Beauty * and * Bread

Penny, this one’s for you.

I regularly read some twenty blogs a day, including Penny’s. Not only do I stay caught up with what’s going on with friends old and new, but every once in a while a friend’s blog will jumpstart my own thoughts.

Penny’s had her share of challenges over the years, including the death of her beloved Larry six years ago. (How can it have been that long?)

She’s had hip replacements, and she’s been fraught with anxiety/panic attacks that kept her in her house for way too long. She’s done her best to overcome all those obstacles, and it’s been a one-day-at-a-time thing. Every time I haven’t heard about an anxiety attack for a while I think she’s finally kicked that bugaboo . . . and one shows up knocking on her door.

Despite all of that, she’s created a bucket list for herself. She’s not gonna give up on life, and she’s not going to let things get her down. She’s inspired me to do the same.

Thanks, Penny. I love you, too.

Don’t we all need a bucket list?

This will be a never-finished post, because I always want to have something more to look forward to. But here’s a start:

1.   I want to be in Alaska at either the start or the finish of the Iditarod.

2.  I want to see Denali (Mt McKinley).

3.  I want to stand on top of a mountain again.

4.  I want to see Mt Everest

Do you detect a pattern here?

***

On a different subject entirely, today (July 24) would have been my mother’s  101st birthday. She’s been gone now 21 years this past June 25. I’ve been trying to write a post about her since before June 25, and it’s just not coming out.   It’s not that I didn’t love my mother. I did. We didn’t get along awfully well (maybe because we were too much alike?), but we stuck together. Funny thing. For years after her death I would continue to think of things I “needed” to tell her–and then would realize that I couldn’t, at least not on this earthly plane. Our brains play funny tricks on us, don’t they?

Before she passed, she told me, “I hope you’ll make sure Farida and Nas get their share of the money I’m leaving, and I hope you’ll use yours to make a better life for yourself.”

I did, and I did.

My mother would never have wanted to live up here in the wilds of North Fork. She would have hated it, in fact. She couldn’t wait to get out of Vista when we lived there. (Just one more bone of contention between us–I always considered Vista my home and hated the move to San Gabriel.) But if it hadn’t been for my mom, I wouldn’t be where I am now–happy and enjoying life to the fullest. So I thank her every day for making this life possible. That’s what I was alluding to in this post.

The entry I just finished about Shevy was incredibly difficult, and thank heavens it’s done. Thank you for all your comments and your moral support. I feel that at long last I have said my goodbyes as they needed to be said, and I can move on.