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Who Am I? A beginning…

Who Am I?

It seems like such an easy question doesn't it? A question to which we should have an easy answer. Sometimes, it is true these answers come easily, but at other times not so much. I do think that most of us recognize that we each play many complex roles: "I am a woman"…."I am a mother"…"I am a father"…."I am a lawyer"…. "I am a teacher". Most of us would not define ourselves exclusively by any one of the roles we play, and hopefully, abstractly at least, we recognize that this is the case for others as well. But we don't always live out that understanding of others, that they too live complex lives, and that their own identities, just like our own, are shaped by many roles.

Sometimes it seems we don't even truly understand it ourselves, the question lurking behind questions such as "who am I". We tend to define ourselves by roles, by identities imposed on us, identities that are defined by a fixed set of parameters, identities that are more what than who. The statement "I am a mother" is a statement of identity defined by a role, and yes motherhood shapes our identity but motherhood alone is not identity, not self. Every mother is also a complete person apart from motherhood; a person who would be equally complete, different perhaps, but complete, whether or not she was a mother.

There is a danger in identifying ourselves exclusively by our roles — by the roles we choose for ourselves as well as the roles that society chooses for us. "I am a lawyer" implies that one went to law school, but that also one works as a lawyer. We assume that people who say "I am a writer" work at writing and earn some kind of monetary recompense for their writing, ie. they are published. Sometimes writers are compelled to write, but their work is not recognized or appreciated in their lifetimes. No one today would question that Emily Dickinson was a writer, a poet, but only a dozen of her poems were published in her lifetime, and they were severely edited, often to the point of being rewritten, before they were deemed fit for publication. The term "writer" can be used as a "what" a definition of a person's place in the world, but also a "who" a statement about something that is essential to the nature of a particular person.

And so it seems that often what I think I know about myself is really about a role I have chosen to identify with. Although said role does indeed add shape and definition to who I am, it is also a mask, a mask that hides and shelters the person within. Roles are the what of our identity, but not necessarily the who; they do not define who we are on an essential level.

We are not born a blank slate. We are shaped by the families we are born into, our culture, our experiences, but there is always a self, a self learning to live and function in the world. Much of our lives is spent learning to shape our outward selves to what we perceive as needed to survive in the world. A large part of growing up concerns learning to take on the mantles of various roles in society, defining ourselves by external structures. But our self, that true self we were born with and which we may or may not have honored and expressed, remains. To be an adult, to thrive, to perhaps raise a family, requires building and maintaining a structure of societally sanctioned roles. And yet, later in life, if we are seeking wisdom, we may find we need to dig deeper. We may find we need to become archeologists of our own selves, our own souls. We may find ourselves once again asking "Who am I?" We may find ourselves searching for the inner resources, reasonings, and talents that underpin our roles in life.

It seems lately that I have been compelled, sometimes dragged kicking and screaming, to let go, to stop defining myself by the things I do. I have become compelled to question who I am more deeply, to seek out the reasons, needs, questions, yearnings, that have lead to making the choices I have made. Looking for that inner self is, in many ways, a frightening task. I don't always know who I will find when I strip away the layers, and I fear losing the security of my safely defined roles. This is hard work, and I am by nature, a person who seeks to go deeper, who is interested in the questions of who we are, and why the do the things we do. Choosing to dive into the depths does not make the experience any less frightening, nor any less rewarding.

Who am I? Today I am a person who is ready to start dismantling those definitions external to myself, a person ready to stop defining myself by "what" and start discovering "who". Welcome to my journey.

September 11, 2018
A Short Stroll Through The Neighborhood

I thought I'd share a few photos from my walk this morning.

Just a jaunt around my neighborhood, and a shorter route than usual because my right knee is quite uncomfortable. I don't know if it is a knee issue or a sciatica issue, and it could be a bit of both.

As usual, I am mostly interested in the small details, and the contrast of texture and color.

For today's walk I took a shorter walk and I took pains to seek out the gentle slopes as opposed to the steeper hills which really were bothering my knee. I still had ample opportunity to stretch my legs.

But I have also learned to give myself a pass. I realized at some point, when I was pushing myself too far, when I was sitting in my car in tears, that I push myself in ways that I shouldn't, and that if anyone else were sitting in their car crying, I would tell them to go home, put ice on their knee and have a glass of wine. And so I did, go home that is, and have a glass of wine. This morning I treated myself to a short, meandering walk. Since it appears to be a beautiful day, I will take another stroll later. There need be no pressure, only balance. There are times to push, but there are also times to slow, to stop even, and simply find the peace where you are.

August 21, 2018
slash and burn

There was a blog post scheduled for yesterday morning, but well, life got in my face in a rather major way and I couldn't finish it. I think I will post it later in the week probably as a slightly different post than originally intended, but hey, I'll just see what happens. I am pretty sanguine, but I am not quite yet in a place where I am ready to make promises. Yesterday was a bit of an emotional roller coaster of a day.

I remember how just a few days ago, I reviewed preliminary ideas for future landscaping. A good part of it further in the future than I might like, it turns out, simply because of the way I am staging things. But I realize that I have made the right decisions for me, and in the conflict between my desire for instant gratification and uncertainty about what I actually want and/or need, time is my ally. Anything good is worth waiting for. I posted this collage of plans, hinting at where I hope we are going, on Instagram. Apologies if you have seen them. At the time, I had no intention of blogging about garden plans.

I simply planned on coming to my construction site, talking to my house, watering the front plantings, and communing, consoling, comforting and communicating with this place I call home. I hoped the quiet peaceful bits of sanctuary I find in my gardens, my space, the space I share with this house, and yes I do think that each house has its own unique needs, would sooth my soul even as so much is torn up and I dream about the future.

That was before Monday afternoon, when I drove by the house to get mail. Apparently the landscape crew had been there on Saturday. As I learned later, when I irately spoke to the head of the landscape company, they had been there with instructions to do light weeding and to remove vines from the roses and hydrangeas. In the perfectly understated terms of my landscape designer, (not at all related to the landscape maintenance company that perpetrated the crime) speaking from a position of greater detachment than I was able to muster, they "over performed". My initial reactions were not so kind, and still, although I acknowledge "over performance" is indeed what happened, the wound itself remains raw.

Luckily the first thing I saw was the side bed, where some weeds had been cleared out, as had, unfortunately a lovely tree peony, "High Noon" which I had planted this spring and which was settling in beautifully. Some of the iris crostata "Tennessee white" are also missing, a plant that I had been looking for since I moved to Tennessee and only found this past spring. I hope the nursery has them again next year, as they are one of my favorite small iris varieties. Today, with a heavy heart but cooler head, I can see the iris are dying back as it is August after all, and if one was not paying much attention, one might confuse them for crab-grass. More likely someone was paying no attention at all, and pulled up peony and iris indiscriminately.

But then I looked up. It looked like someone had just taken a chainsaw across all my shrubs. Everything was hacked off, all the new growth on the hydrangeas. The undergrowth was ripped out, including hellebores. It looked like devastation; it felt like violation. The arching oak leaf hydrangeas by my private little courtyard had been stripped back to twigs, the camellias slashed back by more than half. The ground laid bare, the branches stripped of growth, shrubs and trees hacked away, in ways I would never have eve dreamed of stripping them, denying them their essential nature. It felt as if everything I believed and loved about this garden had been deemed worthless and destroyed.

Will these little twigs, all that remains of one oak leaf hydrangea, come back? I don't expect I'll see much in terms of blossoms next year. At least there are still some leaves. In a few years, when my garden is full and lush again, I may look back and laugh. Not so much now. It is not about the plants. They are gone. What is left will survive or it will not. What is done cannot be undone. I am actually calm about that aspect of the situation. Plants may be replaced, or not. What is lost is lost; what survives will be stronger, life and beauty will win in the end.

But that is my brain. My heart remains knotted in outrage, in a sense of having been violated. My space was brutally assaulted. The words, slash, pillage, maim, keep echoing through my thoughts, although my thoughts are admittedly calmer than they were. I spoke civilly but angrily. to the owner of the landscape company. I really see no point in using brutal language, although I felt like doing so. He saw the problem. He apologized. We both acknowledged that my anger was justified. As the day progressed, I slowly relinquish the idea that I should hang whoever slashed my shrubs by the thumbs in the sun.

No, I am not normally a fan of torture. But I also accept that we have to accept our emotions. Our history, our literature, even our holy liturgies are full fo it, full of violence and outrage. To deny its existence is to deny part of what it means to be human. Equally so to act out our rage. No, I will not collect eye for an eye, a chain-saw welding hand for a garden. There are healthier ways to deal with rage, anger, hurt.

It may be only a garden, but I admit that I have not been so angry since a hapless young man broke up with my (step)daughter on the eve of her move across state-lines, giving up everything she had built to be with him…..the coward chickening out at the last minute. At the time I was in full mother-bear mode and I shocked myself. For the first time I fully understood why someone would be so consumed with rage and hate that they would truss a person up, tie them to the bumper of a car, and drag them down the road. Am I proud of those thoughts? Not really. But I acknowledge that I felt them, even though I would never have acted on them. I felt a similar total outrage Monday, and even yesterday morning. I am not going to deny that I felt anger, outrage even. It is healthy neither to deny emotions nor to give in to them.

But here is the thing. As I wandered around my yard, as I gently pulled a vine out of the Illicium that was planted this spring, and which was thankfully missed by the grounds crew, I realized something else. Whoever cut up my garden did not think they were doing personal harm. I am sure they knew they were not doing what they were supposed to be doing. As I stood there, I could imagine it in my mind. They started with the roses, They are far from the house and were not damaged. But then, working next to the house one could see in the windows, see that all the furniture was gone. I can imagine it now. They wanted to finish, they wanted to do other things, perhaps they even thought they are doing a good thing, preparing the house for a future occupant. Perhaps they simply thought no one cared. I am not excusing them, but I can attempt to understand.

Today, I am not as angry, although I will probably still well up with tears next time I go to the house. I am sanguine about the future. The garden will recover, and this may even be a small boon to the construction timing. Because the foundation plantings have been butchered, it is actually easy right now for the contractors to get into the beds and dig new drains for the downspouts, to fix a drainage issue that would otherwise have waited until winter. Does pragmatism negate the horror? No. But it is best to move forward, not denying, because that is the path to death, but acknowledging and moving on.

Today I will look at the bouquet of flowers I brought home from the farmer's market. I will continue to settle in to my apartment. I will walk and listen to music and read a book. Tomorrow I will go back to the house and move a small camellia that needs to be relocated before excavation begins. I will place it in the front yard where I can water it, where I can be reminded that hope is always present, even though I don't always feel all that hopeful. If I give hope a chance, it will worm its way back into my heart.

August 15, 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
Scattershot

I accidentally took a blog break without intending to do so. I thought I had something to write about, but then I didn't write. I thought I had a cold, but it ends up it was just the over-blown residual of a massive sinus infection. That is on the mend now.

The truth is that I've struggled, bouncing back and forth between having things I want to say and then finding myself unable to say anything. When I am overwhelmed and busy I feel like I have a lot to say, and then when things grow quiet again, my thoughts also start to creak along and I bore even myself. At such times I can't bear to even put up another version of the same old garden photos that you've probably already seen a dozen times before.

This summer is going to be hectic, at least for the next six to eight weeks, and I may be frazzled at times. I thought of taking a hiatus from the blog for that period, but am not convinced that doing so sounds like a good idea. Instead I am simply releasing myself from the self-imposed obligation to blog, or maybe I'm releasing myself from the obligation to be anything. I'lll just throw what ever I feel like out here and I'll see what happens. I feel like my life is coming together in some new way, and yet I also at times feel directionless, as if I am sloughing off a bunch of old skin and I'm not yet sure what the new skin will look like. In that sense, I guess I am giving myself permission to be absent when I need to be absent, present when I need to be present, and to embrace mess.

I can reevaluate in late August or early September and see where I am, although I can't really imagine giving up this blog altogether. I've been blogging for thirteen years, and the format and this public/semi-public/journal format adds something to my life that I am not sure I want to relinquish, but I also think I'm probably overdue for a rethink.

In the meantime, numerous projects gather steam. I picked the tiles for the guest bathroom, although I don't yet know when we are starting or what exactly happens next. I know something will happen. That is probably enough. Thank you for your patience.

June 16, 2018
Trees of Life

As I look out my office window I see the "hairy tree" as I affectionately refer to it. The tree, actually a pair of trees, was heavily girdled with ivy when I moved in. I have no excuse for thinking of them as a singular it, but I do. I cut back as much of the ivy as I could, and had to employ help as some of the ivy vines were as thick as my arms. The grounds crew used chain saws and also did make a few cuts into the bark, about which I worried. Most of the ivy was left in the tree to die and much of it is still there, dead and brown, from my window making the tree appear chewbacca-like in its corner.

Mostly what I have noticed this spring however is the new growth. Previously the trunks of this tree were mostly bare, with only a swath of leaves at the very top of the canopy. This spring there is new growth everywhere, leafy islands of green that fill my imagination, dancing in the breeze, reminders of fortitude, rebirth, survival. The old is still there, the vines, I can't pull them all out, but we never fully escape our pasts anyway. The presence of a past, no matter how traumatic, no matter how touchy we may be about the memory, doesn't mean the death of beauty, of growth, of life.

But the ivy branches, and the bare bases also remind me not only of setbacks and growth, but of arrogance and mistakes and how life still endures, constantly moving forward. The bare bases of the trees remind me of Tikka's bare bottom, where the vet shaved her undercoat because the fur was badly matted. I know now that we could have probably trimmed out the longer hairs and saved that hair, that the vet knew it wouldn't grow back, that there was another alternative. Just as I probably could have found a better way to cut the ivy, a way that did not harm the tree, although I doubt I could have gotten all the vines pulled down. My own arrogance played into the arrogance of the workmen, and all of our efforts built on the arrogance of that which came before, of letting the ivy take root and grow to the point of almost overwhelming the tree in the first place. The cut lines are there to remind me of human folly, just as the vines remain, dead but reminding us of adversity, adversity overcome. I often think we need to be reminded of both, of the beauty and the growth, but also of the costs and the perils of life. Let us only hope that our mistakes can be overcome, not forgotten, but reimagined.

May 22, 2018
Saturday Morning Musings

Contentment: sitting still in the early morning, cup of coffee in hand, looking out over the yard. This morning I am just looking at lawn, lawn and the line of woods at the back of the yard, two tall trees that shade the neighbor's yard. I managed to cut back much of the ivy that was choking them last year, but needed help with some of the bigger vines. The ivy was removed at the base but I didn't get all the long vines pulled out o the tree, now, from this window the tree looks almost hairy with the dead vines traversing its trunk. Cardinals and robin and bluebirds are cavorting in the early morning light, and yes, I do imagine the border I will eventually plant between the woods and the lawn. The garden of my dreams is always present but actually the yard in and of itself is enough. What more is needed?

People are needed of course. We all need other people, need to love and be loved. I don't work a day job where I am surrounded with people during the day. Many of my pursuits are solitary: writing, gardening, playing with needle, thread, fabric. I am past the days when empty time alone seemed overbearingly depressing. I can be content with myself, and perhaps that is primarily because I have a choice, to find balance between time spent alone and time with friends.

It has been a good week, filled with music, time with friends, and creative pursuits as well. There was a lovely performance of Haydn's Creation at the beginning of the week. Last night I went to see Aida, which was also beautifully done. Aida was the first opera I ever saw live and seeing it again reminds me of my youthful self. The choral society outdid themselves, the soloists were excellent. I am continually amazed at the dedication of local musicians and the quality of local efforts. Here we are, in Knoxville, a relatively small city, with two major choral productions in one week, and many people putting in long hours in rehearsal. Granted the musicians come from the greater metropolitan area (in government speak) which is actually a rather large geographic space, and this actually impresses me all the more. We are blessed to have people who are willing to spend time and effort to share something they love with the rest of us.

I see that music and art, fill my heart, but I also see that I sometimes overindulge. I want to go to everything, and I often try. Music fills and soothes my heart, and yet, I wonder. I always have been inclined toward too-muchness, but how much of my indulgences are running toward something, and how much is running away? I'd be lying if I said I didn't miss those evenings watching tv or movie with my beloved, companionable silence, the palpable peace of shared space. But space and time are not something to be filled. The trees remind me of that. And you can't be companionable with others if you can't be companionable with yourself; or so it seems to me. That is not to say I don't enjoy evenings at home — they are no longer a black hole — but do I run too much? Try to fill too much? I am not looking for a substitute for just being present.

There, I think I found the answer.

Which brings me back to what do I need? What do we need? A safe place to sleep. Food. These are basic necessities. People we care about, people who care about us. Our passions, the things we care about, including ourselves. The earth around us, our own little space on this planet, wherever it is, whatever it is, to know that this space that is our lives, that our very selves, is enough. My view through this tiny window, watching the squirrel that is running across the yard right this moment. Beauty, perfection, love, heaven — it is all right here every day, ready to touch each of us, if only we open our eyes and our hearts.

None of the flowers shown here are visible from my window this morning. The flowers in the front yard are not visible from most of the windows in the house, and yet they greet me every day, a welcoming beacon.

May 5, 2018
In a Nutshell

There are mornings when I want to move, to take a brisk walk, but Tikka wants to stop and smell the leaves, and the bushes, and everything else in her path. It pays to slow down. As a a reward for patience, I was treated to this lovely ephemeral blossom, a reminder that beauty, and what is most important and essential about life is often close at hand.

Which brings me back to where I am supposed to be this on this lovely Saturday, writing about Ian McEwan's 2016 novel Nutshell. I mentioned that I had started the book earlier in the week, here, and I stand by what I wrote. It is a hilariously funny and enjoyable read. But there is also a lot more to the novel than mere entertainment, or even its witty send-up of contemporary Western civilization.

The prose is beautiful and elegant and often cold, more sarcastic and often bitter than warm and cuddly, which can be quite disconcerting from a narrator who is in fact not yet a person, a fetus 2 weeks shy of his supposed "due date". In fact that is one aspect of the book that is brilliant while it makes the reader at times quite uncomfortable. This is no Boss Baby or Look Who's Talking; there are laughs but McEwan is far to sophisticated to sink to common one liners. And yes, if you'e read any reviews, the story pretends to be a modern retelling of Hamlet, with our narrator's mother, Trudy, sleeping with her husband's brother, Claude. And certainly a fetus, flooded with emotions and wine and all too close proximity to too much sex is a completely impotent Hamlet. In fact, all the wine and sex, and the narrator's observations of the flood of feelings brought on by both, can also make the reader, this reader anyway, flinch a little bit.

And yet, there is so much more. One holds on, wondering if this hormone-driven emotional wreck of a woman and her stupidly arrogant lover will actually pull it off. There is no mystery about the crime; we are in on it from the beginning. And yet we are kept guessing, just as our young narrator is kept guessing, until we reach the end, the truly perfectly timed end. But I mentioned that there is more to this novel than thinking fetuses, witty commentary, and fun romps through the baser sides of human emotions, and there is. In this, in some ways the young unnamed hero is the our perfect modern everyman, because, as increasingly becomes apparent, we are all trapped in the same kind of bubble, incapable of action, incapable actually of even knowing what is real and what is just intellectual folderol. The narrator is constrained, but we are also constrained. He is flooded with maternal hormones and too much wine, not knowing what is real and what is not. But we are not much different. We spend our lives bombarded by information, by media stories and appeals, our sense and our emotions manipulated daily by media to the point that our judgements and our sense of well-being can be shaped by ideas and things that may be terrible or wonderful, but which are really just abstractions to us. They affect our sense of the world, but are not really a part of the world we inhabit each and every day, our own small slice of it.

As is natural, our narrator finally finds the world, his own small patch of the world, and finds that there is no comparison really between the reality of the present and the abstraction, between the world in which we spend our lives, which we can choose to own and possess and allow its beauty to possess us, or the abstraction, which can hold us, impotent. In the end, even in the face of of disruption, hope lies waiting, quietly, in the most unexpected places.

A slithering moment of waxy, creaking emergence, and here I am, set naked on the kingdom. Like stout Cortez (I remember a poem my father once recited), I'm amazed. I'm looking down, with what wonder and surmise, at the napped surface of a blue bath towel. Blue. I've always known, verbally at least, I've always been able to infer what is blue — sea, sky, lapis lazuli, gentians — mere abstractions. Now I have it at last, I own it, and it possesses me. More gorgeous than I dared believe. That is just a beginning, at the indigo end of the spectrum.

April 28, 2018
Morning Musings

Do you ever finding yourself wanting to do more than is possible? Perhaps it is not good, this wanting to do too much; perhaps it is the root of sin, although sin is a word that I think has been misaligned and misused. The pursuit of too-muchness is a kind of gluttony, and of course we call it that, at least when it turns bad: a glutton who eats too much, a person who is a glutton for punishment. But I suspect one can be a glutton in many ways, even in doing too much, even in doing too much in a well-meaning way.

Hmmm. I don't really know where those thoughts came from. Perhaps because I am home from a trip to Texas over the Easter weekend and there is more I want to do this week than is physically possible. Perhaps because I had grand plans for something, where grand plans aren't even really required. Perhaps also because I am realizing that the better part of valor is to sit and look out the window and have another cup of coffee, to consider what is important before plunging in willy-nilly.

So I went to Texas and visited my mom. We didn't go to church on Easter, the first time I've missed since I moved, but that is ok. I think that sometimes you have to let go of rituals, and remember that it is not the specific ritual that is important, but where it points you. Sometimes it is best to let things go. Anyway, we went to brunch. We did some things mom wanted to do and had a good time. I pet sat my brother's dog for a few days while they were between pet sitters. Spring. Easter. They occur at the same time for a reason, as does Passover, when you get right down to it. I'm sure there are other spring renewal rituals. Rest. Repose. Death. Rebirth. Let's not go there.

Sometimes it is good to simply accept that rest is good. That small things are important. Sometimes we need to let go of striving and let the dirt cover us so that we can grow in new ways. This is the thing: I don't believe there are any black and white choices in this world. I believe in good and evil, but I think it is rare that we truly see either one in life as we experience it, and they don't, at least in our lives, spring forth pure and unadulterated. Nothing is ever either/or, dual, or limited to exactly two choices, and even not making choices is a choice. And if we end up heading one way or another, we do so all too often without thinking. By the time we realize the path we are on the choices have been ingrained in our consciousness. Still, we can make a choice. We can choose to change our path, or not.

What I do know, is that there are no situations where the answer is either A or B, and only A or B, at least in life as it is lived, as opposed to theory. If we see only two choices were asking the wrong questions. I believe the answers are often simple but are not always easy. And I believe that good choices never directly hurt other people, either intentionally or accidentally due to callous oversight or self-interest. I also know that I make bad choices every day, usually without even realizing it, but I hope and will continue to hope, that my good choices will outnumber my mistakes, that I can seek rectification and reconciliation, and that kindness and dignity will win the day.

April 5, 2018
Baby Steps

As I was sitting in the Knoxville Museum of Art yesterday evening, listening to a Violin Sonata, I looked out the window at the Knoxville skyline, the reflections from the museum, and the curve of the piano and was entranced. For some reason, the view reminded me of a photo I took in New York in February, although the neither the time of day nor the actual view were in any way similar. I will never know what connection my brain was making though, because I missed the opportunity to take a photo. At intermission I started talking with my neighbor and by the time I looked up the piano was being moved and whatever I had thought I was seeing was long gone.

All that remains is the photo from New York, which I will post anyway, despite the fact that I have no idea how it relates to this post. Perhaps that is exactly the point. I love this photo of New York and yet I have never managed a narrative in which to include it.

Much of my life has revolved around my ability to manage things, to organize, to solve problems, and I am good at it. I enjoy the challenge. But although this organizational ability is only a part of who I am, I have allowed it to dominate, to send the quieter, messier, more creative side into the corner quavering. Perhaps it is time to stop managing the narrative and let it find its own path.

This week I realized it was time to retire. I had told myself I was taking a sabbatical, or a short break, before taking on some other project. But I realized that although I am incredibly fortunate to have retired from paid work some time ago, I have never actually retired. I went from working full time to managing a construction project on our old house after the general contractor disappeared while simultaneously closing my late husband's business and managing his health care. Then I moved into managing his caregivers and medical care in his final years. After we moved, I went on to manage commissions and ministries at my church, and to serve on the church vestry. I am the kind of person who, if I agree to take something on, tends to give it my all. I am rarely only partially invested. And yet I am tired of taking on other people's problems. I'll be 60 in a couple of months, and although that is young yet, and relatively young for retirement, I am ready. But I also know I need to take baby steps. Force of habit is a tough roadblock to surmount.

For the moment I am letting myself be disorganized. It won't last, but it is a necessary little eddy in flow of life. I know I need structure, and I have a limited tolerance for disorder, but I also needed to push a reset button. In order to find my own path, I first need to see where the flow takes me. I also know that I will undoubtedly eventually take on something else, other new projects, but I need to wait, and learn what makes my heart sing. In the meantime there are small ways I can volunteer and help my community without being the person who takes charge, ways of helping others that also feed my soul rather than batter it down.

All I ask is for your patience. I will return to a schedule, but at the moment I am intentionally not forcing it. Some days I think I have nothing to say, others too much, but at this point even self-imposed schedules seem oppressive. This weekend is Big Ears weekend in Knoxville and I'll be listening to a lot of music, which I may or may not write about. I have to learn to let the flow carry me along. I know I've been saying this for some time, but it has really hit home that if I don't stop clinging to roots and rocks and things that obstruct my path, if I don't say no to obligation, I shall grow still and green and stagnant. I will find my own rhythm; it seems like it is about time.

March 22, 2018