restingmotion

Let the rain wash me clean

Last night I ate an early dinner at my desk, pardon the less than glamorous photo.

I had a few leftover bits that were combined to make enough soup for two. I had two cups of vegetarian vegetable stock left over from a soup I took to a family from my church, a couple of cups of shredded cabbage, a bit of onion, the last of a batch of carnitas.  Combined they yielded something greater than the sum of its parts, and I was amazed at how the rich sweetness of the vegetable stock enhanced the cabbage and pork, adding a dimension that I would not have achieved with my normal default of either chicken stock, or what I call Stage 3 (chicken, beef, pork).   I had enough soup for dinner, and again for lunch today.

 

As I sit at my desk this afternoon, watching the rain through the window, thinking about the upcoming renovation project, thinking about sorting and storage and decisions about temporary housing and what will go where, my thoughts skitter about.  Last night, as I sat at this same desk, I was thinking I did not want to go out in the rain, even though I had been looking forward to the Pride Mass that was being held at Messiah Lutheran Church.  The rain slowed.  I did go out.  The issue was never really about the rain.

 

Once upon a time I would have scoffed at people who did not go out in the rain, and yet there I was.  Admittedly my reluctance was more about walking from my house to my garage than it was to driving in the rain, or even about walking from the car into church building.  What was with that?  I wasn't worried about being in the rain.  Perhaps I just wanted to stay safe in my little cocoon.  Perhaps that is what this is all about.  I've lived here a year, the detached garage has not really been a problem. Perhaps I am just pulling inward a little, holding back,  tentatively slipping a new period of liminality, but I'm not sure even of that.

 

You know what?  It is ok to be uncertain.  Certainty is highly overrated.  I suspect it only leads to trouble.

 

So, when I bought this house I knew it would need some renovations.  In my head, I had a three-stage plan.  Stage 1 included the laundry room in the basement and was completed before I moved it.  Then, not at all surprisingly, things proved to be not as simple as hoped and my plans got turned upside down.  At one point I grew frustrated with architects and decided I would do nothing.  I'd buy a new stove and a refrigerator, I'd buy a small rancher somewhere nearby, and I would separate my living space and my working space, my house and my studio.  It would cost less, be less of a headache, and I could just move on with life.

 

Somehow, it didn't turn out that way.  Once I freed myself from expectation, I was free to insist on vision.  I was ready to dream again, knowing full well I could back out at any moment, and I was ready to move ahead on my own terms.  But two stages got merged into one.  We were going to bump out the kitchen, redo the bathrooms, get a master closet, and rebuild the garage with a studio above it and a lovely connector from the main house to the new garage/studio. I loved the plan, loved the vision, it was everything I wanted.   Until it came time to make it a reality.  

 

What actually happened is that I realized it was too ambitious a project for me, for me alone.  Oh I know I'm not the architect or the builder, but I still have to imagine the space, to live in the space and I am a person who can only focus on so much at a time.  Houses, spaces, these are like relationships to me, they need to grow slowly, to evolve, as I and the relationships of my life evolve.  I am not a person who can "do" a house or even a room.  Heck, I can't even buy, or make, or plan on more than about 3 items of clothing at a time.  I don't know if it is that my imagination is not broad enough, or that I focus too closely on each bit, that I need to absorb it into my life before I can open up to something else.  I know, and it has taken me a lifetime to learn this, that if I do too much, I make mistakes.  I realized that although I loved the plan in the abstract, my mind had hit a wall.  I could only image the new house up to one point, and the garage studio and the connector were beyond my ken.  I felt like I was putting the cart before the horse.  

 

It is still a big job.  But I will have the kitchen I want.  The house will be as beautiful as I imagined it, although perhaps not exactly as I originally imagined it.  That is good.  Life evolves.  The garage remains a separate entity.  Now that I have accepted that. I am perfectly happy going out in the rain or the snow.  And I can still have a stage 3 someday; I probably will have a stage 3 someday, when I am ready.  Now I am actually looking forward to that potential of another stage, another project, another upset.  But at least I won't have to move out for that stage.

 

No I don't really like change.  No I don't really want to move yet again.  But if I don't go, if I don't take the chance, those dreams will die, and what is the point of that?  If I am afraid to follow my dreams, then I am afraid to honor myself.  How can I live that way? And if I can't love my own dreams and fight for them, how can I love others and fight for them.  Perhaps I'm ready to slip into that doorway after all.

 

Don't ask me how this all fits together, that is way beyond my ken.

 

Yes, I went to the Pride Mass. It was beautiful and filled with warmth and love.  If we can't love where are we?  And that made me think that love and change go hand in hand.  It made me think about how love fights to banish fear.  I heard it last night --  God did not give us fear.  God gave us love.  -- And I know that certainty, that holding on to something because it is familiar,  is simply fear in disguise. As Frank Herbert wrote in Dune "Fear is the mind-killer".  I wish that the rain could wash away all our fears. 

 

So let the thunder roll.  Let the rain fall and the bare ground go to mud.  And lthen let the new seeds sprout and the world become new. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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.

 

King Of All He Surveys

Moises is two for two this week.

First he chased the big mean deer out of the yard:

I saw the two young deer in my yard early Sunday morning.  Apologies to those of you who saw the photo on Instagram.  I watched them a few moments and, as the front deer wandered a little too far forward for me to capture with my camera, I saw him freeze in a position of guarded wariness.  It took me a moment to find the cause of his distress, but then I saw Moises, crouched in stalking position probably about 15 feet ahead of the deer.

 

I watched a moment and returned to my desk and my journaling only to notice a few minutes later, about 6 minutes, when I consulted my watch that although one young deer had happily retreated to the back of the lawn to munch on some tender leaves, the first deer was still standing, frozen, in more of less the same position.  I rose to watch.  The deer would throw his ears back, stamp his feet, and then freeze again, alert and nervous.  Moises had crept a bit forward but was still out of range of stamping feet.  At the stamping he would freeze, then arch his back, then slink down into hunt position, occasionally slinking forward, on the alert, on the prowl.  This continued for several more minutes, I reckon about 10 overall.  I was surprised it went on so long, but Moises has always been the most focused cat I have ever owned, at least when it comes to the hunt.

 

Eventually the other deer, the one happily enjoying a bit of breakfast, became startled and went crashing through the woods, distracting Moises' opponent, who leapt in the air and followed his companion down the hill.  Moises relaxed, rose, and sauntered, cockily, back to the front of the house.

 

Second:

On Monday Moises had another small adventure.  He was sunning himself on the front step in the mid afternoon heat, when he saw a couple of young political campaign volunteers canvasing the neighborhood.  Seeing the enemy advancing on the front line, Moises assumed a stealth position beneath a hydrangea outside the font door.  The young man came up the steps and knocked on the door.  Moises, probably seeing me come down the stairs, came up behind the planter on the porch and leapt up into the fern, in what is usually his entrance position, thereby startling the young man.  As I opened the door, the young man was fleeing down the steps.    Seeing that the gray blur that rustled the plants was merely a cat, we had a good laugh and he continued on his way.  The enemy having been vanquished, Moises calmly reclaimed his position in the sun -- the master surveying his kingdom.

 

Saturday afternoon

Everything is dry and I am putting the house back to rights today.  The shelf on the basement may still get wet or damp, at least until the gutter people get back here to fix the issue, but I am not worried.  I am extremely fortunate.  There was little actual damage, mostly just annoyance, and I can accept that other jobs have higher priority.

Of course, being me, I cannot simply put everything back where it belongs without also taking the opportunity to sort through things, eliminating the unnecessary,  and perhaps noting any lacks that need to be filled.  Winnowing, curating, refining, organizing -- these seem to be lifelong habits.  I suspect the job will take me the bulk of the weekend.

 

The yard also needs some curating and eliminating of weeds, but my patience with internal chaos has reached the tipping point, and the flowers are enough to distract me in the yard.   For now.

 

Have a lovely weekend, and whatever you are doing, please take time to enjoy any small outcroppings of beauty as you find them.