Old patterns seem to reassert themselves without my even noticing.  I had pulled and raked weeds for three hours in 95 degrees.  The gardens looked beautiful, and I definitely did not.  At 3 pm I took Mom to the grocery store to cross off our lists.  At 4 pm we put the groceries away in various pantries, cupboards, refrigerators, and freezers.  At 5 pm began the peeling and slicing of vegetables for roasting: yams, carrots, onions, potatoes, mushrooms (plus sliced Kielbasa).  At 7 pm dinner was served to grateful parents who cannot cook their own.  At 8 pm came the washing of dishes and cleaning of kitchen.  And I was so glad to be done with my work for the day.  But at 8 pm Mom asked if we could go for a walk now, and, in fairness to her, I had hinted earlier in the day a willingness to take them on an evening walk.  Now, I complained about having been on my feet the last five hours and about wanting my day’s labors to be done.  “I really want to go,” she persisted sweetly, and I felt my weak attempt to draw boundaries and wind down my Saturday giving way to a kindly old lady’s pining to get out of the house, to feel the evening air on her face, to see trees in their multitudinous shades of green, to wave to the waving neighbors, to revel in freedom and calm and beauty with her arms raised exultantly to the sky.  So, out the door we trundled.  Nick drove by in his vintage Mustang, waiving, and smiled at our “We love your car!” and said he’d be back with something she would really enjoy seeing.  Every night I sigh wearily, wanting my day’s labors to end, and there is always more work to be done.  I am remembering back to Saturday mornings pulling weeds for three hours in 95 degrees, to the days of two decades of raising my seven children, when I often fell asleep comforting a crying child who himself soon slept sprawled and drooling on my chest, when I would seethe over dirty greasy soapy dishes at midnight, when the next day’s unbearable stresses already came crushing.  “I love it!” Mom exclaimed after passing an enormous blue spruce twenty feet across and forty tall.  I confessed to enjoying our walk, too, and heard her relieving sigh.  Boundaries feel selfish to me.  Every boundary I draw limits another’s needs and my service to those needs.  Trying to draw lines leaves me feeling guilt for others’ disappointments.  But a life without boundaries, as I well know, will leave me empty and dry and weary and resentful and depressed—all used up.    I am getting a little better at saying, “That will have to wait until tomorrow,” Mom or Dad.  Our walk finished at 9 pm.  The doorbell rang at 9:10, just as I sat down to rest.  Nick had come back, this time with his 1949 Plymouth (blue).  “What do you think of her!” he asked.  His gray mustache grew from his lip down his cheeks to well below his jawline.  “It’s a Plymouth!” she impressed him, hanging on my arm as we walked slowly to the rumbling car at the curb in the dark.  She told him the story of how she and Dad as newlyweds had driven their 1953 Plymouth (green) for five days from Salt Lake City to New York City, in 1963, at a top speed of 40 miles per hour, on local and state roads before interstates.  The city had alternate side of the street parking rules, and Dad sleepily descended the apartment stairs at 5 every morning to move the car to the other side of the street to avoid tickets and towing.  After three days of that, they decided they didn’t need a car in Greenwich Village, put a “For Sale $50” sign in the window, and sold the big rounded old Plymouth to a clerk at the corner grocery, who waxed it up and proudly cruised the Big Apple in his new Plymouth.  I shook Nick’s hand.  I became so weary raising my family, my love for them notwithstanding, and I am weary again now, my love for Mom and Dad notwithstanding.  My work feels never done.  That is the human experience: the work to be done always outpaces the time and energy to do it, and we tire despite ennobling lives.  The thermometer reached 102 that day, the same day an email came from the company that hangs our Christmas lights on the house, asking for a deposit.  How strange to think about Christmas in 102 degrees in July, waiting for parts to repair the air conditioning, grateful for refrigerators and freezers and ice and little water cooler fans bedside.  We will forego the house lights this year.  Is there irony in my hanging three August calendars on my bedroom wall, one for Push-ups, one for Planks, and one for Prayer?  They can wait for August, I decided, and dropped into bed before 10.

(Picture of 1953 Plymouth from Dragers.com, used under the fair use doctrine.)