Dilettanti

The sabbatical is over and C & I are back at work. (Well, we've been back for a week now - this is just a much delayed post). It was such a wonderful break. We got to travel across the globe, to the other hemisphere and see wonderful and wondrous sights. Beautiful, sublime, breathtaking, heart-aching, jaw-dropping, eye-filling, sigh-generating, smile-bringing, head-shaking and heart-stopping sights.  Over this time, I did a lot of things that I wanted and many that I didn't expect. I got to experience that happy state where you are glad you traveled and saw/did all the things you saw/did and yet, are happy to be heading back home. I got to be barefoot for 5 days on a remote island in the Pacific. I got to jump from a cable car with a rope tied to my feet and my heart in my mouth. I got to snorkel with dolphins. I spent an inordinate amount of time on my garden (and a corresponding amount of money). I never did paint, unless you count the coat of primer I painted on some of the basement walls to help C. I didn't spend much time cleaning either. I never made it to the neighborhood library. I did read Anna Karenina, though (my thoughts on Russian authors is a whole another post, by the way). I didn't watch as much TV as I thought I would but I played a lot more games on my iPad than I'd imagined. I found that time moves quick when you are priming walls or planting perennials but it also doesn't rush when you're drinking your tea at leisure or standing by a window. That when you are not hurrying, you get done pretty quickly and going to stores, even grocery stores, isn't a chore and can be relaxing.  That when I wake up when I'm good and ready, I wake up at a reasonable time and have a much better morning. And day, even. That C & I can coexist very harmoniously with companionable silences,  occasional small talk & separate activities interspersed with our time together. But eat together at every chance.

Trivial and trite as it may seem, I learnt that there is whole lot of life beyond work weeks and meetings. And a whole lot of me. That I can still be obsessed with a new game or activity. And that even though I don't have that clarity that I would have liked to have about where I'm going, I still have a lot of things to try and learn. That I need to allow myself some failures and missteps along the way.

Yes, I'd definitely call it time well spent. And yes, C & I are two lucky devils. And so, with a smile, to my night-time reading.

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