An old pal said, forty years ago, that all life is just a series of breaks and beatings: today you get a massive break. Oh boy. Tomorrow, damned if it isn’t a huge thumping. Oh No! Hey, get used to it and calm down.
Today it’s called Mindfulness. And I am trying to get better at it. Taking an on-line course, actually, with a wonderful pal, Sarah Stuart, from my lawyering life (when lawyers start thinking about Mindfulness, something’s up).

Here’s some related advice: RELISH the breaks. Like all day today, which went like this.

Up at six, perfect June day. Maybe the best June day in the history of the world. I drove over to get the paper. Made coffee, poured out a bowl of raspberries and hunkered down on big stone patio, by the long porch that runs across the front of our 1859 Victorian (which is roughly five times too big for Hilary, Olive and me).
Settle into a comfortable arm chair. Just look around for a long, long time. Rejoice in the string of big, hanging flower baskets which Hilly put up, along the porch.
Take in the potted plants on the patio and the gardens beyond. *Mercy *it’s pretty out here. Look over the lawn to the hedge, the field running down the hill to the lake, a few hundred yards away. The Hotchkiss School across the lake, agreeably picturesque. Last night, it was all fire-flies in the lawn leading out to the barn, off to my right. This morning it’s birds going nuts with gratitude for the day. Me too.

I sit and stare for over an hour- reading some and doing the puzzle (hard: it’s Saturday). Hilly finally comes down and we do the same damn thing for another whole hour, together. Just sitting here, soaking it up.

We are MINDFUL, kids. Very, very mindful. And grateful beyond telling.

Okay, finally get up. Jump on the bike and do a heavenly 30 miles in the hills. (Hilly refuses…claims she’s going to do yoga later.) Stop at a hidden farm store I know…talk for almost half an hour with the farmer. About crops, money…Third Acts. On a real hill on the way home, I check my Recovery Rate: 44 beats a minute. Wonderful. Not gonna have a heart attack this week. Or this year. Back home, cook up the little beets I picked up at the farm-store (carried ’em home in the fat pockets in the back of my bike shirt…felt funny). Hilly and I share em at lunch. They really do taste different when they’re super fresh like this. We both do some work… me in my study, she in her studio. There are acres of space in this old house and our work areas are heaven.. Then time to go to dinner with local pals. Nice drive, nice house, lovely pals. Drank a hair too much.

Darn. Came home. That’s it.

I look back and realize that I have been wasting your time. Nothing happened. Just one of the best days of my life, is all.