Taking Inventory

Strawberry Blossoms

My eightieth birthday is looming at the end of the coming summer. It sits there hunched like a cougar ready to pounce, waiting for its prey. Somehow I never imagined I would live this long. Now I’m watching younger friends pass, while I live on with a continually deteriorating skeleton. This seems a good time to conduct inventory. What have I irretrievably lost? What do I have left and how much of that can I preserve for a few more years?

I hope to keep enough physical ability to engage in some creative pursuits, for without creativity life would seem barren. I’ve already given up many interests – fine sewing, wood carving, gardening, maintaining flower beds and pruning trees. In the kitchen I can’t lift even moderately heavy pots and rely heavily on tools that enable me to open containers and mix and chop things. Lifting a book or a bag of groceries can be a challenge. My hearing is shot and although hearing aids are helpful, they are a long way from perfect. For 38 years I frequented our hilly woods, but haven’t ventured there for almost two years. I no longer feel comfortable driving to or in Kansas City, a mere 40 miles away. The steep basement stairs scare me, especially when I need to carry things upstairs.

So, what is left? I can still walk thanks to hip and knee joint replacements. My eyesight with corrective lenses is still 20/20, although little cataracts are developing. Apparently my mind still works pretty well. I can still cook and bake, especially when someone is around to lift heavy things out of the oven and wash big pots and pans. I can still use my camera and probably could do watercolor paintings if I wanted to. I can write, too, using the thumb of my left hand and all the fingers on my right on the keyboard. I still do my laundry (but can’t put clean sheets on a bed).  I can drive my car around town, do shopping, and visit friends and doctors’ offices. Ironically, except for rheumatoid arthritis there’s nothing wrong with me physically. Most important, I still have loving friends and family with new ones showing up from time to time.

Clearly I cannot be an active participant in most of our rural life in Paradise. I can admire the place. I can photograph. But I can’t do the labor. All of that falls to Dennis, who is no spring chicken himself. Although he is in superb condition he, too, is getting some arthritis and has given up certain chores and activities. We see that our days here are numbered. This is a place for younger people in their prime who can do hard work. It requires active human participation just to keep the woods from overrunning the house, yard, and pasture. We are beginning to plan for selling our home of forty years. We’ve given ourselves a maximum of five years to do that, but realistically we must to do it before a health crisis hits one of us.

We probably won’t see many more springs here so I’m enjoying every aspect of this time of incredible renewal and fleeting beauty.

Copyright 2015 by Shirley Domer