The Boy said, Hey let's have dinner out Friday night. I said I can't, because I have my book club meeting Friday night. He said, How can that be? You just got back from India and you've already got plans?
That's the thing about being an adult. You always have plans. You try to carry them out with focus and order. While you carry out those plans, you also try to live in the moment and appreciate what you are doing, what you are experiencing, observing life around you.
Versus being a child or a teenage. Kids live in the moment. While living in the moment, they try to make plans. Their plans are invariably fluid and last minute. Living in the moment, kids seem forgetful of responsibility and oblivious to life around them.
And what about when you get much older, like after you retire. Literature tells us there are at least two ways to be. You can be a curmudgeonly old coot, full of bitterness, anger, and rigidity. Or you can be lively and full of grace, self-accepting, generous, and forgiving. You can live in the moment and make plans at the same time, and not get upset if the plans fall to shits.
That's the kind of old woman I want to be. Because that's the mindset I need to have to trek the Himalayas. My Himalayan guide, uncomplicated Mohamed, said you have to be physically fit and mentally unburdened to do the Himalayas. If you were not physically fit, you just wouldn't be able to do the trek that requires climbing up and down the mountains, sweating during the day, and freezing in the night. If you were fit but mentally preoccupied, you would be wasting your trek because you would be too distracted to appreciate the effort you made to see the beauty of the lakes high up in the mountains and clouds.
The Man and I have talked about trekking the Himalayas in Nepal. Oh he's afraid of heights and I am afraid of success. But think what a project we have - get fit, grow more graceful, overcome fear. I don't think life will be boring for us even if he is in Kabul right now.
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I suspect that I'll grow old to be the former: a curmudgeonly old coot, full of bitterness, anger, rigidity and impatience. The tell-tale signs are there now as I approach my twilight.
Waif and I have often talked of a trek through the mountains in Nepal and Tibet. We understand the training involved because of the altitude. Lack of time keeps getting in the way but this is a trek we will make at some point in our lives.
You mean you'll be more curmudgeonly than you are now? Poor Waif.
Train for the trek now and let's do it while The Man is in Kabul. That means going in 2008!
Personally, I plan on becoming the kind of person my dog thinks I am...even if I don't have a dog.
Well, at least not in TO. I have an Afghan hound here in Kabul, but he was inherited.
I too have always wanted to go trekking in Nepal. I was scheduled to go as a celebration after my degree, but Kid1 unexpectedly came along. I still hold him responsible for costing me that trip. Then I thought I would have to put it off until the kids were old enough to be left alone for a month (which is how long I would want to go for). Now that I can leave them with their father...let's go in 2008! There are benefits to divorce.
Cocteau, please post a picture of your hound.
Cocteau - Doesn't your dog think you are an invader? Have you got a name for him? How about Scrags, or Raggedy-Rat, or Mangy, or Wilt.
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