Day is Done, the Sun has Set and I am Tired
Its almost impossible to sum up a day like today. There were so many elements of it that felt so familiar to our old life. So many things we used to do without giving it much thought, and now, how many modern things have crept in without even realizing it.I realized one thing today, with all the children grown and gone, I am sort of retired from many of the day to day activities that come with having children at home. One aspect of that is the cooking. Since I chose to skip lunch, I could. With children home, that would not have been possible.
It was hot today, so instead of me building a hot fire to make supper, Emery said to have something simple that could be cooked on a small fire. I made him fried egg sandwiches. I had toast. Not balanced meals for the day. Not a single vegetable for me. Just a choice I made. I suppose if it had been cooler, the stove would not have been such an issue. But having a hot fire in an already warm house, is just plain not comfortable.
With the days work done, wood in for the morning and water ready for the morning, I feel more prepared for tomorrow. Emery is feeling better. So worry has been erased. I wonder what it was like when there was no reality of an Emergency room there if we needed it. Weeks before a Doctor would be in the area ? I would think fear would be there much of the time in regard to health matters. Everything could be potentially fatal.
Tonight the lamps are lit, and fortunately we have several, so all the house is lit with that golden glow from the burning wicks. The house is peaceful and that gentle calm has settled in with us for the night, like a sleepy cat curled up on a braided rug by the fire.
The cars that drive by seem surreal, a bit out of place.
But more, they seem like an invader to the peace of stepping back and looking at things through eyes that feel as though they belonged to someone long ago.
I would love a shower, and a huge glass of water with ice in it. I would love to hear some gentle music or have a phone call from one of my children.
Funny the things I miss. Today I wished for a kitchen window. When we added on the dinning room, the kitchen window was lost. It was dark in there all day long, not pitch black dark, but dark enough to have a lamp on to do the dishes, dark enough it seemed the floor was not in need of a good scrubbing.
Little log homes on the prairie or on the frontier would not have had many windows. Glass was expensive, and there was no screens. So my kitchen felt pretty authentic in regards to the amount of light I had.
We plan to knock part of an outside wall out and put in a window, it seems more important to me after today.
Not sure what tomorrow will be like as far as food goes, its going to be warmer than today. In the 90's.
What did the women of Texas do in the summer way back when for baking in summer. I sure hope they all had a stove on the porch or an outside beehive oven or something. Its time to step back in time again and enjoy the rest of the peaceful time before I climb the two steps to bed. I think that old feather bed will feel extra good tonight.
The living room by lamp light
The glow of a kerosene lamp
Comments
You know what you're doing is actually harder than it was back then because you've experienced modern convenience and are used to it and they weren't. This lifestyle is all they knew . . still wasn't an easy life at all though.
Have fun tomorrow. Hope the weather surprises you and is cooler than you're thinking it will be.
Judy L.
Folks then, just like now, really did what they could to make things more comfortable and convenient. They didnt shun comfort and convenience, they embraced them as much as they could really. Sometimes we seem to forget that when we look back.
Hope tomarrow goes well for you both : )
When love is as deep as what Emery and I share, there is fear when one another is sick with some unknown symptom.
"Attatchment" is like that, I suspect that is why Buddhism speaks so much about attatchement as a block to true enlightenment
At this point in time, we blur the lines between comfort and extravegance and excess
I'm glad that you have posted while you have been on your adventure. I'm glad that Emery is doing better.
Speaking of summer kitchens, I had not given it much thought but I now remember that many of the older homes around here have a screened-in back porch, not very big. I never thought much about it, but the last time I visited my father-in-law's courting friend she had a large stove in her's. She does all her canning there. Now that I think about it, the screened-in back porches were too narrow or too short to be sitting porches, and the screens were all above waist-high so it only makes sense that they were in fact, cooking porches! No one around here had electricity when those houses were built.
Hmmm...isn't it wonderful that we can still put 2+2 together if we only do the "old" math. LOL!
It really is special what you have with your husband. Attachment is not our weakness to heal but our deepest strength to deepen, we simply need to choose wisely who and what we attach to. Sure, the fear of loss is there, but thats just part of our humanness, and our humanness is so very precious. We are attached right from (and before) birth by bonding, and if we dont attach then we spend our whole lives trying to heal from that lack. I think that speaks volumes, and that we should truly treasure our attachments.
Good food for thought youve given with "we blur the lines between comfort and extravegance and excess". Comfort is so central, but excess is harmful, and its becoming more and more critical to discern the difference. I guess it comes down to distinguishing between want and need. Comfort is a need, excess a mere want.
I am sure we do not share the same views on attatchment. What I speak of in this case is for adults and certainly a child must attatch. I have raised a child that was adopted at 5 and lacked attatchment. What I write about is certainly regarding adulthood, and how we realize that nothing is permanant as adults. Death is certain to seperate us from people at some point, either we die or they die, whichever comes first.
My views come from the buddhist understanding of attatchment. I make no secret of that. It works for me and I have no problem combining it with my belief system. It simply works for me. Christ was certainly not attatched to the things and people on earth, his humanity was real and his attatchment to family never got in the way of his work. He even told the man, "let the dead burry the dead" when the man wanted to follow him, after he had burried his parent. That would seem to be a bit unattatched by most standards.
If I saw Christ as detached I'd be running the other way. It was/is His deep personalness and bonding and attachment to us that tells me He is who He is and to trust Him. He is the Vine, we are the branches--that's attachment, big time, even as adults. Attachment is at the core of things for me, the best of who we are and can be.
It seems detachment works for you, but it definitely doesnt for me. A friend once told me she saw God this way: When she was a mother she saw how she had to teach each child in a very different way to reach them, even when teaching them about the same thing. She told me she thinks God is like that, teaching us in that personalized way. So maybe He is teaching us each in a different way here. I don't know.
I dont think your big adventure was a failure at all, and I applaud you for being honest about it. We dont need to spurn things that bring us more ease and comfort today, its more the things that take away from our lives (too much busyness, too much noise, too much convenience food, too little relationship and prayer and nature and calm etc) that is the part to really remedy. As you were finding too, the true key I feel is SLOWING DOWN. Just doing that is where the rest unfolds from really.
A fruitful adventure it was : ) Wendy