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We are three adults living in a polyamorous triad family. The content here is intended for an adult audience. If you are not an adult, please leave now.

3/07/2013

Hobbies and Stuff

Continuing in the "question and answer" mode:

ZarahPDX wrote

After a couple of years of reading this blog (I'll admit, I've only glanced at the others), I feel like though I know quite a bit about the trials and tribulations that you've gone through, I know very little about you. I know you teach, I know a little about your family, certainly about your BDSM interests and polyamory, but what else? What are your hobbies? What would you do with an entire day all to yourself, without any household stuff to do, with our without Tom? Is there anywhere you would like to go in your remaining years?


This made me laugh ... especially that phrase, "in your remaining years."  I come from some long lived stock. My mother is 85 and still just as mean as ever.  Her mother, when she died, was 98.  She lived on her own until her very last days.  And, if my own mother is mean (and she is), my grandmother was just wicked.  Somehow, I think (I hope), I managed to duck that inheritance.  The point, however, is that I hope my "remaining years" are still likely to be fairly extensive.  I acknowledge that there are fewer years ahead than there are behind, but I imagine I might still have some number of good days (and years) ahead...

But then, there was more to this question beyond the assumption of my imminent demise.  Right.  Let me see:

  1. What are your hobbies?
  2. What would you do with an entire day all to yourself, without any household stuff to do, with or without Tom?
  3. Is there anywhere you would like to go?

Hobbies?  Hmmmm...  I am really not a person who has cultivated hobbies.  I am a passable cook, but I cook to eat.  I really don't get into cooking as entertainment.  I have never developed any real skill with sewing or knitting or the like.  I can sew on a button, repair a seam, and make some crude and simple garments with my old, crotchety sewing machine.  I do not do embroidery or cross stitch or weaving or...  I like to read, but find that I have limited time for it.  During the school year, I read mostly so that I can prepare for my classes.  In the summer, I tend to immerse myself in reading non-fiction, and that tends to depend on what I am currently interested in.  Over the last few years, much of my reading has been related to brain science and addiction research (for obvious reasons).  I sing for myself, and it is probably pretty dreadful, but I don't usually inflict it on other people, so no harm done.  I don't play any instruments.  I'm no artist, and I take pictures of stuff with a point and shoot camera.  I have no urge to hone that into some sort of skill that would rise to the level of "photography."  I like to hike.  We don't hike much.  We walk.  Round and round and round the path we have walked a thousand times (so that He can calculate time and distance).  Walking is not hiking.  It is exercise, and exercise is not a hobby.

What would I do with a day to myself?  What would I do with days to myself?  I can imagine a life that is other than the one I am living.  Inside of THIS life, that I've chosen, and that I have no desire to give up, there is no such thing as a day to myself.  I have a family and a demanding career.  Myself and my life are all tangled up together.  That is fine.  But the question posits some entirely different life.  So, imagining that hypothetical, left to myself, I would likely redecorate my home.  I'd paint and organize and rearrange and generally create a space that was "mine."  I might take a long drive out to visit in Colorado.  I'd see the kids and the grandkids, but I'd also just wander and see the places that I remember from my youth and young adulthood. I'd probably haunt my public library, browsing the shelves, randomly, picking up this and that to just read as I felt drawn to things.  I'd hunt down interesting and quirky little restaurants to try.  I might go off with an old fashioned road map and follow the little roads...  Just going with no destination in mind.  I don't know.  Does that answer the question?

Finally, are there places I'd like to go?  Well, yes, of course!  I like to travel.  I do not like to fly, however, so there are places I'll likely never see without the help of a huge inheritance and plenty of sedative medication.  I guess that leaves the dreams of seeing Australia and Victoria Falls and the Great Wall in the realm of dreams.  If I can drive to it, I'd love to see it.  Favorite places that I'd like to revisit over and over and over:  Valley View Hot Springs, Glacier National Park, The Hoh Rainforest.  I've always wanted to travel to the northeast of the US, and am hoping to be able to do that this summer (there is a teacher grant that I have applied for that may make that possible).  I want to see the Everglades.  I'd love time to spend in Washington D.C.  Lots of time, so that I could wander and look and study and go back again and again and again.  I'd love to spend a season in New York city, seeing plays on and off Broadway.  I'd love to visit the Getty Museum...  Is that enough?

swan

6 comments:

  1. Ouch! I have to apologize, I'm recovering from surgery and must have been medicated when I phrased that "remaining years" bit. I promise I'm not usually that crass.

    Thanks for the response :) It was just as enlightening as I hoped. If you ever take the long drive to Oregon I would love to take all three of you out to dinner and pick your brains. All three of you seem like such kind, thoughtful people with so many stories to tell.

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    Replies
    1. Zarah, Should we ever manage to make that long drive, we'll let you know. It would be fun to meet you face to face.

      swan

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  2. weirdgirl5:38 PM

    if you ever get that inheritance, hop on a cruise ship to Australia - I'd be a willing guide :)

    weirdgirl

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  3. Shame you don't like flying, Sue, it's wonderful to watch the earth passing beneath. The sense of the earth being round, that's what I like about it. The geometry of the universe is fascinating. The fact that to fly to Hong Kong from London, by a great circle route, necessitates starting off in a north-easterly direction is just so interesting!

    Anyway ... you can go places on cargo ships sometimes, try it one day. Go down to Galveston or Savannah and talk to some willing skipper. There must be some way of getting across the Atlantic on the water without spending a fortune. Once you get to mainland Europe, you can go so many places by train, and for me this is one of the best ways to travel. My mother in her seventies made several long journeys alone by train across Europe; and my father used the trans-Siberian railway quite often to travel home from China to England on leave. I don't know if they still do it, but the French railways used to offer rail tickets for as much travel as you wanted to do on the French SNCF rail/bus system for a fixed price and a limited period. They called it "France Vacances" The TGV is fun!

    Or, get a bicycle and a tent and spend a few months exploring the America of your dreams.

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  4. Ordalie11:21 PM

    I sure am a bit curious but I marvel at the changing appearance of your blog: photos or drawings, font... Who makes all these changes?

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  5. Anonymous9:38 PM

    I think you are definitely a writer!

    ReplyDelete

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