Walking in the Dark continued

 One of the most powerful perspective shakeups this lifetime was years ago when I lived on the farm in Bell Center.  Our chickens were free range and the chicken house was down a ways on our dark driveway.  I needed to go down and shut the door after the chickens went in at night.  I  remember noticing my fear walking in the dark and asked myself what was I scared of? I heard myself respond “the wild things”.  A beat and then I heard a voice in my head say “but You are a wild thing too.  You have tools and a brain to  plan with and they have tooth and claw.  You are a wild thing amongst wild things”.    Boom!

And I have never been afraid of walking in the dark since then.  In fact I prefer walking in the dark. I feel like i sense things , hear things better, even see things outside better without the blinding quality of a flashlight.    That insight produced such a dramatic change in my life experience, I would so love to have something equally powerful now      Obviously I can’t stomp my foot and demand a Damascus moment,  but I can chose to walk into discomfort and ask myself what’s going on.    Comfort addiction, safe and warm is wonderful but it does not feed the potential of  Boom!

Walking in the Dark

 I’ve been reading an article re can you trust the future you will still have the same values and beliefs and ideals as you do now.    And though I follow the logic of the author and have heard this question before, I feel a through line in my evolution this lifetime.    I was a teenager when I came up with “you’re always growing but you don’t know what to, but if you pay attention you can sense when you’re on the path or off. The point is to pay attention to that ability to sense the “furthering the action”  of a life choice  rather than the content.   The content will change but my ability to sense my Magnetic True North has been my  goal throughout my life     

So, yes I do trust Future me   I don’t know what she’ll be doing or feeling or even valuing , but she will still be searching for a way to be in the world which feels honest, real and expanding what is good in the world     not sure if that is pretentious? don’t think so.  When I think back on my “stringing pearls” moments of deep awareness, all of them feel like they still come from the deepest part of a consistent me.    Content will change; I may invest energy in fruitless or even destructive ventures, but nothing is wasted if I learn that No, that’s not for me.   I don’t even hope that all my choices during these next years are perfectly fruitful and satisfying.  I just want to be fully engaged with whatever I do and keep my nose to the air re is it the next right step?   I’m walking in the dark. Sometimes it’s easier to sense things in the dark

Cleaning House

 I’ve been sloppy, letting things go.  Dishes in the sink a dirty flour, not writing as regularly as I committed to, or walking.  I’ve been feeling more pain, feeling at loose ends.  

Time to clean house.  Yes the floors, but also my head.  “Pull up your socks Ms Page”. I know what to do. One foot in front of the other.  

Swept the floor 15 mins. Vacuumed rug 5 mins. Washed the floor and started the stairs, 15 mins.   Clean floors.  Took a walk only a mile.  Writing this now then I’ll do the dishes.  Tomorrow I will feel better. Letting things slide isn’t being nice to myself   (Though it’s hard to believe at the time)  Gently 

I don’t need to be militant about things, just gently, persistently leaning toward what my being knows is Good

Random Thoughts over several days

“I would like to live as I should, as the weasel lives as he should. And I suspect that for me the way is like the weasel’s: open to time and death painlessly, noticing everything, remembering nothing, choosing the given with a fierce and pointed will.”  Annie Dillard

At Quaker mtg today “you can chose  to be Compassionate or you can chose to be Right” Dahlai Lama

Or perhaps you can chose to be Curious? Compassionate about what IS?  Tuning into the music of What Happens to sense the next step you can take which will (hopefully) Further the Action of the Universe’s bending toward Justice?    Or  maybe just notice that there is potential in pain and loss for some growth whether or not tiny believe in evolution?   And learn and expand your compassion from the pain, not waste it.    

I feel slightly mired, more pain, less energy.  It’s easy to feel a whiff of despair , easy to want a steady upward climb in my new life.  But if I’ve learned anything from dark times I’ve lived through, it is that life loops, orbits around experiences until there is familiarity and acceptance which allows the struggle to move on to a new way of expressing itself.   Increased pain and decreased energy is the background hum of aging .    Like Dillard’s quote about living as she should, noticing, accepting. I am choosing to be present to what IS rather than focused on what I’d like or feel should be.   

Which brings me to echos of the question of purpose or mission or quest  that have been popping up in strange places of late.  I keep waiting to be tapped on the shoulder by life to go DO some valuable service as I was in my youth     But I keep coming around to noticing.  It seems my bedrock skill, character gift or flaw?     As I’ve said often to young folk “you’re always growing but you don’t know what to.  But if you pay attention you can sense when you’re “on\ the path” or “off the path”.  The point is not the content of the next right step, it’s the ability to sense what’s right or not for you?   

And I guess that’s what I’m doing now.   Moving was the next right step.   I need to wait til I sense what’s next

Appreciation

 My neighbors gave me a going away party last night.  It was an odd sensation. Off the top -of my head I think the only other time a group of people gathered to celebrate me was the baby shower when I was pregnant with Adam.  I’ve had birthday parties of course. Not sure why those felt less personal sort of obligatory.  But last night felt different  It was just the local friends that have been part of our house parties for years  and at one point the hosts asked everyone to share a Kathleen memory.  It was fascinating the things they remembered that had touched them.    

I have very ambivalent feelings about being complimented   Fear that folks are “just saying that” to be nice or feel they have to come up with something to say. Yet I feel that I am an “artist of appreciation”, am able to notice and savor aspects of people, or art or some experience that other people might either ignore or not feel meets their standards.  If I have that art to appreciate perhaps I should acknowledge that some people may indeed see who I am and what I do and value it.   

The vulnerability for me is I don’t want to need their valuing, to expect it,  to alter myself to get it.  Somehow it feels safer to avoid feeling particularly appreciated.   76 years old and still insulated from others approval.  Maybe it’s time to melt a little into the fact that some people see some of me and it truly touches them. That Quaker spark of the divine is able to be seen in everyone, even in me.  Appreciate it

Bread Crumbs

 I’ve been waiting to feel some restless desire for …..something?  Something that would lend itself to researching opportunities, taking some action.    Crickets.   But I am noticing a few odds and ends of attractions which might be bread crumbs toward  something?

I’m enjoying playing with the idea of how our stories alter our experience of reality   I’m wondering if Story Corp (I believe there is such a thing?) might be something to look into.  Though in truth it’s the psychological impact of the story frame we chose  that interests me more than the story content.

I watched a movie where a group of disparate women developed a comraderie as they took on a challenge together.  There is some attraction to that idea though my years in the public school system largely drove any of hope of that away.  Still it’s a bread crumb of interest.  Not enough to discern a route forward  but still  perhaps the beginning of a beginning?  Bread crumbs may be a dream fragment or a psychological raised eyebrow     I think I need to gather many of them before I can find a theme plot a course

Making It Work

 Everything is frictionful.   “Blah” said Toad.  I could say face to face with the second step, but it isn’t.  It feels like every step.   Like doors that won’t shut and no good place for laundry,  it feels like all the daily tasks that I did unconsciously and comfortably out at the farm, are now all friction.                                             But there’s no going back.     The farm is rented, my stuff dispersed or stowed  (another problem is stuff moved toward the end, I have no memory Where it is!)   I am here and need to make it work.   It’s a slog

So what story do I tell myself about this moment ?  I think tapping into the experience of friction and little irritating rough patches suggests the image of sanding and refitting a wood working project to work well and glow with an aesthetically pleasing functionality.  That story suggests getting down into the weeds and  making  everything Work, fixing, reworking, replacing each irritant until the smooth working and familiarity allow me to move through this space, with ease , no alert caution needed.  

Or I could just be annoyed and ask myself What was I thinking!?!     I think I’ll make it work