21 January 2011

Mare's tails and contrails

I spent the entire day inside.  On Wednesday when Tal played golf, I played, too, roaming around our yard, the camera in hand. 

Today, though, while Tal was at the golf course, I worked.  Happily (and unusually), though, cleaning house was a tranquil, meditative process.  Handling, one by one, the things we keep around us brought to mind how we came to have some of them, remembering places, events, people. 

The vacuum cleaner did its trick on my back.  A normal occurrence.  Something about the twisting and pulling motion.  Concentrating on standing tall and turning carefully helped.  Whitby and Belle dislike the vacuum cleaner more than I do -- steering clear and "asking" to be let out with woeful eyes and then seeming puzzled that the noise had not stopped when they came back inside.

By the time Tal returned home and we had settled at the counter for a late lunch the house was very presentable.  I sported a quiet and pleasurable satisfaction at my accomplishment.

Just as the sun was nearing the tree line across the pond the four of us set out on our daily walk on the promenade.  A goodbye to the day.  The sky was a deep blue with a profusion of wispy clouds and lines of spreading, fading contrails. 

Part of me wants that scene to have been a reward for good work.  But, the beauty of a late afternoon sky isn't dependent on my not giving in to the temptation to procrastinate.  That sky would have been there a clean house next to Country Club Pond or not.

A wiser part of me is simply grateful to have gone on that walk and to have looked up. 
  

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