This past weekend, it occurred to me that if I were to ever tick off the major things I’ve wanted out of life, I’ve been lucky enough to receive all of them. No, we don’t have untold riches by which we can retire and spend the rest of our days traveling and pursuing all sorts of hedonistic pleasures. But, we have riches of other kinds. Namely, we have each other, reasonable financial security, the health of those we love and our little piece of not-quite-paradise in which we can largely carry out our days as work-from-home professionals.
Yes, we have a lot to be grateful for. And right now, I want to get back to appreciating it.
When life gets busy, I tend to forget how good we have it. Post a long travel day on Thursday and more home renovations on Saturday, that message could have gotten lost. I’m nursing spring allergies and neither Darryl nor I have been sleeping well. But, we pulled our attitudes out of the gutter on Sunday. After pretty severe morning thunderstorms, the afternoon turned bright and sunny and the temperature rose to 70 degrees. We went for a walk and then Darryl went for a bike ride while I read a book. And in those quiet moments, gratitude sauntered back in, sat beside me and reminded me that the complications and stresses in our lives are truly manmade. If I let them go, I can live in the quiet celebration of a calm, well-lived and well-loved life.
I have a choice to make. I choose gratitude.
Today, the start of week five of my little micro-business and I have my work plan for the week already. I also have some personal tasks to get done. But gradually, life is slowing down. I can see that it’s going to take awhile yet to get first on top of everything and then just a tiny bit ahead. I don’t need to be miles ahead, I just need for us to largely avoid crisis management in the future. This weekend was a big step forward in that direction. While it wouldn’t have been a crisis – yet – if the grow operation in the basement didn’t come upstairs and get set up for this year’s seedlings, it would have become one in two weeks. But Saturday? We got it up and tomatoes and potatoes both got started on time. They now join the onions and herbs under the grow light and, as necessary, on top of the heat mats. We are set up.
This week, I will also take my first turns around the yard mowing for the season. It’s not crisis proportions yet, mind you, but if I left it more than a week, it wouldn’t be mowing – it would be haying. Finally, we also will spend this upcoming weekend doing final prep for the final set of floors in two weeks. Once that is done, we can begin cleanup and put our lives back together…
But in the meantime, I still choose gratitude. As the sun starts to burn through the morning fog here in the valley and my four furry ones settle down for their first morning nap, the house is calm and quiet. A little professional work, a little house work and a lot of gratitude are on tap for my day. I genuinely don’t want much. Instead, I want what we have right here. It will take days before the flat of tomato plants Darryl seeded on Saturday will begin to sprout. Even longer for the sweet potatoes to begin. Yet, there is a quiet, calm pleasure in walking over, peeking through the plastic domes and seeing if anything has happened yet. There’s also a quiet pleasure in stroking a silky, furry head and hearing the purr response. I’ll spend a few minutes doing that – times four! I will take pleasure in both doing good professional work as well as good home work. And finally, this afternoon, I will make time to read in the sunshine.
Gratefulness, it appears to me, is as good of a lifestyle as anything else. And it suits me. It suits me really, really well.
The Yuppie Homesteader 