Yes, I know it's Thursday already, but that's how long it tends to take to get around to posting.
This is most banal, but blogging endures best, I've concluded, when it offers slices of everyday life, and mine is not, on the whole. filled with what most people would consider excitement or exception. A young friend, the daughter of friends, whom we saw for the the first time in a while before Christmas, asked how was life, and I said genuinely it wasn't bad at all, in fact it had been quite a good year. What was good about it? she asked. On reflection, all I was able to say was that nothing too bad had happened. I could have gone on to say that we had all remained in reasonable health despite aches and pains and ear infections (none of which afflicted me personally), the only person who had left us did so peacefully at a good age leaving the gift of having known her untainted by any complications of remorse or bitterness, that together we had managed to make a couple of trips over the department line and individually a couple more over the Channel without crises of doggy health or any other kind intervening to spoil or prevent them, that I had grown some quite good vegetables and done a lot of knitting (I may in fact have mentioned the last fact, with a requisite hint of irony and self-mockery), that my very few remaining students of English were sweet and (mostly) willing and fresh as flowers, that we remain financially solvent while aware of added fiscal burdens, that I had not, thus far, crashed my car, that I had read some good books and even after some months of hard work got to the end of The Golden Bowl... But I already realised that to a thirty-something trilingual Paris career girl, her life filled with angst and elation and anticipation with the highs and lows of work, ons and offs of relationships, agonisings about biological clocks undsoweiter, I really had very little of interest to offer.
But never mind, I maintain that for me now, boring is good, that nothing bad is good, that sunshine in my blue room full of stuff,
a new fleecy blanket snagged in the sales which I didn't need but which is of such a sublime, belle verrière, shade that I couldn't pass it up, and the fingerless mittens I made from some wool my sister gave me from her stash and which it wasn't cold enough to wear with the blue blanket over a lap full of wool so I just kept them by to admire them (first I made the wool into a hat but it wasn't quite right, and I needed mitts to wear to use the camera so I pulled it apart and repurposed it),
that listening to Monserrat Figueras on cd,
followed by the radio adaptation of the Barchester Chronicles, with a contented dog snoozing beside me
are all very good indeed.
7 comments:
one ought never apologize for finding the banality of everyday life pleasant. having gone through my share of ups and downs, (oh the drama! oh the elation! oh the despair!) i think there's nothing like a nice dose of soft-edged reality to settle cozily into.
after our years of moving and moving and moving, we had the most splendid year once we settled, and the thing that made it splendid is precisely what you described.
i can't wait for the ordinary to reassert itself, once i'm done my school and my post-school Big Trip. in fact, i'm positively glowing with anticipation!
Yes, boring is good because the more you apply yourself to it, rich veins can be spotted within the vaults of boredom. Your post demonstrates something of the sort. All those projects!
Boring is good. Means nothing is going wrong. At a certain point in my life, I would not have appreciated that, which is why I love it now.
Already planning what we need to watch for in our summer yard-sailing.
I teach at a well-to-do high school where many of the young teachers seem to have more in common with us older teachers than with the students, many of whom are just five or six years younger than they. Many of the older students are on an upward trajectory from a financial and career standpoint, but the teachers, from young to old, have lost sight of any dreams along those lines. I'm frequently amused by what we have in common, considering that the younger teachers often look like seniors to me.
Everyday life, health and exploration, days filled with calm and the excitement of engaging in projects ... sounds good to me! Oh, and fur ruffles I send to sweet Molly!
Not boring at all, not a single thing you mention is boring.
Boring is waiting in waiting rooms for hours, or in traffic that doesn't move, or in a queue anywhere, or at a boring social gathering you can't leave, and so on.
What you describe is pure and simple joy in simple and beautiful things and moments. Bliss.
Boring? None of it is boring! Aren't the Barchester Chronicles great? So sly and well observed.
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