Fast or Slow…Just Go

I woke up out of sync. It was five o’clock, my normal wake-up time. But from the moment I opened my eyes, no, even before I opened my eyes, the day felt empty.

When that happens, it has nothing at all to do with the day. It’s something I’ve encountered at various times throughout my life. A feeling of immense futility, worthlessness, and hopelessness, casts a dark shadow over my normally upbeat nature. I would guess it’s depression, and my empathy goes out to those who struggle daily with that affliction.

Usually, though, after I drink several cups of coffee, journal, go through my yoga routine, and meditate, the blues have faded and I’m fired up for the day. Not this day, though. It wasn’t happening.

So I did five Spanish lessons on Duolingo, something certain to banish the doldrums.

That didn’t work either, and to make it worse, the house was full of golden light. It’s been overcast and dreary for weeks, but today, the brilliance hurt my eyes. Had it been cloudy, I could have given myself permission to curl up with a book, reading and napping my way through the hours. But, no. The sun demanded action. I could not be found wasting a rare sunny day.

I thought of all the things I could do. All the things that needed doing. I had zero motivation for any of them. Itchy pressure kept building inside until I exploded. “Okay! I’ve got to get out of this house!”

I knew how deceptive early March sunshine can be in Minnesota. The trees outside my windows weren’t doing the salsa, more like a slow waltz, but they were moving so I dressed accordingly: jeans over leggings, layers under a down jacket, lined boots, a hat that covers the ears, and warm gloves.

I’d barely closed the door behind me when Freya, my sister’s German Shepherd, came bounding to greet me.

After sufficient petting, scratching of ears, and a game of tag, I set a course, and she took the lead.

The wind blew crisp in my face as we headed south through the field along the border of the marsh. I strode at a brisk clip while Freya pounced on imaginary critters and slurped water through holes in the patchy ice. At the corner, we veered west following the tree line. Ah. No wind here. Squirrels and birds tempted my canine companion as she zig-zagged in and out of the woods chasing them.

We crossed my sister’s forty acres, then our friend’s twenty. I stumbled upon a boneyard for dead equipment, a rotting wagon, and a few other long-abandoned odds and ends.

At one time, this was all Dad’s land. Had these once been his? My mind raced backward. This is where we lived when I was born seventy-four years ago. Even after we bought the house on the Mississippi River in Grand Rapids, we kept the farm. Summers were spent here making hay until I graduated from high school and left home.

Goosebumps prickled my arms. No wonder I sometimes woke up disoriented. I’ve come full circle. After living on the other side of the world, I’m back where I began. I’m probably as old as that wagon. I shook off the déjà vu and continued my journey.

Beyond a ditch, lay my cousin’s cornfield. He’d harvested last fall, cutting and removing the stalks leaving ridges of bare dirt now softening into mud. The water in the ditch was frozen, so I slid down the bank, skidded to the other side, and turned south.

By the time I’d circumnavigated the fields of several farms and found the road again, I arrived back at my own front door. Suddenly, it seemed like the perfect moment to wash windows. I abhor washing windows! I can tolerate streaks and dirt for months without feeling a single pang of guilt. I grabbed cleaning solution, old newspapers saved for just this purpose, a six-foot ladder, and got to work.

By the time I finished, it was noon. I’d spent all morning outside in the fresh air and sunshine. Far from feeling tired, happy endorphins pinged through me. I heated a bowl of chicken chili and decided it wouldn’t hurt to sit still for a while and write.

The moral of this story is pretty obvious: When those itchy, pointless, hopeless times come, don’t be confined by four walls. As hard as it is, get dressed and get out. Walk. Breathe. Explore. You may not have acres of field, swamp, and forest, but you have something. Maybe it’s sidewalks and skyscrapers, a community rec center, a mall, or a park. Whatever it is, just go. Move your energy. Fast or slow it doesn’t matter.

Just go.

Out With the Old, In With the New, and All That Jazz

It’s 2024. That, in itself, is a wonderment to me. It’s a big number. When I thought in terms of my life span, I didn’t think of the year two thousand twenty-four. I thought maybe I’d live into my nineties, but the corresponding date never entered my mind. I’ll be 80 in 2030, ninety in 2040. Okay. I’m going to talk about something else.

My house.

The new addition was a knee-jerk reaction to the horrors of last winter. Chipping ice off my car because the doors were frozen shut. Shoveling it out of six-foot snowdrifts. I didn’t ever want a repeat of that. So…

…a garage.

One thing leads to another. If I were going to the trouble and expense of building a garage, I should make the most of it. At the very least, I also needed an entryway where guests’ boots and coats could be shed before entering my very small house. And maybe I could capture some of the attic for living space.

At this very moment, my Prius is tucked securely away from inclement weather, safe and sound. I’ve sheetrocked the entryway and loft, and today I spent several hours mudding the seams.

But when I look at those spaces, I don’t see gray drywall with white spots and stripes.

I see a daybed with a pop-up trundle to accommodate guests. There are comfy chairs and a stunning 9 X 12 rug. Perched above the stairs overlooking the entryway is a desk with a papyrus painting in a sleek black frame hanging on the wall above it.

I’ve already chosen the rug, the daybed, and the chairs. They’re waiting in my Amazon cart. I’ve sourced mattresses. Daily, I scour Facebook Marketplace and Craigslist for other furnishings…

…like a desk…

I found it last week on Marketplace, in North Branch, Minnesota. I’m typing this post on its impeccable wood top, sitting in the adorable chair that came with it. My very small house is filling up with accessories for my unfinished loft. But that’s what happens with visualizing what I want. It manifests! And the Universe doesn’t care about timelines. It just gives me what I ask for.

As my house becomes a part of me (or I a part of it) I feel myself settling into my life. So much changed so fast for so long that, even though my body arrived in Minnesota, my heart was scattered over thousands of miles. I’ve come to accept the fact that it always will be. I have loves, many loves, in Bali, in San Miguel de Allende, in Priano, Italy, in Doha, Qatar, in Spain, Germany, Iceland, Norway, in Montara, California, Isle of Palms, South Carolina, and all over Minnesota. Those people are precious to me and distance won’t change that.

But the hard physical work that has been my reality for the past year-and-a-half, kept me focused in the present. I needed the effects of sweat and exhaustion, and the vision of a ‘forever home’ here in the far north, to ground me. And, fortunately for me, I’ve never been one to cling to what is past.

Tonight, my brother-in-law asked me what I’ll do when the work is done. Only recently have I allowed myself to entertain thoughts about that. It seemed so remote. But now there’s a faint glimmer at the end of the tunnel. Gwen spoke up. “You’ll write!” I do have an unfinished novel, Nettle Creek, to complete. And there’s a local book club I’ve been invited to join. My yard needs flowers. I’d like to continue to study Spanish. And travel? Do I still have gypsy feet? Time will tell.

Meanwhile, it’s 2024. A potent year. I’m 74 and will never be younger than I am right now. Whatever is left undone in my heart, needs to be addressed. But, oh! What a privilege to have a home!

I want, I want, I want!

It is like living in an art gallery, this home where I stay in Ubud. The Balinese are born with the creativity gene. Whether it expresses itself in painting, carving, music, dance, or hundreds of other endeavors, there isn’t one of them that escapes it. It is their birthright. They are nonchalant about it. Of course I paint. Of course I carve. Of course I build complex towers of fruits, and sweets, and whole chickens for temple offerings…of course.

I love the art that graces my balcony.

There is a humble clay pot on a pedestal in one corner. 

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And a handsome sculpture of Buddha’s head on a pedestal in the opposite corner.

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Seven women in white robes, one holding a golden light, occupy a huge canvas to the left,P1020306

and two women in dark robes holding flowers wisper to each other on the right. P1020308

I want these two paintings. They have enchanted me. I want to own them. What’s that about?! I just got rid of everything and the last thing I need to be thinking about is re-accumulating stuff! And these are huge, probably 7 feet wide by 5 feet high. Then of course I’d need a house to hang them in…!

And so it goes, the urge to own, to possess beauty, whatever that means. But for now I am concentrating on the inner, rather than the outer trappings. I can appreciate these paintings on my balcony while meditating, or doing kabalabahti, skull shining breaths! I can own the visual joy and the subtler energy of them without allowing them to become baggage to be transported, stored, and eventually begrudged as a burden.

I have much yet to learn about possessions and it is far too soon to experiment. Each thing one owns carries with it a weight and a responsibility. I make no judgement about that, I simply state it as fact. But the truth of it is something to ponder, something not to forget.

The inimitable Leonard

Where, where, where is my gypsy wife tonight? I’m obsessed with Leonard Cohen. His lyrics are heartbreaking, haunting, and too real at times. They’re complex. They make me think while I’m crying. They explore delicate subjects that may even be considered tabu, with raw honesty. The melodies seduce in dark minor keys, and the man can’t sing. What can I say. His voice is a gravelly cross between Bob Dylan and laryngitis.

But that doesn’t matter. I can’t get enough. When I hear the opening rift of “Take This Waltz” my feet automatically go into the 1, 2, 3…1, 2, 3…1, 2, 3 of that classic dance step. I can’t stop them, my feet that is, and I am elated even though the words paint a forlorn and dismal picture.

Now in Vienna there’s ten pretty women
There’s a shoulder where Death comes to cry
There’s a lobby with nine hundred windows
There’s a tree where the doves go to die
There’s a piece that was torn from the morning
And it hangs in the Gallery of Frost… (Take This Waltz)

…a piece that was torn from the morning…I can’t even articulate what those words do to me. You can’t tear a piece from morning, right? But have you ever awakened not wanting to face another day? Something big and dark has happened in your life and there’s a gaping hole?

Well, maybe its not for everyone…?

But I think I’ve figured out what it is for me, this fascination. It has everything to do with the craft of writing. Leonard Cohen is a master of the art. He sings about the same things that everyone sings about, but he says it in ways that nobody has ever said it before. Even if I don’t understand completely, even if it doesn’t quite make sense when I examine the individual pieces, he creates a mood that resonates. His words, incongruously strung together, make the message even more poignant.

I aspire to write like that. Maybe not as dark…definitely not as dark! But I want to own words the way Leonard does. He makes them his, twists their meanings, and bends them to his will. His work is sheer genius.

Hafiz had it right

I was searching for words this morning. I am a writer, I told myself. There are words for this. Then I asked myself, What is the ‘this’ I am trying to describe? From somewhere subconscious I recalled a poem. I did not remember the author or even the words, but I thought perhaps Rumi, or Hafiz. It took only a few moments of communing with Google to find it. Ahhh. Hafiz. Here is the poem:

I Have Learned So Much

I

Have

Learned

So much from God

That I can no longer

Call

Myself

A Christian, a Hindu, a Muslim,

a Buddhist, a Jew.

The Truth has shared so much of Itself

With me

That I can no longer call myself

A man, a woman, an angel,

Or even a pure

Soul.

Love has

Befriended Hafiz so completely

It has turned to ash

And freed

Me

Of every concept and image

my mind has ever known.


From: ‘The Gift’
Translated by Daniel Ladinsky

Isn’t it beautiful that love is the friend that freed Hafiz from every concept and image his mind had ever known? As I sat with that thought it became clear that love is the only thing that will ever free us. To love others is to accept them in all the ways they are different freeing ourselves from judgement. To love the earth is to protect and care for her freeing ourselves from the consequences of her demise. To love oneself is the ultimate freedom for out of that love comes the capacity for all other love.

The past few days my journey has been inward. The name of this village is Ubud. It means medicine. The essence of Ubud is fundamentally healing to the body, the mind, and the spirit. I have asked myself, why is this so? Is it about the thousands of offerings made daily? The scent of incense ever-present in the air? The constant rituals and ceremonies performed specifically to maintain balance in the spiritual realm? Every day hundreds of tourists parade the streets of Ubud. Every day another rice paddy is drained to make way for a new resort or villa funded by money from the West. But inside the walled compounds of Balinese family homes, life goes on as it has for two thousand years. These people have a way of accepting the new, adjusting to accommodate change, but remaining virtually unchanged themselves. They do this with a self-possessed dignity that defies explanation.

I don’t know the answer to my question. All my life I have believed that everywhere was basically the same as everywhere else. I have traveled and visited amazing countries. I have seen works of art and architecture that left me breathless. I have met wonderful people who genuinely cared for me.  Yet nowhere else has a place whispered to my heart entreating me to stay, to learn, to just be.