Looking East...

Looking East from our deck early in the morning in June... the tri-hull needs a mast, the mist needs to lift and the sun is coming over the tree-tops soon... aaaaaah, what a day this will be.

Once in a while it is nice to count your blessings, and these days there is a lot of reason to try to keep things in balance and perspective. Over the years, we have had intense relationships with our work, and family and little time for anything else... but as we move into our sixties we seemed to be stuck in the sunsets. All one has to do is look at the pictures I have published on this blog ... almost all of which are evening photos.

Here are two that are taken from our deck here at the pond, looking east toward our friend's, the Spike family, home. This simple change in direction, and timing gives us much the same thing... sun, calm, colors you don't see during the day and so on... but it also gives me a sense that there is a lot to look forward to... what do you think?

A few days ago, I was having a reflective conversation with my Mother, Edith, who as some will be aware is in the late stages of her life. She is almost 83 years of age. As we talked, I had commented that it is a great feat to achieve such an age, after all, my Father had passed before he was sixty, and my Grand Fathers on both sides were similar or close to it. Mother commented that it would mean that I have 23 years left before I pass, were I to achieve her age.

We continued our conversation and I thought about that 23 year number... would I live it as if I were ages 60 thru 83? Or is there a better block of years that I should emulate? After all, just three years ago, I was doubting that I would see another year at all! How do my friends choose to live these years, should that be my guideline...living within their scope? How about Lynnda and her scope... will that limit my scope for those twenty-three years?

It really impacts a lot of decisions about the way we are to live going forward... for example, should I take on another turn-around of a troubled company's sales business... should we get a new puppy to live with us... should we buy a boat... should we build a new dock at the pond... should we travel to the far ends of the earth and do other bucket list things? Just having a bucket list might mean that we are living the end of our lives rather than some other neat time.

Mother and I thought about my first years...like could I relive the next 23 like my first... she commented that perhaps my body wouldn't survive... Ha, Ha! Perhaps her pushing me around in a pram was like me helping her in the wheel chair... a little roll reversal... maybe I should be living like the years 23 to 46, the same years she had after I was born. I wondered what that was like, although I decided not to push for another comment on my lifestyle...

So, how would my friends choose to live, and will I be able to maintain the relationships we have if we decide that living like we are 60 to 83 isn't for us... I like looking at the early morning sun in the eastern sky. I wonder who else does, we never see folks really early in the day. Wonder what friends do in the early morning hours...

I think we can keep our friends, but I am going to refuse to live like I am 60+. The dock is under construction! I am doing an interview!