Saturday morning, when there is less noise and traffic outside my basement library window and instead nature in the sound of birds chirping, is always a good time to reassess where I currently stand in my life, and contemplate what I have to change. I have found that, unless I do this, my life continues in on its "comfort zone cushion" and is neither truly exciting, accomplished, but just ordinary (for me) and, if I'm not careful, I start "slipping" towards extremities I'd rather not entertain.
-- My health: I have a health coach that I report to when I am regimented in my exercise. When not, I don't report because I am wasting both of our times. The coach does respond if I reach out in times of my laziness, but our discussions don't bear rich fruit they would if I were following a daily schedule of healthy eating and exercise. And that brings, has "delivered" me, to where I am now: 225 - 230 pounds, but not a healthy 225 - 230. Truth be told, a recent pulled muscle has curtailed my physical activity, but still I didn't need to pair this with what I call "instant gratification junk food eating." Also, since I am now 57 and soon-to-be a 23-year heart attack survivor...what in the world am I thinking?! Do we have anything in common here? I think the reader and I know the next step. -- My work: The universe has transported me back into the full-time freelance writing world, and I have a swath of work embraces my desk. I have a busy life, and sometimes that busyness for some reason encourages procrastination. Not good. Funny thing, when I don't kick back and put the feet up -- which, by the way, I don't discourage; I'm just talking about overdoing it -- and get my writings done per deadline, more work opportunities are deposited into my "Current Assignments" folder. Not only that, I am happy, and so are my editors. The above two areas of my life, as I head into the second third of 2019, I will monitor more closely. Better yet, I will "live" the proper steps and partner this with the monitoring. Steve
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Oak Road Park in Fairfield, New Jersey has a tarred, somewhat circular trail, and walking it will take 3 - 5 minutes depending on the individual.
It also has a tiny playground for children, benches for sitting, and a picnic table for those seeking to maybe rest a while and have something to eat. On a recent Sunday afternoon, after I picked up my daughter from her weekend job, I learned she was gifted with a few extra pieces of ice creamed birthday cake from a party that day. It being a warm day, the cake - already liquidizing - would not have survived the 15 minutes, 12 mile drive home in stop-and-go traffic. So, we elected to visit Oak Road Park, a spot where I have occasionally stopped at and taken a brief stroll, and enjoy the somewhat-still-frozen delight while it still "lived." There was something very special in that 20 minutes we spent together, eating ice cream cake and talking, enjoying a park that was desolate except for us, a cat in the distance, and occasional bird soaring to branches in the trees not destroyed by weather or age. It was a very nice, impromptu, Daddy and Daughter brief sojourn. 20 minutes of quality time where we ate, talked about the serenity of the small park, and pretty much just enjoyed being together; me, away from my writing desk for the day, and she with her couple of hours of work concluded, looking for a few days of rest before returning to work again. It was so very simple, but at the same time so very special. Steve It was destined to happen.
In the 31 years that I've owned my home, I have quite a few times buried in our yard, primarily under the corner forsythia bush, the few tiny, deceased animals that I've found outside our fence or within the confines of our yard, a few maimed and killed by our late but great miniature dachshund, Jeffrey (1995-2012). One frigid morning, I noticed from our deck stairs a sparrow laying beneath the above-mentioned bush. I cautiously walked upon the ground covered with frozen snow and checked it out. The bird was motionless, its eyes still open. It had indeed passed on. When it comes to me and times like this, there are those few moments where you just continue to look, wonder what happened (I suspected here the bird had possibly frozen to death), and wish that things could be different. Just a few hours earlier, this bird may have been, along with the others, enjoying the food I place in the feeder every morning. Now, as its companions chirped and hopped from branch to branch in the nearby bush, it was gone. It was my first "winter burial" and, this time minus a shovel when I truly needed one most, I summoned the aid of one if my daughter's beach shovels from her childhood and dug a 4" to 5" hole, gently put the bird inside, made a cross out of two ice-covered twigs and placed them on the bird, blessed (like I have many times) it with prayers, and covered it with the frozen soil. From that day forward, when I fill the tiny birdbath near the burial spot with water, I ponder how the overflow nourishes the ground, perhaps is even reaching the bird's resting spot, as well as that of the other birds and bunnies that rest beneath this spot of land. Fast forward a month, and winter has turned to spring, the weather is warming, and now fresh, new greenery - grass and weeds - is sprouting out of the ground. This birth (rebirth, if you will) reminds me of a book I read when I was a child, when a young girl's rabbit had died and she was dreading burying it, the separation much too sad for her to bear. Her mother explained to her that the rabbit had done its job on earth, bringing the girl much happiness. She then said that rabbit's job now was to show love to other existence, for when buried it would join forces with the soil, rainfall, and sunshine to produce beautiful growth in the form of flowers, and continue to bring happiness to their home and passersby. The bird in my yard is now living that love. Steve |
Steve Sears is a New Jersey based freelance writer
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