Well Regulated Schedules

A fine concept. Regulating one’s own schedule. On time, every time at the place you promised to be. To do the things you promised to do. Well ordered days with properly expectant results.

Or not when the schedule gets out of whack. By storms, by illness, by traffic or whatever. Our time is not truly our own. It belongs to the cosmos and all within it that acts upon the seconds and minutes that suddenly disappear like a mist. The clock advances an hour we knew not!

Rocky’s surgery went as expected last week. A little longer than planned but safe and certain the outcome will be successful. The tumor was bigger than expected and mostly on the outside of the thyroid. Removing it and the thyroid took an extra hour but all is well.

Healing with age and diabetes complicates the return to full health. Nurses and tech attendants knew their stuff and watched over Rocky very well. Northwestern Memorial Hospital in downtown Chicago is expert in these matters. And their people are wonderful, dedicated healers.

The where is a complicator. Traffic, parking, narrow city streets in dark canyons of tall buildings.  All conspire to challenge the experienced city dweller. But add seven decades to your age and watch all of that magnify!

We did it, though. A few more trips than anticipated but now we are experts. Pros even! Well, let’s not test that boundary!!

Rocky came home a day later than planned. Healing is slower than thought, but still progress is good. We see the doctor on post op consult on September 26th. Will learn more of what we will need to do to return to full health.

Still, each visit downtown sliced off 5 hours of time and attention. In turn more gas, more tolls, and more cash infusions for parking. And all of that is time consuming as well. Rearranging dog care, neighbor care and meals takes more planning. And then sleeping in odd places, recovering from those experiences, and taking showers at very different times than normal.

All in all this journey has had its unexpected twists and turns. But the drama and excitement filled what would have been empty spaces of time. Just waiting would have been awful. But then a new kind of busy-ness filled my attention.

Just being in a hub of medical activity carried excitement. So many people, so many ages, so many nationalities. And the body shapes! Oh my God! Talk about diversity. And of course we added our own to the mix which is not all that comely in the first place!!

I think we tend to forget how ordinary and quiet our lives become, especially during retirement. I remain engaged in lots of things so think on this a lot but even this time I was surprised on how ordinary my exposure to the world is most of the time. It is the out of the ordinary experiences that help us see ‘the other’ that is always around us; just not always perceived or seen.

That’s a large point for us all to think on. There is always more to life and the world than what we experience for ourselves or even what we notice. So much more. So much more beyond us that enriches life to the max. Simple really. It is there for us to see yet often we don’t see. Because we are otherwise occupied with self.

The odd schedule pushes us out of the ordinary and can engage us in the unexpected. That is the real value of reading a new book or author. Or listening to new forms of music. Or meeting new people. Volunteering involves more than our brain. Other senses are pulled into service and the world becomes more alive.

I used to get this stimulation from concerts, plays and other art presentations. Now it is watching people and getting involved in their lives a little bit. Such a payback for so little an investment of time.

The schedule perplexes. We become slaves to it at times. Until the unexpected happens. And all is new again in a moment.

Just in a moment.

September 21, 2016