JUNE IS A GLORIOUS MONTH for students and teachers, and my summer vacation began with a bang. Yard work, recreational reading, and a few days helping paint my friend's house. Nothing wrong with a little extra cash for good, honest work. After one day of it, I was surprised at my reaction; I almsot wanted to keep on painting houses all summer, instead of lounging by a pool, partying, or traveling. I almost wanted to paint houses.
but why? Maybe it has something to do with experience. Experience, after all, is all we have left, experience and the memory of it, when we approach the end of our days. Travel, I have done. Swimming pools, golf courses, been there, done that. But I have never earned a living, over a period of time more than a day or two here and there, at physical labor. I've always been either a student, or a teacher, or sometimes both.
As the paint went on, and I developed a feel for it, learned the subtle art of it- and there is a subtle art to wall painting, as I'm sure there must be to everything else - a state of mind overtook me, a certain mindset crept in, of complete absorption in the immediate task, the immediate moment. Is this what Zen mindfulness is? Somehow i hope so! It was, somehow...fulfilling...
I don't have much time left to work, or to do much of anything else in life, relatively; I'm pushing sixty. Oh, i know, its just a number.....true, to a point. Let's agree on this one point; when you start pushing sixty, whatever it is that you would like to do that you have not yet done; its time to get started.
For me, does that mean a summer of house painting instead of the usual gardening, golfing, tennising, swimming, partying, traveling? Maybe it does! So should I go back tomorrow, try one more day of it, and see what happens? (Today all we did was paint the front porch and the living room. The rest of the house beckons, unpainted.) What other real choice do I have?
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