Judy Leaver, Professional Writer | Best Words, Best Order

Archive for February, 2011

Literary Mileage
Beach Birthday

Tuesday, February 22nd, 2011

February 20

Today I am chalking up another year, one that rattles me out of my denial that what lies in front of me time-wise is far shorter than what is behind me. That is one compelling reason why I am spending my second winter in Delray Beach with my sister, Linda, when I should be saving for retirement. Why I take a hike somewhere in Europe every year when I should stay home and earn a living. Why I continue to freelance when I should get a 9 – 5 job with benefits.

Having cancer almost twelve years ago made me wary of too much long range planning. Now I’ve reached the age where friends or their spouses die suddenly, or some awful event radically shortens their well-planned future, which further makes me suspicious of planning too far ahead.

My parents lived through the Great Depression. That experience, as well as others in her early life, caused my mom to focus on, worry about, and save for a presumed rainy day in her future. Financial security trumped all other considerations. Unfortunately, she had so many health problems she didn’t live long enough to experience as many rainy days as she planned.

Even though I’m working a lot here in Delray, we still have time to walk or read on the beach, take a bike ride, eat gelato, stroll down Atlantic Ave., have friends visit, and enjoy meals on the deck while we contemplate the azure Atlantic Ocean.

Linda and I started birthday celebrating last night by drinking Limoncello on our deck to toast a brilliant full moon that lit up the eastern sky and painted a silver pathway on the water.

We’re also assembling a jigsaw puzzle, having agonized over a 1,000 piece New Yorker cover puzzle in January.