Just a Typical Sunday

It rained yesterday morning and the flora are enjoying the drink.  The cacti are bulging, having soaked up as much as their expansive innards will allow.  Walking out to get the paper was pure joy.  There was enough breeze to warrant a light jacket; I wrapped myself in a friend's gift while I was lying on Douglas last year - a stretchy hoodie that reminded me of how far I'd come.  Walking down the driveway last year was cause for celebration and alerting the media.  Seriously.... there are several national news outlets that ran B-roll of me hobbling to my mailbox.  Apparently, American needed to know.

The paper was filled with Rio Nuevo related financial shenanigans.  As I recall, when we moved here in 2006 the headlines were much the same.  Closed door meetings, secret plans and no clear line of accountability were true then and were true this week, if the Arizona Star is to be believed.  And what an embarrassing mess it was; "We don't know who invited him," is not designed to engender trust in the voter. 

My body has changed more than they have.

I ate my oatmeal with brown sugar and glass of 1% milk with LuAnn and Baby Blues and Doonesbury.  I flashed back to G'ma's kitchen table, Newsday's tabloid pages fitting perfectly on the small table in the corner.  I've been having breakfast like this for a long long time. 

On my way to the gym I noticed a crane and a slab of concrete at Christina-Taylor's park.  It's the beginning of an art project; all 15' tall of it.  Right now there are birds and curlicues on what looks to be the first of many pieces. 

I'm not sure what it's going to be, but I like it so far. 

The landscaping is coming in beautifully, that both willfully and voluntarily planted.  There is an acre of brittle bush cascading between the road and the path, the yellow flowers dancing on their long wiry stems made me laugh out loud. 

Penstemon and salvia and desert marigolds have supplanted the poppies.  For a month or two we will be covered with color as the palo verdes and mesquites and acacia's take their turn changing from teeny green leves to big bright yellow blossoms.  There's a narrow window of opportunity to attract those pollinators and our trees don't miss a moment of it.

I sat on the bench in the garden and let the day wash over me.  It was just a typical Sunday.

Did my weights and my floor exercises at the gym, just like everyone else.  I wasn't carrying any extraneous pieces of equipment; it was just me and my ipod and my water bottle.  I managed to feel impressed that I could get my body contorted into the seated leg press machine.  I resisted the impulse to fume at the fact that there was no weight on the contraption and that my right leg alone was incapable of holding the plate.  I was there.  I was doing it.  That had always been enough for me in the past and it was enough for me this morning.

Talked to Danielle about recovery and resilience and living in the moment and ended up convincing her to begin blogging.  We've each had our challenges over the last year or so; it was refreshing to listen to her positive energy.  Laugh if you want to, denizens, but at the end of our conversation, wherein we had been finishing one another's sentences and laughing before the jokes were finished and found ourselves acknowledging the past but striding confidently into the future, at the end of it all there was an unavailable to the naked eye but there nonetheless palpably real connection.  I could feel the energetic waves moving between us.

As I said, scoff if you must.  I was there.

Rode that wave all the way to the pod-castle where G'ma was finishing up chocolate pudding and Glenna, her newest tablemate, was still working on her berry cobbler..... possibly my favorite dessert.  Returning from the kitchen with my own portion, 6 of us talked of pharmacists and farmers and volunteering and graduations and for a while there was not a whiff of dementia in the air. 

Furthering the wonderfulness that was my typical Sunday afternoon, G'ma and I went to Rillito Nursery for some zinnias and basil and verbena and a new hanging basket to refresh the valiant but daunted petunias.  She chatted with Stephanie, who's getting married in 2 weeks, pet the calico cat on the counter and meandered to the car with a smile plastered on her face. 

The sun was shining in my heart, too.

I came home and made a turkey sandwich and planted my flowers and came in to type to you.  There's a Harlan Coben paperback on the coffee table and a pitcher of mango tea tempting me on the kitchen table.  It's just a typical Sunday.  The fact of bullets never entered into the equation.  I've gotten through the whole day dealing with my aches and pains and in-abilities without defaulting to the shooter or the event or why. 

I'm finding myself on days like today..... I just wanted to share.