Ladybugs

I've been down with a humdinger of a cold for most of a week, and I'd been fighting it for at least 10 days before that.  My body has seemed to be thumbing its nose at my "New Year's resolutions."  I generally don't believe in "resolutions," instead favoring "intentions," which are renewed in the decisions of every moment.  My "intentions" for this year were to 1) be regular about exercise and 2) to bring a special man into my life. 


Unfortunately, I embraced my intentions with the zeal of resolution, and they bounced back in my face.  I was off to a magnificent start on both.  I walked an hour a day, beginning New Year's Eve and straight through the holiday week.  Then the pre-cold fatigue set in, and I could hardly make it through my days at work. 


Over the New Year's weekend, I also joined an expensive internet dating site, which boasts of a higher success rate of matches and marriages than others, while updating my profiles on others, and I've been faithful about checking "matches" every day even while being down sick.  Quite frankly, I'm weary of it. 


During the last week as I lay lifeless, dozing, and curled up under the quilt my grandmother handmade for me when I was 20 years old (literally my security blanket,) I've caught up on missed television programs, Golden Globe winners, Netflix that had been awaiting viewing, and even reviewing some of my favorites.


About 2 a.m. Sunday morning, I was out of new viewing and pulled a favorite movie, "Under the Tuscan Sun," from the shelf.  I've watched it so many times that I know the lines before the actors even begin to speak them. Perhaps the movie is a favorite because there is some sage advice sprinkled through the picture.  And some of the sage advice flies right in the face of my resolutions.


"Dolce far niente" is an Italian concept, which means "the sweetness of doing nothing."  There was no sweetness in my doing nothing over the last week, but this concept, by contrast, connotes that we are capable of doing something and choose to do nothing.  I think what it really means is "just being present" and "feeling alive." We choose to meander, following our hearts, instead of focusing on the goals of our minds. Savoring the moment, one moment after another, choosing in each moment the life I want in that moment. Clearly my body hasn't wanted to exercise in the last two weeks. 


The protagonist in the movie is a middle-aged writer who has been jilted by her cheating husband.  After months alone, she is ready to have someone in her life, not unlike myself.


The other bit of wisdom comes to her from a flamboyant but aging bon vivant relates who relates that, as a girl she would look hard for ladybugs, and when exhausted from her efforts, she would fall asleep in the grass, only to awaken to find herself covered in ladybugs--those delightful little red spotty beetles that just seem to come out of nowhere.  The parable of the ladybugs being that some things can't be forced, they will happen in their own time. It was true of the protagonist in the movie, and it is true of me. 


When I get away from the craziness of resolutions and settle back into my wisdom, I know that what I need to do it to relax and be what I want to be in a relationship to my body and to a potential partner--dolce far niente--and the ladybugs will find me.