I love my feet...

Someone this weekend mentioned that we have never been anywhere our feet didn’t take us.  The phrase has echoed in my head for days.  I even “Googled” the term this morning.  Other than a few references to words in a song, all I found was a quote about how our feet never lie.  Our heads may tell us all sorts of things about what’s happening around us, but not our feet.

I walked most of my life.  It was a form of meditation; brought with it a feeling of power; provided a quiet, sure and repeating affirmation of my own existence; and sometimes what I perceived as escape.  The most important part about it was the sense of being completely centered in the unique being that is me.  Growing up in California were being outside was an option most of the year round, there was the added benefit of being outdoors.  There are so many things to see, smell, touch, feel when you are walking.  The colors and patterns of leaves and flowers, homes, gardens, the way insects worked, birds and small animals interacted.  Even within the extremes of the built environment of southern California, nature finds a way to sneak thru, to survive and even thrive.

We moved to the mountains of Colorado when I was eleven.  It was magic.  It smelled so differently, not masked.  Rain, dirt, plants, seasons – each had their own fragrance.  And the colors!  Never had I seen such a variety of colors.  Even the rocks had an infinite range of colors and patterns.  So drastic was the change that I found myself like a little child wanting to touch everything I saw. 

Even the built world was different.  I had never seen buildings that old, or rough, using rock and exposed wood.  Or even the shapes of them.  There are so many textures of ground to feel under your feet. The smell of wood smoke, beyond that from a campfire. 

I’d watched Grandma cluck and fuss over her plants every day for my whole life.  I thought they had to have help.  I didn’t know plants to grow like that unaided. To this very day, watching the color change of the aspens in the fall takes my breath away, that incredible patchwork quilt of oranges, yellows, reds and greens laying across the hills.

All of this I saw while simply following my feet.

There are things in my life today that I don’t like or understand, but I find myself remembering the magic that always happened when I let my feet lead, and just enjoyed the show all around me.  Maybe that’s the secret to true happiness.  Rather than worrying about the maps, or the trail I took, where I think I should be instead, or whose fault it is I’m here – I can just follow my feet and enjoy the surprises and affirmations of life I find along the way.

Let your feet take you somewhere beautiful today…

Is this going to hurt me?

Just recently had to have a spare key made, twice, since the first one was just slightly off, rendering it useless. And for those who know me well, this won’t surprise you, but it got me thinking about biochemistry. Organisms have an incredible system of energy saving – with both on/off switches for chemical reactions at key steps along the way; and with a lock and key type of signaling system.

In the first system, if there is too much or too little of a particular product somewhere in the process, it either stops or starts the entire cycle. Like any switch, it breaks the connected circuit temporarily. This sytem is more complicated, and isn't easily disrupted.

In the case of the lock & key – it has to be a key that fits exactly into the lock or it doesn’t open or close. Chemists know that it doesn’t matter how fancy or simple the key is designed, as long as the “business end” fits correctly. In terms of risk – if it doesn’t fit, it’s not a problem, no matter how much you are exposed to. However, if it fits, there is a concern, and protecting that target key from coming in contact with the lock becomes the concern.

So, when worrying about exposure to a chemical – two things have to be considered: one, how well does the key fit in a lock; and two, if it fits, what are the chances it come in contact with the lock?

Furniture in a Box

Assembling furniture from a box is an interesting concept, the opposite end of the spectrum from antiques. Maybe even the antithesis. It’s like semi-disposable, since it can’t take the stresses beyond normal wear and tear. I guess its fine to use if you don’t move frequently – probably more like, don’t move at all. For instance, the dresser I am using was purchased in ‘80 or ‘81, an unfinished set my husband and I purchased just after we were married to fit into the house we had just bought. It has seen innumerable moves between us, and then later my daughter who acquired the set piecewise as I replaced it with a heavy Kincaid set. It is disassembling itself piece at a time – but the drawers still slide just fine. The Kincaid set is languishing in storage in northern Idaho at the moment. I’m told the snow has been too frequent and heavy for me to even get to it were I ready to. For now, it’s not like it would fit into the back of the Jimmy. And, of course, the boxed stuff did, which brings me back to topic of “assembly”…

Part of the instructions on the dresser I just put together included a brace to anchor it to the wall. Since it was for my mom to use, and I couldn’t imagine earthquakes in Kansas or her climbing on top of it, I opted out. But while on the phone with a friend, she decided to move it to a new location, and before I could get there to help, she had walked it across the room, and now the drawer slides on the bottom drawer need realignment to make it close properly. I imagine I will go a step or two further and re-engineer it to prevent future issues. And of course, my mind went back to the possible reasons for that anchor brace that I may have missed initially…

Next comes the vanity, with mirror and stool. And next week the kitchen trio with stools and drawers arrives….

Packing...

Packing is a lot like taking an inventory. As you work thru each closet, drawer, and back cabinet – you come across something that makes you pause. A memory, a goal, a project, a relationship suddenly confronts you as you hold that thing you’ve rediscovered. Then the “whys” start, or the “what now’s”. What was I thinking? Is it really something I want to keep, or a realistic part of my life?

I collected along the way, especially during the years I worked full time, each item with the idea of “when I retire”. Then during the school years, I was forced to just keep relocating things and collecting materials for my new reality of my studies. Then the physical limits I had fought against for so many years began to drain my energy and my optimism. So avoidance set in. And in this most recent phase I’m finishing, I tried to do it all. The home projects, sewing, canning, chickens, gardening, and growing a business I thought I already knew. The lessons of the business I will leave for later. The one I’ll share now is that what I thought I did and was has continuously had to be redefined.

But the other part of all this is an evaluation of how much of what I kept and planned was a function of the life I lived then. I have been single for many years, and I somehow saw that as unfettered. But all these things around me are the pieces and parts of living in the middle of a family and community that are scattered. They are things I did for those connections, not for the love of the thing. The cake decorating stuff was for them, not just the love of decorating. The crochet was for the love of doing it, and I could easily be buried alive under scarves, hats, afghans & baby blankets.

Anything to do with color fascinates me, but I’m not up to painting walls any more. Canning is practical, and I am good at it, but it is tedious if not done with a group. Canning for one or two people needs a re-assessment of how to approach it.

What I love most about sewing is the personality it expresses in the clothes I wear. But in a community where jeans are the standard, and overweight with no requirement for dress drains all inspiration. So I discover a basic lack of self-esteem in my appearance. Another thing I now understand I need to include in my life.

That carousel horse project was a lark, and it is better moved into the stream that will take it to a new owner. Most furniture comes and goes, a few special pieces and the practical basics are all that I need. But spare bedrooms ready in a house no one visits seems to represent the side road I wandered into more clearly than any other. I don’t do well with the state of waiting. And I’ve spent a number of years now just waiting.

I remember thinking that if I stabilized my income at a level where I could afford to visit often; it would all balance out. But that simply is not who I am. The visits always left me feeling more unanchored.

Cancers love home and family. I have no home, and my family is elsewhere. The home arts I love need to be shared.

I’m not ready to retire – I still have years to add to my professional accomplishments – albeit at a much less frenzied pace.

I have physical limitations – but I’m not sure that hiring someone to do what I love is the correct approach for me. It would be better to share wisdom with others than to feel the exclusion while watching someone else do what I love for me. The love is in the doing, not the having.

Family gatherings where we all cook are more the reality for me today than kicking everyone out and dazzling them with the final product – produced alone, outside the family activities.

I may be single, but I am not a hermit. My days of shunning myself are over.

Finding a new friend

There is a quote by Bill Wilson to the effect that if we look before we leap from a position of fear, its better to have not looked at all.

So much of what happens to us each day gets "rewritten" in the telling inside our heads; re-interpreted by our internal story-teller. That story-teller protects itself from being challenged by twisting everything that it "sees" into simply more proof of its perspective. To live differently is simply to change the story, or belief, or filter we see life with. The even stranger part about it all is that we then cling to that old belief out of fear of what else might replace it. We even tell it to others around us until they believe it too.

Finally, the most tragic part about the traumas we experience in our lives is that we lock ourselves into reliving them. We continue to damage ourselves, carrying that experience deep within us, re-interpreting everything by that "fear filter". The very person we need most to love us - ourselves - continues to re-inflict that original damage.

So my goal for this day is to find a new friend in myself that will cheer me on and give me comfort. From that place I can express the goodness I am rather than the pain I've felt.

Befriend yourself with the best you have, and let go of the fear. It's only a story.

"Muchness"

Often my friends & family tease me about my time on the computer. For a person who’s favorite thing in the world is asking why, Google has become addictive. They say the secret to aging well is an active mind, so chances are good I’ll be here for a good long while. Any question that comes up leads me to new ideas and new information.

After watching the newest Alice in Wonderland movie, a friend shared an article with me about “muchness” – in short, finding a way to connect to the energy and person we were as a child. Whenever that discussion comes up, I immediately find myself looking down from my favorite branches over the valley I lived in, wondering through the jungle of my grandmother’s yard, or playing on the stretch of dirt in front of her house building dams and rivers to manage the rainwater as it came down the street. It reminds of three things: I was always alone, I was always outdoors, and I was always cataloguing and testing nature to see how it reacted.

Makes sense out of the reason I chose a field project for my PhD, why the greenhouse was my solace in school, and why my favorite companions these days are my dogs and my chickens. I like people, but to invest the energy of discovery in a person that I do in “dam building” is losing endeavor. Have you ever heard the hum of the tall grasses? All living things emit a constant sound.

There is a trick to interpreting Myers-Briggs results for the E/I (extrovert/introvert) preferences portion. Most people assume that the E refers to a love of people and crowds. But it does not. It is a measure of how you are stimulated – externally, by things happening around you; or internally, by mental or emotional self-processing. So, a person who loves to be outdoors, for instance, would rate higher on the E scale, although most of that might be quite solitary. The wind, smells, sounds, temperature, touch are all external stimuli. But their greatest effect would be lost if there were lots of other people around. Groups are very seldom, by their very nature, quiet or non-stimulating. However, the “ I” person may never even know whether they are outdoors or in, because the rich journey into their imagination may very easily exclude everything around them.

Hens in the laundry room..

It was really cold out last night, the water for the chickens was freezing a foot below the heat lamp. They had to be moved. The only place to keep them was the laundry room, and I kept the lights off to keep them calm. They were roosting quietly the last time I checked. Then I heard a great ruckus, and a thump. When I got there, one of them had laid an egg while on the freezer, fallen - egg and all- and all five of them were chasing the broken egg around the floor as it skidded to and fro.

Hope it warms up very soon....