Question Mark

I wanted to write something today because I sense I am to write and I continue to neglect doing it. I don't know what I want to write which explains the question mark of the title.
Mary gave me a lesson when I was staying with her recently in San Jose in how to add images to my blog posts. We were going to write the steps down as I learn better visually than through listening but we did not. I have been experimenting in an attempt to add a picture. I am able to line up my blog, the picture, and the formatting instructions on my blog. I can see them sitting before me in a tantalizing row and I cannot move the picture/image that I chose - a confused looking, colorful question mark ,onto this post. It is a goal to learn how to do it and to put appropriate images onto all of my previous blogs.
I love seeing the images that both Mary and especially Jen, who is our most present blogger have used with their blogs. Jen's recent question mark inspired me and I have loved her hammer over the scale photo.
I am happy to be back from my stay at Mary's and I was happy being there. They are a very loving and gracious family. I did learn from the experience that it is still important to me to be the captain of my own ship. It is an important part of aging to have some responsibilities, something to take care of plus enough interests in life to want to get up every morning. I have a strong work ethic inherited from my parents. They also left me with a sane attitude about the uses of money including an ethic about not living above one's income. Further I was inculcated with a sense of caring about and being informed about the larger community. My parents were very aware of and interested in the events and politics of the nation. I was born into our large Irish clan and community was an integral part of life. We were taught tolerance, that there was a basic equality particularly an equality of opportunity that was a right. We were not stupid - we saw differences in people but were encouraged to not see ourselves as higher or lower than those around us. Values such as these have stood the test of time and I have gratitude for them and hope to have witnessed them for my own children and grandchildren.
Two natures seem to dwell side by side in me. I am very social and love other people's stories. I have said that I am a person who likes going to other people's children's recitals - to look at the photos that are meaningful to them. I enjoy being out in the world among the energy manifested especially at night through lights and music. There is something intriguing about listening to the murmur of a crowd, seeing the animated faces, smiling without knowing why.
My other nature seeks and appreciates solitude. I contentedly spend hours alone enjoying the beauty that I am constantly creating around me. I have written before of watching a breeze moving the trees, the setting sun lighting a fire in a hundred roses, the stillness or busyness of my small graceful pool, the strange exotic light of a coming storm - any number of images that solitude makes room for. I read, meditate, reflect and sense the silence that is more than the absence of noise.
Physically my world can be and is very small. But in solitude I find myself impelled to go beyond the smallness of the egoic world that is inside me. It often feels confining, like a trap or being in a cage. Yet desiring to leave I don't fully, even with the door open.
I am being lived as one aging through these two natures and their inclinations. Having just celebrated my 83rd birthday I am grateful for the privelege of having had such an extended journey.
I had no idea what was to be said today. Having had so many years of experiences it is delightful to be surprised still by oneself. For now the question mark may be at rest.