So yesterday, I walked along the side of my house (which is something that I rarely do). My next door neighbor’s older relative was splashing around in their pool.
“I just couldn’t resist this fabulousness!” she said with a wide, wide grin on her lovely face.
I pondered on the fact that I can’t remember the last time that I have swum in our own pool. Not everyone has the ability to swim outside in late October and sadly, I have long lost sight of that fact. It was interesting to me that it was our neighbor’s relative who was swimming. Our neighbors, like us, are from the North and I remember when they first moved here, they swam all of the time, day and night. It reminded me of when we first moved to Florida. The novelty of having a pool in your own backyard that could be used year round, was such a joy! Such an amazement! Then the exciting novelty wore off, for all of us, except for our Labrador retriever.
When I took the dogs out the other day, as part of our regular routine, my Collie, laid down in the grass, firmly and stubbornly. She kept her long, regal nose up in the air, just daring me to tell her to come in. I acquiesced. I sat down beside her and before long, I had buried my own nose into her warm, beautiful, sweet-smelling, sun-baked fur. It was one of my favorite moments of the week, so far.
My friend texted pictures of the beautiful autumn leaves at a waterfall site outside of a small town in Georgia, where she is visiting. They were beautiful pictures. I miss experiencing the gorgeous changing leaves of fall, yet when I lived up North, I think I grumbled more about raking the leaves, then savoring the awe-striking colors. I think that I may have taken the Northern autumns for granted sometimes.
There is so much to savor in every day, that we sometimes take so much for granted. Sometimes, we don’t miss a lot of these simple joys, until they are gone, I suppose.
I met with one of the girls who I mentor, yesterday. She was talking about visiting her family’s lovely farm in Columbia, a while ago. She talked about the gorgeous, stately horses and the dogs of many sizes and colors, and the orange juice drinking chickens. She talked on and on, with a sparkle in her eyes and excitement in her voice. She talked about picking vividly colored guavas from the trees and how amazing that they tasted. She has never had better juice, than the guava juice they made from those trees.
“When will you go back?” I asked her.
“I can’t. They sold the farm for money and they now live in a small apartment in the city.” She and I agreed that she had been so lucky to experience visiting the farm before they sold it. We agreed that memories stay with us forever, and that she was so smart to savor her moments, delighting in the farm experience.
“Most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for granted.” – Aldous Huxley
