Okay, so I am here. I have lots to share but my computer is not yet hooked up.

The trip went well. Will leave it at that for now.

:)

I have a confession. Air Supply. I can't help myself.

Tomorrow I'm off. Will post next week and let you know how it all went. Pictures to follow.

I closed the house down and said good-bye today. I didn't find it all that difficult. My memories will remain. My expectations are that the next segment of life will be very different, new challenges, new issues, new resolves.

As I pulled out of the drive I was somewhat overcome by good thoughts regarding my neighbors. The women in particular. Joanne is 44, ten years my senior. Sharon is 58, twenty-four years older than me. Both are so very different. Joanne is a workhorse. There is absolutely nothing that woman cannot do - her baking rivals Martha's, she has her own set of power tools (and is in NO way afraid to use them) and just recently drywalled the entire basement. Sharon is a kept woman married to a very successful business-man. Their whole family has their shit together in an awe-inspiring way. Sharon is the hostess with the most-est. You are always welcome and the house is spotlessly clean. We have laughed often together and shared many glasses of wine.

Yesterday they both dropped by my house at almost the same time. Joanne came in through the basement door where she helped me move scrap pieces of wood and sweep the floor in the workshop. She was in her typical garb, t-shirt, skirt and birks. Sharon came in through the patio door, dressed of course in matching capris and blouse, coordinating mani & pedi, hair done, makeup applied.

We talked for a long time, about everything and nothing. Joanne asked me what I would miss (we just finished a full blown reno of the entire house). I said "Nothing" and then I immediately said "No, that is not true, I will miss my neighbors very much."

In that same moment I realized how much I have learned from these two women about becoming a woman. They are both thoroughly themselves. I could never be either one of them - yet their example of owning their individuality has helped me to gain comfort in my own skin. They are both confident and beautiful and paint an inspired scape of growing better and wiser with the years.

I find friendships and connections manifest in surprising ways. More and more I crave the company of intelligent and compassionate women who are unafraid to experience life in all of the colors afforded us, albeit the many shades of grey. I believe in the principle of reaping and sowing. I want to plant within myself courage and joy and intuition. I want to nurture and harvest these same qualities in the people I love and who share my circle of life.

Muse-ings

Feeling inspired and I believe it shows!

I'm home - as in my hometown home, sleeping in the 'bedroom I grew up in' home. Life is changing. The house is sold and the packers come on Monday. I'm feeling so many things. Lots of joy, a bit of sadness, reflective evaluation.

Being home makes me remember things I thought I'd forgotten. School girl dreams of becoming a writer. The first boy I was sure I loved. How one summer I forgot to eat because I just couldn't be thin enough. That I never wanted to grow up and leave this place.

And then life gets in the way. And you meet yourself - or at least you arrive at a space inside your head where you're open to meeting this person and start to get a glimpse of who you just might be destined to become.

Mine is not a large life, but it is also not small. 18 years ago I could not have envisioned anything as big as what I have now. Perspective changes everything. I feel deeply appreciative for the webs of people and circumstances that have opened me up to living and choosing and just learning to be.

I spent this evening with my grandfather. He is 86. We played crib and he won every game. He has my points counted before I even have my hand layed on the table. We ate a mincemeat pie and donuts, both he made from scratch. We drank tea. And a long time from now I will remember this night.

And you see, this is the very reason I feel so blessed, so inspired. My heart is filled with nights like this. Different faces and various relations but the essence is the same. Time. Time that meant something. Time that connected me in spirit to people I love and places I have been. It might not have changed the world, but it all changed me.

Clay and Water

These days are passing over me
At the speed of light
And standing here in their shadows
I'm silenced at the sight

Like water on the wind I sense the change to come
All that I've held in like teardrops run

I am clay and I am water
Falling forward in this order
While the world spins 'round so fast
Slowly I'm becoming who I am

Nothing ever stays the same
The wheel will always turn
I feel the fire in the change
But somehow it doesn't burn

Like a beggar blessed I stumble into grace
Reaching out my hand for what awaits

I am clay and I am water
Falling forward in this order
While the world spins 'round so fast
Slowly I'm becoming who I am

~Margaret Becker

What I recall (and shall never forget) from English Lit 1001

This Be The Verse

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.

They may not mean to, but they do.

They fill you with the faults they had

And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn

By fools in old-style hats and coats,

Who half the time were soppy-stern

And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man.

It deepens like a coastal shelf.

Get out as early as you can,

And don't have any kids yourself.

Philip Larkin, 1971

scattered thoughts

I just pulled my favorite red hoody out of the dryer, it feels so toasty. And I am back to feeling good, melancholy good, but that is okay - it is my preference. I've some how managed to let go of the craziness of the past weeks and have started living, once again, as a present participant in my own life's story.

Jeremy called tonight and sounded like himself. I am trusting that he is finally relaxing into this new life we have chosen (even though I have yet to share in it). There was sparkle back in his voice, an eagerness and accepting. I knew it would come, despite my fear of how long it might take. I miss him and that pleases me.

My eating habits have improved over the last 7 days. I love not medicating my body with self-destructive reconstituted crap. Perhaps a massage is even in order. While in NYC last week I treated myself to two Chinese foot rubs. Just in case you happen to be going there any time soon the shop is located over a Thai restaurant on 50th between 8th and 9th Ave. Let's just say it warranted trip #2! it was that good.

Yoga calls.

I am hungry to write but finding it difficult. It is not so much a loss for words but too many thoughts. Flying at me fast, furious and erratic. I am back home and yet can't settle down and focus. Perhaps I need sleep.

The house is looking great. The neighbors want to cut down two trees that separate our properties. I'm a bit saddened but will agree to it later on this afternoon. They will be replace by fence panels for privacy.

I can let them go. I'm not staying to watch them grow.

I recommend seeing The Lake House.


Ahhhh.

Sometimes I get a bit high-strung. As part of growing up I've learned to cope with this better, but even still, there are times it creeps in full force. I take a breath. A deep one. I focus on the whole forest and relax.

Tomorrow is moving day for Mister. The house has yet to sell (what the heck happened to the market?). We have been busy. Understatement.

I will follow but not sure when. Waiting can be difficult, I push that to the back of my head. After tomorrow I am going to watch my chest rise and fall and release these stresses into the wind - they do not benefit me. It will all work out. It always does. It is much easier to sway and bend when the standard to straightness is removed.

Parables are pictures that emerge from the jigsaw events of life, however irregular or disconnected they may first appear. "All happenings, great and small, are parables whereby God speaks," said Malcolm Muggeridge, "the art of living is to get the message." To see all that is offered us at the windows of the sould and to reach out and receive what is offered, this is the art of living. Ken Gire, Windows of the soul.

Missing...

I can't seem to recall a time in my life when the days so melded into one another. The pace has been intense, but so far so good, as they say. I have missed blogging and anticipate the day it once again becomes a priority.

Blogging has been therapy. It has moved me through many phases of myself, working out scenarios in my head, even when they were not always shared. I have also found a renewed interest in journaling, letting my thoughts just be on paper, uninterrupted by another's comment.

2005 was a year to be a bit easier on myself and my loves. To find joy and affection where in the past I may have been prone to criticism and perfectionism. This year is about change. And oh how I am ready for it. The house goes on the market today. The last four years of our lives, spit and polished, awaiting new caretakers to labor (I hope) in love. Is it odd to want a house to be loved? Cared for in a personal way, because your own story is written into the color of the walls in hidden yet indelible ink?

For so long I thought here was a mistake. For a while I began to believe there were no things unseen, dark days in total disbelief. Perhaps it is all random. Or, perhaps, things do work together for good to those who are called according to a purpose. I fall between the crack, once again. Here, I now realize, has been a part of my schooling. I arrived as a silly girl filled up with unexpectations. I now celebrate myself as a woman, a mother and life companion. The times they are a changing.

So I am moving forward, to a path just off that road less traveled. It will not be perfect. It will be life and it will be my life. There will be new lessons and new joys, and all of this will be a dream I remember while awake.

I question if there is design to any of this. I feel a bit heavy in my legs and arms, as though I have had one too many drinks and am succumbing to the sweet letting go that comes with drunkenness, yet I have not a drop to induce such euphoria. - My journal, May 24/06

I've been travelling since 7am on Sunday morning. The days have been busy and long and interspersed with laughter and the joy of great friends. There are decisions to be made (who am I kidding, decision was made by Tuesday) and much to be done in the readying.

I've always been happiest when following roads less travelled.

I like it when I find touch with old friends, regardless of how far away they might be. I wish it were easier to know each other in the context of our now worlds. I guess it is the price you pay for growing up and finding your own path.

I just decided that I am going to be content. Decided this morning actually.


Already I feel so much lighter.

The Secret of Life

"There are things you do

because they feel right &

they make no sense

& they may make no money

& it may be the real reason we are here:

to love each other &

to eat each other's cooking &

say it was good."

Brian Andreas

While yogaing tonight I had a beautiful experience. Posing in front of a wall of mirrors I experienced a complete acceptance of my imperfections. I wonder if we aren't time beings more than human beings. Life is good.

It happened sometime on Friday in the afternoon. He went down into the cellar to make on a fire just to take the chill off the old house, spring days can feel damp and cold in the Maritimes.

He got it all ready. Just like he had done thousands of times before. Showing the same care and patience, I am sure. Crumpling the paper, spliting the kindling, picking out a few choice pieces of well dried maple - the same maple he himself had cut and split and ranked in long straight rows just the spring before.

Just before lighting, he took a rest. At 92 he sat his bones down on a round end and leaned against the woodpile. He has not ceased to rest.

He was one of the greats.
You too would have been richer had you known him.

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately,

to front only the essential facts of life,

and see if I could not learn what it had to teach,

and not, when I came to die,

discover that I have not lived.”
Henry David Thoreau

Life sparkles when viewed as a grand adventure.