My dentist made me get a night guard earlier this summer. This came after his dad (and my former dentist) did his darndest to convince me I needed one for years.
They say I clench and grind my teeth and am doing permanent damage as a result. I resisted because I know myself well enough that I was certain it would not be a happy situation.
Turns out we were both right – I do need it and I do hate it.
To be precise, I hate this thing with the fire of a thousand Ohio August suns. Just the act of having this foreign object in my mouth is enough to set me off.
Earlier this week, I laid in bed trying to decide if I sounded more like Cindy Brady or Daffy Duck when trying to talk. A few failed attempts at enunciating the phrase “suffering succotash” proved that you can call me Daffy.
I have taken to soaking it in mouthwash right before bedtime and that has made it more palatable. It’s a necessary evil so I’ll wear it but you can bet I’ll be doing my Daffy Duck impersonation until I fully adjust.
To have a day at home. To spend a morning washing sheets, airing out the house, tidying up the small messes of daily life. To scramble some eggs in your favorite pan. To turn up the tunes and clean a closet. To make a snack and watch a favorite movie. To curl up with a book, to play with your cat, to wear your favorite fuzzy socks. To watch the sun slip behind the trees as night begins to close in on the day.
None of these things cost but all of these things contribute to your betterment. These small comforts and delightful acts bring comfort and joy to the everyday.
The average day is chock full of these small things if only you allow yourself to notice and appreciate them. There is joy to be found when life is normal, when there’s no excitement or tumult to distract and stress you.
Isn’t it lovely to think we don’t need much to be happy?
The weatherman swore that rain would reach southern Ohio yesterday. Depending on who you listened to, it was an eighty to ninety percent probability. I drifted off to sleep Saturday night, excited at the prospects that rain would wash away the pollen, dust and fatigue that had settled in with the 100 plus heat index.
It was still dry when I woke up but it felt like rain. A stiff breeze bent tree limbs, rustling the leaves hard enough to make us think it was just minutes away. And then the breeze moved on, the promise of rain passed, leaving us feeling teased and cheated by Mother Nature.
I waited all day, reading social media accounts of rain in areas all around. Friends sat on their porches and watched a downpour while others sent their kids out to play in a light shower. Finally, nearing bedtime, I filled my watering cans and headed out to water container plants and some of the younger plants that were looking a little pekid.
And then it happened. Just after I surrendered to the idea that at least the grass would die before it needs mowing, I heard the hard knocking of a downpour against the windows. It was sudden, overflowing my aging gutters and reminding me of how badly they need to be replaced. It also reminded me of childhood summers when my folks kept a rain barrel and of hot days when my mother would wash my hair in the rain.
Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it. The experience is refreshing.
Isn’t that how life goes?
You wait for the thing you have no control over but want most. And you wait and wait and wait some more only to not see your wishes realized. And just when you give up, life gives you the thing you hoped for.
At least the rain came, even if it was a few hours late. A small river flowed through my backyard, washing away the dust and pollen and perhaps even the extreme heat for a little while. All the flowers got a good soaking thanks to Mother Nature’s generosity. It did cool off some.
The drive home on Saturday night gave me some food for thought. You see, I left Adam’s house just before dusk. When I reached the ridge top a few miles away, I was privileged to witness this gorgeous scene.
The sunset was true to the picture – happy and bright. It reminded me of a watercolor painting with an array of peaches, purples and grays melting into the green trees.
I stopped to snap this photo and started my descent toward home and away from this sherbet colored sky. A few miles down the road, I came around the bend to this scene.
I stop to photograph this barn occasionally but usually when the sky is bright. The fog rolling in was captivating to my eye but the road beckoned me to continue home.
Isn’t that how life is for most of us? The roads we travel can be so different for each of us just depending on when we go. Never mind the vehicle we drive, the company we keep and the resources we carry to help our journey.
It made me think about how different the road can be, just miles away and minutes apart.
While the people traveling high on the ridge may have a beautiful sunset to enjoy, someone further down the road may have nothing to see but grey skies.
Remember that in your travels and when interacting with others. It’s hard to know where they’ve been and whether they’ve been living in the light or struggling in the fog.
I rearranged the furniture in my home office, replacing my work space at the window with a bird viewing station for my coworker Scout. That’s an old steamer trunk from my grandparents’ basement that I have lugged around my house for years. It’s the perfect height for Scout to view his feathered friends from a safe distance and behind glass.
He nearly wore himself out yesterday as the cardinals and several other birds swooped in and dive bombed all day. He sleeps better when the birds wear him out so I encourage his participation in their mealtime.
I appreciate his verve for life and his devotion to his work overseeing his friends at the feeder. It’s a tough job but someone has to do it!
Sometimes I fear that I overshare here. There’s a method to the madness though. You see, as I look around this world, I am practically hit over the head with two drastically different types of messages. One is that the lives of other people are perfect. Perfect kids. Perfect food. Perfect homes. Perfect cars. Perfect looks. Perfect, perfect, perfect! Please read that in the voice of Jan Brady exclaiming “Marsha! Marsha! Marsha!”
Then there are the people who seemingly don’t even try to do something useful with their lives. They have excuses, sometimes good reasons and often just a bad attitude and it never seems to occur to them that they should try a different approach. They are happy doing what they do or maybe miserable but either stuck or ok with it enough to stay the course.
And then there’s me.
While these other two groups live on opposite sides of the spectrum, I’m smack dab in the middle in a place I like to call the radical middle.
I am flawed. I am a nerd who is fascinated by the world. I can entertain myself for hours just driving around looking at things or sitting in a corner watching people from afar. One of my guilty pleasures is a Taco Bell Black Bean Crunch Wrap and a strawberry lemonade. My kitchen is not Instagram perfect and my cat loves nothing more than to dig junk out of the recycling bin and drag it around the house. My hair is a perpetual mess and my idea of a great vacation involves museums and junk stores, alleyway murals, dirty hiking shoes and other assorted things that most people wouldn’t embrace on a normal day – certainly not on their vacation.
I glorify these things and write entire stories about places and spaces that have been all but forgotten. I make a big deal out of a single historic artifact or out of my own reaction to some random thing that caught my attention. I tell you that my thyroid sucks and that life is exhausting and stressful. I tell you that our family dog died and that I like spotting payphones.
Why?
Because if I’m a normal person with a non-social media ready life, I know there are other people just like me. Yet, this is not the image projected by anyone these days and I think we all need to be reminded that a normal life is ok. It’s more than ok. It’s something to aspire to in this insane world.
If you hang around here much you know that I believe winter is for rest and quiet. This hasn’t been the best winter for feeling rested but it has been quiet. I have been staying home, cooking most of my meals and not adventuring. At this time, I’m doing very little outside of work, seeing my fella, and barely keeping up with the basics of home.
Soon my workload will shift again and spring will usher in a new season of adventures. There are trails to hike and many roads to travel in search of enrichment. I have a mile long list of day trips and longer adventures and there’s no way I can get to them all this year but you can bet I’ll try.
I miss driving down a road just to see where it goes. I miss lingering in front of a painting I do not understand to think about how it makes me feel. I miss randomly choosing a restaurant because I like the outside of the building and assume that any place that looks so cool on the outside must be worth a try. Small towns, rural countryside and big cities are all a celebration of America and evidence of who we are and who we have been. They all are worthy of consideration and exploration if you ask me. They may not be the target of a social media influencer and they may not be a tourism destination but that doesn’t mean they are lacking in cool things to see and learn from in the most unexpected ways.
As the above picture illustrates, what good is all the light if it isn’t framed in a little darkness?
This is what I aspire to. My adventures aren’t so adventurous but I do find them exciting and fulfilling as I mostly celebrate the randomness and the normalness of the world around me.
Is this really so radical an idea? To embrace the real? To find the normal and to not just be good with it but to be satisfied, gratified and joyous that there’s nothing wrong with messy hair, a country road and an imperfect kitchen?
Everyone else can pursue perfection. I’m going to pursue the normal, small things of my ordinary life. I’m going to pursue what makes me happy and I’m going to remind you regularly that a normal life is not such a radical concept. It can be a great life after all.
