Irregardless

No, it's not a word.  But it'll do for a post title.

Some time in reflection helps lower the anxieties of the moment.  I'm on a far more even keel than I was earlier in the week.  'Bout time.

And, a visit with a good friend helped as well.  Goodness me, a good visit.  Thank you G., for kind attention.

On the left is a picture from the Blue Ridge Parkway of the amazing bridge that skirts the side of Grandfather Mountain, known as the Linn Cove Viaduct.  An incredible structure, built to do as little harm as possible to the surrounding environment.  You feel as if you're hanging in the air when traveling its brief span.  Links will give you better photographs, but this is one I took myself!

Then, on the right is a bear.  I know, you can see that.  But it's a bear at our porch.  We haven't seen as many bears this year, but we've seen plenty of the evidence.  If the bird feeders are brought in at night, they are likely to be in the woods by morning.

Of course, the bears don't always wait for the night to do some foraging.

Click on the pictures to embiggen them.

I say "our porch" but in fact it isn't mine.  It belongs to my dear friends, C & S who have housed me (and often fed me) for over a year.  I've paid a bit, sure, but not nearly enough.  All the money in the world wouldn't be enough to express my deep gratitude to them for their very kind hospitality.  We get along quite well, and they have been very understanding of my situation.  It has been so great to come home to some hugs and company in the evenings.

My commute to work is over 30 minutes.  (Don't laugh. I know there are many of you who'd love to have only a thirty minute commute!  And the traffic isn't even that bad). I am so blessed! But the time is coming soon when I will need to have my own place, something closer to work, and some place I can put my stuff in. (It's all in storage at my place of business.  And we may need that room back.  Plus, I've missed some of it).

My work is odd and my hours unusual. So that makes the commute a bit strange sometimes.  No two days are alike, except when they are.

No Vacancy

I'm reflecting on why today has been one of "those days."  I've gone over the abyss.  Just so much seem to hit me the wrong way, I just couldn't manage very well.  At least I didn't manage very well.

A boat in a tree.  yes.

Details are unimportant.  Extended time off is called for; some silence, alone time, and no problem solving. I need, more than vacation, some vacancy.  Vacant time, space, and thought.  Time to "veg." As one with big-time ADD, down time is important:  time to let the brain unwind or dis-charge itself - like a just-unplugged computer.  The little light does not go out immediately but slowly dims and dies as the power within the transformer dissipates.

I am weary of all this gloom and stress in my life, as I am sure you (faithful readers) are tired of it, too.  Let's hope the Muses will strike with something more innocuous for me to write about.

In other news . . . . .

Youngest child has returned to college.  Oldest child has returned home from summer travels.  Next for her, a job.  She'll be hanging around here, giving me more time to connect with her and build a stronger relationship.  After four years away (and the family turning upside down), it is important for us to do that.  More importantly, I want to do it.

Nothing of exciting, romantic, or salacious news to share. Not that I would. . . .

Speaking of life speaking

Below are some quotes from Parker Palmer's book, Let Your Life Speak.  I'm still working on the listening part.  These words have meant a great deal to me, helped me on my journey, aided me toward coming out.

High Falls, DuPont State Forest, NC

Instead of more whining from me, read this.

Before we tell our life what we intend to do with it, we have to listen for what it intends to do with us.  Before we tell our life what truths and values we have decided to live up to, we have to let our life tell us what truths we already embody, what values we already represent.  In other words, there is an inner life that wants to live through us.  By listening to our lives, we can better discern what we are meant to do and what we are meant to be, what God wants us to be and to do.

Today I understand vocation quite differently – not as a goal to be achieved but as a gift to be received.  Discovering vocation does not mean scrambling toward some prize just beyond my reach but accepting the treasure of true self I already possess.  Vocation does not come from a voice “out there” calling me to become something I am not.  It comes from a voice “in here” calling me to be the person I was born to be, to fulfill the original self-hood given me at birth by God.

It is a strange gift, this birthright gift of self.  Accepting it turns out to be even more demanding than attempting to become someone else!  I have sometimes responded to that demand by ignoring the gift, or hiding it, or fleeing from it, or squandering it – and I think I am not alone.  There is a Hasidic tale that reveals, with amazing brevity, both the universal tendency to want to be someone else and the ultimate importance of becoming one’s self:  Rabbi Zusya, when he was an old man, said, “In the coming world, they will not ask me: ‘Why were you not Moses?’  They will ask me: ‘Why were you not Zusya?’”

I'm not sure of the page numbers or such.  The link above give a much larger excerpt.

Showers

The housemates are gone for the weekend.  It's just me and the cats.  I'm home alone. 

Tonight the Persieds are beginning.  I went out with blanket on the drive.  But the clouds are moving in.    It's been a lonely night and there is still some sticky stuff all over my belly.  I've had too much to drink.  It's a cool summer evening.  I'm hoping, wishing to see.

And I did see one!  A meteor.  A falling star.  And there upon I wished.

I wish for the life of which I've dreamed.  Not some far-out fantasy, just the real thing.

I wish to face the darkness I dread.

I wish to be not the jerk I sometimes act like.

I wish for the me that longs to be.

All right.  A bit dreamy, I know.  But I've had too much to drink, it's late, and I'm in a wishing mood.

To quote Hammarskjöld:  For all that has been, thanks. For all that will be, Yes!

Okay.  I'll go to bed now.
:

Post haste

A week since a post! egad!

Supposedly, I am on "vacation."  But not having left town, the emergency situations have been piling on.  And, there has been work at the home of C&S, where I reside.  Bathroom renovations: painting, new light fixture (which will not cooperate), new flooring, etc.   Work and work.  I need to help with the second coat today.

Deaths, crises, etc. have kept me hopping.  Next time, I'll leave town.  But who wants to do that by one's self?  It is loneliness and isolation that bring on the darkness.  And, in work with my counselor-spiritual director (and he is the best!) I've discovered (re-discovered) how I keep waiting.  Waiting for something.  Something from the outside, some external force, person, or situation to pull me out, to decide for me, to tell me the next move.  I want and external force or  being to push or pull me into the next place, the next level, the next . . . . . whatever.

Not fair to me.  Not fair to them.  I can do better.  I am doing better.  Back in January, that sense of trust and that force of self brought me out of the closet at my place of work.  Over the last five+ years, I have seen (without seeing) and known (without knowing) that I must come out, or die 9either inwardly or otherwise).  I must become true to myself, to the One who crated me, to those around me, or continue the slow-motion-suicide-of-the-soul that was pulling me into an abyss.  I can.  I am.  I will.

But we must sometimes learn lessons over and over and over again.  Not because we are 'slow' or stupid or not-very-clever, but because those lessons are of such breadth and depth and height that they cannot be learnt all at once.  It's the journey.  And each step, each place, each learning, every revealing is itself the destination.  "All the way to heaven is heaven," as saith Catherine of Sienna.

Ugh.  When I get wound up, I just start writing.  I should edit most of this out.  But not now.

and in other news . . . .

I'm in a bit of a quandary.  I've made some good friends.  Good friends.  Two in particular who are local, and very, very nice.  With one, I feel a wee bit of a spark.  Is it that?  Or what.  With another, I feel a pleasant comfortableness.  Which is what is whom?  I want to tread carefully.  But I don't want to wait on some external something (see above, paragraphs 3 & 4).  I am trying to move slowly.  But not even sure how to do that.  I'm also trying not to over-think it all.  I'm coming to realize that emotive one that I am, I still live in my head all too much, or all too often.  And fear often leads one into one's head.

I've over written all this.  But there it is.  Certainly there are sexier things to write about, but those things are easier to figure out.  I am not.

the Date of the Day

Well, I've played with the blogger template some more.  A little change here and there is nice, every once in a great while.

I've got some time off and hoping that I'll enjoy it.  I'm not good with lots of unstructured time.  I'm bad.  Which may be better.  Or not.  More staycation as little vacating will occur.  Unless of course, it does.  With me, you just never know.  Never.

And in other news . . . .

So.  I have had a few dates. With guys.  And I've had some conversations.  And, I have hooked up with a few.  And, with some, I've had all three.  Look, you could count all this on one hand; maybe with half the other hand.  So we're not talking as much as it sounds.  I guess.

What am I looking for?  How do I decide, figure out, discern?  And what is it I'm deciding, discerning, or figuring out?  Do we do a piece of newsprint on the wall with 'pluses and minuses' for each? Am I opening myself to something or just shopping?  Or none of the above.

I'm working to give up on searching and just wait to be found.  Maybe.  But there is one guy. . . . . . .

Maybe.