Keeping Up Appearances

I couldn't think of a good title so I just put "Keeping Up Appearances" because it happens to be one of my favorite British TV shows which I only see occasionally because it comes on at 10:30 on Sunday nights! It is hillarious, and worth staying up to see, but sometimes I don't have the energy to keep my eyes open that late.

So what's happening and how am I keeping up appearances? Not much happening here (favorite quote from my son) but the beat goes on, and I do very ordinary things most of the time. I push myself out the door at least 4 times a week to walk, so that my old bones won't freeze up on me, and that's pretty routine.

I push Bill out the door to get coffee and a sweet roll almost daily because if I don't push he would sleep the rest of his life away. And I enjoy his company. I do all the talking and he nods occasionally to urge me on, and I rail on about whatever is in my emotional agenda to talk about on that particular day.

I've found out that when you are eighty-ish, the hot weather is just about as debilitating and dangerous as if you were in frigid Alaska with temps 50 below zero. When I get inside from doing errands in 100 degree weather, I am panting; my head is kinda dizzy; my legs feel like lead, and all my energy has run out through my toes. So I"m looking forward to the fall weather which is usually invigorating.

I'm subbing at SS at FBC these days for various people. LaRue got my name on the list, and the phone rings a lot. Today I taught the group that is designated "the ladies whose next promotion will be to heaven." They are that old!!! But they were all still alert, still willing to listen, and anxious to add their bits of wisdom to the group. It was kinda fun -- but I don't want any permanent teaching slot -- too much responsibility and hard work.

I find that I am more peaceful and content these days. Don't know exactly why. But when I start to worry about something, or someone, I just have a feeling come over me that worrying is pretty useless and that the people I worry about (my children (old as they are), my grandchildren (who are not my responsibility), and my husband (who is his own person and has to walk his own path), friends (whom I love) who need for me to listen. I usually just voice a short prayer for them, and go on my merry way.

Maybe that's a bit of wisdom I have learned as I get older, and older, and older.

Jesus taught us not to worry, and that we should take life as it comes and trust in Him for what we need. I'm beginning (at this late age) to actually attempt to do that!

Other writers have looked for answers to the questions we have about life and its meaning, and come to some conclusions which may give us some comfort. The atheist Voltaire said, through one of his characters, that the best we can do is "to plant and tend to our own gardens." Which, it seems to me is good advice.

T.S. Eliot said in "The Waste Land" that for some of us it seems like "we have measured out our lives with coffeespoons," suggesting that for the modern man his life may seem inconsequential and meaningless.

And his conclusion (my interpretation only) is a question: "Shall I at least set my lands in order?", suggesting that perhaps that is the best we as humans can do. Or as he further puts it, "These fragments I have shored against my ruins."

You knew I'd get off into literature or philosophy or something else, didn't you?? Well, I find that that happens to me when I start writng and maybe write too long!

But nobody ever died from thinking too much, did they??? I don't know.