not paying much attention to rainfall amounts the first week or so of the month. There is a promise—but no guarantee—of a string of days where the sun might dominate the sky.  Seems more necessary as we just slipped under 12 hours between sunrise and sunset.

Did manage to do a little yard work here and there, and one morning saw a ruby-throated hummingbird and a bird that looked like a goldfinch with the color scheme reversed. Or so I think I saw. Fluttering about the garden and then up into an oak, the bird never allowed me a good look. Not long enough to be sure.

Perceptions, you know how they go.

The other day at lunch I confessed to a young friend that I feel a little longer now the ache of muscles pushed beyond the normal day-to-day routine. As if somehow to counter that reality with what doesn’t ail me, I followed up by insisting that my mind seemed no different to me these days than 10 or 30 years ago. Her take was the opposite, that her mind seemed wearier, but she thought herself physically strong. I’ll spot her the childrearing and a demanding fulltime job. Indiana had it right, perhaps, about the miles.

I spotted myself the accumulated experience of the world as a plus to offset what my mind may be losing. To never address the topics that were a part of 31 years of teaching makes me wonder about how quickly that bucket of knowledge will leak away. No more Keats, Oxford commas, Transcendentalism, and on and on off the top of my head. To be fair, I have several times confessed to never wanting to say anything ever again about any of what was my bread and butter for three decades. Interesting.

Of course, not knowing is not the same as forgetting. Wonder when I will forget whether I knew something about Yeats. For the present at least, sometimes I find myself thinking that something or other is something I once knew.

If the transition is slow enough—guess I’ll never know, will I?

Another overcast day, Max anxiously chewing his rawhide bone, and I with too much time on my mind. Again.

As for you, be well.

As always, srk