Musing by the River

Until lately, I haven't spent much time doing this:

Or going to see this:

We used to go every day! Or sitting in one of these:

Julia was laboring with math, but that didn't seem to be any reason for me to be cooped up in the house yesterday. So I hopped on the bike, rode to the river, and mesmerized myself with the shimmer of water under sun.
This led me to ruminate on how people are. I have many lady friends who struggle to find time for themselves. Some are young moms with a passel of kids. Some are just innate givers, who pour out themselves for family and friends, and don't carve out minutes -- much less hours -- for self.

I do not suffer with this malady.
I see time to myself as a high priority -- not just something to be wished for, mind you, but something to be achieved. So I do. I just do. It may well be simple selfishness, or self-health. It's usually a matter of decision. If I'm sitting alone in my room and my child(ren)  or  husband is in the living room reading, do I feel obligated to go join him? No. I may later, after I've sat a while alone. I do not feel an obligation to spend time with others unless I know it will bring me pleasure, or if they need me. If I meet a person who needs me all the time, that's usually a clue to me that we will not make good friends.

I didn't sit at the river for long. My mind flits like a butterfly from thought to thought. I can focus if I need, but we women are (generally) mental multi-taskers, meaning that we keep a cluster of ideas, sometimes dozens, on our mental work tables all the time. For me, if the flitting from thought to thought gets too bothersome, I get up and do something. At the river, I take my camera along. I hop up, walk around, take photos. Being physically active focuses the mind. Sitting still frees the mind to fly around to this or that idea that I've been chewing on.

A man sat near me. I looked at him and thought, "Men. I'm almost 50, and I think I now understand men a little. That man down there has only three things in his head. He rotates among those three. I have about 25. If we switched brains for an hour, I'm sure it would kill us both." Men and women are very different, and we make good complements for each other.

We have two or three days of warm weather, and when we do, people start sprucing up. The Oriental Woman's Club is brightening its sign:

 

And glory be! The forsythia are coming out! I found two forsythia bushes beginning to bloom in town. Yippee!

I decided to get a little video along the river. Nothing special. But with the shimmer of light on the water (rather blinding actually), I wanted you to hear the slap and swoosh of the waves on the rocks. So soothing. The river water is always either blowing in or blowing out, an important consideration when weighing a day of sailing.