The Empty Years

Rebecca's cactus starts to bloom
in the living room

Duncan and I share the same room, he working on his computer on the east wall, and me working on mine at the north wall, much better for us than in small cubicles in an office that we would have if we were part of a large corporation.

It's just us in that room usually. A perfect shared space – so roomy. When he came in this morning and I said good morning I mentioned to him that I had already done my gratitude list for the day: somebody coming in to clean our house. I shared with him that yesterday's gratitude thought was that I can even make lists at all.

He laughed and said "Why are you so busy grandmother. Your job here is to recuperate. There's not supposed to be any work for you.”

I laughed so hard.

He's right.

The 80’s.

They look like perfectly empty years.

I haven’t entered them yet.

I continue to make lists, even though I have nothing to do.

My first task this morning was to do some editing for Rebecca. I like that job: checking if the noun and the verb are in the right tense, especially if the sentence is long, or picking up on a word that has the right sound, but that the voice recognition programme has spelled incorrectly.

These flowers are so delicate.  I hate to brush by
them when I open the blinds in the morning.
I found myself on the floor with my camera,
trying to get under them and see their breauty
from below. I forget that it is not that easy to
get up from the floor anymore.

That job being finished now, I have other things I want to do today and I am remembering that Bonnie has created a new noun that I should think about, one that she has thrown out into the universe: efforting.

She is  to do is do a little less of it.
This is good advice in Covid-19 times, another way to say-to-self, slow down a bit.

More on efforting through the month, and how it can be something to avoid.

I was going to a Relief Society Zoom meeting, a large group meeting planned for Tuesday night that I have been looking forward to all month. As that thought was going into my mind, Rebecca came into the room and asked me if I were ready to play Azul: Summer Pavilion. That's always a no-brainer for me.

The down side is that I would have to play a game with her which I am bound to lose. 

 The upside is that after playing with her for a month, I finally won a game on Monday and the competitive part of me thinks that I could win again.

When the game was over, and yes, I lost again, I turned to some hard reading until my brain wouldn't understand the sentences in the paragraph of the book that kept slipping out of my hand as I would fall asleep.

That's what I put the book down and decided to look for one last joy of the night. 

A little television. 

I clicked on Live Twice, Love Once (Maria Ripoli, 2019). 

I'm glad I didn't make the mistake of reading the review before I watched the move. 

One reviewer said that this film doesn't add much to the canon of films about Alzheimer's disease, “an uninspiring Spanish drama”, but I liked it.

Arta