Lesser Life Goals

A journal entry from December 3, 2023, Sunday

I am not going to church today. I will watch the music and the talk online instead.

So, I have lingered in my bed, sitting up, warmly dressed because it is cold outside and I have decided to let it be cold inside too. Something about the touch of reality inside, the brisk air even on my couch and in my bathroom make me thrilled with my own decision making. I would not behave this way living with someone else, but today I let the cold seep in through the windows and walls. I could turn the thermostat to a warmer setting, wear shorts when there’s snow in the yard like I did when I was a girl and my dad heated our living room with a potbellied stove. I would do stretches against one of the 90-degree angles of the stove’s platform. One leg straight, parallel and touching the side of the tile covered square, its corner facing my crotch. The other leg turned back in a v. I leaned down toward the outstretched leg feeling my muscles burn with the tension then twist myself and lean down towards the bended leg. “Someday I will be loose enough to be able to do the splits”, I thought to myself. It was a life goal. Today, I save money on my electric bill.

The two large windows look over the back yard from my second story bedroom. A squirrel is flicking its tail high in the maple tree. I see her through the sheer white curtain. Two heavier white panels hang vertically, pulled to each side. The sheer hangs down the window in the center, but I pulled it over to one side leaving the top half over the window. Come together, this all looks like a woman’s long, white hair on each side with long bangs parted on the side and tucked behind one ear. I look through the sheer bangs into an autumnal face. The leaves of the maple tree are golden trimmed in brown now and layers of rust, green, gold, and brown trail off in the distant yards beyond. I looked in the bathroom mirror as I washed my hands this morning and saw the same, a face in her autumn, silver streaks of hair curving through, instead of the, once, all wild and dark mop of my youth. I saw deep cuts like grooves in soft wood fall from the outer corners of my eyes. I do like autumn. I used to love spring possibly because I was young and in my own springtime of life. Autumn is a slowing time, of putting away one’s harder works and seeing a bit of rest ahead. There is still pleasing work, but instead of gushing, robust, fast-hormone-drenched flowing, it is the time of the comforting routine, clear thoughts, of meditation, of sanity and the allure of peace.

I let the fallen leaves remain on the lawn. This needles the mind of some who rake and rake until all are bagged or burned. I say I like the look of leaves in the yard. I like the crunch under my feet and the way they blow in the change-of-season-breeze. It could be that I’m hiding a streak of laziness, but an article I read recently said that if I wanted more lightning bugs in my yard, I should leave the leaves as a habitat and home for their larva. Life goal: a summer yard lit with lightning bugs is a must.

Downstairs is colder still as what little heat there rises to the second floor and seems to be enhanced by carpeted floors and light. I don’t need to close curtains upstairs. No one can see inside. A grand cuckoo clock is secured on the sea salt wall that I thought would be pale green when the paint was applied. I’ve learned to appreciate the pale blue of Sherwin-Williams Sea Salt instead since I have a great distaste for painting and re-painting. If I could get the clock set precisely, I think as I admire it again, I would have cuckoos in every room, but as it is, the clock lags behind or runs ahead depending on which end I’ve tried to correct most recently. I reason that more cuckoos would bring me even more happiness until I imagine a 12 a.m. singing of the collected cuckoos chirping on and on as each clock sounds off at nearly, but not quite the right time. Under the clock is a metal table with decorative metal leaves gifted to me by a friend. It is perfect for displaying a rarely blooming Christmas cactus. For three years I’ve tried to set the clock and have tried to coax the blooms. Life goals, and these make me laugh to myself. I write them all down for my reading and remembering pleasure– something to read on a future Sunday staying in from church.