Life has not been too bad! Really

Life has not been too bad-My EXPERIMENT.

I recently found an experiment on the quote: life has not been too bad! So far. I decided to try myself.
– take the year of your first birthday and subtract your age now. I found myself in 1909. I was face to face with my 21 year old grandmother. She was married with two children. Her husband was a farmer and she was a maid in one of the big house in the village. So life has not been too bad! Really.

Guadeloupe, life has not been too bad

A day with my grandmother

When she asked me to spend the day with her I did hesitate. Her request came with a warning I need to be up the 4am. I watched my Grand get up and ready herself before called my uncle and aunt for breakfast.
The sun was already up by the time my grandmother and I were ready to set up to the big house.
Upon arrival she put the white apron on and started by getting breakfast for the household. Today was ironing day. This was taken to a different level- first she had to light a fire, and then looked for the irons – a triangle piece of heavy iron with a handle.
I watched her preparing the iron table- a few sheets folded in four which gave her a thick bedding that she laid upon a table. Then she started an uninterrupted hour of ironing. The hot iron plates were sliding on the heavy cotton shirt like skies on snow.

By the time she finished at the house, she had cleaned up, cooked, feed everyone and ironed.  Then she has to do the same at home for her family.
By contract when I was 21 years old I had left the Caribbean.  I was in London ready to travel the world.  I wonder what my grandmother would say.

Today I believe life is not too bad!Really.

Technology has taken over our lives. We have a surplus of choices and demands are put on us all the time. Surely life is better right.
I believe all is about our perception and state of mind- Otherwise everything is just a powerful illusion.

My perception

Now in my mid-fifties, married to a man 13 years my senior, my perception and mind set have changed. The kids have flown the nest. So what next.  I still would like to travel the world. As for my husband the pleasures of life consist in his paintings and his collection of first edition books.
We celebrated 33 years of marriage with a cruise- I wondered what my grandmother would say as she never gone further than the limits of the village.

Life-has- been too bad

life has not been too bad! Really.

Just like the days of my grandmother the sun is still blazing, the sun still set and the world is a much more comfortable place to live in.

So I reckoned Life has not been too bad! Really.