Patience

The Professor 

 It has not been an easy two weeks.  Packing up to make this temporary move to South Bend was stressful.  Our first week here was uncomfortable in the heat and with inadequate air conditioning.

We have finished our second week away from home.  Jim is teaching his fourth class as I write and it has gone well.  He is thinking of ways to get class participation so it is not his lecturing for a three hour session.   One student had a family crisis and is now in Columbia but other students are arranging  Zoom participation for him. 

I left my webbed chaise lounge chair at home in Princeton even though I knew I would like to have it here to sit outside.  There was no room in the car.  We couldn't find one here at a decent price, or really at any price, so I ordered one from Amazon thinking it was quite the extravagance when I knew it was just for six weeks.   And then it did not arrive as promised.  The update said it was coming late--and then it was possibly lost in transit--and then today, nine days after I ordered it and a week after it was promised, it arrived.  I'm glad I did not ask for the refund they offered.  I sat outside in the back yard and revelled in the breeze and being able to look at the tall trees--just like I did when we lived on Deerfield Loop.  I could hear insects but not the shrill sound of our Princeton 17 year cicadas.  I could hear distant traffic but it was not as loud as it can seem at night with the windows open.  (The toll road is within sight down Juniper Road.)  

In two days we will leave for a week at our condo rental in South Haven.  I look forward to seeing sunsets on Lake Michigan and to enjoying a decent shower and larger bathroom.  I have some concerns about being out there alone without a car when Jim has to commute to Notre Dame so I may come back with him for those two nights. It will be another transition and I am thinking that we are getting too old to keep changing our routines like this.  

A funny example of our need to cope and adjust was the fact that we did not know the dishwasher was a portable one and had to be hooked up to the sink.  No wonder it burned the food on the plates and silverware as it generated heat but no water.  Now we know but it may still be easier just to do the dishes by hand.  That is Jim's job but in his absence today, I did a few meals' worth and felt so good to do it for him!  Jim was musing about the fact that someone should have told us that it needed to be hooked up; it was certainly unfamiliar to us. 

 I have to be patient with myself and try to live in the present moment.  It was lovely sitting outside in the back yard in my new chair.  We have made progress in being comfortable in the last week with cooler weather and a better air conditioner and windows that maintenance was able to chip open.  

I have some sense of how I felt at the beginning of the pandemic over a year ago when I had to learn to be content with accomplishing very little in a day.  A load of wash, a trip to the grocery store, a book to read--it has to be enough.  I used to worry that solitude would be the curse of my old age because I craved it so much when I was busy with work and family.  Now I need to enjoy that solitude.  A good book, a blog to write, a chair in the backyard--all ways to try to be contented and patient.  I am trying to live in the present moment and to enjoy it and thank God for it.