It took a week to get back to my dusty ole’ Dell keyboard. I own one thumb and three fingers on a slightly sad left hand, but a fully functional and quite capable opposite partner. “Trigger finger” is a thing … a painful, crampy thing. As I wrote on my FB page:
Good news? I took only a few seconds to recognize the absolutely beautiful day Thursday. A day needed to get me out of the blues sung by 80% of my functioning fingers, to be sure. I have a small Vive brand splint preventing the main joint from bending forward. The internet doctors and one very kind local pharmacist suggested this remedy for now. I can live with it. Again, for now.
That written, I was quite capable to live with the sun beating down on my sore shoulders as I walked from the Black Dog Cafe southward toward the bank to pay yet another monetary squeeze from my work-a-day efforts … for then and for as long as the sky permits. I will allow beauty to court me as long as she wants. It’s been some time since a casual walk in the warmth – along a familiar path – has given me a calming sense of hometown, family, and friendships.
There have been detours off this path along Allegheny Street … the very street where I marched in hot wool band uniforms many decades ago, watched my grandmother live and thrive inside her sparkly successful gift shop, and began my mobile hot dawg business that, to this day, continues to grow from that modest dawn. A church involved in my youthful, reverent molding sits catty-corner from the very courthouse I found so wonderfully appealing in its reflective, majestic stone. I spent a decade-plus admiring the façade of this county fortress as local folks stood on uneven concrete panels waiting their turn to order. On this particular day, no customers. No hustle or bustle. Just the sun, the warmth.
Courting Beautiful. If only for a few minutes.
It was a Thursday after a Wednesday. This is how weeks work, supposedly. Two large food truck events back to back the day before had my mind and body grinding from dawn to dusk. Loving the business I have – inside and out – is the gas in my engine. Absolutely it is the fuel that keeps me going. Less fortunate for me is the age attained each morning I arise from my slumber. If you’re in any kind of motion-activated life and over, say, age 26 … yeah, you know what I mean. Wednesday was brutal. A set-up and tear-down 2X day with six hours of serving work in-between. Yes, a very long day. Oh, and an unexpected “trigger finger” lockdown in the midst of it all. Quite the surprise package I’ve never before opened. Sore shoulders, back, arms? Expected. A quacked up digit? Ahhh, not so much.
I will court the beautiful moments when I can. A majority of my life has been lived to this point. Any multiple of my age equals dead unless that multiple is a one followed by a decimal and a number less than 5 (if actuarial tables hold true for me). Although, my grandfather lived to three months shy of his 100th birthday, so 1.7857 would be a really nice multiple if any certain infinite being out there is listening.
With the time I have, I want to look for these moments. Work needs to be done, of course. Life has to be lived, too.
You should consider the same. Court beauty where and when you can. Life changes quickly. It isn’t the pianist in you who has to deal with a trigger finger or the busy food truck days in your life. I don’t imagine this life of mine is one too many of you share. I do know you have business that occupies your time, however. Run arounds up and down very familiar streets in your hometowns – while friends and family pass you by – wind up your energies into unappreciated time suckers. It happens … we go about our lives expecting it. Tired and sore at the end of the day. Happy to be productive, of course, but drained.
Love those moments you can find to court the beauty. I am finding more and more of them lately. I will still work my ever-lovin’ butt off because I’m Doug and this is what I do. There will be times, nonetheless, when I will stop on a street corner to gaze upon something – or someone – beautiful. I am finding the allure is needed and desired by my soul more and more … if only for a moment here and there.
The magic in all of this is recognizing beauty in you – and it is there all the time. What you have inside YOU is there all the time. Develop that courtship and you’ll never walk the streets alone.
Ok, so it did take a week to get back here. I managed to type with one less digit. A bit wonky, but I managed. Life is like that. Get by to get through … whatever that means. Off to enjoy another gorgeous day – and I believe the weekend looks to be sunny, pleasant, and warm. I hope the same for you. Appreciate life.
DougHugs 