I don't think I am at all unique in sorting things out for myself in a grand way on a fairly regular basis. I mean, not much has to happen for me to go backwards in time and forwards in time and conclude that adjustments are in order.
Perhaps the trigger was a call from some medical person about some rather good medical news (or at least an absence of not good news). Or maybe it was that I met (through a former student now friend and blogger) a person over coffee who brought forth thoughts of a Polish past (her ancestors are from Poland) and a traveling future (she, too, likes to travel and though she is older, she is perhaps a smidgen more adventurous than I have been in recent times). Or maybe it's that when I am surrounded by stacks of books that need my full attention, my thoughts roam.
Rethinking life includes reaching back, beyond my own birth. Here's a photo that I like. It's of my grandparents, my mom, her brother a handful of years after they pulled up roots and moved to the States (only to return to Poland some years later -- but that's so much a different story).
Rethinking life includes, for me, a good long gaze over the changing landscape around me. You can tell that these fields, worked by Farmer Lee, are in full August mode.
It is a day that constantly threatened rain and indeed, during breakfast (on the porch), the world seemed misty gray and quite wet.
Rethinking life doesn't require inventing anything new for yourself. It doesn't call for a good attitude or a bright smile (though I hope I have both, always). It's more about trying to interpret things in a different light. If I thought one way about something, maybe I should think differently about it?
Anyway, according to deathclock.com (thanks, NYTimes), I have between 19 and 21 years of life left (depending on whether I call myself "normal" or an "optimist" and I do rather think I'm the latter), so, plenty of time to rethink my life again and again.
In the meantime, some aspects to the day remain rooted in their sameness. Breakfast, yes, I noted that already. And a weekly (postponed from yesterday) dinner with daughter and her husband.
And an evening on the couch, writing an Ocean post.
Perhaps the trigger was a call from some medical person about some rather good medical news (or at least an absence of not good news). Or maybe it was that I met (through a former student now friend and blogger) a person over coffee who brought forth thoughts of a Polish past (her ancestors are from Poland) and a traveling future (she, too, likes to travel and though she is older, she is perhaps a smidgen more adventurous than I have been in recent times). Or maybe it's that when I am surrounded by stacks of books that need my full attention, my thoughts roam.
Rethinking life includes reaching back, beyond my own birth. Here's a photo that I like. It's of my grandparents, my mom, her brother a handful of years after they pulled up roots and moved to the States (only to return to Poland some years later -- but that's so much a different story).
Rethinking life includes, for me, a good long gaze over the changing landscape around me. You can tell that these fields, worked by Farmer Lee, are in full August mode.
It is a day that constantly threatened rain and indeed, during breakfast (on the porch), the world seemed misty gray and quite wet.
Rethinking life doesn't require inventing anything new for yourself. It doesn't call for a good attitude or a bright smile (though I hope I have both, always). It's more about trying to interpret things in a different light. If I thought one way about something, maybe I should think differently about it?
Anyway, according to deathclock.com (thanks, NYTimes), I have between 19 and 21 years of life left (depending on whether I call myself "normal" or an "optimist" and I do rather think I'm the latter), so, plenty of time to rethink my life again and again.
In the meantime, some aspects to the day remain rooted in their sameness. Breakfast, yes, I noted that already. And a weekly (postponed from yesterday) dinner with daughter and her husband.
And an evening on the couch, writing an Ocean post.
