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My holiday

Every day can be a holiday, I find. It's a holiday if I can not be working, listening to other people work, or watching them in their yards as I drive by. It's a holiday when I get a treat from a drive thru.

As soon as I hear the wind blow through an open window or door, or get sun-drunk, it's a holiday. As soon as I stop wondering what time it is. As soon as I get up and look around and realize it's only in the middle of the afternoon.

Well, today I am the infirm. I got a blister from walking around the Irish Festival Saturday. I had no idea a blister could do so much. I ignored it for two days and noticed last night it looked like a gash and bled all in my sock. Then I woke up in the middle of the night with my leg so stiff and throbbing I could barely hobble to the bathroom to look at the wound. So I called in sick today, much to my surprise, because I could barely walk.

I might have thought of medical attention, but I noticed an awful wound on Henry and gathered him for the vet, which was really funny, since he and I were such an infirm pair, but I found out he had a bad infection.

He is now in the house tending his wound, and I am glad to say the stiffness in my leg is gone and the gash is starting to itch, so hopefully it's healing and tomorrow I can wear real shoes.

Somewhere in the middle of all of this it became spring. On the way home I got a bagel and a flavored coffee, and it felt like a holiday. I decided to come outside and let the sun dry on my facial rash a little (just another of my present ailments).

I realized that I need to spend pretty much the rest of the day right here. There's me, the turtles, and in the distance roosters are crowing.

When I was young I used to live in this quiet eternal feeling that only comes to me so often now. Hey, give yourself a break. Life is so hard sometimes. You can't feel that way anymore because there's complication and uncertainty. But the eternity is still there, waiting for you, when you have a chance to be present.

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