For now here is a photo I took this morning while Sarah, Remi, Kenya and I were walking on Mountain Road. Look how much bigger than Kenya Remi is now and he is only 10 months old!
Monday morning early I will be going to the Riverside to get a splint fitted to try to allow my poor misshapen finger to straighten as well as bend. These therapists are always playing a balancing game; always trying to find the fulcrum between one extreme and another.
Isn't that what life is all about? Aren't we all trying to find some kind of balance ...between work and leisure ... excitement and boredom ... among the physical, emotional and intellectual parts of ourselves?
I remember the narrator's mother in Lives of Girls and Women by Alice Munro saying that there was no point in being intellectual and creative if you never cleaned the toilet. All those mundane practical things that make Jane a dull girl need to be balanced with the things that make her interesting and creative. We can't allow any one part to smother the rest if we are to remain sane.
I find it hard to balance my need for solitude with my need to be part of the world. It is all too easy to enclose myself in a world made up of lake, house, dogs, dreams, books, film and computer; to pull that world around me like a cape. But there is a price to pay when I do this. I lose my ability to speak with strangers. My writing turns inward. I become paler.
Just as plants need water, sunlight, nutrients and oxygen, humans need to feed on a variety of experiences to thrive. To be truly healthy we need to nurture both our inner and outer lives. That balance is as essential as all the others.
2 comments:
Is Remi the part Wheaton?
half golden retriever and half standard poodle ... I don't know any other wheatons besides Rudy,
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