BLOGG # 118 "WHILING AWAY THE LAZY SUMMER HOURS"

I am sure I have said this sometime before  but these last few weeks have been the best July  days I have ever experienced on the West Coast. Every day in the past seventeen have been perfect and being true to my belief that to fully appreciate a perfect summer day one must "while it away," I have been doing just that. As some of my readers may know I had a total right hip replacement seventeen days ago -a magical surgery which will give me many more years of living joyfully. The  success of this profound surgery-and I use that term truthfully-depends on the skill of the surgeon and the recuperation afterwards by the grateful patient. To maintain the delicate corrective surgery depends on the discipline and cooperation of the patient and I have been doing just that with careful exercises and careful movements to not damage fragile muscle, slowly rebuilding strength. This does not sound like "whiling away hours" but I have just googled the term and that is just what I have been doing-whiling away hours waiting. Every morning I get up before eight -grab -well not literally-usually given to me by a loving family member- a coffee and sit outside on the deck in my special chair admiring the view. The view faces East so I feel the early hot sun on my face,see the hazy blue of the ocean and contemplate Mt. Baker in its glory. It is unbelievable that I am sitting outside in my light clothing feeling the morning heat on my face and I have to pinch myself to believe it. It feels like I am sitting on a deck in Greece looking at the Mediterranean sea-not the Pacific ocean. My daughter and I both feel like we have been transported to our summer place we used to go to  on an Aegean Island years ago-the years dropping away.How quickly one falls into the slow motion of a lazy Mediterranean morning. We sit there turning over pages of old fashion magazines and glory in the heat. I can't think of a better way to recuperate. The day whiles away into afternoon-a light lunch outside -a gentle walk with walker- gentle exercises -then a typical afternoon serious Mediterranean nap. Sometimes there is a wake-up coffee call again on the deck-which is now in glorious shade-and occasionally a quiet game of scrabble or rousing game of picturama as the afternoon progresses into a lazy evening. The evening is a gift from the Gods. We sit outside in our minimal clothing-no sweaters-unheard of on the West Coast- watching the pink glow of the sunset reflected on the deep blue sea talking or reading.The evening stretches into dark night and we listen to the birds sleepily  settling down and inhale the aroma of the jasmine as it is wafted to us by an obliging cool breeze lifting our hair and rustling the pages of our magazines. The mountains turn dark and Mt. Baker looks for all the world like a Japanese woodcut and I wonder-did I after my surgery get transported to a magical island located somewhere in a Mediterranean  Japanese  sea?  As you see this is a perfect question or contemplation to accompany "whiling the hours away"and I do spend time doing so-What a perfect location for Nirvana-A Mediterranean Greek-Pacific Japanese Island -think of the great food and the beauty of these two ancient cultures.Mnnnnn-I think it is time to come to earth and do some more disciplinary exercise, deep breathing and stretching to ground myself.  "Whiling away hours" is wonderful but as according to google definition-it is a waiting period. And indeed it is because this morning I woke up to a gentle West Coast cloudy morning.