R & R & T

I am a workaholic and realized I almost never spend whole days outdoors anymore. So out I go into the mists of October, scaring packs of deer who apparently thought this property was all theirs.

I have now re-engaged with recreation and hobbies. A two-mile walk today on an unexpectedly steep new trail I balanced with a half-hour of leisure in the zero-gravity chair with a pot of hot tea.

I'm taking Russian-language classes and barre classes. The Russian teacher lived four years in Moscow. She says, "Russia is the only country in the world where a poetry reading can fill a stadium." I plan to live on my Social Security in the lovely Silk Road city of Samarkand, Uzbekistan. They all speak Russian, and I'm glad they do, because there's no Uzbek-language classes around here.

Barre classes are ballet-inspired workouts but without the impact. I bought a package of 10 one-hour classes to deliberately invest too much to waste them. One hour in class draws only the most determined and addicted, because barre is torture and whips up those endorphins like, whoo-ee. The regulars -- there are lots! -- are all trim through the middle and have built a genuine booty. That's right, a booty worth writing home about. If I get one, I will post it. Twenty years older than most participants, I sometimes lag but never quit and after three classes am catching on.

Later I'll practice my bongos.

Post-Season on the Black River

Camped out at the private Twin Rivers Landing on the Black River for two nights, on a writers' retreat with seven others. This area, the Arcadia Valley, is gorgeous, and will be even more so in a week or so when the foliage turns. Quite remote; 68 miles as the crow flies was more than 100 miles on the road. Perfect weather; we might as well have been indoors as out. Only two other campsites out of about 30 or so were occupied. It really is the post-season but they made an exception for us.

Mostly I either wrote in a notebook in the shade beneath a tree, supine in a zero-gravity chair; or we sat around the campfire with skewers and weenies, reading each other stories, recommending books, websites, and organizations. Saturday night I took a long walk by starlight; no moon, because the New Moon was Monday. This is sunrise on Sunday, one of the very few photos I took. The light was powder-pink.

What struck me is how I took for granted that I could take home my dew-sodden Kelty tent and tent-fly and lay them on my gravel to dry before packing them. The city dwellers had no room to do this. Draping the tent over a car parked on the street was not possible. Didn't have floor space indoors. Didn't have a back yard. Couldn't hang it from a window. That was once me, in a studio apartment. . . I camped state parks often, renting a car when I had to, because the city stifled me. . . How did I cope? I don't recall. I know only that I am blessed. On October 1, I have lived on the Divine property for 17 unbroken years.

Zero Gravity Chair

My old tube-framed, woven-plastic folding porch lawn chair finally gave out and I gracefully let it go, taking it to the recycling place, and then, because I spend so much time lounging on the screened porch, sought a new one and saw for sale absolutely nothing like those familiar tube-framed, woven-plastic patio chairs, as hard as I looked. So how to replace the chair I used to work in, doze in, carry to the meadow and sun myself in? That kind simply isn't sold any longer.

Instead, I saw folding "director's" chairs (don't need one) and "zero-gravity" lounge chairs, and there being nothing else, I chose the highest-starred one on Amazon, chose between burgundy and black, and in two days a box half as high as I and three times as wide appears on my porch and has to be dragged into the carpeted living room, where the item won't be scratched in case I want to return it, I'm that skeptical. With the box sliced open, I dump out and unfold a well-wrapped chair ALREADY ASSEMBLED, ready to sit in, a situation so knock-me-over-with-a-feather that in my confusion I actually looked at the instruction sheet, and from it learned how to lock the chair into position with handy little tabs beneath the armrests, and how to attach the utility tray (holding drinks, phones, and right now the tablet I took this photo with). The attached sun-shade is adjustable and folds away, over the chair back. Looks like they came on the market in 2015 and everyone was wise to them but me.

I was curious: What is so zero-gravity about it? Then I got in the chair, stretched it out, and locked it into position with the little pull tabs, and lounged. What a difference from the former chair that like those dreadful wooden "Adirondack"chairs had you seated with knees above butt level, pressuring the lower spine. I've about decided to keep this rather handsome chair as my living-room lounge chair and buy another for the porch. The white dot on the chair back is a reflection from the sun.