Sunday, October 22, 2023
It is a very warm and humid night, and I am up too late. When I arrived at home after Ead Aki's birthday party, at about 3:30 pm, I turned on the television to watch Sunday Night Football and thought I'd relish a quiet afternoon on my loveseat. I was too tired to walk to the beach, and I soon dozed off, thought I did not sleep very long.
I had a nice conversation with Gina at the party. She asked me if I enjoyed the book she'd given me, "Find A Way" by Diana Nyad, and I told her that I had. We both found Diana's story of swimming for 53 hours from Cuba to Florida, at age 64, very inspiring (her book/story has been made into a Netflix movie, which I haven't watched because I do not subscribe to Netflix...perhaps I'll watch it at Laura's). Gina had actually met Diana, who was a speaker at a conference that Gina had attended, and she'd been inspired to begin a swimming routine. However, when I asked Gina how her swimming was coming along, she told me that she has not swum in a long time and she told me of her issues, which are not unlike every swimmer's issues, especially when we first begin: she is discouraged because she does not swim well (yet! I told her); it is difficult to get motivated and easier to not swim; she feels self-conscious about people watching her.
I said to her, "Gina, if I can do it anyone can. I am swimming with stage four cancer!" I honestly assumed she knew, as she is Renee's sister and I know that Renee knows. She looked shocked....aghast. She started to say, with a very sad expression....you know....how sorry, how sad she is for me....and I....you know....shut that right down. I feel great; I'm getting treatment that seems to be and that I am believing is working really well; I continue to bike and to swim and to live my life...happily and gratefully.
She said that I am her inspiration to swim and we agreed to keep in touch BETTER than we have. I will do my part....and will continue to encourage her to just swim....a little bit....each day....remember, I told her, if I can do it, so can you.
When I was a young girl, I think between the ages of maybe 11 and 13 or 14 years old, there was...a lot...going on in my family's little Cape Cod house. I'd been...I think all of us kids had been...excited when my parents purchased the very modest home on Quinn Street with the yard and the woods behind it. A home of our own; private property. After having lived in "the project" on Lewis Circle since I could remember, my parents purchased the home from my mom's friends, Ron and Barbara, whose kids were our ages and also attended St. Francis School, in, I believe, the spring of 1969. Tricia was two years old; I'd just turned eight and was in second grade.
But my excitement for the move and the house soon waned as the chaos and violence of the alcoholic family dynamic escalated. I found myself, during adolescence, which is a tender time anyways, feeling quite....desperate, and, in an attempt to save myself...and I'm not exactly sure that I was completely conscious of that at the time....I disciplined myself to seek out and to FIND something...ANY SMALL THING....of beauty each day....to recognize some lovely thing...and to write about it....a few lines, a paragraph...each and every day. I didn't have a fancy diary or journal; I had purchased a bright yellow, spiral-bound notebook for this purpose and I wrote on the cover, "A Thing of Beauty is a Joy Forever." You know, thinking about this, I must have been in seventh or eighth grade because my English teacher, Sister Anne, loved poetry and read to the class often. I heard that line from her, and I thought, "That is true."
And so....I saved myself.
Perhaps I am doing something of the same now, although I do not feel desperate or depressed at all. But ever since then, and before even, I have loved all the lovely, intricate creations of God in nature. I do not know if everyone is so affected by His beauty as I am, but it was my theory in moving here to Hawai'i that being surrounded by beauty would be a very good thing for me....as a woman wandering and meandering and navigating my completely uncharted life on this planet. "Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined," wrote Henry David Thoreau. I've had that on my refrigerator for a very long time, and that is exactly what I did.
And it is very true; God's magnificent creative beauty is certainly on display here, everywhere one looks. The colors!!! I am immersed in the colors....drenched in sunshine....sensually stimulated and soothed simultaneously.....
Here, I..."Live in the sunshine, swim in the sea, drink the wild air," as per Ralph Waldo Emerson.
I better get to the point, because it is getting quite late and I must sleep. And Laura's picking me up early in the morning.
Creatively, I'm bursting at the seams. I've been creatively frustrated for a long time...that's another subject/post. I have many, many lovely photos....I have quite a good eye and skill in photography, this I know...of the absolutely stunning flowers (as well as many other things in nature here)...and so I've decided to (finally) compile them in a photo book and I've almost completed it! Everything with me is a work in progress and nothing is very often completely finished with me! But here it is for anyone who wants to take a look....I'm pretty happy with it, so far.
A thing of beauty is truly a joy forever!
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