Shuffling through the bodegas
Listening to all the chatter
Words of many are mundane
Though convinced they really matter

Seeking that perfect sandwich
Waiting in endless lines
Everyone is saying it now
Here come the good times

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Lots of people suffer so much that perhaps they would have died of sorrow if they couldn’t dream something nice in between all the sadnesses.

Ceclia, Through a Glass Darkly by Jostein Gaarder

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Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful that all the kids are back at school today. Hopefully until the end of the semester.

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Two full-on classes as a welcome back this morning. As I was teaching in the second, I looked at the students, they were not really concentrating and full of beans but I only wanted them to do some writing, so once they had finished, it was difficult for them to maintain any concentration. Rather than try to push them to remain quiet, I walked with a few of them one-to-one instead and found that they could understand the work well enough.

Now I’m in the cafe and reading about the idea of longsight. I have to remember this when in class. Think about longsight for those kids and the bigger picture. I can only push them so far before they explode.

Dylan tested positive with an ATK yesterday and is at hospital getting a PCR test this morning. Covid creeps ever closer.

What is surprising about being your age, or different from what you expected, based on what you were told?

I don’t think anyone ever told me what to expect. I grew up in my teenage years around my mother and her parents and to my young self I could never imagine being their age and likewise I could never imagine them being my age.

I had gone to Australia and was away from my mother as she went from middle to old age, so I was only ever exposed to that on infrequent visits.

I am perhaps surprised at myself for not feeling old, not feeling what old people looked like. My mother had told me she felt like this too – even as she was in old age. She cursed her fading body but was proud to have kept her marbles.

So it’s surprising to me that I seem to be finding time to improve my fitness, perhaps a little too late but it makes me feel better anyway. I thought that I would keep on drinking my nights away but now don’t find the pleasure anymore. This may be typical for many older people but for me it was unexpected. I’m grateful I’m not so bloody-minded to keep pushing my liver to extremes like I was 18 or 30 again.