There will always be time

So, what’s new? Apart from the quarantine being extended to April 30? Well, I have been preoccupied with fixing here at home. On Monday I fixed all my beads. Strangely I made them fit onto two shelves. In the afternoon I watched Intersection, a Turkish drama with English subtitles on Netflix. The rich bachelor, who turns out to be the father of the child of the pretty woman who committed suicide in front of him at his birthday party, is very good-looking. I love his character. I have been following that drama for all 13 episodes.

Over the past weeks I have become a follower of Turkish dramas. Their culture reminds me so much of ours except they are all better looking and they eat so many vegetables at breakfast. But the values! They are almost exactly like ours. Being afraid of what other people will say. Concealing your first boyfriend from your mother. And hysterically screaming at each other when you are angry and fighting. They have elaborate plots. I cannot even tell my husband the full story because every character has his or her own plot and it gets really complicated. It’s fun to watch.

But I only watch Netflix in the afternoons. In the morning I do something else. I finished the sweater I was knitting and even sewed the beads on. I think it’s very pretty, though I don’t know when I will wear it because it’s yarn, too hot for the Philippines. But, who knows? Maybe tomorrow there will be snow. I can wear it then as I look out the window because we — my husband and I — cannot go out. Our ages are endangered by COVID-19.

Sometimes we wonder: how did we get so old? Where did all the time go? I never imagined I would one day be 75 and yet, now, here I am. Old. I get tired easily. I made us an altar in the corner of our bedroom. I put all our saints, crosses and rosaries together. I set a gold plate background and some false flowers I brought home on my last trip. I set it on one of my mother’s scarves and put candles around it.

It took me maybe three hours to get this done because first I had to clean the entire surface. It has the altar on one end and my things on the other end. At the end of that time my back hurt and I had to lie back on the bed and watch Turkish dramas. But now, every night at nine, we pray the rosary together in bed with the lit candles on our altar. It’s not only very pretty but it awakens the piety in us. We feel closer to God when we pray.

That’s another gift from this quarantine. My husband and I pray more. It strengthens us. I lead when we pray the rosary but then he ends it with his prayers, which are admirable. In the end we both feel our faith growing stronger. That’s one of the benefits of being old. You become quieter, more introspective. You think more about your life and the lessons you have learned. And you thank God for all the guidance and the blessings He has sent you.

Then another morning comes and I do something else. In our home I have a purse full of coins, change I receive and keep there. Then I have the coin section of my wallet also full of coins. Outside in the living room is a vase full of coins where almost all the change from trips to the drugstore and the supermarket go.

This morning I decided to count them all, tape them together into piles of P100, P50, P10, P3 (or 12 25-centavo pieces). I came up with P751. Now we have enough maybe for five orders of water with some coins leftover. And I am happy because I used up all the coins and the leftover tape from my move here. My back got tired again and I went to bed at four in the afternoon and watched Netflix until it was time for dinner.

I wonder what I will do tomorrow. I have a pile of things waiting for me to pay attention to them. A cabinet full of canned goods in the kitchen that I have not yet sorted out. A pile of fancy jewelry waiting for my attention in my workroom. A bar in the dining room also waiting for my attention. I should sort out the wines from the beers from the hard drinks. There are still a million things I have to do. I have a funny feeling the quarantine will be over and I won’t have finished doing everything I thought I was going to do.

But never mind. There will always be time. We will always find it. We will always create it.

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