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Home Is For Sharing and Other Random Thoughts

You know, there are moments when I sit down to write this blog and I wonder why. I don't wonder why I write, that suits me, but it seems so random lately, like my life, increasingly without structure, and I wonder what that says. But maybe I am also just wondering what it is about structure, about defining myself by some external structure and standard, that makes it seem so important. Isn't just life enough? Yes, probably, for living. I'm still not so sure about blogging. Perhaps blogging itself requires a structure. And yet I see that the blogging serves its own purpose in my own process, and so here I am.

But perhaps it is that same process of structure and releasing oneself from the constraints of structure that continues to wend its way through my own psyche. For example I have rearranged and resettled in the apartment, making small changes really but important ones that make it feel more like home. And I realize that part of that sense of home has always revolved around my conflicting needs for order and organization as opposed to my tendency to make a mess. I need to get what I want in the middle of creative burst, and I need to be able to restore it to order when that burst has exhausted itself.

I am also learning to increasingly let go of control. Enter the dinner party, my first for friends. Family has been here a couple of times already. The table is set. The main course is ready. We were having Chicken Tikka Masala and Jeera Rice. And then I partially relinquished control. My usual mode is to have as much done as possible in advance, so I can sit back, enjoy the company, and not worry about burning something. Once people arrive, I'm all about having fun, rather than slaving away in the kitchen, and over the decades I've refined my techniques to meet that end. But it usually all about control, control, control, and a moment of release.

This time I let go a bit. I did the advance prep, slicing radishes on a mandolin, meticulously cutting tomatoes into tiny cubes, for after all, who wants people drinking and chatting while using sharp instruments? Then I grouped together the cumin, lemon, cilantro, ginger for a radish salad, but did not assemble said salad. The same with the tomatoes. When everyone arrived, we greeted each other, hugged and moved into the kitchen. Rather than siting and chatting and waiting for the food to miraculously appear, we all took a station, one person making radish salad, one assembling the kachumbar, one cooking the Gujarati green beans, one gathering the nibbles. Then we adjourned to talk while the flavors of the vegetables took their time to meld. I thought it was fun. Advance prep was still required, but it felt less pressured. Everyone made something. The ingredients were suggested but not required, so each dish varied according to its creator. I relinquished control and we each made our own contributions to the flavors of the meal. Then we talked and ate for hours.

At the end of the meal my guests offered to help clean up, and I said yes. This is in direct opposition to my older control-driven self, who would have sent everyone home and had my own contemplative cleaning session. We all piled back into the kitchen. We washed and dried and put things away and chatted. I had so much fun; it seemed like everyone else did as well. Everything came full circle. At the end of the evening, I dried a few last dishes, started the dishwasher and sat back with a cat on my lap, filled with joy and contentment.

This morning my apartment feels like home, more so than it did yesterday. It is a place for me, a sanctuary from the world, but also a haven of companionship. My friends and I blessed this place with laughter, conversation, and shared activities; there will only be more laughter, more conversation, more sharing in the future. Most importantly, I learned something more about letting down walls. Sunday felt like the perfect mix of my enjoyment of playing in the kitchen, blending spices, creating the setting and then sharing with friends and letting other voices, other views help shape the meal. It was is if my understanding of sharing food had come to a new level. I love having people over, and I love feeding people, but the food is only the medium. For me cooking is like play, it is my joy and my gift. but I have to let others in. It would have probably been just as much fun if we'd had hot dogs and beans. Except that I probably wouldn't, well maybe hot dog goulash, which has been one of my favorite comfort foods since a college friend made it for me oh so many decades ago. In short it doesn't matter what the food is, just that it is shared.

Two of the pictures in this post were posted on Instagram yesterday. I'm not convinced I like cross-publishing, but I haven't worked out the details yet. I like the Instagram format, with photos as short snippets of life, combined with wordier posts here, but I also feel I need photos on the blog, so there is overlap. But there may or may not be overlap in audience, I'm not sure. I may never work that out. It seems life is often not as easily categorized as I might like.

November 5, 2018
Pity the Poor Missionaries — a September Review

Somehow my September felt a bit fractured.

I am not completely settled in the apartment even though I have been here two months. I am mostly unpacked, but things don't work the way I want, and there is still tweaking to be done. The work on the house got started and then stopped, mostly my own fault, as I made a change that halted progress in the short-run but makes far more sense for the long run. That decision also made more work for me, project work, not creative work, and ate heavily into my time and energy. But progress has resumed. The foundation for the addition went in last week. Hopefully the weather will cooperate and framing will begin this week.

September felt fractured not because of extra work, but because I decided to break some habits, to say no to the part of myself that is happy to take on everyone else projects at the expense of my own dreams. I thought it would be easier than it has in fact proven to be. It seems that relinquishing structure, although necessary, proved difficult. After all, decades of career choices have honed those organizational and managerial skills. One would think that, a decade into "retirement" I would be ready to follow my dreams; instead I was blindsided by how entrenched this instinct has become, this urge to take on projects, any project, rather than trust my inner self. I didn't really retire, I just took on other projects: acting general contractor at the old house, supervising George's care, serving on church vestry. I am the kind of person that, when I say yes to something, say it whole-heartedly, who gives 110% to the task at hand, who will take on everything that is needed.

But there is a toll, and I have come to the point where the price is too high. In this last project I also got burned, and my heart was broken. I realize that much of that pain has stemmed from my own crumbling walls, my own inability to separate my own personal "church and state", or my inner life from my involvement in worldly things. I realize that the last decade (or more actually) has involved a lot of soul searching, a lot of forgiveness and reconciliation, a lot of inner growth. The time had come to say no, not to my own dreams, but to all the obstacles I place in front of achieving them. Tackling projects, solving problems, organizing things, although all good and easily justified, also prove to be a very effective technique for avoiding self-doubt about my own dreams. After all, I have had decades to practice those avoidance techniques, and all under socially accepted guises. I am good at organizing things. I am good at solving problems. I don't know if I am any good at creative stuff. In fact I might suck at creativity; all the decades of avoidance may have seriously atrophied those creative muscles. The thought of finding out is kind of terrifying. But I have placed myself on this particular ledge, and there is no other choice but to step into the precipice. It should come as no surprise that the process of letting go might engender fear, and perhaps even a casual flirtation with depression.

But here I am, still standing. A little worse for wear perhaps, still kind of a newbie at trusting my creative instincts, but I also accept that I cannot, at this point go back, to do so would be to give in to fear. "Fear is the mind killer" is the mantra in Frank Herbert's novel, Dune. What, after all, is there to lose? Myself? Well perhaps that is a greater prize than all worldly definitions of success the world can throw at any one of us..

I might not have gotten as much done in September as I had hoped, but that is just fine. I need to remind myself that life is not about accomplishments checked off in the great ledger book in the sky. I didn't blog much, but well, we all have days when we have fewer words than others. I also didn't read much and that was a bit more of a surprise. I wrote briefly about The Mars Room here, and Candide here. Midwinter of the Spirit is the second in the Merrily Watkins series, and if Merrily flounders a bit, and struggles with her own head vs heart issues, I am in no position to judge.

I did spend quite a bit of time knitting. I don't have anything to show yet, but knitting is the one activity I am perfectly content not to rush through. The act of knitting itself is enough, and eventually progress happens. I am nearly finished knitting a shawl to match the red sweater I blocked in September, which is still not completed, but more about that later. And I started a prayer shawl one day when I simply needed something different. This prayer shawls simple repetition is more mindless than the red, which is not difficult, but does require balancing two yarns. Together, the two shawls, one for me and one to give away, have kept me entertained and calm.

And here it is, October already. I made keema matar last night, a dish teeming with childhood memories. My mom made keema matar for us when we were children, although we knew it as missionary curry. Apparently we refused to eat it the first time she made it so the next time she told us the peas were Missionary heads and missionary curry was born. How I loved missionary curry. How I loved gobbling up those peas, pretending I was a cannibal and devouring those missionary heads in the savory meat sauce. I was not particularly fond of peas in any other guise. Of course there was also the spectacle of the thing itself at my mother's table, the rice, the curry, the bowls of condiments. But the spectacle is best for sharing; alone I took a simpler approach, equally delicious.

My approach to the curry has also evolved. My keema matar today no longer tastes quite like the memory of my mother's, although that was my initial goal. I also no longer need to reimagine the peas as missionary heads, although the memory does make me smile. Those warm memories are a good thing — memories of family meals yes, but also memories of imagination and play, dreams of exotic places, and terrible things made safe and familiar, warm and nourishing.

October 2, 2018
Five, mostly revolving around a recurring theme.

The view of clouds coming out of my apartment Thursday evening on the way to a party.

A second trip to see Candide. I was very tired the first time I went and although I thought, and still think, the production was fabulous, I appreciated the second act more the second time around. The first time it just confounded me, but as I said I was tired. The first act remains my favorite, probably because it is closest to the actual work. The second half cherry-picks episodes and tells a completely different story than the last two-thirds of the book and although I appreciate the musical as entertainment, I think temperamentally, I much prefer Candide as Voltaire wrote it. I continue to be a person who does not want to be spoon-fed easy answers, even as entertainment. I also confirmed that I still don't love the score. I appreciate it more having seen the production, but it is not something I would sit and listen to. Again, this is me, and I am aware that my opinions are in opposition to the mainstream. I have no regrets, and am happy that I made the effort to see the production again because I was able to relax and let go of my annoyance with the score and enjoy the performance itself. This second viewing allowed me to concentrate more fully on the musicians themselves, the acting, the timing, the sets, all the things that made the performance magical.

New floor tiles for the front hall.

I went to a fund raiser for Ijams nature center last weekend. The event is usually outdoors on the lawn but due to the threat of rain it was held in a series of connected tents, which proved wise. I thought that the darkness in the tent and the lighting around the symphony was beautiful, as was the performance. I've been to many symphonic performances in tents and the sound is often awful. This was not. When I could hear, the sound carried quite clearly. Notice the word "when". I could not hear the music initially, and in fact the orchestra was well into the first piece before I could tell they were playing. It rapidly became clear however that the issue was not the fault of the organizers, but with the audience itself. Very few people in the second tent stopped talking throughout the first portion of the program, which focused on the classical repertoire: Rossini, Beethoven, Haydn, and Copeland. However, the instant that RB Morris began to sing all sound stopped. You could have heard a pin drop. Morris was excellent, and the sound of the orchestra in the final third of the concert, revolving mostly around popular show tunes, was beautifully done. Yes, I sat peacefully and calmly through the overture to Candide. Would that my fellow attendees had had the courtesy to do so during the initial portion of the program.

When I came home from my second performance of Candide, I picked up my (new) copy of the novel. My older copy fell apart earlier this month. I still have it in French as well, but my ability to read French has atrophied over the decades. Enraptured, I stayed up far too late reading. The excesses of Candide are indeed ludicrous, but there is humanity in the story, and a wisdom about human nature, suffering, and what is important in life that I felt was more of a gloss in the play.

And now I must go tend to my own garden.

September 14, 2018
Saturday Morning

The view out my window promises a beautiful Saturday morning. I however have a sinus headache, and have already been out twice with Tikka and know the humidity is higher than I would prefer. That doesn't make it a less beautiful day; it simply means I need to modify my expectations.

Moises is settling back in after my return from Texas, settling back into the apartment as well, as I don't think he was fully acclimated before I left. Hence the sinus headache. M is very clingy right now, and consistently tried to crawl up under my chin during the night whereas I usually manage to keep him on the lower half of the bed. I know he needs comfort, but I have learned that I am allergic to cats, only mildly so, as I can have him in the house as long as I vacuum and don't let him cuddle up under my chin, but allergic nonetheless, Cat-in-the-face was neither good for my ability to breathe or for my sinuses, but we will both recover.

I am planning on a slow day, a day for puttering. Next week is busy, so a personal day is a necessity. Even so I may or may not keep up, just as I did not keep up with the blog this week past, and I am beginning to accept that a production schedule doesn't really work because I am not really interested in production, in producing a particular thing. This is something that has shaped my creative life all along, even with sewing and knitting. I am interested in making, but with writing, like in knitting or sewing, the end result is a happy bonus that comes out of the process. I am not interested in the making in order to produce, I am interested in the process itself, and the results are simply a little something extra.

That said, I did actually finish something last week. I knit a small scarf. I had a skein of gray Ritratto mohair by Filatura di Crossa, and a few little bits and bobs, yarn samples from a mailing or two, so I knit a narrow scarf, I'm not sure I ever thought I would want a narrow scarf, but I love this one and look forward to the day when the weather will cool enough that I will wear it. I suspect that is a few months away. I've almost finished another sweater, at least the knitting part, but I don't yet have a place to block anything, including the above scarf. I may get that much of my craft room cleared away this weekend, but considering my pounding head, and a general sense of laziness, I make no promises.

This last week also ended up busy. Monday was intentionally quiet: knitting, practicing embroidery stitches, sketching a few design ideas. But I knew the week would be filled with meetings and events, and that quiet time was needed for balance, as I suppose it is, again, today.

The house is also progressing nicely. The walls have been opened up. The two small bedrooms that will be the new library are now one space, and I can get a wonderful sense of the space and the light. This photo was pretty early in the morning, an hour and a half or so
after sunrise, but still lovely.

And framing is going in, so I can begin to imagine the new layout, walk through and feel the flow. That translation from space on paper to something three-dimensional, a reimagined space, is wonderful, and I exciting. I fell it is going to be as wonderful as I imagined it would be.

Foundations will be going in soon. There are still meetings and decisions to be made both large and small. I love the process, but even though I am not doing the work, it is exhausting, and I am a bit behind.

It is also September, and the fall season has started up. There are plays, concerts, exhibits, events — my ability to step back and not overload my social calendar has always been somewhat weak. I have learned to better balance quiet time, creative time, with going out time, experience and fellowship time, but I don't quite know how the demands of the remodel will play into that. I suspect that once I get through this first couple of weeks, my input into the job will quiet down and things will be easier.

In the meantime. I'm still plowing through ideas. I did take the time out last week to go to the production of Candide at the Clarence Brown Theater, which was utterly fabulous, one of the best things I have been to in a long long time. I knew Bernstein's score but had not seen the musical production. I have read the original play, in both French and English, but had not read the libretto. I love the way everything comes together here, the sharp wit, bitterness and hopefulness, the cynicism and satire in the world view. That is in fact, something that I think Voltaire does well, that combination of cynicism, with hopefulness. Of course Bernstein's music plays up the hopefulness. But I saw the same thing in Grass as well, in The Tin Drum. Can one be both cynical and naive? I think that is the essence of human greatness, that we need both. And that is also, of course, why we need art.

Truthfully, I had not been a big fan of Bernstein's score, although it is quite possible that this was due to my own lack of imagination. I had heard it in concert on more than one occasion, and, lushly beautiful as it is, I felt disappointed. But I also tend to feel that music meant to accompany something else, as a libretto perhaps, is not complete without the words and even then, perhaps not without the visual component. One needs all the pieces to come together. Do people who love show music love the music itself, regardless of seeing the show, or do they love the music because it also triggers for them memories of the show? I've never asked. And again, this may again be a crisis of my own lack of imagination. I don't think I will ever be able to listen to Bernstein's score again without reliving bits of this production however, and I think that is a good thing, just as I can't listen to West Side Story without seeing West Side Story in my head. But then, I love operas I've never seen live, or do I? Or do I imagine the opera in my head while I listen, and do I listen only to the operas I can imagine, whether or not I've heard them performed? Context, it seems, is always important.

The production is over the top and highly entertaining, and I love having the symphony present, on the stage, as part of the performance. Candide himself is wonderful. Everyone is wonderful. Really, I wish I had bought tickets for more than one performance. It would be a joy to see again and again. Who knows, perhaps I will.

September 8, 2018
Update

Work picked up steam on the house this past week. The deck was removed, and excavation was completed.

By Thursday there was a hole in my backyard.

Friday morning they were pouring concrete. I haven't been out to see it yet, but will take a look later today.

In the meantime I went to Texas to visit my mom. We had a mostly good time. We chatted, ran errands, did little things around the house, the things one does. It was lovely. Often that is all that is wanted, companionship. Someone who will laugh with you over a silly book. Someone who will sit and let you blather about this or that. Someone who will not tell you what to do.

We went to the ER one afternoon. I worried. I know mom worried too, but she went home and we were both grateful. I niggled where I shouldn't have niggled, as one does. Sussing out changing mother-daughter dynamics can be a challenge at times. It is hard, this adult child of an aging parent thing. It is hard separating Margaret the person, from Margaret, my mom. They may not always be compatible. But as an adult daughter I need to respect Margaret more than I need to hold onto "Mom". That is the hard thing it seems, hard from both sides of the fence.

September 1, 2018
Small Glimpses of Progress

I am becoming settled, but today I am simply weary. All the weeks of excitement and unpacking, that sense of being somehow unmoored, the frustrations of nesting and organizing — I suppose all this activity has taken its toll, and I just want to sink into a stupor.

At least I have some basic, functional spaces to call home. The kitchen is functional. I have a place to sit and eat. I have a cozy place to sit and watch tv or knit, although I don't yet have suitable lighting for reading on the sofa at night. But the progress feels good, and it is perhaps time to take. little break from constantly unpacking and reconfiguring. With minor adjustments, the place is beginning to work.

The round bookcase in the photo, has been taken to be repaired as it was broken during the move. That is why the books are on the floor. I suppose life is never fully settled.

Demolition began at the house this week.

The exciting news is that we found a doorway! This is the wall that was hidden behind cabinets in the kitchen sunroom. It was once the outside wall of the house. That gap was a doorway into the dining room, exactly where I was hoping to cut out a new doorway. It is not so much the savings that excites me, although it does, because I am sure the labor and cost of cutting the doorway will be eaten up by some other unanticipated expense, but by the fact that the door was there originally, as if even though I am adding onto and changing the house, I am also rediscovering and restoring something lost.

August 23, 2018
The “Old” Neighborhood

The last couple of mornings I've walked around my neighborhood, my old neighborhood, the place I call home. In fact, it feels odd to call it my old neighborhood because I feel like I still live there, it is home in a way that the apartment complex really is not, even though I am perfectly comfortably settling in to my temporary location. Perhaps that is the key, that I know where I reside at the moment is temporary, and my heart is still in my home.

In fact, I assumed I would come back and walk around my neighborhood, although I did not really manage it most of the first week. There were reasons for this of course: the frustrations of establishing a new routine, the trials of unpacking and not finding things, the general principle that I dislike the idea of driving somewhere just to walk. However it has dawned on me that some principles are just pig-headedness, at least some of the time, and although the apartment complex is large, and is nicely planted with miles of sidewalks, it is a functional but completely uninspiring place to walk. I can listen to a book on tape, but then I miss the early morning conversation that I have with the world when I walk in my home neighborhood. Rather than a centering experience, walking around the apartment complex simply feels like exercise, another task to be completed, and although I need exercise, what I am interested in my morning walk is both movement and a spiritual centering, a centering that can occur in my neighborhood, but does not in the concrete world of parking lots and apartment buildings.

When I walk around my streets, and it is easy to walk anywhere from a couple of miles to several, I slow down, I listen to the early morning, I greet the plants and watch the birds, the rabbits, the occasional deer or fox. I am present, fully present in a way that I am not in the acres of concrete. I notice tiny things. They are not necessarily unusual things, but that is not the point. My soul calms and slows, even if I am puffing up a hill, and my awareness picks up thing that I would miss in the hustle and hurry of modern American life.

It is a mile away, as the crow flies, and yet I feel like it is a different world.

There is a large park near me as well, with a walking trail, and I've gone there a couple of times, but it is often more populated even in the early morning. I am more distracted when I walk there, and it all urban-nature, shaped by man, not at all like wild nature. The park is neither wild, nor lived in, and to me it seems more detached and impersonal, not wild, and yet not a habited place. Nature-nature and civilized nature feel different, just as I feel different at Lakeshore Park, than I do in my home neighborhood. The latter is home, a little more intentionally planted, but the difference is really not so great, and the comfort in the space is palpable, at least for me. We all seek and bring different perspectives to our activities, and there is a place for each, what is best for one does not have to best for all. Actually, it has been a while since I've gotten outside — outside the city — to a different kind of nature, and it is time to do so again, but I count that as different from the immediacy of my morning routine, my morning walk.

Tikka also enjoys going home. We went for a ride, went by the house, and when we pulled onto our street she perked up, started looking eagerly out the window, growing visibly more excited as we reached our driveway. She was eager to jump out of the car, eager to go inside, dancing around, displaying her inner puppy self, not her often calm 8 or 9 hear old self. She ran into the house and ran around, checking out the rooms; even empty, they were still hers. We went out the front door and she could hardly contain herself, eager to go piddle in her own front yard, eager to go for a walk around her block, to sniff the old familiar smells. It reminded me of the way I used to feel when when George and I returned from a trip and we crossed the Hudson River on the way to our house from the airport, as if the air changes, and you are suddenly home. It is a feeling I still experience, or I have experienced again since I moved into this house, just as I accept that in a certain way the condo on Maple Branch was never completely home to me, much as I tried to make it so.

This is not to say I am at all unhappy here. I am fairly content, I am becoming more and more settled. My neighbors are nice. I will have people over soon. But this remains a temporary landing pad; it is not my home. Today I will finish unpacking books in the living room, the books I chose to bring with me, the books I decided I would or should read, as if I could anticipate what I would want to read. But limitations and constraints are also good, and I am determined to read those books, at least some of those books. A few new books have also arrived — the first of the Booker longlist — a couple of which are available through my local library system, but most of which I must buy. I've started The Water Cure, but I am not far into it yet and cannot judge. The writing is poetic and lyrical, but the book also seems somewhat hallucinogenic, with a distinctly disturbing undercurrent despite its lyricism. I am drawn in and enjoying it, but so far have trouble connecting what I am reading to the blurbs on the back of the book.

Unpacking. Walking. This is farmer's market Saturday and I love wandering around, the joy of the experience. I've been cooking and have actually cooked, using up last week's haul. Some time with family. A swim. Perhaps I will get pictures up on the walls. Perhaps a stroll along one of the nearby nature trails. It seems like a weekend full of promise, and I hope your weekend plans and hopes are promising indeed.

August 11, 2018
Farewells Are Often Sad: Some Thoughts on Moving Week

I wrote a post with every intention of posting it Thursday morning, but then Thursday happened and nothing was posted. Completely my fault. When I look at the post now however, I want to save some of it, but it is out of step, and it feels weird to post it as is, so I am going to try something new, at least for me. The end result may or may not make sense. Anyway, what I am writing today is in italics, and the original post is not.

Let's see what happens:

Goodbyes are always hard. Even temporary ones, even when one is saying goodbye to a place not a person, even when I won't really be gone. After all we will still see each other, but the relationship will be changed, a trial separation of sorts, a bit of surgery, and then we will be reunited.

When I walked through the house yesterday, (Wednesday) after the movers had taken everything away, or at least had taken away everything that is going to storage, the house felt sad to me, like we were saying goodbye, and a part of the life of the place had already been stripped away.

And that is how it felt to me on Wednesday, and even Thursday morning before the movers returned. But late Thursday, after the house was mostly empty it did not feel so lonely at all, only paused, like a person holding their breath, as if waiting, waiting for the next stage to begin. Without all the distractions of stuff, I also saw the way the house needs to flow, and feel renewed confidence that everything is on the right track. I saw what I loved about the house and what needed improvement, and was able to see more clearly that the plan is good, for me and the house, for making it work without sacrificing too much of its character.

The art was mostly packed the first day. One person made crates for the larger pieces, while another boxed smaller items. Tikka and I enjoyed watching the work from the upstairs windows, although I think Tikka was mostly watching for people walking by. I had already pulled out a few smaller pieces, mostly sentimental in their appeal, to take to my temporary abode. Today, I miss my art. I am sure I will feel more settled when the smaller pieces are unboxed and hung, but at the moment I still feel like something important is missing. I feel at home in the apartment, even unpacked, but I walk into the house I AM home, even empty. It will be an interesting transition.

Yesterday was moving day, and today I have started the process of unpacking and putting away. I've already been to Target and Bed Bath and Beyond. I am certain there will be more of such excursions in my future. I had charts and drawings, showing where everything would go, and in that sense the move went well because everything fit where it was supposed to fit, but there are always a few things that don't work out. I intentionally brought most of my kitchen supplies to the apartment, not because I will need everything, but because we haven't yet finalized kitchen cabinetry and layout, and I am persnickety enough that I need to know exactly what goes where before I sign off on those plans, to check and double check, even as I accept that there will be missteps and failures. Plans on paper and reality rarely perfectly align. I've already discovered miscalculations however. I wasn't as thorough in sorting out what would go to storage as I should have been. Mostly I am unpacking things I should have stored. For example I forgot that a tall vaseline glass pitcher was stored with some tall pots, only because it was the only place it fit. I forgot how quirky my storage system was in the old kitchen. I wanted the pots, not the pitcher. I'm sure I will eventually find things I should have brought with me that got stored instead.

Oh jeez, I just deleted an entire paragraph. (I partially rewrote the one above). Basically I was sad on Wednesday night and wanted to binge on carbs and self-pity, but I managed to resist. Today, Friday, I am back on track. I also realizedthat I needed to take a walk today so I went for my once-standard 2 mile walk, except that I did it at mid-day rather than in the early morning. I survived. I had stopped walking during the 10 days I was moving little things, mostly because I was tired, but also because I was putting in 20,000 to 28,000 steps a day, roughly 10 to 14 miles, and felt I didn't need the extra steps. This week, where I had felt relatively sluggish all week, I haven't logged less than 10k steps, but they have mostly been back and forth, moving and unpacking steps, not unkinking steps. I needed that long stretch of the muscles, and I noted, after walking about 3/4 of a mile, that my back was seizing up, that my stride had become more like a martinet, and I was occasionally dragging my left foot. I had to slow down, concentrate on tightening abs and lower back muscles, concentrate on rotating my hips properly, and eventually my back felt better, and I had less pain. I did not have to cut the walk short; in fact, I felt much better afterward, even if a little overheated. I know I have been overdoing it when I have to start concentrating on basic movements, but at least I have become aware enough to catch myself when I start to fall in bad patterns, and take corrective measures. I suspect I will always have to do this occasionally. It doesn't mean I must do less, but sometimes I need to go more slowly.

I miss my house already, although I know that is mostly because I am still trapped in this space "in-between". I am not settled in the apartment, although i know that the settling-in can begin later today. (And has already begun) I know I will love the house when I return, and I look forward to both the process and the result, but the process hasn't started yet, and it looks like there is going to be a delay on the start date, which was scheduled for Monday, then delayed until August 20th. (I've just been told that it may be sooner, possibly even next week. I am not holding my breath). And perhaps this is what is sad, this period of indeterminancy. The die has been cast, and I just have to go wherever the process leads me; even through sad days in empty houses and unsettled apartments.

I am feeling better already, eager for the next stage, still sad to leave the house, but eager to see what develops, eager for our future return. And yet I still feel trapped in some kind of nether-space, a doorway I haven't yet gotten out of. And in many ways that is what transitional space is, a doorway. We can choose to enter, or we can stay behind, but once we walk through, as much as we may have planned, we still don't know what is on the other side.

One small calm space in my apartment, this tiny piece of counter next to the stove. This will probably not end up being the final layout. To begin with, that particular pepper grinder belongs on the table, but the table piled high with paper right now (still, two days later). This is my little oasis of calm, but also an oasis of potential. Something can be cooked here and so there is hope and creativity — the promise of nourishment. Yet the sense of calm is but an illusion, a necessary one if we are to maintain our sanity, but an illusion nonetheless. The trick is to hold on when necessary, but also to be willing to let go.

August 3, 2018
Transitional Spaces, Meandering Thoughts

I am sitting in my empty apartment writing this post. Why? Because it is hot out and I am not ready to go back outside. Also because my computer is here since AT&T came today to set up my internet service. Why am I writing my blog post from a mostly empty apartment? Because fiber.

The apartment is not completely empty. The laundry room is partially organized, which is good because the washer and dryer at the house have been disconnected and prepared for storage. I've brought over most of the pantry. There is an aerobed, a table, a few pots, coffee. There is a bookcase in the alcove that will become my office, and two stacks of Elfa wide single runner drawers filled with yarn. Those came because everything is sorted and labeled and cataloged and I didn't want the movers to mix things up. The wide frame that they belong in is not here yet because it will not fit in my car.

I am tired, and hot, but I am not as stiff and sore as I was. The Elfa drawers were the last big things I brought that had be be carried in front of the body, and lugging them up the stairs, even one at a time (light but still awkward) was still difficult. The simple truth is that I can't carry stuff like that. Everything else can be tossed in a sack or a duffel and carried over my shoulders or on my back. It is still tough going up the stairs, but my back is no longer sore. I huff and puff too much, and am reminded that I miss that earlier Mardel, the one who was a bit of a gym rat, who walked and bike and did furious workouts. That isn't exactly right. I miss the feeling of being capable and strong, but I don't miss being that girl, that girl who worried about what other people thought, that girl who could never believe she was somehow good enough. Now I want to be strong again just so I can do the things I want to do, and enjoy doing them. Now I know I can be strong. I can carry heavy packs up the stairs on my back, but probably couldn't carry a platter of drinks across the room. Now I can accept that I can dig the hole, that I can be tough with a pickaxe, but I can't lift the shrub that needs to go in the hole. I can dig the rocks, uproot them, but I can't carry them away. And you know what, that is all fine with me. None of us are really meant to be solitary, to be completely self-sufficient. I can do what I have to do, and if I had to move that rock I could figure out a way. Solitary gets in the way of solidarity. My skills complement other's skills. Together we turn things around.

But back to the move: I am writing at this little table, the same table I spray painted over the July Fourth holiday. It looks a little lonely in this very empty, very beige apartment, but stuff will arrive and we, the table and I, will settle in. This is not a table for big dinner parties. I could have brought my dining table. But then there would have been no room for chairs. Maybe one chair, with its back to the living room, but what fun is that? I can't imagine anything more depressing than a big dining table with only one chair, no with hope of sharing a lovingly made repast, no hope of convivial dinnertime conversation. Better a smaller table with potential. Although if four people ate here they would have to be four people who didn't mind getting entangled with others, knees touching, feet intertwined. All kinds of potential for trouble. All kind of potential for togetherness.

I'll probably just have people over for drinks and nibbles. And it does strike me as one of those funny little jokes that life plays on us that, now, moving out of my house which is good for entertaining, I suddenly am ready to entertain again. For six months I needed to pull inward and not be particularly social. It had nothing to do with the house and everything to do with me, me and my own propensity to root around in the undergrowth, stirring up the leaf-mold and things that are best left undisturbed. Oh wait. I wasn't the one that stirred the pot. But there is a lot of pot stirring going on the world right now, and a lot of turds are floating to the top. People I once thought of as wise and kind let their reactionary edges show, and burrow deeper. I realize they are often only trying to shut out the unpleasantness, but in reality they just create more cesspools, uprooting even bigger turds. Not everyone mind you, many of us are still kind. But I fear the cesspools will grow deeper and more and more sinkholes will be revealed. I fear more of us will fall in. All the more reason to gather together, to keep each other afloat. Hence parties.

But I digress. The official move is next week. First stuff for storage. Then stuff for the apartment. There are a few more things I have to get taken care of this weekend, just to make life easier for myself next week, but hopefully also to make the transition a little less stressful for Moises and Tikka. Tikka will go back and forth with me, but I've decided that it may be best for Moises if we move to the apartment tomorrow, camp out a bit before the rest of our stuff arrives. He will be upset regardless. But I am hoping he will be a little less upset than he would be at the house, with people moving his stuff around.

And I am thrilled with my small accomplishments:

The little things include my coat and wine closet. There are no closets on the main floor of my house, and no hook, or place to hang a coat either. That will be remedied when I return, but for now I am thrilled to have a convenient place to store coats, and a convenient place to store wine. I've also hung shower curtains, and I am thrilled to have a bathroom that actually has towel bars and a place for toilet paper. The previous owners of my house seem to have removed all the toilet paper holders and towel bars when they vacated the premises. Admittedly I could have replaced them. But I didn't want to spend money on towel bars when I was going to be redoing the bathrooms within a year anyway. Count me cheap, at least about some things. The truth is, I am tired of my efficient, but tiny little bathroom with no place to hang a towel. Perhaps buying a towel bar would have been cheaper than removing a wall and redoing everything, but well, I probably would have done that anyway. I'm still a Texan after all, "go big or go home" runs in my veins, but I'm not all about bigness or space, just getting it right. I'm either all in, or I'm all out. No halfsies here.

July 28, 2018
Monday Miscellany

I'm still here, not doing much, with barely anything to report.

Today it is two weeks before the official construction start date. Next week is moving week, and for now I am still just kind of hanging out between phases of my life, still sorting out what goes where, still packing some things before the movers come, still changing plans, almost daily it seems. I am moving some small things, there are always things that it seems to make sense to move myself, that I don't want to pay someone else to pack, although at the moment I can't say that I honestly don't think it would be easier just to pay someone. I live in and use all three floors of my house, and think nothing of running up and down stairs all day long. But I had forgotten how exhausting it is to carry stuff, 25 to 40 pound loads of stuff, up and down stairs out to my car, up stairs to my apartment, in the heat. No wonder I have little to say.

But here are a few things that have entranced me lately.

1. My small wine rack.

I put this together this morning after hauling the coats, some wine, and a few other kitchen supplies over from the house. It was actually rather gratifying to sit on the cool floor in the empty apartment and bang things together. And I am thrilled to have a coat closet since there has been no place to hang a coat or jacket in this house since I moved in. I still won't have a coat closet when I move back, but I will have a rear entry and space for a coat rack. I jettisoned the coat closet with the extended addition, but that is ok. I am thrilled with what is ahead.

2. Coreopsis.

I picked up the yellow li'l bang coreopsis as a kind of next-best choice. I really wanted a different color, but didn't find it. Now I am happy. I love the way the cheerful yellow flowers play so nicely with the little lime hydrangeas. The south side of the front yard is doing really well considering I just planted it all this year, and we have had some extended dry spells. I've decided I will need a lot more coreopsis next spring.

3. Crape Myrtle.

The crape myrtle on the cool, shady side of the front yard is also doing much better this year after I hacked back a bunch of other trees and shrubs that I really didn't want. I remember talking to my neighbor and he didn't even believe there was a crape myrtle in that thicket. No doubting its presence this year, as the blossoms are quiet evident, although I will have a good bit of weeding out to do again next spring.

4. New Perfume

I treated myself to a decant set of natural perfumes that Duchesse, of the blog passage des perles had recommended and I fell promptly in love with one perfume, Arbolé Arbolé by Hiram Greene. I have been wearing it every day and it just makes me feel grounded and happy. It is sweet without being sugary, at least on me, with hints of patchouli, cedar, and sandalwood, therefore making it somewhat woody and grassy but without the harsh edge of some woodsy fragrances. It also feels a bit spicy, with a little touch of the oriental, but I don't really know if that is an intended part of the perfume, or how I feel wearing it. It reminds me of walking outside at dawn on a summer morning right after a nighttime rainstorm, when one smells the wet, but one also smells the earth, the wood, the perfume of flowers hanging in the air. It is a scent both soft and warm, bruised and also full of hope. I think that is how I feel when I wear Arbolé Arbolé. I feel like I am in a bubble of hopeful equanimity, as if no matter how harsh the storms, how ugly the world, there is still hope that nature and right will win out. For me, for this summer at least, it is the perfect perfume, filled with hope and laughter, calm, and a touch of flirtatiousness, where upsets are melded into new growth, a reminder that as long as there is still beauty and life, there is also still hope.

July 23, 2018