A Friendly nudge

Good morning Maggie,

I have a big break in the middle of my schedule today.  The sun is up, and I am gazing across the privet bush outside my window - which is covered with a soft dusting of snow.

Sigh....


Winter will never end, I think.  The last of my garden seeds should arrive today.  I hope I can get out to the Amish store and pick up some compost and potting soil.  Starting plants will distract me, and remind me that I do believe in spring. Oh, I do, I do. Clap your hands with me, Maggie, let's bring spring back from the cold that is weighing it down!

If I get grumpy and negative when I get old, please slap me. Or maybe just use a Friendly nudge.  You met my older neighbor.   She is estranged from her family, and so we talk frequently.  She is a great gardener and canner and baker - and so we have interests in common.  But sometimes she starts complaining and it is too much to bear.  She'll go on and on, then stop and tell me she has learned so much about being positive and speaking to people politely and respectfully from me.  Really?  Sometimes I am just so tired...Sorry, for complaining! But, yeah, I understand your anxiety.

If I were closer, I would sit and sew buttons with you.  Simple, distracting work like that is almost meditative, trancelike - it allows my mind to wander into parts unknown.

I hope you refind the joy.

I was thinking about your comment that I have come to the same realization as you had last November...the key to health is being vulnerable.  When I read your posts, it made sense logically.  Now I am feeling hard and soft, viscerally.  I am seeing more and more that logic doesn't cut it. We have to feel.  It has to be something about being human. We must feel.

Looking for your posts, I saw my old one about the Alligator-Mama.  It struck me with delight, because it was a foreshadowing of our search for alligators on the island.  Maybe.

But I also realized I have a lot of ideas I don't follow through on.  Is that normal, or is that me?  No one person could possibly follow through on all of the ideas I come up with.  But maybe I should take myself a little more seriously than I do...

My youngest got back home yesterday.  She handed me the baby, who looked at me sidewise, froze a little, and started to cry.  I was a stranger to her.  It took about 5 minutes of normal  day-to-day interaction with her mama, mama's boyfriend, the dogs, until she relaxed and I think home started coming back to her.  She has changed a lot in two weeks. It is amazing.  I feel like I have to get to know her again, too.  Turns out, she's a great traveler!

Not able to meditate at night lately. I'm having crazy, disrupted dreams almost as soon as I close my eyes.  All I know is that many people from my life are involved, and we're trying to get something done.

Time for taking dogs out, making breakfast, checking the fire on this winter morning...Will be back later. Hope you are having an easier day.

Love and hugs,

Clare