Everyday Things

By Ursula B.G. Kilner, Salisbury

Never having had a time when I wasn't able to do the everyday things for a long time (at least I consider four years a long time), I never really appreciated the delights of everyday things. I must confess that my hip problems were caused, or at least brought to a boil, by my shoving the washing machine with my hip. Don't do it! It took a while till I found a doctor who would prescribe anything but pain pills (nothing in the hip was broken—just out of place). But time does help us and I found a surgeon who saw the problem and corrected it, and the pain disappeared. The hip replacement surgery, however, left me unable to do the everyday things of my usual life—like taking long walks in the woods with my dogs.

I did not realize the extent of my loss of "regular life" until yesterday. I took part of the walk I have taken for years and couldn't go but a quarter of the way. I am sure that I will be able to do the whole walk again, but it will be another six months and how I miss seeing special trees, special views, and plants that are going to sleep already, for fall is coming.

Summer begins to fade when the black walnuts drop their nuts. I took a bag up to my friend Sarah and she was, I think, delighted. In the past four days I have found another 15, and these are from trees I started—not the BIG tree up on the hill where I cannot walk yet. I hate to think of all the luscious smelling nuts going to waste—well, not really, as the squirrels and chipmunks will do their job on the nuts. I do not like the nuts themselves, but I do love the aroma of the green outer shells.

I never realized how much I would miss the everyday things, and now I appreciate them all the more. Perhaps the Good Lord takes away so that we appreciate what we have "ordinarily."