Ice Dreams

You would think these dark, long months of cold and shadows would encourage those of us who can’t sit still a chance to not sit still for a shorter period of time.

Fat chance.

Being a mover and talker and creator is a lot different in your 60s than in your 30s.

When you’re in your 20s or 30s or 40s, being active is foremost in your plans for success, money, kids, or whatever your life choice is. You have more energy, ideas, and whereforeall to get it done. A higher chance that your peers will listen and understand you, your ideas snowballing to the benefit of both employer and circle of friends.

By the time you’re in your late 50s/early 60s, those body and mind parts that worked so fast start squeaking just a little. The mind slows down just a little. Your coordination teeters just a little. To you, these changes are barely perceptible. So you can’t remember where you left your phone. So you drive past your exit on the highway. So you forget an ingredient in your dinner surprise. These things are no big deal to us, for we are too busy thinking about the next thing and the next thing.

Younger sprites think of the next thing and the next thing, too, but they just do it better. They have a better grasp on things like technology, job security, and time management, and somehow they seem to get everything done in time, in a fairly organized and sensible manner.

Not me.

Since my biological clock turned upside down the past few years, I’ve wanted to stay up longer and sleep in longer. Lately my Muse has been pulling me in a hundred different directions, either ignoring or ignorant that my mind, as creative as it is, doesn’t move as fast as it used to. I need to have a bit of organization in my crookedy life.

Getting the computer out after dinner and doing some “creative” work has become my version of organization. Yet circumstances are such that, for the next few months, I will have company every evening, and the things on the telly or the music in the background won’t be as much my choice as my kids.

I am noticing a slight change in the atmosphere lately, though, especially since they are starting to look for houses. The grandkids are not as dependent on me as they were when they first came to live with us.

Which is how it’s supposed to be.

They are networking as a family more and more now that they see change on the horizon.

Which is like it should be.

You would think there would be a shift in my atmosphere lately, too. But I’m afraid all I’m going to want to be contemplating is how to be a vegetable the evenings my husband is working (which is 5 nights a week).

Oh, I know, everyone says I will have to make myself go out and do something, make myself write and edit and find artists for the Gallery. I will have oh-so-much-more time to clean and putz around the house, reorganize, redecorate, rethink the old habits of Claudia.

And I will.

I just need to tell my body that.

The one good thing about this lackadaisical attitude is that I DO jot down creative ideas when the mood strikes. I have a lot of things on my plate — a lot of “maybes” and “heys!” and “ooohhh…that would be soooo cool!”s on my platter of plenty. And I know that once my housing situation shifts, once the sun lasts longer, so will I. We all will have gained a better understanding of each others lives and hopes and dreams, and encourage each other to get our individual Mojos going again.

Eating and writing and sleeping on the sofa by myself again will be so nice.