1. After her session at Physical Therapy on Wednesday, which included a reevaluation of her condition, Christy returned to Carol and Paul's house and wrote out a tentative schedule for the rest of the month that included visits to her house.
Today she made her first visit home since she went to the local ER on July 31st. Paul and Carol drove her over and made sure she walked up the stairs on her front porch safely (she did). Christy saw for the first time the results of all the work Carol and Paul have done over the last nearly three weeks making her house safer.
I had a couple of things to deliver to Christy and dropped in for a short visit. Paul and Carol were continuing their safety efforts and were running ideas and decisions by Christy.
It was a good scene.
Christy will return to her house tomorrow for much of the day while Carol and Paul take care of things in other parts of their lives and I'll be at the ready next door if Christy wants or needs anything.
2. I read more chapters today of Kenn Kaufman's book, The Birds that Audubon Missed. Like the other five books I've read since joining Auntie's Bookstore's Science and Nature Book Club, this is a book I would have never known about, let alone read, had I not joined this club.
I'm going to make an amateur's statement regarding what the books we've read have me wondering. It's one of the pleasures of blogging. I can write inklings, ponderings, wonderings. They can be the thoughts of an amateur.
I'll begin by saying that I do not think the world of nature, which includes human beings, is immutable. I don't think there's a fixed, unchangeable order at work in the natural/human world.
We humans, however, seek to make order of the world's disorder. All the fields of science contribute mightily and importantly to this effort.
In the book I'm reading, Kenn Kaufman writes a lot about the centuries long efforts by students of birds and bird scientists to identify and name species of birds and it's been a long effort of mistake and correction. Some birds are hybrids, the result of interspecies reproduction. Some birds' feathers change colors depending on the season. Birds' habits can change. Birds do not necessarily conform themselves to some kind of immutable natural order, but, at the same time, birds do act out things that have endured over time: patterns of behavior, singing, migration, and consistent appearance.
I've got a lot more pondering ahead of me as I learn more about the work scientists do as the subjects of their studies, whether plants, animals, humans, air, atmosphere, water, viruses, and more mutate and change, while also maintaining some patterns of predictability.
The best minds, I've observed, are those which are flexible. They recognize and work with mutability. They recognize and work with the unknown and are willing to see, when it happens, that they were mistaken, whether in part or wholly, about what they thought they knew.
3. I accept that as I grow older, certain aspects of my life diminish.
I do miss -- and I think about it often -- when I could tolerate the heat of summer. I miss when I actually enjoyed being active in summer heat, whether hiking, playing baseball, golfing, working in the yard, riding a bicycle, or going on summer walks.
Yes. I'm grateful we can keep our house cool.
I'm grateful that I enjoy having to staying indoors, out of the heat and out of the sun, because I can read books and listen to classical music and enjoy other indoor activities.
All the same, I miss when I enjoyed and could tolerate the summer outdoors. So now I do the next best thing. I call up happy memories of when I could enjoy the heat.
They pop to mind all through each summer day.
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