3 in a day

As I was taking a walk on a familiar paved urban path, I passed a concrete staircase I'd noticed before, and decided that today I'd go down it and see where it took me.  The path I was on skirts a small lake, the kind that isn't open to the public but is jealously guarded by the people who live on its edge.  The staircase took me down to a boardwalk with blackberry bushes on one side and condos under construction on the other.  The lake was just beyond the bushes, so I didn't get much of a look at it.  But it was good to finally go down those stairs just see where I ended up.

The boardwalk took me to one of Seattle's busiest and, in parts, yuckiest streets.  On this street, especially the stretch I was on, one can see hookers pretty much any time of the day or night.  Oh those awful, painful-looking shoes.  Not surprisingly, no one stopped his car to ask me for sex, probably because I was wearing sensible flat walking shoes, jeans, and a baggy t-shirt.  And I'm 70.  So I was able to walk a new way back to my car completely unmolested.

I'm noticing that this commitment to something new every day is getting me to do at last some of  those things I've been saying "Someday...." about.  Someday I'll take those stairs.  Someday I'll clean out my closet.  Someday I'll go a day without eating.  It's a thrill-and-a-half to cross those items off my Someday list and put them on my I Did It list.

I had thought that the stairs would be my Something New for today, but when I got home, Sweet Hubby suggested we go to a bookshop café recently bought by a neighbor of ours.  So we did, and it was lovely, eating burgers on a patio surrounded by vines and families.  And then, as I was getting ready to drive us home via the route I was familiar with, SH suggested we try a different street to see whatever we might see, to look at peoples houses and gardens and such, commenting on what we saw.  (Really?  You painted your house bright yellow and blue?  On purpose?)  It was a nice drive, until we got to a steep hill that was narrow and curvy and the sun was shining so brightly in my eyes that I quite literally couldn't see anything.  I inched up that street with my hand in front of my face, squinting and straining and hoping not to kill anyone.

I didn't kill anyone, and I got some really deep writing done this afternoon.  It was a very good day.