Good afternoon.
My neighbors to the north are my age. They are lovely people, but they are out and about every day of the year regardless of the weather. He still shovels his walks and driveway, something he clearly should not be doing, but he actually seems to enjoy it. No snowblower for this guy. He clears the snow the old-fashioned way in a parka and an orange ski hat and always has a smile on his face even in blizzard conditions. We had snow blowing all over the place today and North Pole temperatures with terrible wind chills, but there he was at the end of his driveway, surveying the wrath of Mother Nature at eight o'clock in the morning and shortly he was off somewhere in his vehicle. Meanwhile I was hunkered down inside, all bundled up in warm slacks and a heavy sweater with a pot of coffee nearby and a wool blanket to throw over my legs when I was camped in my chair. The idea of sticking even a toe in a sock outside was totally foreign to me. I stood in the door with the dog on a twenty foot leash and told her to hurry up so I could get back to the chair and my blankie.
These people have garage sales in the summer. They have one or two a year and they're three-day weekend events that require sitting in a lawn chair and sweltering away in the heat while
people rummage through tables of items no longer wanted or needed. My neighbor told me during the last marathon that she was determined to get rid of years of stuff no matter what it took. I have never had a garage sale. I am not about to spend days putting tags on old lamps and picture frames along with washing, drying, and heaven forbid, ironing five sizes of garments that have to be hung on clothing racks from a rental place. This is what you do with your junk: you inform your children that there's a box of their high school trophies, stuffed animals, and yearbooks waiting to be picked up, you set the lumpy couch and plant stand out on the curb with a sign that they're free, you take the clothes to Good Will, and anything that remains gets hauled to the dump, hopefully by a son-in-law with a trailer behind his SUV.
My neighbors also take impeccable care of their landscaping and rake their own leaves in the fall. There they are, the two of them, all decked out in their comfortable shirts and sensible shoes, mowing, watering, weeding, and mulching and later on, scooping up four inches of autumn discards. The husband of the couple told me, always with his cheerful visage, that he planted most of his sloping front lawn because several years ago he lost a toe when the mower slipped. I can wield a hose or a watering can now and then, but that's where my efforts start and end. Last fall my oldest granddaughter's nanny brought by eight or ten kids to rake my leaves and bag them up, all of it pro bono. A few days later she showed up in her van and took the bags to the leaf drop off. The woman is a saint and I think I saw her chatting with the neighbors as I sat in my house with my afternoon cup of tea and a cookie or three.
The temperature is a supposed to be a balmy one above tomorrow and my neighbors will probably be out for lunch and doing their grocery shopping. I will fix up something warm on the stove, order my groceries on line for home delivery, and feel sort of dumb and self-indulgent, but not so much that I would even contemplate changing my habits of living. Someone - well, actually my therapist - once told me I'm an earth mother but that means, according to one definition, that I'm sort of mushy and maternal, not that I like to dig around in the snow, the dirt, or any other natural material the earth chooses to bestow upon me. Then again, I don't think my neighbors or the sainted lady will ever require the services of a therapist.
Best regards,
Elisabeth
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