Arising around nine in the morning as befits a retiree, I went out to the kitchen to foam the milk for my first latte. I drink two each day, very milky, and then poured TJ's O's into a bowl with blueberries, banana and walnuts topped off with more milk. I figure I'm ingesting calcium without having to take pills. I hate to take pills and resist as long as possible. I am 72 years old and various parts of me have begun to break down but I'm still enthused about mornings. I read some poetry by Robert Wilbur or Fannie Howe, or a bit of the paper - two papers, the Seattle Times and the New York Times, come to the backyard every morning. Leo the Labradoodle has the responsibility of fetching them in any weather for which he is rewarded with a treat as well as three hidden treats. That gives him something to do until his breakfast of cottage cheese over kibble is served.
If I don't look at my phone, giant sync hole that it is, I can be at my laptop in my study by 10:30 pecking out 750 words a day on
www.750words.com. Love the pace.
If it is MWF, then I hurry and put on a swimsuit to leave the house by 9:30 and head over to Green Lake's Evans Pool where I do water aerobics and chat with friends. Maybe we'll have coffee afterwards with a long standing group, chatting about books, theatre, art and tv shows. For years, there was a ban on discussing grandchildren but it's pretty much out of date as few of the surviving members have grandkids except Helen. And her grandkids are interesting and talented teens with various stages of sexual dysphoria giving us all sorts of cultural education on trans folk and use of pronouns. The group is interesting and living proof that growing old does not mean slowing down or dumbing down in any way. I can barely keep with the 90-year-old and her gallery hopping and volunteer work for the city's aging programs. I come from a line of long-living Swedes on my mom's side so I like to see how people age.
My grandpa was born in 1872 in Varmland, Sweden. The other day I reached for a tiny "Little Oxford Dictionary" that I keep beside my bed to look up a word and found pasted into the back of the book a yellowed clipping: "Victor Magnuson had a pleasant 95th birthday the first day of spring. Two daughter, Melva Reed and June Shepherd, and families, came to pay himi honor." So that tells me where I was March 21 of 1977, just shortly before I met Michael in April and a few week after my dad's death, assuming I joined the women . Funny parsing all of this info together. I think Grandpa was out chopping down trees well into his nineties. He was a vigorous soul and had his oldest daughter, Edee, to help. She never married and took care of her folks most of her life. I have her memories written in one of those Quillmark "My Memories" book and I am glad to filled it out. Much easier to track down Forsa, Halsingland and Varmaland in Sweden from whence they hailed. I also explored taking a transatlantic cruise on the QE2 or the like from Holland America. It seems a doable option to flying for our next trip to Europe.
Labels: 750 words, grandparents
1000 Words: A Writer's Guide to Staying Creative, Focused, and Productive All Year Round by Jami Attenberg