The Waking  by Theodore Roethke 

Great Nature has another thing to do

To you and me; so take the lively air, 

And, lovely, learn by going where to go .

This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
What falls away is always. And is near.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go. 

This poem often comes into my mind. Although I don't fully understand the whole thing, parts of it seem to be closer than I will ever get to expressing me. 

Today I eventually got out of bed around nine with no idea what I would do. While eating breakfast I remembered thinking the other evening as I watered the grape vines that the white grapes looked pretty sparse but the purple ones seemed to be full. So when I finished eating I went outside to wander around the yard. I tasted the grapes. They were ripe, so l picked them all. The rest of the morning evolved around this. I now have 3 jars of grape cordial concentrate, some clean, plump bunches of purple grapes and a few spindly strings of green grapes. 

When I taught, I really enjoyed Wednesdays, my day off. I was alone and free to organize the hours as I chose. Although the options were limited to school work, house work, cooking and the near outdoors, they were mine to organize and I was perfectly happy with that. It was liberating enough for a Wednesday. I have always felt most free when labouring under the delusion that I am inventing the wheel. When cooking I rarely follow a recipe strictly. Baking is another matter. I do toe the line there, at least the first time I try a recipe. As a teacher, my subject was English in a French Lycée where every lesson in every department was structured strictly according to edicts emanating directly from Paris, except for the English department.  We were left alone to create our own curriculum. 

Now that I'm retired and living alone, weekends are what Wednesdays were.  The work and play that now make up my life I do on week days in groups that I have joined so that I keep moving and thus a bit balanced. They involve activities that usually require getting up, dressed in some kind of gear and out of the house early. So it's on the weekends that,

"I learn by going where I have to go."

Some of my grapes. It's the first real crop I've had since I planted the vines two years ago.  

Some of the Monday biking gang gathering at Polson Park