Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Feelin' My Age

Oh, man, am I creaky and achy today. I always think I'm keeping my joints and muscles oiled but then I spend a couple hours out in the yard hauling things (like garbage cans stuffed full with leaves and tarps heaped with dead plants) and shifting things (like putting the lawnmower into the shed and getting the snowblower out and started) and I am reminded that on my next birthday I will be 60. Even my hands and wrists hurt this morning and you know I knit and crochet enough to keep them supple. Ah well, I refuse to just give up and sit still, it's too much fun to get all dirty and it's satisfying to see the yard tidied up. Since it's snowing right now. Yes! It's snowing but I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, it is December 1 after all. Eek.

November 30--Java.

The rough stone Buddha
lost his hands
not his serenity.
Vandals took his nose
but his smile remains.
Fingerless, he lifts
the heart.

Rachel was sick of temples. The sun beat relentlessly out of the blue-white sky and the smoke of incense sticks burning for the hundreds of Buddhas in the temple complex stung her eyes. She thought the natural stone colors were so much more soothing than the bright, garish, clashing ones of the Malaysian temples they saw last week. But the artisans of Java must have used their gifts to build something other than temples. They were beautiful in their way but they reminded her more of teeming marketplaces, not the cool, dim, quiet of the great cathedrals of Europe. Those just seemed more church-y to her. Ah well, she thought, now I'm definitely not going to heaven.

I'm off to find some Cheerios, take a shower, and go to work. Have a great day!
--Barbara

1 comment:

Aunt B said...

No, no, no -- don't let those little aches and pains get you down. Remember -- you're not 60 YET!!! Love the picture of you diving posted yesterday. And snow already??? Even if it's December, it's too early.