I am not ill but I am home in the middle of the day.
I could have gone out for lunch (I will tomorrow) but instead I counted on the kitchen to provide a simple this and that, a slice of bread for the toaster, a small container of refrigerated leftovers for the microwave. A glass of water.
It is a sunny October midday.
There is no noise of a television left on in another room.
An armchair in our upstairs bedroom feels like the best of home right now. The bed that I made this morning after Jim left for work has its smooth coverlet dotted by an open journal, a card with a quotation from a favorite author, a paperback book of jottings that I have read at different times over the last forty years.
A space heater is purring at a medium setting.
No part of the house is really uncomfortable but the heater is a nod to the reality of New England seasons.
There is nothing wrong.
No schedule portions out the rest of the afternoon.
Nothing has to be different in an hour’s time but likely something will be without any planning on my part.
For now, however, I can remember the housework that my mother used to get done even when one of her children was home sick from school. Her day was not bounded by the quiet of a sick room.
But I am not ill. I am older than my mother would have been while her children were still enrolled in school.
I know that there is nothing that has yet become routine in these first four months of retirement.
It is simply time to be aware.
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