Thanksgiving

Every once in awhile I go through that little ritual of counting my blessings. Usually it's a reality check, a way of acknowledging that things aren't as sucky as they feel. But somehow, I can't experience gratitude, neat. I find myself qualifying my gratitude, saying things like, "I'm grateful that I have my health......sorta." And then I think about all the things that ail me, trying to convince myself that those are minor problems, and basically I'm in good health because I can still climb Chimney Rock at Ghost Ranch, or go hiking in the Sandias with G and P. Doubtless it is true, that I am basically healthy. But it's not all the truth, and I need to acknowledge the yin in the yang and the yang in the yin, right? Isn't part of living in the moment recognizing all aspects of the moment?

And so it goes, with all my causes for gratitude.  My family?  too far away.  My friends?  ditto.  My capacity for joy?  drowned in exhaustion.  My capacity for productivity and creativity?  ditto.  The gratitude in my heart is silenced or diminished by the carping of my inner critic, and all I can do is whine, "what am I doing with my one beautiful life?"

My more robust companions will have none of this.  Some try to bolster, some speak sternly, some send hugs, virtual and real.  None of them say, "you're being boring," for which I am....grateful.

Sometimes I listen to my friends, and sometimes I listen to myself. A few weeks ago I had the amazing experience of listening to my heart through the agency of another human. My friend M's friend L is a dowser, and she spent 2 hours with me, talking, dowsing and clearing. Afterwards, I felt....light. I went to the clay studio and played on the wheel, producing an off-center vase, with thick lower walls and thin curvy rim. I took one side of the upper excess and curled it down, attaching the edge to the container and creating a handle. The opposite side was transformed into a spout, and the lopsided vase became a lopsided pitcher. In the ensuing week, as the mass of dark grey dried to leather-hard greenware, I trimmed and smoothed and carved. The resulting imperfection is actually rather interesting, but that is not the point. The point is the process, experiencing the transformation. I don't say I guided the process, nor did I control it. Again, that was not the point. I experienced it. I gave my inner critic a much-needed vacation.

There is a cult of excellence in our society. One's productions  must approach perfection as closely as possible. People must be beautiful, writing must be expressive, pots must be balanced, bodies must be taut and muscular. In such a culture, it is difficult to be grateful, for how can one rejoice in the imperfect? And yet, I do, and I must. Otherwise, what is the point of creating. And, if you are constantly judging your work by an unreachable standard, how can you live in the moment, how can you enjoy your life, how can you be anything but exhausted?

L's take on my constant exhaustion and nausea is that my heart wants to be free and my soul wants to connect, and my body is expressing how much both hate where I am right now. Yes, my head says, it's beautiful here, the job is good, and so is the financial reward: I should be content. But my heart says "get me out of here!"

So, we asked questions and the pendulum answered yes/no. Some of the questions were directed to the body: am I taking care of it properly? Yes. Do I have a diabetes? No. Most of the questions were directed to my heart, And, according to that guide, it seems pretty clear that I need to get rid of my possessions (even more than I have) and go out and explore, and I need to do it sooner rather than later. Apparently my heart does not want me to move back to Portland or Albuquerque or Wit's End, but it does want me to bring my violin along with me on this soul's journey. It doesn't want me to change my attitude towards my current situation, it wants me to move out and on. It wants me to trust it as I have trusted my brain all these years. I'm good at taking care of business, thinking things through, analyzing. Now I need to work with feeling. 

My first foray into that was most successful.  That day, when I got home from the studio, still feeling light from the session with L and the session with clay, I split some kindling and built a fire and posted the following haiku:

Content to be home

Lying by a crackling fire.

Who will make dinner?

A few moments later, I received a phone call from S, who said: "We will make dinner!" They were in Taos, and I met them at Kyote Club. The Universe responded splendidly.  Ask and ye shall receive.

Still, I'm not clear about my choices here.  I teared up during some of the discussion, and part of it was knowing that my friends and family will be worrying about me if I take this journey.( Not that they don't worry about me already.) My head wants me to wait for a few years to build up more retirement,  But it also says, what's the point of having an extra thousand a month if I have to spend it on healthcare? After years of living with D and years of working a stressful job, my body and soul are both hurting. I don't think I can afford to abuse them any more.

Yet, I'm not sure that a change of attitude is not the solution. I do have so much gratitude in my heart, and my critical thinking brain cannot always stop that. I am grateful for family, friends, health, talents, capacity for joy, capacity for productivity, material comforts, meaningful work, beauty in nature, beauty in art, beauty in people. Not necessarily in that order. I'm grateful for hearts and heads and souls.  And sometimes I am able to tap that gratitude, neat:

I spent much of Thanksgiving Day worrying about my niece.  Her labor had begun the day before, and as the hours wound on on the contractions weakened, and the medications came and went, and the baby reacted negatively to the whole process.  I wanted to be there, because of course if you are there, things will be okay. Finally, they decided on the C section, and my sister sent us the word:  I have a grand niece.  And there was no inner critic to say anything about it.  I felt light, happy, and intensely grateful.

I am grateful for

A great end to a long wait.

Welcome, Abigail!

CDC

I just spent 10 days away from the cooperative, visiting the boyfriends, rehearsing, and playing 2 concerts. I also attended the Tedeschi-Trucks Band concert with G, and visited El Malpais, the VLA, Pie Town, the Museum of Nuclear History, and the Rattlesnake Museum in ABQ Old Town with M and S. I hiked the Sandia Crest twice. I had a fabulous time.

I can't say the same for the folks at the cooperative. While I was gone, E's caregiver/niece discovered a big mouse infestation. In my defense, I think the signs became obvious right before I left: I told her I'd heard mice and explained our trap system (a jug of water, desert mice are drawn to dive in and drown). I had heard the mice, but not seen them or their leavings, so I had not done anything else about them.

Anyway, she went into huge overdrive: there was apparently a nest of newborns, and there were holes in the roof and, and, and... She used to be involved in infectious disease stuff (had a PhD and worked in a lab), so she has been following an extremely careful CDC protocol and cleaning every day. EVERYTHING has been moved and disinfected, except for a pile of brooms and containers in the bathroom, and the things under furniture in my room. Those, and the myriad numbers of books will wait until the last mouse sign is gone. C arranged for foam blocks in the Epod and the Casita (which also has a mouse problem.)

I was sick all last week with nausea, fatigue, and aches, and I missed E's 99th birthday party. I was advised that those are symptoms of hantavirus, which has a 38% of being fatal. Never mind that the mice for hantavirus are deer mice, not field mice, and that you need to have contact with fresh feces, and E was not showing any symptoms. I bowed to the panic and went to the doctor on the Monday I returned: No, I do not have the hantavirus. My symptoms are probably due to stomach flu and reaction to the bodywork I'm having done for last month's whiplash..

After I went to the doctor, I gave J a break and spent the afternoon with a tub of diluted 1:10 Clorox, doing battle with mouse turds. Most uninspiring. Then, I sent a message to my boss, regarding schedules and the possibility of getting a piano for Esther.

She wrote back that we need to connect on her next visit and clarify things, and she is not happy with the idea of having a piano in her house: no room, and E wouldn't use it anyway.

So now I am going into paranoia mode. I think she is thinking that I am getting paid too much for my work, since I'm gone for a week every month, and have subs for two overnights and one afternoon a week.  Of course, we had agreed to that back in January, so....is she perhaps wanting to change the terms of our agreement?  Or perhaps she is reacting to the hysteria regarding the mice? Whichever, it is not an acceptable attitude. I am a live-in caregiver, and I am here 24/7. My current rate of pay is barely $100/day. July was an anomaly: I had 17 days off (only two of which were covered by paid backup) and two 5-hour afternoons. That means, in July I worked 393 hours. At the going rate of $18/hr, that would be $7074. I'm getting $2100 a month, which translates into $5.35/hr last month, plus room and board.

Whatever, I'm cheap. And I am good at it. E and I love each other, and I do my best to shoulder my share of the co-op work, even though I'm not a member.

Probably this defense is not necessary. My boss is probably wanting to get another sub and hammer out the time off so she can budget for it. The real issue, of course, is that I'm thinking of the future. E just turned 99, and she is not happy here, and her memory and health will probably deteriorate. I'm only 55: What do I want to do for the next ten years before I retire? I actually spent the last few days of my recent vacation thinking about this. The mouse hysteria and my boss's message were just the tipping point.

I guess I feel like I'm ready to go back into the real world. I've been doing this since mid-September, so I'm close to the one year mark. I think that I could actually do this for a living, but then again, I can't expect to find other clients as wonderful as E. However, if I did this more formally, I would have much more freedom. Here, I'm responsible for scheduling my backup, and I don't have a real weekend: my weekends are 48 hours, not two days with the night before and the morning after, like most weekends. If I were working for an agency, like my friend C's, I would be making $15-20/hr, and if I were working a 24/hour shift, I'd be working a 3 day work week.

I'd need to get some EMT training, though. E is easy: she has short term memory loss, some hearing issues, and some physical frailty, but I don't need to administer meds or take her to the toilet or give her baths or any of that sort of thing. I'm just here, keeping her company and picking her up if she falls, making meals, and monitoring things.

I'm thinking out loud here...do I want to do this much longer? Do I want to go back to library work? Do I want to stay in New Mexico? The last few days have proven to me that I still don't handle criticism well, so it's tough to figure out a job and a living situation that will suit my perfectionist, flawed, thin-skinned style.

I'm irritated
By implied criticism.
I don't have to be.