Patterns Then And Now

I am not a huge Olympics viewer. It is almost as if there isn't anything else I want to watch, the Olympics fill in nicely...because you know, we all know so much about winter sports, well to the degree the people participating do. Last night snowboarding and ice skating. USA took gold in the snowboarding thing and the guy that won totally looked like a snowboarder....dude. His saunter reminded me of boys from high school days who surfed, lanky and lean, with an ease of laidbackness that few possessed. As for the ice skating portion of the night, ladies short program, is the opposite of dudes snowboarding. Intense and precise with the right amount of athleticism and choreography on two thin blades...on ice. As kids we would watch these skaters and think that we should take up ice skating and back in the day...there were few if any ice skating rinks in Houston. I now know that it wouldn't have been the lack of ice it would have been the big toothed smiles that one must possess to skate so beautifully. Most of the skaters last night did eerily have the same look.

Wilma Dykeman wrote about that...not ice skating, well maybe, but I haven't come to it if she has. She wrote about patterns. She wondered why we take the concept of patterns and force it upon many aspects of life. The exact quote is, "PATTERNS ARE for cloth and paper dolls...Deliver me from people who cut themselves to a pattern." For her in particular she was fascinated with makeup and women wanting to look all alike, according to the popular pattern of a time or season. On a personal note I have never perfected the smokey eye look, nor do I want to. Oh there was a day....though. Guess my pattern wonder would be home trends we buy into. When we bought our home here in the mountains, we went with a totally different feel and vibe than our home in Rancho de Five. Oh there are a few things I would like to add to this house that we have in Katy, like our closet and master bath, but if we had that here we would lose two bedrooms to accomplish that. After we have the back deck turned into a screened porch, the master bathroom is the next project on the boards. No space increase but better use of the space we have. If possible the thing I would change here is putting in the 8 inch baseboards we have there. Love that look because it reminds me of my grandmother's home. We still haven't had back splash installed here in the kitchen. When we first started remodeling here that was a top priority but it isn't today. Funny how priorities change when perspective changes.

In childhood my father took opportunities to preach and to remind me that I would never fit in. He told me what my future life held for me and it would always be on the outside looking in. He stressed that by telling me who I would be, a nanny or a cafeteria worker or whenever my mom would be at a Sunday School fellowship, he would make me sit in a chair in the backyard and watch he and my brother eat dinner....this was to help me accept my lot in life at a young age. You know for a few years, I believed him because he could manipulate circumstances to emphasize this 'truth' to me. But it dawned on me over a course of time being like everyone else wasn't necessarily the best choice to make. So in a hidden way, cause Lord help you if he discovered anything to the contrary of what he said, I relished the idea of being different. Did I make some dumb choices, oh yes, truly I did but slogging through those mistakes helped an appreciation form inside that has served me well to this very day. Life has not been dull, that's for sure. Like my new found friend Wilma writes, "the irregular, and the uneven the unusual, and the unexpected that creates interest and lasting value....Vitality and luminosity: the quality of life itself."

The countdown now stands at one week. The completion of dental surgery next week and a cardiologist appointment to see where things stand for a planned procedure in the near future. My job has been to stay healthy and cold/flu free so that work can progress. So another Sunday morning worshiping at online church. I sure missed my friends in Sunday School.  Buddy slept through most of the services I watched today.

This weekend the Fed Cup is here in Asheville. The venue sold out in minutes and Venus Williams is quoted today saying that the crowd has been one of the most fun crowds to play in front of. Tennis is big here, they even have indoor courts which is my preferred type of court, and some have asked with a new lease on life with better knees, have I considered taking up the sport again. No, is how I respond without hesitation. Now it would be fun to just go hit but getting back into the tennis life and all that tennis takes, yet gives, is a pattern not worth repeating. I'm conquering life with balance and functionality...that pays way more benefits in the long run. I confess I do miss practicing drop shots...