More lazy days

The rain has continued, and summer seems an illusive dream right now, but I am still loving these lazy days. It is not freezing, so the garden is growing at least a foot a day, it seems, and my roses are all in bud.

It is early morning, and the house is quiet. I love the silence and the peace. I have my hot coffee next to me. My quilt is waiting on the couch, and I have decided that writing on the computer is finger therapy. It gets the creaking joints moving slowly in the mornings!

So here I am, letting my fingers write what they will today. My head is a swirl of thoughts, as usual, and instead of fighting to order them, the joy of the past week has been to let them arrange themselves how they wish. Being, instead of doing. There is a lot to be said for that.

I think about my friends, and how their lives are changing, with weddings, the advent of grandchildren, graduations, illness, separation, divorce, retirement and death touching their lives in so many ways. The common thread here is change. It is all changing. "It" being life. Nothing stays the same. What worries or pre-occupies one on a Monday is different on a Tuesday. Change is a constant, strange though it may sound. Fighting change is like trying to stop the world from turning.

My life too. Change and I are well acquainted. We tend to battle quite a bit too. A lot actually. For over 31 years I have been primarily a mother, and that intense, absorbing role is almost at an end now. Not the mother bit....that never ends, but the intense on the spot Mum bit. My third child is about to launch himself into the world, full of dreams and the nest will be empty. I actually don't have a problem with that kind of change, you know. I delight in watching my babes spread their wings. They do tend to fly a little further than I anticipated, but I can cope with that. Most of the time.

But it means change here too at home. Maybe it is time for me to relaunch myself into the world too. Old birds can learn to fly again. (Mind you, ostriches can't. Am I an ostrich? Forget them.) The temptation would be to stay here in this place and curl up on the couch. And watch the world from behind my windows. It would be safe. It would be familiar. There would be no hurt. No risk. No pain. I could just weave my memories into beautiful works of art. Safe.

But

Me? I don't think so. I have plenty of memories thankyouverymuch, but not nearly enough. Not yet. I am 54 and hear me roar. I will race out the door, and throw myself into something and yes, I am probably going to get hurt. Get bruised and battered. Dented. Maybe broken too. But that can be fixed. Just think of all those memories I could add in the process.

I do know that I have to look beyond this village, where everything is safe and sorted, and where I am part of a small close community. The illusive "something" is out there calling my name. And it is getting louder by the day. I can't ignore it much longer.

But right now, it is healing time, and that means it is just fine to head back to the quilt on the couch. Maybe by the time I have finished all 3, it will be time. The right time to pick up a few of those challenges, and embrace both the tears and the laughter as I learn once more to fly. I am reminded of the enormous older aeroplanes like giant transport planes. And the little jaunty fighter planes. One needs a short (if any) runway. The other needs half a country to lumber into the air in an ungainly fashion. I would be the latter. I need a long runway. But I will get up there in the end, and you know what? I can fly further. There is more in the tank. I may not be zippy or pretty, but boy, can I go far!

Watch this space.