Sunday, June 30, 2013

Hot enough for you?

Yesterday a dear friend told me that her father tracks the weather around the world, and New Mexico is apparently quite hot.  Er, yes.  This is going to be a record-breaking drought year, following several drought years. Behaviors align with this fact.  People get pruny-mouthed about lawns and sidewalk watering.   They track broken public sprinklers and call 311 at the drop of a water leak. The Rio Grande is a braid of thin curving water slivers, surrounded by cottonwoods with tightly furled leaves.  Cacti are not flowering, and bears are coming out of the trees to raid hummingbird feeders.  Texas water rights are suing Albuquerque for over-consumption.  The forests are closed due to fire danger.  People go around saying, "We might as well be in Arizona."   (Arizona is the New Mexico's standard for hell.)  Customers refuse to leave the library at closing time.

But, it's not uncomfortable to me.  I have a noisy swamp cooler that kicks in at 80 degrees, and that's sufficient for me.  When I am standing at the door, unlocking it,  I feel a cool breeze coming out of the bathroom window, which is cracked just enough to allow the cooler to work.  I'm not totally sure of the principles, but apparently the fan in the ceiling draws air past the water, which removes the heat from the air, and the air is drawn into and through the house by the draft/negative pressure of the open window.  Apparently, it's also possible to have a portable swamp cooler.  If it were humid, this process would apparently not work, and the most it cools is 10 degrees, so when we reach triple digits, it can be a problem.  Still, everything cools down at night (we are in a desert after all), which gives me a chance to keep the windows open and listen to the cats fighting with the cockroaches that roam the yard by night.

Having already lived through a New Mexico June, I thought the weather held no surprises for me.  I have listened to people whinge about wind storms and dusty houses and thought to myself, meh. Until last night.  I got off work at 6.  The skies had been darkening with clouds for the last hour, so I was thinking, yay, much needed rain. However, the clouds were not filled with water, but dust. I walked out into a whirlwind that got under my shirt and blew it upwards and whipped my hair around my face.  I looked towards the western horizon, and the sun was blotted out in a surreal bronze-white haze.  I looked east towards the Sandias, and they were a shadowy, barely visible outline, seen through an opaque screen of dust.  They looked like a denser cloud within a cloud.  Dirt whirled at my feet, and the trees were tossing, Katrina-like.  All that was missing was the rain.  As I drove to my date, I felt the wind pushing the car.  I saw dirt blowing across the road like snow on the Illinois prairie.  There is something very frightening about a storm that has no water, just wind.  It's intangibly powerful.

Today, all is calm, with twittering birds, hot sun, and a light breeze.  The Sandias are again visible, a hard slate-blue line marking the hot blue-white sky.  And there's still no rain.

Saturday, June 29, 2013

Doing what you love

Over a year ago I described a traumatic experience getting together with a cellist to play duets.  I didn't realize how much that had affected me until I started getting invitations to play trios and duets here in ABQ.  I  find myself totally downplaying my abilities ("I think I've forgotten how to play....I just play in the volunteer orchestra....I've been playing in semi-professional orchestras since I was 16 but I don't practice and haven't taken lessons in YEARS....I'm the weak link in family quartet....I usually hunker down in the back of the 2nd violin section in front of the drums....") in the hopes that they will still want me but will be pleasantly surprised instead of contemptuous when we finally sit down, instruments in hand.

The most recent get-together was a little less traumatic, as the invitation came from my stand partner in APO, and she's always very gracious about my playing.  But I was going to be meeting a new violinist, so I was still wary.  I knew it was foolish to be so timid, because M wouldn't be friends with a snippy person with attitude, but then again, I hadn't expected the trashing I received back in Portland, either.

And, I've been feeling disconnected, so meeting new people and scheduling events, even fun ones, has been an effort.  As I've said before, the game face is wearing thin, and I'm not much fun to be around.

The day started inauspiciously.  I'd been up until 2 am, so I skipped yoga, alternately waking and sleeping  from 6 to 10.  Then, I dragged myself to the weekly therapy.  I was tired and my affect was flat.  But eventually we got into it and I went into full weepy mode.  "I don't know what the problem is....I'm just tired, disconnected....I don't want to do anything...."  whinge whinge whinge.  I talked about my twenties and thirties, when I planned and saved for the future (because I'd feel so stupid if I reached retirement age after all with NO savings in place), but I also made sure I traveled and did interesting things while I was young, as the future was unknowable.  I said, now I don't need to plan for the future, why am I spending my precious life doing things that drag me down?

My therapist is an unusual woman.  When I said I just wanted to quit my job and house-sit for people, she said, "why not?"  Turns out, she spent much of her 20's doing just that, house-sitting, traveling, bartering.  I thought about my friend L, who has spent two years visiting "intentional communities," and is soon getting ready to hunker down and write about it.  That would not be my schtick, but as an inspiration and a resource, she can't be beat.  As soon as I got home, I dashed off a note:
Hi L, I'm in a low grade depression, and as I talked with my therapist, I realized that what I need to do is stop working a 9-6 job in a bureaucracy. I pondered what I want to do instead and I realized that I am half-way to becoming a gypsy like you: I don't have the savings to cover it, but I've jettisoned most of my possessions and am on the way to getting rid of the rest.
So I am writing for advice. How difficult is it to locate communities where you can work and live for a few months? How difficult is it to live out of your car or alone? What skills do I have to barter? etc etc.
Then I went to Applebees up on Montgomery to meet M and C for lunch, followed by violin trios at M's lovely house by the Sandia open space.  I was late, of course, and they were gracious, of course.  C seemed to be a cross between ML, my orchestra manager friend who sold me her bow and music when she got MS, and my friend S, who is co-owning my cat and can do ANYTHING.  She had short cropped hair and a tall thin frame and wide toothy smile like M, and a prominent jaw and sly eye-smile like S.

Turns out, she had the answer to the ant problem with my hummingbird feeder as well as lots of advice about house-sitting.  She spent two years in Chicago, living in fellow tennis players' homes and teaching.  Then she got tired of not having her OWN pictures on the wall.  (Note to self, be sure to store your art, not sell it.)

Word of mouth seems to be the name of the game. M has a friend who house-sits, solely through referrals, and that's how my therapist and C both functioned.  Of course, I don't have the network here, but I do have a network.

I was psyched!  from weepy to jubilant in one short hour.  Then we played violin trios, starting with the baroque and working our way to the classical period.  The parts were all on one page, and C had made up 3  booklets, one for each part, with highlighter to help the eye stay on track.  Since we are all 2nd violinists, we all wanted the 3rd part.  And, since the music was C's and the house was M's, I meekly took the 1st part for a few pieces.  Then we hit one with 32nd notes and I put my foot down.  From then on, we rotated booklets for each song.

I was facing the floor-to-ceiling windows, which showed the Sandias in the distance and the bird feeder in the foreground.  It was very distracting, and when the bunny appeared I had to stop and coo.  But we kept playing and playing and no one wanted to stop until I finally started stumbling over the simplest things.  And that was that.

We played for over 2 hours, and plan to do so again this week.

Then I checked my e-mail, and here was what L had to say:
Oh man, yes. "Low-grade depression" describes how I felt for most of my career.
Validation, followed by detailed and excellent blueprints for planning out a life as a nomad. I think I'm gonna do it.

Sunday, June 23, 2013

Good luck, Bad luck: who knows?

Today Angela led meditation at church.  She started out reminding us of the old story about the Chinese farmer who didn't believe in luck.  It all starts with a horse.  (It's always a horse.  Or a horseshoe nail...)  The farmer does all his work with that one horse, and one day the horse runs off.  The neighbors say "what bad luck!" and he replies, "Bad luck, Good luck, who knows?"  The horse returns with a herd of wild horses.  They neighbors say "what good luck!" and he replies, "Good luck, Bad luck, who knows?"  And on and on.  The son breaks his leg trying to tame one of the horses.  Then, the broken leg keeps the son from being conscripted into the army.  It can been an endless story, because, as in real life, there's no real punch line.  One can't judge an event, because the context is too fluid.  Even if you have the benefit of outside observers, they are also caught up in the here and now.  Good luck? Bad luck?  Good choice, Bad choice?  Who knows?  It takes the historian to make the judgment, and even that gets skewed by factors like who won the war.

I am reminded of the year I was getting to know D.  One of my dearest friends had a Come To Jesus lunch meeting with me.  She talked about the crazy choices she made after her husband died, and she wondered if my father's recent passing might have something to do with my attraction to D.  I said, well, in some ways, yes:  he has lost both parents and he understands what I am going through, and he is supporting me emotionally.  So, was I making a good choice or a bad one?  She clearly thought the latter.

Like the farmer, I didn't know.  I had no idea if my choices were insane or inevitable. Who knew?  I recognized the problems with the relationship, in fact I whined about them incessantly.  My poor long-suffering friends.  When I finally made the choice to marry D, it was clear that the choice was neither good nor bad: it was a recognition of a fait accompli.  In fact, I didn't really make the choice.  I suddenly came to the realization that he had been in my life for several years, and that we were talking about long term plans. This was clearly the man with whom I wanted to spend the rest of my life.

6 years later, I had an equally abrupt realization that it was over.

And now I'm pondering.  I think the outside observers (the neighbors) would say I'm having a good phase right now.  But I'm not so sure. I'm happier, and sadder.  I'm more self-sufficient, and more lonely.  I'm settled, and transient.  I'm inert, and restless. I'm still figuring out what I want to do in life.  Was leaving D good or bad?  Who knows? I'm hopeful it was good, but in the end, it doesn't really matter.  It's part of my story now, and it will influence my future in ways I cannot begin to foresee.

Meanwhile, I need to finish the meditation that Angela has started, to pay attention to what I am feeling, physically, mentally, emotionally.  To curl up around those feelings and breathe.  And then, to let them be.

Thursday, June 20, 2013

Bored Angels

T has a theory about Bored Angels. He says, don't attract the attention of a Bored Angel (by voicing fears or contentment:  the Angel will make the fears manifest and undermine the contentment.)  It's his version of  saying:  things are too good to be true, I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop, knock on wood. Nothing is to small for a Bored Angel's attention.  I remember worrying about snow during a drive, and it arrived the next day.  T texted me: "Thanks a lot, pal!"

T's theory is strongly allied to the Greek playwright's theme of hubris, the  excessive pride or arrogance or ambition, which led to the fall of all Greek heroes.  Basically the gods don't like mere mortals thinking they have any control over their lives;  so, just when you think you have it all figured out, WHAM! you are struck down.

Years ago a friend of Greek extraction told me that if I ever went to Athens, everyone would be spitting on me.  I said, why?  And she said, to keep bad fortune away from you:  you are so beautiful you would attract the attention of evil spirits otherwise.  (I was younger then, and she was kind.)  In fact, many cultures consider it bad luck to praise children....it even show's up in Kipling's Jungle Book stories.

I am so indoctrinated in this concept, that when I think things are going well, I start to get nervous.  A relationship feels solid?  He's getting ready to dump me.  Work is good?  There's muttering behind closed doors that does not bode well.  I'm happy?  Something miserable is just around the corner.

How much of this is self-fulfilling prophecy, I do not know.  I am aware of the Power of Positive Thinking:  a psychologist friend shared research about optimistic people and pessimistic people.  The latter were grounded in reality, but the former MADE their reality.  M talks to the Universe about every little thing, and the Universe invariably responds helpfully.  But I've never had the confidence or the connection with the Universe (or the Bored Angels or the gods.)  I usually just wait to be struck down.

That being the case, I have no explanation for what just happened.  I had been feeling disconnected, unloved and unlovable.  Not in a grief-stricken way, but in a distant floating sort of way:  my mind and body separated from my emotions.  This went on for several days.  I wore my game face and went through my routine, waiting for it to go away.  Finally, today I sat down and blogged about it.

And then I went about my day, tired but steady.  Doing what I needed to do.  Around closing time I got a text:  "got plans for supper?"  I wrote back "rehearsal 7-8:30."  I didn't say I was strongly considering ditching rehearsal, I was so exhausted.  The reply:  "come over for dinner and then go to rehearsal."  And I did.

Dinner was pleasant, rehearsal was desperately needed (new space, the addition of the band and soloist), and I found myself looking through the new windows at the growing moon and realizing.....I'm happy.  Then I spoke to A, who is going through a bad patch and needed a good hug, which I provided.  She said, "you're such a warm person."  And I was filled with gratitude that my presence mattered.

So the question is:  what sort of entity did my whiny blog attract?  A Bored Angel who was feeling contrary? A compassionate Universe?

Not that I'm complaining.  (Or bragging.)

Bell Jar times

I was reading a new book, The Man in the Empty Suit.  In it, the protagonist/narrator is a time traveler who returns to the same dissolving hotel in the same empty city every year to celebrate his birthday with his former and future selves.  The Youngsters and Oldsters are in a perpetual game to learn the future and protect the past, and none of them like where they've been and where they are going.  It's funny, and I hope the author's attempt to play with paradoxes doesn't get too annoying.  But that's not what I want to write about....

In one toss-off comment about the future, he refers to spending time with "sad and lovely Sylvia."  Plath, of course.  Serendipitously, she is mentioned in another new book I am reading, Forty-one False Starts, a book of essays about artists and writers (very fun to read, btw.  I got sucked in by the essay entitled "Salinger's cigarettes" and stayed for the rest.)

So, when I was looking in my brain for a metaphor for my current emotions, I thought of The Bell Jar. Of course, that was Plath's metaphor for madness, but I don't have to descend that deeply to resonate to it.  The sense of being cut off from the world around you, observing but unconnected, numb and alone, surrounded by stale uncirculating air....that still fits.  Another metaphor that fits is Christopher Isherwood's, "I am a camera with its shutter open, quite passive, recording, not thinking."  Except, he plans to take all these images and DO something with them.  Develop them, fix them.

The images work, but I'm neither mad nor creative.  I'm....disconnected.  For example, I was driving to work yesterday after visiting my bank, and I took a wrong turning.  I found myself going west for a few blocks, then making a break south for the Lead/Coal Corridor, only to be stuck in the dead-end maze of the University.  Circle back, go west a few more blocks, go south, get mazed.  And on and on, for a good 20 minutes.  A normal person would either be annoyed or pull over to check a map.  Or both.

I continued my dysfunctional process, watching the cars, the wind-blown trees, the dusty horizon.  Feeling the sun heating the air around the car while the a/c blew cool on my arms. Listening to the rock on the radio, sometimes even singing along.  I was aware of everything, but none of it was reaching my thinking, feeling, functioning brain.  It was all sensory input that seemed to have no connection with the person inside.  In fact, I wasn't sure there was a person inside.  The mere act of noticing the disconnect does not a person make.

It's an old problem.  Be here now, check.  Move forward, check.  Live authentically, check.  But how?  Rambling about my feelings doesn't make them real.  Scheduling things with friends doesn't make me connected to anyone.  Learning and doing new things doesn't add up to a life.

I think about my relationships.  I have left the friends who know and accept me for the flawed, annoying person I am.  It is easy to call them, to do things with them, to not do things with them.  It's comfortable.  There's no implied rejection, no feeling that I am importuning them.  That is not the case with the nascent relationships here, all less than a year old.  I am not important to any of these people;  if I moved tomorrow they would not care.  I initiate activities, and feel like they are just humoring me:  they don't reciprocate, they just go along.  Of course, that's not totally true:  just yesterday I received 4 invitations to do things in the upcoming week.  But it's what I feel.  The ease of familiarity is lacking.  I'm still feeling them out, still not sure they want me around, still not comfortably connected.  I can't expect otherwise, of course. One year is not time enough for those bonds to form, especially when I'm going through traumatic change and am buried in my sorry self.  Who wants to be around that?  Not me.

When I married D,  I vowed to delight in his quirks.  Subtext, he'd damned well better delight in mine.  He didn't and most people don't.  Except, maybe, family.  After my father's passing, I wrote a paean of loss.  That tribute has disappeared (where?  on a thumb drive or CD back in Portland?), but I remember one sentence clearly, "I will never again have a person in my life who delights in me so wholeheartedly."

On Father's Day I found myself reading Dad's old WWII journal from his time on the USS Navarro.  My sister E had transcribed it years ago.  It was full of one-sentence entries, cryptic abbreviations, and repetition.  "Listened to Radio Tokyo.  Japs in the hills.  Still in harbor.  Went to the canteen for ice cream and coke."  But, laconic as the journal was, I heard my Dad's voice.  He never wrote long letters, and they were mainly a series of bald statements:  no description, no commentary.  And somehow, they were interesting, probably because Dad was interesting, and whatever he chose to mention was worth paying attention to.  You don't need to prattle on endlessly to make your point...a lesson I have yet to put to use.

I miss sharing my life with him, I miss having a life worth sharing.  And I'm tired of that friggin' bell jar.

Saturday, June 8, 2013

Wildflowers

On June 10, the forests will be closed.  I'm not sure how that works:  cops at the trailheads?  chains across roads?  roving park rangers writing tickets?  But what it means for me is that my Sandia hikes will contract to strolls through the open spaces.  This makes me sad;  I've come to depend on my weekly hikes with G.  Since I moved here I've considered the Sandias "my" mountains.  They hover to the east, watching over me, appearance varying with light, cloud patterns, and vegetation change.  Since I met G, I've explored front, back, side, arroyos and heights.  I'm vested.

Last Sunday we went to the back half to hike the 10K trail.  G's work and games buddy K joined us.  When I arrived at G's, they were huddled around the table, looking over the expansion for King of Tokyo, the new game of choice.  K is a tall medium build 30-ish man with a chin strap beard, quizzical eyes, and baseball cap.  Laconic but not off-putting.  He continued to focus on the game while I changed into walking shoes.  I was so proud that I had remembered hat and water bottles, but G brought out his spare camelback, complete with iced water.

He takes such good care of me.

En route, we were listening to Beck, a new experience for me.  I am so unhip.  About halfway up the Sandia Peak road, I said, "This is dangerously close to rap."  And that's all I'll say about Beck.  G was driving, so I was not about to kvetch about the music that kept him focused and happy.

The 10K trail doubles as a cross-country ski trail in winter, so the trees were marked with blue diamonds, 12 feet up.  It's a deceptively simple trail, paralleling the road for a bit and then circling the mountain to the east, going up and down, so the net elevation gain was minimal.  G picked it because we would be in trees for most of the hike, and thus cooler.  The promised reward was a nice overlook.

Within 5 minutes I discovered a bonus reward:  wildflowers!
 


I didn't just use the flowers as an excuse to get my breath back and reduce my cardio rate, but they sure helped.  I recognized violets and columbine and G identified the clematis, but the rest need to be researched.  Maybe.
Meanwhile, the trail went up, the trail went down.  I absorbed the dusty smell of the trail, the spicy smell of the pines, the clicking, trilling, melodic calls of birds.  K was forging ahead, not fast, but faster than I.  G kept waiting for me, and I kept saying, I'll catch you up.  At every stop I sucked on the camelback nozzle, hyperventilating while my heart pounded in my throat.  Note to self:  wait until you get your breath back before drinking.  I was a slow learner.

We entered into a tree graveyard, fallen grey logs covering the ground between trees:  they took up so much space there was no room for much undergrowth.  I was reminded of the tree graveyard above V's house on Cascade Head:  different vegetation, but the same sense of age and destruction.  Whenever I hiked the trail behind her house, I always looked for the huge silvery snag standing out in the woods, about 2 miles up the trail.  I never hiked to it, it was off the trail. It was a landmark. It had another tree growing in the thick moss of an out-flung branch, which was big enough to be its own trunk.  The nursing tree was at least 12 feet tall, it's host probably 50.  One day, I realized the snag was gone.  We clambered through the forest, to find it sprawled on the ground, stretching out endlessly amidst a silver-grey landscape of fallen trees.  Windstorm.

This Sandia tree graveyard was the result of bark beetle and some other parasite, the name of which escapes me.


Shortly past that, I said, "That would appear to be a woodpecker."  G and I stopped to listen and watch.  Rat-a-tat-a-tat, the rapid drilling sound echoed through the trees, the light filtered down, but we never saw the bird.  It was there when we came back, but again, hidden in the treetops.  

There were the obligatory dog sightings, my favorite being the stag hound.  I've heard of them, but never seen one.  It was like a greyhound in shape and size, but the fur was rough and reddish.  It looked like a stag.  I would love to see it run.

A half mile from the peak, we entered upon a relentless uphill.   I clambered over rocks, I paused at each little leveling out, each little turn (you couldn't call them switchbacks).  At one point there was a meadow with scattered aspen, blue irises at their feet.  That was good for a 2-minute photo op.  Then I saw some more clematis, this time seemingly growing out of a fern.  I commented on it, and G said, "You know, it's a vine."  I said, "duh, for a smart woman I say stupid things." He declined the gambit.
I remember a hike years ago with my brother and my Dad.  I must have been in my thirties, Dad recently retired.  He and Mom came for the annual summer visit and my brother took us to a favorite trail in the Gorge.  Mom stayed at the car, but Dad was a trouper and, with the promise of an extravagant waterfall just half a mile up, started out with us.  The switchbacks came with inexorable regularity.  Because of the dense undergrowth, you didn't know what was around the corner until you got there.  Trudging up, you hoped in vain that at this one there would be the end, or at least a leveling off.  Instead, the trail stretched upwards to another switchback.  I still remember Dad gasping at each turn, "Oh my god."  I can't remember if the waterfall was worth the trek.

I was channeling him on this last bit.  Except my gasps were wordless, a long hoarse sigh, starting high, ending low.

G promised me a jaw-dropping vista of aspen in their new green, and that, plus pride kept me going.  And the overlook was totally worth it. We looked to the west:  while we couldn't see the plumes of the forest fire, we could not see much on the horizon but haze.  But the aspen were lovely, and we looked at nautilus style fossils in the rocks and munched on nuts.

 

G turned on his GPS for the return trip:  over 5 miles all told.

We're going out again tomorrow, and that'll be it for the season.  But next year I'll go to the Pecos meadows and really see some wildflowers.

Saturday, June 1, 2013

"In 6 months you won't recognize yourself...."

This is a time of stock-taking.  I just had a birthday, and I'm starting my 55th year. I could conceivably retire at the end of it.  And there are other landmarks.... A year ago I had just left Portland and was starting a new job in a new place. 6 months ago I had just left D and was starting a new life in a new home.  At that nadir, T told me "In 6 months you won't recognize yourself."  He meant to be encouraging, of course, but since I couldn't believe it, it just gave me another yardstick for failure.  "Oh shit, in 6 months I have to be all better?!  I'll never manage it."

So, here I am, 6 months later, 1 year later, 10 years later (since I met D), 54 years later....and where am I?

From T's perspective, he was absolutely right. I am light years away from that self.  I am paying off debts and I've simplified my life. I'm taking care of business, I've started saving money.  I'm losing weight, I'm gaining health and energy and friends.  I'm no longer sobbing at random moments. I don't fall apart when I have to deal with things.  I find myself singing and laughing and skipping on occasion.  I look forward to spending evenings alone.  While I still am not sleeping well, I'm no longer a danger to myself driving home late at night.  Yes, compared to my December self, I am not recognizable.

Compared to a year ago, the change is even more dramatic.  I've gone from a partially-employed married woman living in a 2-story farmhouse in Portland Oregon, to a fully-employed divorced woman living in a 350-square foot casita in Albuquerque, New Mexico.  In a year's time I've moved into 4 different homes.  I've traveled through 7 states.  I've gone on 5 weekend or week-long trips. I've gone on too many day trips to count.  I've hosted 3 guests. I've learned a new job and system and I've worked on one 6-month project (in 17 branches) and managed 2 branches.  I've joined one orchestra and one choir. I've volunteered at the Balloon Fiesta.  I've hiked 7 trails in the Sandias and 3 in the Petroglyph National Monument, and 3 in the Bosque.  I've made 15 friends to do things with and many more friendly contacts.  To sum up, I've made a life here.

It's quite a list of change, mostly gains.  The losses?  Savings, pets, possessions, friends, and a marriage. Quick to say, but agonizingly long to feel those things dropping away, to realize that they were never coming back.  I've made a life here, but I am still grieving (oh how I'm grieving) the life I've given up.  One year ago I was living in my own home, with my husband and pets and friends and books and....10 years ago I met D and.... 31 years ago I graduated from college and moved from Illinois to Oregon. In each move, I added things.  I had a rich (even, as my friend E says, baroque) life.  This past year, it has all contracted.  From 30-year friendships to 6-month friendships.  From a houseful of stuff to a casita-ful.  From a staff of 30 to a staff of 4.  From 25-guest parties to single guests.  From a yard full of raspberry canes and a deck full of veggies and herbs to a single tomato plant.

So, here I am. taking stock.  The organizational me wants to figure out where I go from here.  The critical me wants to assess the change:  have I learned anything from this past year?  am I growing?  do I like the person I am right now?  do I like the life I'm living?  The whiny me wants to lament what I've lost, the optimistic me wants to glory in the accomplishments (hence all those numbers:  is it measurable?  doable? Hell yeah, and that makes it real, right?)

Last weekend I was walking the labyrinth at Ghost Ranch, thinking about the last time I was there with D and K and E.  E was limping with his horrible back problem.  I was thinking about my future:  trying to figure out what I was going to do if none of the interviews panned out.  D was delighting in being there with me and our friends.  Now I was alone, walking the familiar curves, looking at the red, ochre, yellow, and beige cliffs, with the bright blue sky behind, listening to the brake-squeal vocalizing of the burro (is that really a living creature?)  I found my throat tightening with tears.  I missed D.  I didn't know what wisdom I wanted to receive from this process.  I sat in the middle, waiting for something to come to me.  Instead, a group of women appeared, talking loudly, braying with laughter.  Two of them walked the labyrinth, the other two sat on the bench, whispering and giggling explosively.  I felt attacked:  I couldn't think, I couldn't enter into a quiet space, I couldn't let go.  When they left the tears spilled out and I gasped with the sobs I had been suppressing.

No, I'm not done with this grieving process.  6 months have passed, and I have a good and productive life, but it's not the life I want, and I'm still missing the life I had.

So, here I am.  And maybe that's enough for now.