One baby boomer with a big imagination

Sometimes baby boomers send us essays telling us how they’re living. And sometimes, they send something tell us how they’re thinking. That’s what we got the other day from Doreen Frick. Having moved from Philadelphia to Washington state and eventually to her current home in Ord, Nebraska, it’s no surprise that Doreen has a big imagination.

“Cast your bread upon the waters, and after many days it will come back buttered.”  Louisa May Alcott

The rain is pouring sideways, and I’m snug as a bug in my little alcove by the window writing some blog-worthy material, listening to the radio and the television and the wash going ‘round.

Stopping to switch another load into the dryer, I hear a bit of the “buy, sell, trade” program our local station runs every weekday around one o’clock, and catch a blurb about a lady who wants to give away some “water lily roots.” Instantly I want them and I don’t even know what they are.

And yet I do. I saw some once on a painting by Monet. Maybe that’s why I want them. And wanting them makes me want a little pond to place them in, and a little stream to catch rocks and minnows and falling leaves, and a horse like we saw at the horse sale on Saturday. I don’t know how but I’d let it run free in my meadow that I don’t own yet where I’ll have plenty of green grass for him to eat and a few sheep and goats and stray cats to keep him company.

I hope my husband is up to all of this because I’ve no intention of actually working a place that size; I’m just dreaming it. So if that dream is in my future, it had better come along soon. He’s not getting any younger.

Blame it on the rain. All five days in a row of it. Rain kept me inside, cozy and warm and full of book-reading that took me back to my childhood and into all the good things I once dreamed of.

Yes, I was a white-picket-fence girl. I was clothes-on-the-line, peasant skirts and Mexican blouses and Indian moccasins and love beads and lots of time to read and write letters and climb trees and sit under the sun with not a care in the world. Oh, and I had a willow tree then, so that’s on my dream list too.

And no, at the horse sale I didn’t buy one, not even the cheapest ones that auctioned off at $4,500 but I did buy moccasins on sale for $25. And a hamburger and cup of coffee — and almost a piece of apple pie.

In the cowboy trailer I found a hoodie with “No Regrets” plastered across the front and bought that too. And then I slipped a few dollars to a little girl who was short $3 for the shirt she wanted. Yeah, don’t tell my husband. He doesn’t like me doing stuff like that.

I don’t know if Louisa May Alcott would think that counts as casting your bread upon the waters or not. It does to me. I’m not sure if I do it for any other reason than I want to, and I can.

And I may not get many opportunities like that, so I don’t re-think them anymore. In this stage of life, I almost have the attitude that I can do no wrong. Maybe with that in my heart, my bread is already buttered . . .