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7:45 a.m. This is it. Today is the day I attempt to write once more. It has been a long time, a very long time. I have been waiting for the fog to thin before attempting to move about with my fingers. So here I am, still groping, able to see some of the trees if I squint; though none of the forest. I have been up since before dawn chatting with Attila before he left for work at 5:45 a.m. He leaves before the sun comes up and he is back after it sets. So far this fall he has kept up with his sleep. It will only take one late night crisis (of the parental kind) to put him into sleep deficit mode. So far, so good. The sun is shining outside my window this morning. It is adding a brilliant splash of color to the tip of one low oak branch. A blue jay is perched on the eaves trough above me, outside my window. The tail bobs up and down as food is retrieved. It is a beautiful day and within a few minutes, I will don my overalls and head out for my daily walk. I have managed to maintain a skeleton crew of routines to keep me healthy if not happy through this time of chaos. I arise early with Attila. I drink a big, hot mug full of aromatic coffee. I get dressed. I go for a walk of at least one and half miles. I return to a breakfast of homemade granola and fresh fruit. Then the rest of the day tells me what to do. Much later... I am back from my walk and have succumbed to the embrace of my computer. More storage space was needed so a second hard drive was installed. Now I have enough room to organize over ten years worth of files. What a mess! I have saved with abandon for over a decade, without a thought to organization. "Oh what a wicked web we weave" applies to situations other than deceit. I am happy that the Genealogy files are almost under control. The resulting folder size is 420 MB and I have not added graphics or created a web site yet. Collecting the family history is a never-ending project that always provides interesting entertainment and excitement. For instance, I recently tracked down one of my 262,144 potential 18G Grandfathers. I wonder what day-to-day life was like back then. Did teenagers drive their parents mad with worry, and if so, how did they do it? Do I really want an answer to that question?! Genealogy is like knitting with people. It can provide a warm blanket in a sea of chaos. Yet to organize are years and years worth of E-mail and hundreds of shareware and freeware programs. As well, there are the thousands of bits and bytes of random information that I found interesting if not vital at some time in the past, and may again in the future. I have found that anything saved as html or some form of ASCII text can be searched effectively by BBEdit Lite, a freeware text editor. I am hoping to group related files in folders so that they may be easily searched for information without having to open the files. Of course, none of this is vital work. On the other hand, what is vital, besides the production of food, the provision of health care, clothing, and shelter? Human relationships and writing are the only two I would add to my list. Everything else seems like busy work. Busy work can be very entertaining. It need not be confused with the necessities of life. |
RECIPES :: Cast Worldly Distractions  Lunch from the Garden By the Easy Chair A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth Still! I am on page 765. Airwaves Le Mystere Des Voix Bulgares Thoughts and Quotes On Motherhood " He was some kind of therapist, she had never gotten it straight. The truth was, she thought all therapists did was persuade people that problems were theirs, not the system's. Why blame General Motors or Coors or General Dynamic, if you could blame Mommy?" From Three Women by Marge Piercy, pg 48 I have been thinking about Winston Churchill's salute to British Pilots during the Second World War: "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few." The appreciation of effort and sacrifice is heart warming and just. In the context of the day-to-day struggle to bring a child from infancy to adulthood in a complex and unfair world, I have been saying the following to myself about mothers everywhere and for all time. "Never have so many done so much with so little." Thanks for the good example Winston and the inspiration Mom. |
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