One thing I've noticed is that owning a boat makes you much more aware of the weekends. We sat around last night, after coming home from the lake, planning out the remaining weekends till the ice hits. I decided two things: A)There's not enough of them B)There's not enough of them.
While complaining about this very thing at work one day, someone told me that Tim and I have "too many toys". I've been musing on the subject a lot since he said that, wondering if I was somehow guilty of using up someone else's share of toys, guilty of paying an inadequate amount of attention to the duties that beset me at work each week.
And then...I think about my sister-in-law's battle with melanoma these days and I decide that one can't have enough time spent playing with toys. We spend so much time concentrating on the process of making money, to what end? None of us knows whether we'll ever make it to retirement in the first place, or who we'll spend it with. I guess I've decided to enjoy it now, and to spend it with my favorite person.
I've always loved a poem called
Life's Clock which has one line that is my mantra: "The present only is our own"
The Clock of Life
The clock of life is wound but once and no man has the power
To tell just when the hands will stop, at late or early hour.
To lose one's wealth is sad indeed, to lose one's health is more,
To lose one's soul is such a loss that no man can restore.
The present only is our own, so live, love, toil with a will,
Place no faith in tomorrow -- for the clock may then be still.
Robert H. Smith
It's funny but if you look in the dictionary at the word "beset" there's a nautical application (for those of you non-nautical folks):
verb (used with object),be·set, be·set·ting.to attack on all sides; assail.
to trouble greatly or grievously; to afflict with mental or physical suffering; harass:The best ideas are often beset by bureaucratic hurdles.Even as he was being beset with disasters, he triumphed.
to surround; hem in:The village was beset on all sides by dense forest.Our work will be beset with dangers.
to set or place upon; bestud:The gold bracelet she found was beset with jewels.
Nautical. to surround (a vessel) by ice, so that control of the helm is lost.
The ice is closing in...and I intend to enjoy the water while I can and the wind (however little there is) in the sails.
Tick Tock.
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