That seemed just too doomsdayish for me. Can I do yoga? -- I ask. Yes, she tells me. Well now, if I can do yoga, I can cross country ski. A simple deduction on my part. She senses my stubbornness. Maybe we'll keep the stitches in longer, she says, half to herself, half to the nurse. So that she can do her skiing.
I read it as -- permission granted!
I start my Saturday with the usual attention to breakfast.
I know it's Groundhog Day. I know I should consider the shadows outside. But I don't need that to forecast the coming of spring. All I have to do is go to Trader Joe's and note that they are now selling bunches of daffodils for $1.69. That's spring for me.
(But if you were to ask -- would a groundhog see a shadow upon awakening in Madison, I'd say no indeed. No shadow. Cloud cover.)
After breakfast -- I have a solid 75 minutes of yoga. And if ever I felt defiant in class, it was on this day. In facing the fact that I might have to do less (due to leg issues), I am spurred to do more. Take that! And that! I leave satisfied.
At home, Ed asks if I want to ski.
Yes! Three more inches of snow came down during the night. We would have died for such conditions last year. Cold? Oh come on! Not cold at all! It went up to something like 10F this afternoon!
Still, I'm not oblivious to my leg. I absolutely cannot fall.
The Arboretum! There's not a single hill to navigate there. The easiest cross country skiing this side of the Mississippi.
We spend a grand 90 minutes in the forests of Madison's best nature preserve.
Late, at the farmhouse, I settle in to write a long overdue letter -- to a friend whom I haven't seen (or written to much) for more than 30 years. Can I suggest this for you? Go ahead, write a letter to someone once close to you explaining your life of the past few decades. Be honest in what you say! It's a humbling experience.
In the evening I make bouillabaise. Or, my own version of it. If, like me, you've been cooking all your life from cook books, at some point it becomes important (I think) to free yourself of recipes: you start to look for ideas and cooking styles rather than ingredient lists. My bouillabaise will have seafoods that I like...
...it wont have fennel because neither Ed or I think it assists flavors much. It will make use of our storehouse of tomatoes. It will be easy and fresh and honest (I hope).
Here it is:
We eat, we sit back, we think our thoughts. Mine stray all over the place. What if, shouldn't I... It's not always pleasant to hold yourself accountable for where you are and what's before you, but tonight I feel at peace with all of it. We are fine, so fine, here, on the couch, on a good course, paying attention to the other. I play music from my iTunes folder, picking familiar tunes, ones that prompt me to sing along. Ed grins. He's an utter sweetheart on the rare evenings that I choose to sing.
I went to make a potato soup from a recipe online but by the time it was done, via my pressure cooker, it contained potato, onions, lots of broccoli, and part of a huge butternut squash, a little broth, some half and half, and some cooked-up beef kielbasa in tiny pieces. It was super, in fact, so super that we're having the rest of it for our Super-bowl dinner tonight, in fact, in just a few minutes.
ReplyDeleteTake care of that leg!