Field of Life and Joy
It was an utterly unproductive day – the cows refused to express their milk…
At first thought, then reality sunk in:
“Wait a minute, we did a great deal today…”
We woke a little after dawn around 7:00 AM, ate breakfast and went back to bed and snuggled until 9:00 AM (perhaps we were a might slow to get going).
I puttered until 11:00 AM when we collected our wits and headed out the door for a good long walk down the mud sucking dirt road. This lasted about an hour. Willow began to show signs of fatigue, but kept going. As usual she procrastinated when it came time to get back into the car, so I sat on a rock took in the view of Monadnock, Nash and our houseguest Mimi, waited in the car. After thirty minutes or so Willow was ready to go.
To my Uncles we traveled, but side tract by the library. An hour or more there and time for lunch and the afternoon nap. A friend stops by for a thirty-minute visit, then I eat, we nap and by 4:30 PM Nash is ready to go out again. Willow, who is crashed on the bed, instantly jumps up. I guess she and Mimi are ready too. Off we go to make a visit to friends then to the field where Willow just simply opens up.
The joys of an open field to run and be free to eat snow, roll and wash the coat in the wet granular stuff and be come a puppy again. Stiff and rigid Willow attempts to engage Mimi in a romp and two scootch around. Willow to look a bit like a rocking horse as she bunny hops about. With Nash in hand and aching to join the fun, he is held back so as not to topple his mother. Oh my heartstrings rang in sweet delight to watch my old friend brighten and come alive. Too long it has been.
Sounds like a great day. More of us should think about what we DO on days we want to write off self-critically as unproductive.
This is a sore subject with me. 30 years ago, I moved back to my parents house to recover from a catastrophic illness. Some days, all I could do was move from my bedroom to the parents' living room couch for the day. But I could look in the mirror every night and honestly say I did the best I could that day.
Other family members were far less patient. They told my parents they were enabling my laziness. They told me I was lazy to my face. I knew I wasn't lazy, and that I would get well, but for long stretches of time, I was the only one who knew it.
Often, when I'd been on the sofa for a week, my parents wondered if keeping me was the right thing. They'd get scared and start yelling at me. I was under a lot of pressure to get a job before I was ready. I did get abour four McJobs in those two years, and got fired right away each time, which set back my recovery.
My parents literally saved my life by opening their house to their adult son, but they confused having a job with beng well.
On those days when I was on the sofa "doing nothing," I was regaining my strength, but I was the only one who could see it because it was going on out of sight of everybody else. As Paul Newman said in one of my favorite movies, "Sometimes nothing can be a mighty cool hand."