Life By Wandering Around

Sleep E Corner

The title of this blog, "Life By Wandering Around," could just as easily be "Life By Wondering Around in my Brain."  I have been enjoying life both ways for the last few weeks. I worried for a couple of weeks wondering why I couldn't sit down and write when indeed I could sit down outside and drift away in the heat of the summer with a breeze in the trees and the buzzing of locust, beetles, and bugs. Sitting down inside at my computer in my newly painted room, no.

In this photograph of our shading corner I can see two major problems. The first being the swing. Jack and I may very well wear this swing out before the summer is over. In Oklahoma we have experienced an unusually comfortable breezing summer (except for the week of July 19-23 when it was a humid human scorcher.) On the days when I have not played golf I have found comfort in or own backyard.

In that swing I traveled back into the time of Jesus, through the words of Sue Monk Kidd. Oh, such an insight to the neglect and foul treatment of women. My stomach nearly turned over a few times when I compared their lives to my own experiences. What If I could not work?

What if I could not support myself or my children? And then of course, the television made sure I saw the results of my what if's in the present day. No, I rarely watch the news these days, reading is so much better and I can react based on my thought, based on my previous experiences, my point of view. Back to the book that my mind just wondered away from--I recommend it because it does ask you to think. Could Jesus have had a wife? 

Now the outside recliner, the Sleep E Chair, has gifted my mind with other types of wanderings. Sleep being the greatest gift, of course. Listening to the buzzes this morning from the fluorescent green June Beetle, and Cicada's I wonder in my mind back to the summer Monday's we spent at Roaring River in Missouri. Dad was not a camper, but we did leave early on Monday's, his one day off from the golf course, and would drive to a lake or watering hole somewhere.  My sister and I played all day long on the rocks and in the cold water. Dad and Mom sat fishing and sometimes played with us in the water splashing and laughing like children themselves. Always overhead was the noise of the insects, the screeching of birds of prey high in the sky, or the squeal of my sister's voice when I splashed her.  Funny how sounds and noises take us back to our childhood memories. 

There are so many ways to wander through this world. From the comforts of a recliner chair by the fireplace this winter or from a rocking chair outside. Before Covid 19 struck our world this year like a laser light, I decided to read novels that were translations. The University of Oklahoma host the International Literature Award called the Neustadt Prize, one year for adult literature, and the next year for children's/young adult. I became enthralled with the stories these authors have shared when I have taken the opportunity to attend their programs, so this year I decided to explore a new world of reading. https://www.neustadtprize.org/ 

Now a map on the wall of our hall shows the places I have visited this year through translated books and situations that I cannot imagine.

For instance, Poland on the Czech border after WWII in the book Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead; Chili through the words and eyes of Isabelle Allende in the book The Long Petal to the Sea.  I've also explored Cuba before the time of Castro (Enchanted Air), and The Ghetto of Frankfurt, Germany when The First Mrs. Rothschild tells her husband's story of developing a worldwide banking system in the 1790's. 

Our backyard is alluring in more ways than shading spots. I love color and it matters not the pattern. It does help to be 'Oklahoma Proven' if the flower plans to live through the summers and the baby rabbits who eat their favorite greens no matter what the grower intended. Yes, I spend many hours wandering through the hardy flower gardens we grow, picking flowers, pulling weeds, and decluttering my mind.

Anything Grows Garden

In reflection it may be 'in the time of Covid' and like the dynamic novel Love In the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, that in the end we come to learn and better understand ourselves and our relationships.