As I checked my bank account, I realized that I needed to get on with Sears' application. So, I put on my walking shoes and headed towards the mall. With the premature autumn wind blowing in every direction, it didn't take me long to become cold and grumpy. So, I took out my iPhone and called a taxi, not to go to the mall, but return home. I sat on my patio with a cup of tea, played peek-a-boo with the boats moving in and out of the marina, and allowed my mind to take off without a compass.
It must've been somewhere in the vicinity of Home-hardware store that I had my epiphany!
I don't want to walk 35 minutes to get to the mall. I don't want to punch timecard at Sears, or anywhere else for that matter! I want to be a grasshopper, frolicking by the lake, without reproach!
Mostly, I've lived a regimented life. I was responsible, followed instructions and worked hard. Slowly but surely, I saved, built, and finally brought myself to where I am now — sixty, retired, in Cobourg! True, I had my share of escapades, splurges and indulgences, but since my misbehaving or consumption was always accompanied by guilt and self-punishment, it doesn't really count!
Of course, coming from a culture that invented the rainy day concept, and being brought up by a mother who saved her best nightgowns in case she had to go to the hospital, I'll be always a bit worried about when I'm seventy, eighty or even ninety (Inshallah), but for now, let the summer rule!
I can already hear my mother's anxious voice "You need savings!"
Oh well, since I've chosen to sing now, I suppose, I'll be dancing all the way to a third-rate, government-subsidized nursing home, when and if the time comes!As I think of Robin Williams, committing suicide, it becomes clear to me that having joie de vivre, is the utmost blessing. I might not have much wisdom or money, but I sure have joie de vivre, and I'm planning to nurture it all the way to bankruptcy!
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