A note to my blog

Dear blog,

I have not forgotten you, nor have I lost the urge to write about anything and everything. It seems that I have been so busy learning about what it is going to be like when I retire from my full-time professor job. For example, I have started reading novels, and am enjoying it very much. Plus, I adore taking long walks and having coffee or breakfast with friends in my community. 

I decided to take me on as a challenge to be healthy and fit so that when I go into my seventies next year, I will be able to stand firm and face whatever the new developmental stage of old age will have to offer. So, I have been eating healthy, walking more, doing strength training and yoga exercises. I am enjoying this. Taking care of me. It feels new and different. 

I can't wait for spring and summer, and I seem to be enjoying all my time spent learning to do things that I love. Recently I read Ursula Le Guin's, No Time to Spare, a compilation of her blog posts about aging. I especially loved how she described the idea of "spare time:"

The opposite of spare time is, I guess, occupied time. In my case I still don't know what spare time is because all my time is occupied. It always has been and it is now. It's occupied by living.

Having the spring semester off means I am home a lot more. And Oscar and Mimi love having me around. They gather around me wherever I plant myself - by my computer or with a good book. They snuggle around me and keep me warm. This past weekend when I was feeling poorly with the latest stomach flu that I might have caught on the planes flying back and forth from Israel, they kept me as warm as can be. 

Don't get me wrong, blog. I am still working. I completed a book and it will be published this July. I am particularly fond of this one, and look forward to holding it in my hands. It will come out exactly 30 years since I immigrated to the States from Israel. I think I might want to have a party to celebrate both its arrival, and my thirty year immigration anniversary. And, blog, I am still presenting workshops and lectures here and there all over the country. So, even though I only have one full academic year left at my professor job, my plate is full and glass is overflowing.

Oh - before I forget ... did I tell you that I spent ten days in Israel recently visiting my mother's grave for the first year memorial after her passing last March? I think I might have forgotten to tell you that. My sister, Elise, has been taking care of her grave with such dedication and love. Indeed, she created a rock garden on it just as my mother would have loved. She tends it weekly by watering and adding new succulents she brings to plant from her own garden. And every Friday, she lights a memorial candle. Here is a photograph:

As I stood by the graveside, I felt peaceful, grateful and happy to see the flowers and cacti enveloping my mother's memory with such creativity and love.

So, dear blog, I will be back again to tell my stories, and write out my emotional theories about this and that. Thank you for being so patient with me. I love knowing you are here, always quietly waiting and supportive, a vessel to carry my ideas and thoughts, emotions and words out into the Interwebs. 

Much love always, Tamarika.

Comments

[Tamarika]

Hi Tom,
How good it is to "find" you here! Yes, I know it's your birthday on April 2nd. Gee, and of course! You have always been a year older than me. Isn't it amazing how far we have come? Let's try and see each other in our seventies! All my best, always, Tamar

[Tom Potter]

Hi Tamar, in a short 4 days on April 2 I will turn 70. Who would have imagined me living this long and in such good condition. And I know that on May 24 you will be 69 confirming that in one year you will enter your 70s. Glad to hear all of the ways you are doing things to maximize your remaining 25 plus years. Always enjoy reading your blogs and seeing what thoughts and emotions they will stimulate in my being. Best wishes, Tom