Slow life 

I wake up in the morning and make breakfast for my dad and I, the usual-broccoli and eggs. Dad is out flying so I have about an hour. As soon as I see him walking back from the airplane hanger I put in some toast for our hour of coffee and conversation. We’ve somehow managed to be caught up with ranch work so we’re now enjoying the extra free time and solitude. I no longer have to endure the flirtations of  14 year old Kentucky boys or worry about someone slathering barbecue sauce on my dog and putting her in a crockpot. Nope, all the laborers have been exploited and it’s just my dad and I. Thank God.

One of the benefits of having older parents is their ability to reminisce with you through the decades. Today we were on the topic of wars. He told me about the Cold War bomb drills in grade school – how his class would go to the basement where there was a blanket and cans of beans waiting for them. The Cold war jumped to Vietnam. He got drafted only to fail the medical examination (praise God for low blood pressure!)

I appreciate home infinitely more now that I’m older. My restless high school self would be itching to get out for the night and weave elaborate lies to do so. But I don’t think I’ve spent one Saturday night or any night really, wishing I was doing something else. Don’t get me wrong, I’m craving a return to college, but all it takes is something small like a glance at my mother’s wrinkled cheek or my dad reading the newspaper to realize these times are precious. Sometimes I just get these spurts of sad happiness while doing the most mundane things with them.

On the ranch there isn’t a whole lot of recreation, your options are limited to either reading, radio talk shows, or roping buckets…. We barely have cell service so social media is an option only if you want to walk out to a hill or stand on top of a truck. Dad and I like to read, pausing every now and then to ask “anything notable?” HOWEVER we just got super uptown thanks to  wicked Walmart. I bought my dad a DVD player so the options now include watching a crazy edge of your seat video lecture called “the writings of the apostolic fathers.” We’re on disc three. 

As I get ready to trade my blue collar and border collie for textbooks and rent checks, I’m glad I got the chance to reset and be with my parents, but also I got to be alone a lot. Which is what I needed from this summer.  Living  in the constant company of friends, although it gives me a sense of belonging, likens me to a dependent machine. I can get where I don’t appreciate my own mind anymore pretty easily.  But when you have no one to entertain you, you see what a good amusing friend you can be to yourself, if that makes any sense. Even though I succumb to lunacy quite often to entertain myself it’s better than being dependent.