I keep catching myself saying, “I just want my normal life back.” Then, I imagine that I can wake up and workout, have a nice breakfast with Chip, chat with you all a minute, then walk the dog, make my third and final cup of coffee for the day, get to re-writing that novel I like so much, and write my column and other stuff that’s due on an easy schedule not dictated by deadlines. When writers ask me what my schedule is, I explain that I write from 10-2, 5 days a week, no matter what, and a little on Saturday if there’s nothing else going on, and I take Sunday off. It’s wonderful to set apart that sacred, creative, working time each day. After that I do everything else– like kids and garden and planning commission and library board and volunteer for Hospice or the radio.Except that I don’t think this has ever happened for say, five days in a row, except when I’m on a deadline. And then the peaceful 10-2 hours are pretty much out the window, too. But I try. It’s a goal. Some days it does happen that way. Then again, the interruptions are what I write about, so without them where would I be? I also know that in the end it’s relationships that matter most, not work, so there’s that to think about now that I’m half way to 110 and no one in my family has lived beyond 96. And I do the obituaries for the local paper, and the best ones give me a profound nudge toward family and community as well, and they are also all on a deadline not dictated by me. (This adds a whole new meaning to the word deadline.) Anyway, what I meant to say, is that I think my normal life is returning, since Chip is able to moose hunt, and I am dropping everything to join him. Sunday we set up a tree stand, and Monday morning, opening day, we climbed into it and silently watched and waited for moose to appear in those foggy woods. Afterward Chip said, ” Well, we went hunting. We were really hunting weren’t we?” For him, this has been the goal since his accident in June. For him, this means life is back to normal. “Yes,” I said, “we were.” And we will continue to for the next few weeks, which means I should probably stop saying I want my normal life back. It is back, only different, and in a way better, because I appreciate what we do together more, because of what we almost lost, twice. We make quite a rare pair. We may even be the only married, broken-pelvis-while-cycling-accident survivors who moose hunt. We are lucky people. (But we don’t press it. We always use our safety harnesses.)
