The Caregiver’s Tales: A Blog

As anyone who reads this blog knows, I talk about what I’m doing and how I feel. On two occasions that sharing has proven beneficial. The first instance happened when I shared initial steps toward a possible surgery to repair my abdominal aortic aneurysm. A friend recommended a surgeon. That surgeon found I didn’t need the surgery at that time. So, I ended up with a more accomplished surgeon at a later date.

It rained last night, and now the morning air has a cool wet feel to it. More is promised today. I watched yesterday’s thunderstorms on radar. They were sparse, but I was pleased to see some of them lingering over the local river valleys, promising more water for the lakes downstream. Perhaps this is the start of the wet weather pattern promised by the super El Ninõ.

I always enjoy true love stories containing the phrase, he or she was married at the time. It’s mostly Hollywood star stories where I see this, but I suspect it’s more common than I think. And I’m not real sure I care. It just seems funny in an odd way and proves that love is a tricky devil. Because I’m fairly certain the relationship that proceeded the current true love story started out as a true love story as well. So, I’m not sure if the first relationship went wrong or the second one just felt like a better deal.

Yesterday was bulky trash day and I had a touch of bulky trash. So, out it went. I still have a lingering brush pile, but the thing about brush piles is that they decay. So, over time my brush pile will eventually become organic matter. It’s not the tidiest way to keep a yard but I don’t really consider my little plot of ground to be a yard in the traditional sense. Although, I have decided to buy a small mulcher to help keep the brush pile from growing.

It’s late in life to find my way west, but that’s what I’ve done. In the last six years, I’ve spent more time in West Texas, New Mexico, and Colorado than in the previous 74 years combined. I wonder sometimes how I missed it, but there’s no point spending too much time pondering why. It was just a thing that happened, in much the same way that I missed a lot of musicians I’ve come to enjoy late in life. Our paths just never crossed when I was young.

As expected, and as I knew would probably happen, my paradigm has shifted. My advanced age no longer seems a constraint, rather it feels more like a reward. I have navigated the perils of youth and the vicissitudes of life to stand with the other aged beings, the sequoias, the whales. Ancient creatures, each of our own species, living to the fullest according to our design.

As we drove out of Alamosa yesterday morning, leaving the San Luis Valley and heading toward Rotan then home, the clouds were hanging low on the mountains, snagged in passing by the tall peaks. It seemed the mountains were picking the cloud’s pockets for snow, or rain, if that’s all they had. In either case, I hope they made out and got what they needed.

I’m sitting in the cool mountain air of New Mexico this morning. It’s a most pleasing thing to do. The mountains themselves rise up into that air right out our door. Later this morning we might go take a walk along the Rio Grande Gorge.