more options

Heather's comment (see "kefir options") kindled a few more thoughts.

Narrowing options are, I have always secretly felt, the gift of illness and aging.  "Secretly" because we (or at least I) think must be busy with multiple faces, responsibilities, always going somewhere.  Perhaps this is why I have always been attracted to a quasi-monastic discipline (exempting early mornings, celibacy, obedience, and a few other things).  In the diminishing, there is peaceful growth, and what is accomplished may not be broader, but is often deeper.

This cold, for example, which has blossomed into a multi-week sport.  I have not left the house for four days, except for a couple of necessary and brief errands two days ago.  Rich -- yes, the man with cancer and a cold -- has gone to work, shopped, and just arrived home, still wearing a tie and nice cords.  Me?  I changed out of pajamas only because I needed the warmth of long underwear.

But -- I've done the most (and perhaps) best writing I have in several months.  Because I'm too wiped out to hike or bake or plan a garden or do chores.  I'm in joyful communication with friends via the internet and phone (even with neighbors; I want to keep my germs to myself).  I just finished listening to a Prokofiev violin concerto, one I never heard before, and realized it has been months since I listened to anything musical. 

And I'm enjoying the aging piece.  Enormously.  Previous decades -- I won't even consider the teens  -- were a vortex of questions.  What do I do with my life?  And with whom?  And how often?  What about the past -- can I escape?  And the future -- where will I go?  

This age, at last, has more answers than questions.  Or maybe only one answer.

It's good.  It's all good.

Candace