2022 Life Logs, Day 40: Because I Can
Date: Thursday, February 10, 2022
Weather: Sunny and Cooler; High Temp 38, Low Temp 33 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
I stay up late and get up late on many days, more so since the Winter Olympics began. And every time I sleep-in, I hear my father’s voice telling me that only lazy people do that. I know I am not lazy, but the guilt sticks with me. I get up every morning between 6:30 and 7:00 and take Shadow out for his first pee break of the day. Sometimes we go for a walk down the street, but on most days we just walk in the woods around the cottage. We are out there about 15 to 20 minutes and then we come back and go back to bed. Why? Because I can. That’s the only answer I can come up with.
I got a late start to my day but it was a productive one. I worked on my current puzzle (because I can), took Shadow for a long walk (because we both need that to stay healthy), and then started writing (because it is my current passion). I have now completed the passage to New Zealand and have started exploring the North Island. I have two more weeks before Mark and I fly back home for six weeks. I’m still not sure where I am going to end book one. I think it will be when we get on the plane to fly home. At that point it will be 421 days since we left Boston. We will have sailed 13,011.1 miles, crossed the equator for the first time, sailed from the Northern Hemisphere into the Southern Hemisphere, from the Western Hemisphere into the Eastern Hemisphere, crossed the international dateline, and visited 13 island countries, many more island, plus transiting the Panama Canal and visiting the land-based country of Panama . For me personally, I had grown from being a reluctant sailor to loving the sails from island to island and finding long passages to be one of my favorite things. What a 421 day year it had been!
Tonight I was invited to dinner at the home of one of my book club members. Dena and her husband Ed recently bought a second home here in East Falmouth. After graduating from Harvard, Ed stayed in Boston and Dena graduated from the University of Pittsburgh and moved to Boston for her first job. She bought a condo close to Harvard Square that she still owns, met Ed, and they began their life together. The condo she bought in the 1970’s is still their ‘first’ home. They travel back and forth at will. Dena joined our book club just before Covid, so many of our meetings have been on Zoom. It was wonderful to spend the evening together in person getting to know more about each other’s lives. Dena and Ed’s first grandchild, only six months old, is in Cambridge, and they find they are spending more time there than they expected when they bought the home in Falmouth. Grandkids have that magical ability to draw you into their lives. Nothing more wonderful.
As soon as I got home, I turned on the TV to watch more Olympics. The Women’s Half-Pipe Snowboarding finals were on and I enjoyed watching seventeen year old Chloe Kim win the Gold for the USA. I am now getting ready to watch the Men’s Figure Skating Free Skate Program finals. Go Nathan Chen. I love the two Japanese skaters that keep him on this toes, but I am still routing for him to win the Gold. He does such a beautiful job of balancing the technical with the artistic. Yes, I really am an Olympics fanatic!
