one perfect morning . . .

This has been so.

65. walking a cool, early morning beach framed in sun glow and sea breeze
66. wearing sandy-hemmed sweats
67. being able to go the extra mile the day after the race
68. having just enough change for the parking fee you didn't expect
69. beginning with Amigos Para Siempre (both versions randomly back-to-back)
70. collecting not just one baby's ear but two :-)
71. remembering "here on the shore, turned into stone, lies a piece of a conch's one-spiral cone"
72. collecting whelk fragments for someday's frame
73. finding both Carolinas' state shells on the same morning

74. ending with Somewhere in Time (Michael Crawford with words :-)
75. eating breakfast both before and after

I would not have imagined that I would have been

. . . absolutely in awe as I drove over the Ravenel bridge for the first time today.

I have gone out of my way to avoid this encounter. They tore my beautiful bridges down, frail sacrifices to this aquatic demon. I wouldn't look in its direction on my few visits to its city. I went around, but never across, until today.

Today, because, in the morning, I will walk with thousands others the breadth of its span and more. Today, because this first encounter needed to be more up close and personal, more private.

Traffic crawled this afternoon, crawled enough for me to savor the marvelous intricacies of this giant Tinkertoy creation. Yes, marveling, wondering, agape with awe. . .

I can see its skyprint from my window tonight. Tomorrow it too will become one of my beautiful bridges, one that I imagine will live on this earth and sea longer than I . . .

a home song

I find it interesting that this evening, for the second time in as many springs, I'm relieved to learn that I have not been "selected" for a professional opportunity. Both might have offered additional financial security--a position more immune from budget cuts or a second income to bolster rainy day accounts. But, even in this unsettling economy and with retirement on the not-too-distant horizon, I'm loving where I am. Maybe I reach out for those other possibilities just to ensure that I don't become complacent, lose my edge? Or maybe this is my Everest: I reach out because the opportunity is there?

Whatever the reason, both rejections gifted me back precious summer weeks I would have lost to work. And today, after two glorious afternoon hours puttering in my wilderness but wannabe well-groomed yard, I was especially grateful that I had not traded my summer for financial security before realizing, once again, how much this annual tussle with nature is an inherent part of who I am.

64. Happy 11th anniversary, home of mine! Looks like we'll be spending much of our sweet slow summer days together again after all :-)

I'm smiling. Are you?

love u infinity plus one

63.

the local March birthdays trio

the Facebook experiment . . .

Like blogger, it's taken a while for Facebook to "take" with me. I joined last summer after my cautious oldest out-of-state child said she'd set up a Facebook page for professional reasons. I thought it would be a way for me to connect with her and with out-of-touch professional colleagues. Several in a cohort that is soon to disband had their own Facebook pages. With my daughter, they became my first "friends."

Connecting on Facebook with colleagues at work has been a different story--perhaps because ours is a professional where one misstep in cyberspace today may easily translate into loss of livelihood--position and credentials--tomorrow. But, after two years of blogging on a site easily googled, I figured I wasn't a misstep candidate so . . .

I invited my other daughter to join. She was the natural anyway--and truly uses the tool for what it does best, connecting with old friends before they've grown so old they've forgotten you or grown wary of risk-taking, of stepping out into the unknown. My son--well, he still hasn't mastered sending/responding to personal emails, so I haven't bugged him . . . yet. But it's interesting to note that, in the meantime, I've connected to all my brother's and sister's children :-)

Which brings me to another point--sister and brothers who also don't have Facebook accounts . . .

In the meantime, I've amassed oodles of Flair, joined a group from my mother's hometown across the Atlantic, and begun taking tiny risks--like quizzes (I should have been a detective [aren't I?] and settled down in Italy [close enough to that across-the-Atlantic hometown]). I support my college basketball team (my classmates also aren't on Facebook but the more recent residents of my former dorm are). I dabble in the trivia of what I'm thinking at any given moment--and truly enjoying being more in the know about the lives of those I have so little-face-to-face contact with.

Facebook keeps us close when time and space and the demands of our separate lives would ordinarily dictate otherwise.

The one drawback? Just not the right venue for longer thinking, reflecting. Which is why I'll keep right on blogging :-)

. . . got the T-shirt to prove it!

I'm certifiably insane by my own standards. If you'd have told me I'd gladly pass up sleeeping in on the Saturday morning of my first no-obligations weekend in a while, I'd have raised my eyebrows. If you told me that, instead of sleeping in, I'd be voluntarily traipsing up and down city hills in sub-freezing temperatures, I'd have been thinking about having you committed.

But I guess I'll do almost anything, within reason, to have the t-shirt--a size small--and to be able to fit into that t-shirt.

There weren't a lot of us hardy souls this morning running or walking in the first-ever Run/Walk for Books. But I was there--lived to tell/write about it (walked 4K in 40 minutes 14 seconds)--and brought home the proof!



Let's see if I can say the same after April's longer, higher, tougher Cooper River Bridge Run/Walk . . . I would have gladly rested on my Grace Memorial (1994) and Silas Pearman (1995) laurels/t-shirts, but there's this new bridge . . .

3-28-09 FOOTNOTE (from Wikipedia, b/c I couldn't find the 1995 t-shirt ["get over it," right???]): With entrants exceeding 8,500 and a new 7,000 meter walk added, totaling over 10,000 participants, and tighter restrictions on weight on the Grace Bridge, in 1995 officials returned the Bridge Run to the Pearman bridge, with all three lanes being used, as traffic to Charleston could now be diverted to the Don N. Holt Bridge near Daniel Island on Interstate 526, which had opened in 1992.

third wall . . .

We as adults have too many walls. I know they are often meant to protect us, but I am finding letting them fall can leave you vulnerable to the occasional attack, and I’m sure will lead to some pain. But I also find that without walls, the radiance of the world around us can finally reach us – as the warmth of the sun can only do when you are outside.

I have this thing about walls . . . so this piece in today's email from a family member touched quite a chord . . . Walls--inside and outside of me. Walls I touch. Walls I build. Walls I let down, only to rebuild, piece by broken piece, to wall out the pain, to shelter the memories I want to hold close . . .

Almost two generations ago, when poetry was my release, my healer, I penned these concluding thoughts . . .

End?
Not end.
Third wall awaits,
But where?
I did not know--
Two walls suffice for weary eyes;
Four walls is house and home.
Third wall is deciding.
When?
Tomorrow.

I could not have better predicted my life . . .

to be happy about today . . .

62. 5.5 years since LASIK and still seeing 20/20. . .

and my reading vision is pretty remarkable also :-)

So maybe doctor's visits aren't all

frustrating

jumpthroughus

hoops

???

psyching out the lotus focus . . .

OK, here goes!

Confession time . . .
Three weeks of Wii Fit and I am sooooo addicted.
The powers inside the balance board can read my mind.
I'm hopelessly unbalanced!

I may have to admit defeat in the Soccer Ball heading game. Deflecting a ball in full motion with my head is not a sacrifice I can wrap my brain around. Every instinct in my body says DUCK!!!!

I've arrived at level 8 (for beginners) in Table Tilt (navigating Level 5 is my nemesis most other times). After many, many, many unsuccessful attempts, I am now a Ski Slalom amateur . . . sometimes. Navigating my Mii-in-a-Bubble up the river seems do-able. Sometimes my penguin Mii celebrates amateur status in catching fish without falling off her iceberg (too much). Walking her across a Tightrope is a save-for-later.

And, thanks to my persistence, in the face of unbalanced verdicts, yesterday I unlocked Lotus Focus.

Let me just say that, when all else fails, I turn away from the Balance Games to Yoga--and some of the Strength Training--Wii challenges to boost my self-image. I'm pretty good (aka trainer or master)--naturally, it seems, since I've had not a single "how-to" lesson until now--at Yoga. And I know enough about Yoga to recognize that this Balance game is essentially a Yoga thing and therefore a way to progress, in Balance, beyond unbalanced and the occasional amateur status.

Just figuring out how to get my bottom and legs lotus-positioned (well, close . . .) and balanced on that small balance board surface was tricky--even at 5'5", with a bull's-eye perfect BMI! My first four attempts--two at 27 seconds followed by two at 32 seconds--were unbalanced.

I've figured out that my weak(est) area--this has been lifelong challenge which LASIK has lessened but in which I still need major brain training--is orienting myself in space. Rapid onslaughts of visual stimuli (like those soccer balls and foreign objects) rattle my composure. Managing my reactions to auditory stimuli, on the other hand, is a relative strength.

Sooooooooooooooooooooooooo, on the fifth attempt at Lotus Focus, I closed my eyes (except for the occasional peek) and sat and sat and sat some more until the game ended itself.

180 seconds of sitting still enough to be a

Lotus Focus CHAMPION

I have arrived!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!