Disorientation

 I’ve returned from my travels and have sort of fallen thru the cracks in what I call home.  Before I left I had started daily routines, the embryos of new habits  that anchored me to a new home base.  But then I joined a family reunion on a pond in Maine that has such ancient memory resonance that it’s part of my psyche’s ABC’s. And I was there with all my sibs, talking about stories and images from when Home first became a  reality.   Then I spent more time in Hanover my home from age 4-7. Also full of old magnetic images and memories.    I feel sort of like a force field of ancient memories has distorted my barely beginning roots of this being my here and now Home.    

I like to think about my thinking, and this disorientation gives me a little vertigoish sense of seeing the backside of my own head.  It won’t last; soon I’ll become engaged  (or mired) in the here and now, which is how it should be.  But seeing my new Life in a little room above a garage in the context of all my other homes, especially the farm, gives the new Home more moment, more symbolism more story potential.   

I have dream images from our house on Spinney rd and the cabin on Otter Pond.  My first apartment in Chicago has been a powerful dreamscape.  The farm in Bell Center hasn’t appeared for years  though it’s particularly  powerful when it does.  It’s the farm that Gil and I shared a dream of and created which of course figures most current images in the back of my mind.    What stories will it take to make this new space like the inside of my head, where I shed my persona  as I come up the stairs and discover  another deeper older me  waiting to be lived?

Loving with all my intelligence

 I’m alone with Ed, my brother whom I love , who is only a shadow of himself anymore.   It’s hard.  Partly from the constant vigilance needed to catch him before he wanders.  Partly because he’s there and not really there.  In some ways it’d be easier if he was all gone and then my heart wouldn’t be caught by old Ed playfulness or occasional astute remark.

And David made a careless error with his car which is going to cost him a lot of money.   I know how shame and self anger can be so destructive .   Another man I love and cannot help with his internal struggles    It makes me eat ice cream.  Somehow I feel the need for self soothing.   I wish I could come up with healthier coping mechanisms.      How can I face my own demons and self care?   It’s easier to anguish over those I love than to love myself “with all my intelligence”

That quote is from a poem by Adrienne Rich which I read years ago. It struck me at the time because love is so often thought of as immune to rationality and thinking.   I believe that Love is tied to the stories we tell ourselves.  And we can influence and choose our stories.  Choosing to love with all my intelligence means choosing stories which offer possibility, hope,  salvation.    

I love my son  He’s 46 yrs old and struggling.  I could fit all his info into a story of addiction, mental illness and character flaws.  Or I can frame it as a hero’s journey, with obstacles and personal demons which throw him into pits of despair but which again and again he rises from and tries again.  He lubricates his efforts with a preternatural generosity of spirit which he has had since early childhood and with a kindness toward those who are struggling or in pain.   I love that Hero though I know the outcome of his journey is anything but certain. I am choosing the story I tell because I know it is a story which allows growth, change evolution.  My intelligence says  this story is a gift my love can hold him in.  And I chose to love him as much as loving him chooses me.

I love my brother who is fading into dreamlike fogginess from his Alzheimer’s    I can tell myself the story that the  real “Eddie” is gone and that once he no longer recognizes me (not yet thank God) I can write off having a relationship with him.  Or I can chose to tell myself  that he is retreating into dream worlds but that they are His dreamworlds and so still a piece of the real Him.  I can chose to play with him in those strange stories , still playing with our mutual love of language and witty repartee  his somewhat caustic humor can still annoy me but it’s part of his charm too; he definitely hasn’t lost his charm!  The story my love says about him is that we will be in relationship til he dies, (and who knows maybe even after that??)  this story keeps me engages and connected to him  even at his most frustrating.   I choose to Love because seeing the positive, the marvelous, the touching keeps my soul moist and I believe the act of seeing that “goodness” feeds it, calls it into Being in the world. Not unlike teachers who see their students positives help them rise to that good.    Using my ability to see the power of the stories I tell myself and using them to further the Love in the world is my gift.   And I’m glad for it

Becoming Sick

 It’s been creeping up on me, the chills, the sneezing, slight headache, stuffy nose.    I don’t get sick often; have never had Covid that I know of.  It’s an altered state of consciousness and I hope it passes quickly. But it IS a different perspective!  Like the difficulty walking, I try to find something interesting about the change.    But I’d rather be healthy

Something more

 I’ve caught a whiff of “there’s something more I could be doing with my life”. What it is or how I can find it is unclear. As the daily routines which have filled my life for years is starting to slough off, I’m aware that other people fill their lives differently, Traveling or buying new toys, trying to recapture old glories, they may not be what satisfies me but there is Something More that I could do this lifetime.   I need to get a better sense of what is on the menu for 76 year old ladies of questionable fitness.   I need to actively think of collecting possibilities for this menu and then start sampling

The Eldest of Five

Being with my sibs is….interesting.  We are cut from the same cloth and share the same memories mostly but we are SUCH different people.   I love them,  they’re strangers, and part of who I am.   And they can drive me up the wall!!!  I hear all these shared memories and then also hear the competition, neediness, wanting to get the most (fill in the blank) attention,, love respect, love.    As the eldest I am in the crosshairs to be taken down.  I feel appreciated and also resented.   Listening to their stories of high school in Hanover , I’m a stranger, I wasn’t there  I was off in Chicago   I wasn’t part of their gang. But I also paved the way for their flying the nest and moving to WI.  

Karen lit into me tonight, ostensively  about the sales of Pipers Nest and feeling she is not being afforded the central position in the transfer to the Bancrofts.  And my feeling her boundaries are shot and she’s going to drive them up the wall as she micromanages  everything.  And yet I’ll try to give her what she wants.      I remember wanting to move in with dad because my sibs were driving me up the wall. And yet I sewed dresses for the girls and vests for Ed and made them all advent calendars   Etc etc.  i feel my unconscious is giving me mixed messages about how I feel about them.        And I’m glad to be here

Homing Devise

I’m traveling out east tomorrow  There’ll be a family reunion and then I’ll stay with Ed while Pam gets a break.  I’ve done the prep, packed, finally vacuumed and washed the floors/, and feel kinda dazed.  It’s like I haven’t been settled Here long enough to have an anchor as I travel to somewhere Else.     Home needs to be like a felt sense homing devise.  It’s interesting how my car’s gps has figured it out with out any input from me. It now tells me how far I a from home and it means here.   I wonder when I’ll feel that in my bones        Honey’s getting it. She knows where to turn when we’re out for walks.  But when we go to the farm she disappears into her labyrinth of farm smells,  poop and carrion

What makes something home… I remember when I moved mom from her independent apartment into Assisted Living.  Her memory was gone and I was worried shed be scared and bot know where she was  but she told me that though she didn't know where she was , she know she was in the right place because she recognized her furniture and pictures.     So maybe seeing my beloveds furniture and pictures will become my gps’s homing devise

The Radio in the Back Room

I’ve always been aware of the background music of my life. I can just tune in and hear whatever music my unconscious  feels is the soundtrack at that moment.  Like the time during my divorce when I had a dream that had background music “Breaking Up Is Hard To Do”.   And I’ve also been able to tune into the random thoughts and associations and memories that are way behind what the front part of my mind is engaged with.  I’m not always sure what to make of it. It’s not deep wisdom or truths I should listen to. It’s more like an auditory version of the visual after image when you’ve stared at something too long.   But sometime it surprises me and I realize perhaps there’s another reality I should take into account.  I saw an old friend at Quaker meeting the other day, and everything in the back room was saying I DON’T WANT TO reengage with her.   Nothing subtle.  But I’d have a hard time explaining why to myself.  I feel she’d like to get back into relationship and I DON’T WANT to   

The radio in the back room warned me when I first met Tom.  I was extremely uncomfortable and couldn’t figure out why. We were waiting for my friend to return from school. He wasn’t hitting on me or anything. But I was so uncomfortable that I made an excuse to get up and go around the block to kill time. When I returned she still wasn’t there and after a bit I got the same feeling.  And then I vividly remember thinking “I wonder what’s going on here? I wonder if were going to get married and there’ll be some painful thing like with dad and Enid and mom”.  No joke. That radio was onto some deep stuff.  Not that the nonsense syllables and earworm tunes reveal meaning most of the time, (at least that I can figure out at the time)  but listening to my dreams and just noticing the background thoughts  may be what reveals not only my theme music for this new era but also what the first new dance steps should be.   I’m  Listening 

Sick Dog

 Honey’s been sick since Tues night and it’s disturbing. I’m used to letting things settle but did take her into the vet on Thurs and $450 later they say she’s “all good”    But it isn’t. She’s had three days of the runs.   It’s funny I felt such release when I gave up being responsible for the chickens, yes helping out with the moving in from summer pasture but they just weren’t on my mind as much.  Honey is all I have left that I’m responsible for    Thinking back to all the animals and kids and partners and siblings that I’ve been responsible for over the decades.  To be honest I’m tired of it.    But my sick dog is mine. And tomorrow I need to call back the vet.   Sigh

The Theme music of changing Eras

 I’m looking for theme music of this new era.  I remember the music of my starting college in Chicago music, Bill Evans, Joni Mitchel, John Coltrane and Smokey Robinson ….. and my roommates Donovan. Listening to any of it takes me back to how I felt in that crazy altered state of 1967     The then there’s the music as I had kids Little White Duck and Free to Be You and Me.  And the pain of the divorce era. Meg Christian and Turning It Over.     The falling in love with Gil music was Jan Garbarek and Keith Jarret and all the disco of the 80s.     David’s prison time  Fat Freddy’s Drop  still brings tears to my eyes.  And then all the Latin music that Gil soaked me in    I still remember the arousal of Mi Tierra  and Los Van Van  the Koln concert of our wedding. During the crazy intense days toward the end of his life Cassandra Wilson’s Shelter From the Storm made me cry on repeat.  Also too weird  that song sometimes no kidding would just start playing on my computer or in the car without my putting it on or even having listened to it in weeks!!      

  After he died I sort of stopped listening to music.  Not sure why.  Some of it was I’d been so overstimulated all those years of crisis. That I wanted to fall into no sensation.    Some of it was that Gil had been my source for new music  and now that pipe line had dried up.      I listened to my old music and the Gil Memorial music  until it stopped making me tear.  And then it was silence    

Not all silence is created equal 

Now in my new space, attempting new habits    I want to find some new music that my body can associate with this new era.    I need new Theme music.   Something lyrical but with some salty sour chords  something that resolves with hopeful keys.     Something with a drive that gets into a grove  that holds    I feel a little like West Side Story with “Something’s Coming”.     Theme music can’t be prescribed it’ll have to come out of left field and grab me! Or else slip into my dreams  on repeat.    I just need to listen for it and recognize it’s resonance

Waiting fir the rebirth of Wonder

 Sydney asked me, “so what do you all day’.  And I found myself saying I’m not filling it.   I do a little of this and a little of that but I want to become a little bored, a little restless  so I can truly look around and ask myself with some appetite,. What do you want?    There’s an old like about “You can’t kill time without injuring eternity”.  

I’m fixing this, getting ideas for that but basically  I’m waiting for my eyes to become accustomed to the dark so to speak so I can start seeing feeling what’s here, what’s possible    Busyness and accomplishing may feel good but they don’t feed the Rebirth of Wonder”

Settling

 I’m settling. Moving things into new more convenient places. Figuring out novel ways to solve problems   The half fridge which is all I have room for in this ship sized room, is a pain in the neck/back to see what’s on the shelves. And everything in the back freezes   I was to old about refrigerator drawers!  Expensive but def would enable me to see what I’ve got. An elegant solution!  But I’d have to move the trash can…and the one place it might fit would only work if I trade out the “thinking chair” for the new swivel one but then…. You get the drift   The dust of the move is settling 

And my social life is starting up. I went out to eat with some old friends  kind of impulsively.  I never could do that out at the farm.  Been reaching out to old friends from my distant past as they pop into my mind   Even talking about a trip to England !  Who IS this woman!?  I’ve had a moment or two of restlessness.  I’m looking forward to more    And what I’ll do about it

4 weeks in or the subjective experience of Time

 it’s been 4 weeks since i started this experiment in living above a garage.  It feels oddly like a long time and a short time.  I’ve had this theory about the subjective experience of time. My theory is you mark time through the number of moments of awareness.  Auto pilot can make a day pass in a flash, and boredom where you look up every moment “are we there yet” can feel like forever.    

Living in a new place, setting new patterns involves many moments of awareness   But it also involves plowing through new activities which just take doing not noticing. So the slow and the fast passage experience    It’s dawning on me what a BIG change this is.  Not fear or regret  but maybe a kind of awe that I did it.   I’m still avoiding busyness but I am impulsively reaching out to folks from my past.  I think my balance to doing/reflecting is about right.  And I’m not beating up on myself when I don’t accomplish what I’d hoped to each day. Still curious about how the adjustment process will play out.  I want to notice it all and slow down this exit ramp I’m on. 

(I miss my dishwasher)

 It’s well and good to say I must clean each plate and bowl as I use it. (Which I’m doing for the most part)   But I MISS my dishwasher!  I miss how out of sight everything is. (I’ve yet to get on top of emptying my dish drainer every day) I miss how guaranteed grease free the dishwasher dishes are.   There’s less work in this little space but there’s also more work. (Though I will say sweeping takes 5 minutes including the stairs)  And the setting new habits takes attention and energy   There’s a part of me that’s tired of it  

 If this is truly a candidate for being the last place I live, can I really make this comfortable and easy?  Too soon to tell if I can attenuate and no longer notice all the uncomfortable new things.  How long? Maybe 6 months? Or so?   So check in with me in March.    

I think I’m just cracking a bit of my denial.   This was/is one hell of a Life change!!  What the Fuck was I thinking!?!  About time for that thought to come to the fore.  I talked about voluntary freefall but I’ve always hated diving boards, I was unlikely to step off a cliff.  So perhaps acknowledging a little discomfort, a little grousing about inconvenience is getting down to the real stuff.  (About time!)  But I suspect missing my dishwasher is going to last for a while

Idle

 I feel idle   I’m used to having a long list of should ottas.  Granted I have lots of “it would be good to get done” tasks but no urgency   This is the no wind in my sail moments  that I said I wanted in order to discover what “I want to do with my one wild and precious life”.   Napping, my default,  still feels good, but ….    I’m used to being productive, putting food by, building designing.    Somehow I’m reminded of Adam’s ceramic teacher in collage who saw how every assignment to work on a skill was used to make something utilitarian, and so gave him a challenge to make something frivolous    He made a ceramic purple cow head. On a plaque.  Which hung on the wall at Pipers Nest for years.    

It’s definitely against my habit to invite “trivial pursuits”.   But perhaps cultivating idleness might reveal new delights.   But it at least fuels the restlessness which could indeed feed the search for something new

Habits

 I  fast with the actual data but it’s generally true. used to tell my students that “24 times in a row makes a habit”. That’s a little loose and fast with the data, but it’s generally truism   And so 26 days in  I can feel that daily writing and walking are set enough that no need to daily chart them anymore  the pattern of doing them is largely established   War\ter drinking not so much. I wonder why. Seems like that’s easier? Hmm. Perhaps because it takes less effort I didn’t feel I really needed to TRY    ??

There’s some definite mood perks to at least starting the process 9I don’t want to claim success prematurely_  so I’m adding one which could really help . Daily floor sweeping.  I don’t know why but I’ve resisted daily floor sweeping, have preferred cleaning as an occasional Big Deal when in fact of course, a little incremental effort can be far more effective.  

If I can pull off these “healthy adult habits” it gives me hope that this really is beginning a new phase of my life, not an effortless fading asleep into my death

Stories

 I 5think the shift I’m feeling is because I’m shifting from the story I’ve been telling about “the move from the farm into the city”  and the why and the how, to the reality of the felt experience   The stories that guide us are by definition a step removed, a metacognition of what’s happening. The stories enable seeing the Universal in the specific   But that remove doesn’t enable living in the skin of what’s happening.  

All good.  I’m a story teller and that’s what I hope to refine with this daily writing. But living in the sensory reality of the dirty floor or the ability to see my with my new technology is what’s going to let me evolve the little day to day details of actually functioning well in this space and noticing/appreciating it.    

I’m remembering dreams; I started listening to music on my new little speakers. It reminds me of landing in my little dorm room at UofC in 1967.  Scared, hungry for a new life. 

I’m here, now

 I woke up this morning feeling as tho I’d landed back into my body, the here and now of being alive.  Not sure why It’s been 3+ weeks, it feels like it’s no longer  part of my moving story but as part of my life  It’s sort of like my psychi caught up with my body and I felt like I could chose to do something or not.  A little bit of agency.  I’m loving here now so what am I going to do with it?   I took a 2 mile walk with Honey  set up an eye a[[t  swept the floor.   Starting to write with my new keyboard monitor work station  It’s awkward   May start touch typing exercises.  I may not have anything worth saying but I’m listening  

I’m here now. There’s no going back 

Making Things Work

I loved planning all the details of this transition and now I’m face to face with what doesn’t work well. How much is just the newness? I feel like a dog turning in circles before lying down. Nothing, well not much  feels comfortable.  Including writing when I don’t have any nugget to communicate.  So. I guess it’s a step by step trying to iron out the wrinkles, the bed, the chair, and then setting new patterns which hopefully will become comfortable in time. I was hoping to feel inspiration from the change but may have to settle for the doldrums   

What is working well? I like the space, love when the owl calls at night tho he’s been gone for a week or so now.  Right amount of contact with Adam et al, dogs are settling in.    New tv is lovely and the speakers sound good Not too noisy or too much light (all things I wondered about) walking to Quaker meeting feels good and I’m getting the hang of the morning walks …

What’s a little uncomfortable?  The bed feels a little too soft, not great on my back.  I haven’t gotten the hang of my new IPad keyboard and desk/chair set up but it’s too early to tell. My tv watching supposed to be “comfy chair” isn’t really comfy yet.  I’m not staying on top of my fridge/cooking/cleaning set up.  Besides the fridge being hard to see into it may just be time.    I said I needed to be uncomfortable in order to be open to New,  and now I’ve got it.   

One constant is I’m still lousy at keeping the floors clean. 

Everything feels so awkward

 Nothing works quite right.  The refrig, dealing with dirty clothes, what to do with myself, I’ve entered the woods of my new life and am not sure which way is up.  I broke the edge of one of my paintings that I’d stored in the garage too close to where I needed to park. Feels like a metaphor. I can’t find the right words   Everything takes effort; the walking hurts and my new technology  blows raspberries as I try to do simple things.  I’m three weeks into this  new Life and I feel awkward, at 7s and 9s  (I’ve always imagined that was referring to the 7s and 9s timetables which I never truly memorized so they always awkward).  I really do feel a faint sense of vertigo    Now there’s the work of figuring out what do I actually want    Blah  said Toad

Recommit

 I wanted to establish new habits with the move into town, a new venue being one of the best times to establish new patterns.  I committed to walking every day, drinking more (2 liters) water and writing in my journal (this blog) even if I didn’t have anything to say.  2 1/2 weeks in I lapsed. I just really didn’t feel like walking. And I Really didn’t have anything to say   And to be honest the water drinking has been my most erratic habit of them all.  I knew and feared that this moment would come  

But during the night, woven, into my dreams, I dreamed of wanting to recommit   Interestingly as a dream it folded in that the lapse was needed to make me aware that I DID really want these new habits even if I didnt feel that I wanted to do them.  Not sure I have the words. I think it was tied in with the conversation with Piper re whether or not to quit piano.  But I love it when my unconscious taps me on the shoulder. I believe that back room guide sometimes more than my bossy well intentioned mind.  Recommitment doesn’t mean I’ll be perfect (which was never the point). It just means I’ll persevere even through lapses

Intro Psych

 I walked 1.3 miles into campus and found the building and classroom. It’s right next to the clarion which still has a magical feel for me.  The class was sort of slow but interesting.   I’d said that this was the one thing Id sign up for and commit to. And I did it.  As I’m going thru the motions of new activities i feel the presence of some part of me directing    I’m doing things that sone distant voice is saying “just do this and we’ll evaluate it in a couple of months”   The Intro Pstcg class was going over brain communication and hemispheric differences.   It reminded me how much I like to think about my thinking. Metacognition.  Noticing the invisible guiding hand leading me through this transition  is one sense of it.      And then I walked the 1.3 mi back.   And felt good about myself

And more of who I am

 I’m 76 years old and I think out loud.  WhenI find myself orbiting a sense of something I want to communicate, it often takes several go rounds to become clear.  Which means I talk a lot.  I’ve been embarrassed about this tendency all my life, from back in the days of “Chatty Cathy” to now when in my exuberance following an idea i cut off people and don’t leave any oxygen in the room for others to speak.  I struggle with it. I try to pause. If I catch that I interrupted as someone was starting to say, I stop say “go on”.   But the truth is  I talk a lot.   And it’s part of who I am for good or for ill.   I love the taste of words, finding the cleanest clearest way to communicate , particularly if it’s a subtle fragile idea and hard to grasp.  I’m a translator too.  I’m good at explaining things across perspectives, like helping liberals hear conservatives or adults, kids.   I used to call it articulating the in articulable      I still try to mitigate the harm my uncontrolled wordiness can do but also forgive myself and value my gift with communication.  At 76 it’s unlikely to change.   But it’s also a tool I can use  and perhaps if I can overcome my resistance to writing, it may be a gift I can give

“Become such as you are, having learned what that is”

 That’s a quote of Pindar which found me recently.   It reminded me of a feeling I’ve had most of my life,  you’re always growing but you don’t know what to, but you can sense when you’re on the path or off the path.  The point is that sensing, rather than the content of any particular choice.    I feel like that’s part of what I’m doing with this move, becoming more of who I am, because I’ve learned who that is.    

I’m a noticer.  I notice little things, big things, and think and wonder about them.  That noticing and questioning is  an essential part of me. I sensed that it was time to leave the farm, because if I didn’t I would never do anything besides grow and put by food, feeding folk because I can.  I needed Less, to be restless and bored so I can feel around for the next right thing to do and be.   That’s why mindless tv and napping might be dangerous, filling the void and lulling me into comfort and “the arms of Morpheus” as my bro likes to say.                                                                                                                                         But sometimes dreams and the dream state allow me to see things out of the corner of my eye,  to notice the unexpected      So in the recovery of the move perhaps I should let that languid flow happen  as long as I’m still noticing.    

Which finally gives me a good feeling about this forced daily journaling I committed to.  I feel like I’ve been pulling words out of my ass so to speak, not really having anything to say.   But perhaps that allows for some random thought from the “radio in the back room” of my mind to tap me on the shoulder.   And because I’m Free of should oughtas  I could pursue.     

Greasy Film

  One reason for the move was to be able to stay on top of keeping my space clean.  I’ve been putting off vacuuming, dust mopping and washing the floor.  All maybe 150 sq ft  of it.  Finally did it today. And it took maybe 5 mins.  But probably even less. I need to feel in ny bones that it’s no big deal. That I have the energy to clean the floors EVERY day if I want to, it’s NO BIG DEAL!      I have. A lifetime of avoidance to overcome  and build new muscle memories.   And then there’s washing the Very FEW Dishes I use.  It’s been fine cleaning as they go to the sink  but i basically need to wash in cold water and even with lots of soap it’s hard not to leave a greasy film.     I’ve loved my dishwashers of the past and thats probably what I miss most at the moment       But.   These are real things that I need to learn to deal with now or they Will become a problem!    How truly odd.  

Silence

 I was reminded this morning about a particular flavor of Silence  which I savor.  I went to Quaker meeting for the first time in probably years.  I’ve always loved silence (odd for a person who thinks out loud,  talks a lot).  And there are so many different types,  kind of like there are different tastes of water or of breathed air.   I’ve had a moment of silence before eating since Adam was about 3 or 4.  Somehow the contrast to the hustle bustle  of meal prep makes that stillness shimmer a little.  Silence in a large group has some of that shimmer but also the contained energy, the potential energy of a lot of people.  The charge is palpable   Quaker meeting stillness has the additional ingredient  of spiritual openness   A room full of people who are consciously inviting a manifestation  of their Life Force to move them has a definite charge to it.   It feels good to be reminded of it    I’d like to think and write about the different flavors of silence.  I need to remember what I’ve noticed 

It’s So Tempting

 It’s so tempting to fill the void  rather than sitting with the emptiness.   I chose this , this lack of things that must be done so that I could be bored, be restless be Hungry for ? *what I don’t know yet??                TV is a comfort particularly at the end of a hard day but it’s too easy to fill the time and space I worked so hard to carve out for myself.  Perhaps I need to build in more emptiness, limit my tv or mindless reading of NYT articles I’m not really that interested.  I know when I’m doing it.   No need to yell at myself.  I just need to acknowledge the urge to fill the void   And resist, rest   And see what emerges

10#s of stuff in a 5# Bag

It’s interesting what will wake me up and get my juices flowing.  We have a parking problem  there’s a two seater garage but not enough room for two cars to park and charge.  Ahh but is that true?  There IS room we just need to see space to fit everything in more efficiently.    And on the pad outside, to see unused space that the trash cans can go in and leave 5 ft or more of parking pad  so everyone can fit.   What is that about my brain?  Who knows it might have been a big part of my motivation to fit my Life  and my most beloved objects into this 350 sq ft space       Its a spacial puzzle but more than that its about prioritizing, and imagining the usage  to optimize the efficient use of resources.     Perhaps part of my not wasting obsession?    But when I can get everything to fit and to work,  it feels Sooo good!

Escapism

 I’ve got a new tv.  Yes it’s an indulgence that makes my nest feel well feathered.  But.  It is so easy, so comfortable, so distracting.       I feel so ambivalent   I fear it eating my attention but i want its limbic stimulation.   When is escape part of a healthy life? What  is the balance which makes it soul food not a drug?    Is it the quality ? I try not to watch junk   Or is it what I do with the time on either side?  Perhaps it’s letting it inform the rest of my life. The movie about the middle aged housewife during WWll who journaled her way into owning her life,   Kind of like the use of remembering dreams so I can integrate my unconscious perhaps the escape can be food for thought and not       I”m grasping and gasping for meaning.  Perhaps that’s enough of a balance for now

Night Noises

 I’ve always felt the power of background noises to set the feel of an experience. Kinda like the way that background music in a movie can change a romance into an anxiety based fear    The night noises of my new life are surprising and evocative     There’s a train whistle at odd times through the day, distant enough to not grate and easy to ignore. But at night the whistle seems to shimmer a little, reminds me of the Glass Menagerie or the song Last Train to Clarksville. Fodder for the imagination.  And then there’s the Great Horned Owl which nests a block away.  Near enough to sound a presence but far away enough to be ethereal.   The crickets aren’t as loud as at the farm but they followed me here.    I feel like I have the beginnings of a soundtrack  now I just need to discover the storyline

Persistence

 Each day I make a list, attempt to get through it by the end o the day. My inner9 year old is tired and doesn’t wanna but I keep on.    Not sure why except I feel like my new life is just  under a layer of effort. The value isn’t so much in what the task is but in persisting.    I’ve been polishing copper a lot lately and the the scrubbing and then letting it sit with the polish on and then more scrubbing.  My life feels like every bit of effort to make a new habit, not leave any dishes in the sink, write this journal when I have nothing to say, brings me closer to some deeper essence, revealing something   Not sure what yet.   But each day in this new life, each week, is a chance to scrub deeper reveal some part of me that’s deeper than wanting

Old. Dog

 I’m getting new technologies and am face to face with my calcified brain and hands. Part of me feels l;Ike a two year old  “I don’t Want to” do anything that requires effort.  I did my 1 mile walk today, but everything in me didn’t Want to!  Adam set me up with the keyboard and I want my old touch screen,   Here I am Face to Face with the Second Step  and part of me wants to turn and run.   I can’t blindly make myself (I guess I can with the walking) but the New habits I want are going to feel awkward and not easy and somehow I need to keep doing them til I break through  A birth of sorts isn’’t comfortable, but that’s why I did this transition.  New dendrite growth!

Weeds

 Out at the farm again  to pick raspberries and beans.  I realized how much I let the garden go this year. With all the rain we had  my ignoring of the garden in July led to 6-7 ft tall weeds in the garden.  

I’m tired.  I think I’m ready to be done with gardening.    Perhaps thats why i don’t feel great loss. I’m ready to be done.   Something in me has switched off.    Do I believe that?   Time will tell. But the tiredness runs deep

First time back at the farm

 Yesterday I went out to the farm and had the oddest sensation.  I had a list of to dos. But no energy.  I did what I could and then started to pick beans (not many big enough) but felt sort of woozy and disoriented, more psychologically than physically     I definitely wasn’t in productive mode.    Then today was another long deep sleep day.  Perhaps I AM fighting off some sickness.   But it crosses my mind that my body is just starting to grok that something has changed and the body mind disconnect may be the disorientation.  I’m curious what tomorrow will feel like 

Tired

 Today was one of exhaustion and deep sleep.  I think the depletion of the last few months caught up with me.  I struggled to get thru the water. Only walked ,3i mi  and ate a whole box of cookies.    But I’m writing now  and will keep on putting one foot in front of the other til I make it into my new Life.   I rather like the feel of its newness,  the order that is starting to evolve in my new space.   Perhaps this is how to get to the endlessly awaited  “rebirth of wonder”.   To move forward with curiosity into……?

Third Day

 I’m starting new habits      Three days is only the first step, but 30 will be the beginning of new habits.   I still find myself wondering Who is the decider in me that is the architect of both the move but also the shedding of old skins, the driver of the new habits?  Perhaps the daily walks will become something I look forward to? Perhaps the daily journaling will get me back into writing…. But somehow I feel the presence of a part of me who is taking me in hand, who wants me to step into something new, not necessarily better, just different..  and for some reason, it makes me feel hopeful.  Like an older Me is reaching back accross time and guiding me. All I have to do is do it one step at a time

Working out the kinks

 second day living in Madison.  I still don’t feel it I’m busy sorting storing ironing out the wrinkles     When will it hit me , the enormity of what I’ve just done.   Starting new habits  drinking 2 lots of water, walking and journaling every day.   Who is this person who decided to do this?  Away from my beloved fields of switchgrass    I’m waiting for the pattern to emerge     But who am i now?  What am I growing toward?  

First day of the rest of my life

 I moved.    I packed up my life piece by piece   I picked up each object or picture or writing and decided   I decided to keep or give away or toss, burn and bury.    I did it one step at a time, one foot infront of the other.  And Now I’m living in a little 350 sq ft apt above Adams garage        I feel.   I don’t know yet.   I feel  relieved that it’s done I feel tired and in pain.  I feel determined   To be open to whatever comes.   I want to know  What else is possible???