Am I isolated? Deprived? Lonely?

12 Aug 2023 18 Comments

by writingforselfdiscovery in Bali, Covid, virus, Mexico, Poetry, The Farm, wisdom, Writing Tags: , , , ,

When I imagined moving to remote northern Minnesota, I wondered if I’d feel isolated, deprived of friends, even lonely.

I knew my house would be mere steps from my sister’s home, but she has her husband and her dog to keep her company. From emailing faithfully back and forth every day through the covid years, it was clear that she was happy with her routines and content with her life. But as we mused together about my move here she seemed eager and excited. She told me about her vision for a community on the farm and said my coming would be the first step in manifesting it.

In many ways, Gwen and I are as different as peas are from turnips, yet we share similar interests. We both love to read and write poetry and enjoy sewing projects, although she’s a true artist while I’m an impatient, just-get-it-done-and-get-on-with-life imposter. She bakes the tried and true recipes we grew up with. I like flavors of Asia, India, the Middle East, and Italy (who doesn’t like Italian food) and I experiment with those dishes. She’s addicted to chocolate. I can’t stop eating salty popcorn. She hates to travel. I crave it. In a nutshell, our differences keep us interested and curious about each other.

The combination of Gwen, work on my house, and writing, would have been enough. But…

My sister and W have been established in the community for decades. Gwen worked in school administration until she retired and W is the township supervisor (has been for years) and makes it his business to know everyone. They host coffee for various friends or family members at least once a week and folks in these parts are quick to reciprocate so they also get invited for coffee about once a week. The thing is, we’re considered a unit: Gwen, W, and I, so I’m included in all of it. As a result, I feel the need to pull my weight and serve up something delectable with steaming cups of joe for those same people on a regular basis.

Then there are my children and grandchildren…

family weddings, graduations, funerals…

people who are curious about my tiny house and the addition I’m putting on…

old school friends…

and friends from my years in Minneapolis that I haven’t seen since I moved to Bali in 2012.

Suddenly, I find myself on the opposite side of loneliness, adjusting to more socializing than I’ve ever in my life experienced before.

What I didn’t know about this chapter could fill a library.

Take, for instance, the garden. Gwen and W have a spreadsheet laying out the location and number of rows for each vegetable. They order seeds in December and plant them in flats that sit under grow lights by a bank of southern windows until it’s warm enough to move them to the greenhouse. As soon as the earth is dry enough, W tills the plot and rakes it smooth. Planting begins when the snow melts and the threat of frost is over.

I was lulled into thinking gardening was easy this spring when the planting went fast and felt effortless. Then, I was gone for several weeks babysitting for grandchildren so I missed most of the weeding, watering, and tending. But the garden grew without me, and now it’s harvest time.

There’s no keeping up with it! Beans – experts recommend picking them twice a day. How many beans can three people eat? The raspberries are just as prolific.

And cucumbers – Gwen’s been pickling and jars line up like a platoon of soldiers. Tomatoes are ripening, and so is the corn. Carrots will soon be big enough to pick and preserve. There are a hundred garlic bulbs drying on a wire rack in the garage.

I’m so far out of my league with the garden. I want to help, but my questions must annoy the heck out of my patient sister and brother-in-law.

“Is that a weed?”

“Is this ripe?”

I really am that clueless.

Nonetheless, gardening is a communal effort in many respects and adds to the social-ness of life here.

Bear’s arrival brought a new dimension to the group dynamic. He was a history major and there’s nothing he doesn’t know about the rise and fall of empires, wars, the dates of plagues, the migration of people over the face of the earth…and music. He has thousands of vinyl records and remembers all the heavy metal groups from the sixties onward. He’s witty, inquisitive, and a willing participant in our nightly deep philosophical discussions.

Yes, nightly.

The four of us gather at 5 p.m. every evening to replay the events of the day, philosophize, plan what needs to be accomplished on the morrow, and enjoy our beverages of choice. Bear likes flavored sparkling water. The Klarbrunn brand is his current favorite. Gwen and W drink pinot grigio. I’m hooked on Smirnoff’s Spicy Tamarind Vodka over ice.

If you want to try it, fill a glass to the brim with ice cubes, then pour a shot over them. Let it sit for 15 minutes so some of the ice melts diluting the vodka just a bit. If you don’t, you’ll wish you had. It’s an acquired taste, one that I developed in Mexico. I was fortunate enough to find a liquor store in Grand Rapids that sells it. They had one bottle. Now, they stock at least five or more at all times. I think I started something.

A year ago, on August 19th, I left Mexico and landed in Minnesota to stay. I love my view over fields unobstructed by anything manmade. Before, I valued the fact that I could walk wherever I needed to go. Now, groceries, building supplies, toilet paper, and everything else, require a forty-five-minute trip one way. I’ve grown to appreciate the zen-ness of that drive on the Great River Road, snaking along the Mississippi,

navigating ninety-degree corners around fields of corn, rye, and alfalfa. I have to go slow to avoid deer popping out of the woods in front of me, or wild turkeys clustered around something dead on the pavement.

As much as I’m physically here, my mind still swirls in the surreal elsewhere of multiple realities. I messaged Ketut, in Bali, to wish him a happy birthday. Selamat ulang tahun, Bapak Ketut. Sudah potong kuenya? He answered that he did not have a birthday cake because his birthday fell on the celebration of Kuningan, and there were already many offerings of sweets. My mind’s eye saw graceful penjors arching over the streets, and women in their see-through lace tops and satin sashes, carrying towering offerings on their heads.

The bold, macabre design on the vodka bottle transports me to San Miguel de Allende. Once again I’m on Elaine’s rooftop with my friends watching men, women, and children, in frightening Day-of-the-Dead costumes, dancing as they parade along the street below.

A steaming bowl of pasta, and I’m back in Praiano, the village on a cliff where you climb a thousand stairsteps to go anywhere.

I remember my hosts, Nicola and fabulous Felicia with deep fondness. How I miss them. And Signore Piccoletto, serving his tiramisu at Saghir Restaurant, will forever remain in my heart.

There’s no loneliness here on the farm, only the sadly-sweet memory of friends I’ve left behind. Helen Keller is credited with saying, Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all. I signed up for the daring adventure, and, oh! baby! What a ride.

The Projects

13 Jul 2023 8 Comments

by writingforselfdiscovery in Bali, Mexico, The Farm, wisdom, Writing Tags: , , , , , ,

When I began writingforselfdiscovery.com I was doing just that – writing to figure out who I was. I still journal every morning, and sometimes I’m surprised by revelations. But self-discovery is no longer the focus, and writing has taken a back seat to manual labor…The Projects.

After leaving Bali, in Indonesia, then San Miguel de Allende, in Mexico, I needed a place to live. Transforming a dilapidated hunting shack into my home sweet home took hundreds of backbreaking hours. Even though I may have actually worked only five out of twenty-four each day, there was no way I had energy left to write.  Whoever I was, or whatever I was becoming, had to happen without me pestering and probing it with words.

Even after I moved into my new home on Valentine’s Day, there were a thousand and one finishing details: butcherblock countertops to sand, seal, and stain, shelves to hang, curtains to make, and towel bars to install.

Then there was the matter of the antique rocking chair disintegrating in my sister’s garage.

I needed a chair and she suggested I take that one. Neither of us could remember where it came from, but she knew it had been in the old farmhouse here when we were kids and had come with us in 1955 when we moved to Grand Rapids.

Gwen offered to help me ‘fix it up’ and found spongy foam for the seat and back in her sewing supplies. I screwed and glued, tightening the wiggly arms and legs, then painted the frame black.

While we worked together, I was motivated. But spring was upon us, and gardening is Gwen’s priority. Her attention was instantly and permanently diverted away from the chair. I draped a scarf over it and used it in its half-baked state while I procrastinated.

A rocking chair alone does not fulfill my definition of comfort. Something to elevate the feet is essential. I scoured the internet for a pouf or an ottoman spending hours scanning every conceivable option, but nothing grabbed me.

One day, wandering through outbuildings on the property, I happened to stumble over a wooden box with a hinged lid and dragged it home. A piece of paper inside said, Libby Township, in faded black ink. Some sharp-toothed critter had gnawed through a bottom corner and a network of webs cluttered with the carcasses of dead insects, crisscrossed each other inside. A mysterious ragged opening punctured the lid. Nonetheless, I knew it was perfect. That evening, after I’d scoured it clean, sanded off the tooth marks, and prepped it for paint, I showed it to my brother-in-law. “Oh! You found the old Libby Township ballot box. That’s government property, you know…” I reminded him that possession is 9/10ths of the law and it was mine now.

Transforming that eyesore into a functional footstool was far less daunting than trying to figure out how to upholster the rocking chair. I turned my attention toward restoring it. Within a day or so, it was finished.

Around that time, Bear joined our community.

He arrived with a motor home that would be his temporary quarters while he turned the old dairy barn into a primary residence.

Perhaps you’re sensing a theme here…hunting shack, dairy barn…

He swore he wanted to do it himself, W swore he wouldn’t help him, and I swore I wouldn’t lift a finger if anyone so much as mentioned sheetrock. Of course, it was all bluster and bluff. Now Bear’s domicile is underway, and we’re all committed to seeing it materialize.

After a morning of leveling his floor on my hands and knees, I came home to that naked rocking chair, mocking me. Suddenly, I couldn’t tolerate it. The rest of my house was finished and every single decision I’d made thrilled me. Feverishly, I set to work. By that evening, the seat was done and I’d cut a pattern for the back. 

At sunrise the following day, I was once again leveling the milk house floor on my knees, covered in sand.

When my body couldn’t take another minute, I hurried home to the chair and finished the back.

Day three was a repeat of one and two, but that afternoon I made a detachable seat cushion and the chair was done. All it needed was an accent pillow. I remembered an Ecuadorian weaving on a bag I’d harvested from a friend’s Goodwill castoffs. The colorful, somewhat abstract design would make the perfect accessory. I found the bag and repurposed the woven panel.

Could it be any cuter? What a transformation.

Meanwhile, I was busy scheming with my drafting pencils. Winter had beaten my little car to near death and I wanted a shelter for it. But not just a garage. I also needed an entryway for my house, a deck, and a 14 x 20-foot loft space over the garage. A girl can dream.

As I write, Lofty and Gene are outside, sawing and pounding. The foundation is in, and my vision is taking shape.

Sometimes, I think I should start a writers’ group like the one I loved in Bali. Then my aunt texts and invites me for coffee. Or I should join the local book club. My daughter calls, and I fly to South Carolina to babysit. Another daughter calls, and I drive to Minneapolis to mind their house and the cat while they vacation in Croatia. I ask myself, Were the writers’ group and the bookclub of the past simply a way to fill the void I’d created by being far from family? Do I want or need those diversions now?

The questions are moot. I chose family and a community where we pitch in and help each other. I still love to write, and some future day I may entertain a writers’ group or a book club. But right now, it’s time to pull on my work clothes and make myself available for The Project next door.

 

Door to the Future

16 Nov 2022 9 Comments

by writingforselfdiscovery in Bali, caronavirus, meditation, Mexico, The Farm, vaccine, wisdom, Writing Tags: , , , , , , ,

The wooden sign hung on the wall in the bathroom hallway and ingrained its message into the fiber of my being from the time I could read until I left home at eighteen.

Standing with legs crossed and butt cheeks clenched, waiting for a sibling to flush and unlock the door, I committed its words to memory:

On every visit home over the years the little plaque was still there to remind me. 

When had that message been more pertinent?

My seventieth birthday brought with it a paradigm shift of proportions not seen before in many lifetimes – perhaps ever. Foundations were rattled. Belief systems challenged. Trust in the order of things was upended.

For me, it felt like being stuck in the center of a bowl of lime jello. I could move a little and see fuzzy shapes through the green haze. But my hands had nothing to grasp. I couldn’t get out. I was forced to be with myself.

In the pressure cooker of Covid, the flames intensified under anything left on the back burner to deal with later. Later, was at hand. Emotions, the closeted things I hadn’t wanted to look at, were storming the gates.

Grant me the serenity…

Stoic Capricorn knows how to stuff it, move on, and don’t look back. That can work for a long time and it did. It took me on a glorious Bali adventure. It allowed me to compartmentalize the trade-offs – seeing family perhaps only once a year for a few weeks and living the dream in paradise the rest of the time.

 But plague ravaged the earth and everything changed. All at once, I was restricted. I couldn’t just hop a plane back to the States. Vaccinations wouldn’t be available to ex-pats for many months and to fly I needed proof that I’d had them.

Life, as I’d known it in the village of Ubud, disappeared overnight. Locked down without the distractions of friends and fun, the walls of defense cracked. Feelings tumbled out, messy, tangled, unruly, demanding attention.

Accept the things I cannot change…

Weeks and months dragged on. I wrote, meditated, did yoga, journaled. “What’s next?” I asked the Universe and the All-Knowing said, Take time to reflect. Having nothing but time, I did as directed. Slowly, like waiting for a Minnesota winter to end, I dug through my psyche, dusted shadows off neglected data, deleted old stuff, and upgraded the system.

I Zoomed with family. As soon as we finished and the screen went dark, so did I. I’d cook something. Take a solitary walk. Bury my nose in a book. And sob.

I learned a long time ago that nothing changes until I know what I want. It was easier to know what I didn’t want. I didn’t want the coronavirus. I didn’t want isolation. I didn’t want to live with fear. I didn’t want to miss my family. But the Universe doesn’t respond to negatives so I remained stuck in the jello.

What I needed was a want big enough to dream about, to energize me, to propel me toward a goal.  

Courage to change the things I can…

What could I change? What did my heart long for? I sank onto my meditation pillow, raised my hands to offer gratitude for the many blessings I still had in my life when a voice resounded in my ear so loud and clear it made me jump. What are you doing here?

In Minneapolis, 2009, bored and miserable, I’d asked myself that same question. My answer had been immediate and shocking: “Just marking time waiting to die.”

I’d come full circle. If I was honest with myself, I’d felt the rumblings of impending transition for the past two years. But a new dream hadn’t taken shape and there was nothing to do but wait for it. There is no forcing the door to the future.

The shift in energy, however, was undeniable, and the tug toward children and grandchildren grew to an overwhelming ache.

The vaccine was eventually offered to foreigners. I got my first dose and was given a date for the second. There was, as yet, no big dream, but I knew I had to connect with my family and I hoped if I took that step forward, light would shine on the path ahead.

I made the circuit from California, to Minnesota, to Pennsylvania, basking, wallowing, and delighting in joyous reunions. I’d booked a round-trip ticket when I left Bali. Now it was time to catch my return flight. I’d left everything there, a beautiful home, dear friends, a life. But the closer the time came to leave, dread filled my heart. I couldn’t go back. At the last minute, I detoured to Mexico.

It had been forty-six years since I’d been in that country, but I knew people there. I quickly acclimated and yet the big dream, the overarching want eluded me. Until I realized…

…and wisdom to know…

Family was the force tugging at me. Roots. Familiarity. A foundation that wasn’t continuously shifting. I wanted accessibility to loved ones without crossing an ocean or needing a passport. Mexico was still too far away. There was only one place that checked all the boxes: the family farm.

I arrived in northern Minnesota in late August to begin the rest of my life. It was an idyllic autumn. The weather was perfect. Leaves changed and held their colors as tamaracks turned golden. Work on my 400-square-foot tiny house progressed.

And then…

It snowed.

As I stare out the window at a landscape gone white and gray, I’m once again flooded with emotions hooked into memories that sent me fleeing the north country years ago. Tangled up with those feelings are others that speak to my soul. I am winter’s child grown old. I’ve come home to embrace what I rejected in my youth, peace, stillness, mortality, and the cold, dark nights between November and June. Unwritten stories whirl in my head. Plots twist through my dreams. I’m excited about the future. I’m excited about the present. My heart and mind are primed to plug into the resilience of my Norse ancestors. My body will adjust!

Meanwhile, I want to paint a plaque to hang outside my bathroom door. It will go something like this: Grant me the serenity…

“Winter’s Coming” to Granny’s Landing

23 Sep 2022 6 Comments

by writingforselfdiscovery in 2022, grannys landing, The Farm, Writing Tags: , , , , , , ,

Am I stuck in a season of Game of Thrones? Since moving to northern Minnesota, I’ve heard the ominous phrase, Winter’s coming, more times than I can count. It sends an anticipatory chill down my spine. Leaves are turning and the next thing we know there’ll be white drifts waist-high.

I loved GOT, but I don’t dare start the sequel, House of the Dragon, before my own house is winterized and liveable. I’d be hooked, binge-watching, and worthless, like I was when I finally tuned into the blockbusting House Targaryan/House Stark series and swooned over Jon Snow’s woeful appeal. In spite of violence, torture, and relentless bloodshed, I couldn’t stop watching. That’s what happens when the plot is irresistible.

What does any of that have to do with my little house on Fantasy Bay?

Plenty! After hiring Leighton Movers to bring an abandoned, half-finished cabin to a prime spot on the family farm, my sister, brother-in-law, and I have been working our senior bods to the point of extinction, skirting the crawl space, putting in new windows, insulating the floor, and digging a trench from the electrical pedestal to the house. It’s a scramble to meet the encroaching cold. Every morning the thermometer reads a degree or two chillier as we brew coffee and shiver under our layers.

Sometimes it seems like an impossible dream. Then we complete another day’s work and I drag myself to bed, hopeful again.

This was the cabin when I first saw it about a quarter mile from where it is now.

The idea of installing new windows across the entire front of the house was daunting. I hired local handymen to remove the front wall and build frames for six. “Six?” Lofty, my main guy, repeated the number. “Yes, six. And I want them six inches apart.” I showed him my drawing. He scratched his ear and nodded.

I would have loved a full wall of glass, but…winter’s coming. In the far north, windows aren’t the best insulators. I compromised, couldn’t afford all that glass anyway, and I still have a to-die-for view. Eventually, two more windows will wrap the corner on the right.

I want it all now, of course. Finished – like it is in my head. Patience was never my forte.

After Lofty and Dante had been at it for four days, the framing was ready and the exterior was sheathed. Gwen, W, and I cut holes in the Tyvek, installed the windows, and applied flashing tape. Ahhhh! The view!

Then we turned our attention to the floor.

I’ve never seen such a thorough job of screwing as demonstrated in the sheets of plywood we had to remove to install insulation. There must have been fifty rusted screws in each piece and they didn’t want to let go. With bruised knees and slivers in our butts from scooching along the floor, we were able to get about one-third of the sheets up the first day. I removed old insulation from the walls to reuse between the floor joists. It took us three days total to complete that job.

After each phase of this project, I’ve thought, Whew! The toughest part is over. Then something even more physically challenging comes along.

Thirty feet long and two feet deep, that’s the length and depth of the trench required by code to bring electricity from the pedestal to the house. I filled out the form on the State of Minnesota website, paid the fee, and within seconds the electrical permit landed in my email box.

Digging the trench would have killed us all if we didn’t have the auger. With that beast of a machine, W punched eight holes in the ground, each one of them four feet deep. Then we shoveled out the solid-packed dirt between each hole connecting them and removed the excess that had fallen back in when the auger came out. We persisted until we had our two-foot depth.

When I say dirt, that’s a euphemism. This soil is clay. When it isn’t sticky-wet slime, it’s a dense, rock-solid wall. Salty sweat burned my eyes. My heart pounded. My shoulders and back ached. I was so tempted to throw down that shovel and walk away. But there was Gwen, sweating and scooping the earth like a maniac, and W the same. Gratitude, guilt, and willpower kept me going.

By the way, what do you think of my fashion-statement designer overalls? They’re Gwen’s. She sews her own and guessed my wardrobe might not be up to the tasks we were about to undertake. So she gave them to me along with the pretty peach workshirt. I accepted, delighted, knowing she had three more of the same pattern. She wears them for gardening. The others are in sensible colors: green, brown, dark blue. I have the serviceable-but-pretty floral ones. I’ve never worn anything as comfortable!

But I digress.

What’s next?

We’ll bring the wiring to the electrical box inside the house and install outlets, switches, and lights. Then the inspector will come to point out everything we did wrong. When he leaves, we’ll correct any mistakes. Once again we’ll call him for another look and he’ll give the final thumbs-up. That’s a best-case scenario. Fingers crossed.

Right now, it’s fifty-two degrees and raining at ten-thirty in the morning. We’re still drinking coffee and procrastinating. That’s a luxury that doesn’t happen often because that phrase beats in our heads with every tick of the clock and drives us forward.

Two words…

Winter’s coming.

Mexico isn’t what you think

16 Mar 2022 11 Comments

by writingforselfdiscovery in Bali, Mexico, wisdom, Writing Tags: , , , , ,

That’s assuming I know what you think, right? Since I’m assuming, let’s assume that your information comes from mainstream media. Scanning the first three articles that came up when I Googled news about Mexico the results were dismal. Their keywords, killed (ABC News), bodies (also ABC News), and climate crisis (The Guardian) confirm most of our worst fears.

Of the thirty-three articles shown on the NBC News page, five were somewhat upbeat. Not hip-hip-hooray or anything like that, but they contained neutral information that wasn’t meant to shock or horrify the reader. The other twenty-eight were dreadful.

Why does the media do that? Do the decision-makers really believe the public prefers to be alarmed? An article in BBC News unfortunately says yes. Even though when asked most people answered that they would rather read good news than bad, when those same people were tested they responded more quickly to negative media. As the article pointed out, researchers presented their experiment as solid evidence of a so called “negativity bias“, psychologists’ term for our collective hunger to hear, and remember bad news.

How brutally unfair that propaganda is to the splendid country just south of the U.S. border. Before I moved here, well-meaning friends said things like, It’s so dangerous. Aren’t you afraid you’ll be robbed or kidnapped?

I’d like to take this opportunity to sing the praises of the United Mexican States – it deserves better. Did you know that’s the official name? Bet not. I didn’t.

Mexico’s economy is booming. Mexico is the 15th largest economy in the world and the 11th largest in terms of purchasing power parity according to the IMF…The country has become a new hotspot for research and development.

There are more Americans immigrating to Mexico than Mexicans immigrating to the U.S. 

Mexico has the oldest university in North America. The National University of Mexico (UNAM) was founded in 1551 by Charles V of Spain, 85 years before Harvard.

Mexico has 10-12% of the world’s biodiversity, making it the fourth most biodiverse country in the world.

Chocolate originated in Mexico, where the Aztecs and Mayans first cultivated the cacao plant thousands of years ago. They typically enjoyed it as a drink, and they used the beans as currency.

The Great Pyramid of Cholula in Cholula, Mexico is the largest pyramid in the world— it’s even larger than the pyramids of Giza.

Bet you didn’t know that Caesar salad was invented in Mexico, and

  • Color TV
  • Birth control pills
  • X-ray reflection microscope
  • The electric brake
  • Photography
  • Popcorn
  • First automated cigarette machine
  • Captcha codes
  • Zero – yup, the number or non-number, whatever
  • Translucent concrete
  • Sisal
  • Indelible ink
  • Chewing gum

That’s a small example of the many thousands of inventions we in the U.S. probably assumed were our doing.

My experience of the Mexican people is limited to those I’ve met in San Miguel de Allende. I came here from ten years in Bali where I enjoyed the most inclusive, hospitable humans I’ve met anywhere in the world. Granted, Ubud, the town where I lived, was the cultural center of the island and attracted hoards of tourists. Everything was geared toward their comfort, pleasure, and entertainment. Traditional rituals became commercialized shows staged for tourists’ consumption and the locals knew who buttered their bread.

San Miguel is a haven for ex-pats. We comprise 10% of the population and ‘snowbirds’ from Canada and the U.S. love to roost here for the colder months. But I have a distinct impression that the parades, the ceremonies, the cultural life of the locals goes on as it has for hundreds of years. They’ve made room for us, lots of room, and we’ve brought many of the things we enjoyed ‘back home’ to this city. But the Mexican people, although meticulously polite and gracious, seem deeply proud of their culture and traditions and impervious to outside influences.

I’m in the honeymoon phase of this journey to be sure. (And what a place for a honeymoon!) But the shadow cast on Mexico by U.S. media is unwarranted and unfair. I feel safer here than I would on the streets of most cities in the United States.

With Luck, I’ve Learned A Lesson

30 Jan 2022 8 Comments

by writingforselfdiscovery in 2022, AstraZeneca, Covid, virus, love, vaccine, Writing Tags: , , , , ,

My last walk was ten miles through downtown San Miquel de Allende and ended with this steep climb – hundreds of steps – up to my home near the top of the mountain.

I’m feeling boundlessly grateful today for my robust immune system and the two AstraZeneca vaccines that strengthened that solid foundation. This is my seventh day of isolation. I have Covid.

At first I ‘knew’ it was ‘just a cold.’ It felt like every other cold I’ve ever had. But I quarantined myself while my daughters urged me to get tested. I sent out a request to my new friends here in San Miguel for a home test kit and one appeared. The very clear POSITIVE reading stunned me.

How could that be? It’s just a cold.

But it isn’t just. And now, seven days into the experience, I feel the difference. The coughing has passed. The fever’s gone. A raging strep-like sore throat has finally dissipated. My nose runs but the congestion was never extreme. My bronchial tubes and trachea remained clear. I had no problem breathing.

But what happened to that powerhouse of energy that used to propel me out of bed at 5:00 a.m. and keep me going like Napolean’s army until sundown and sweet sleep?

Gone without a trace.

I have no choice but to rest, which I haven’t done since leaving Bali three-and-a-half months ago. Of course, all this downtime brings with it hours upon hours to reflect on – well – seventy-two years of life, and be humbled. There were events I shouldn’t have survived physically. There were years when I could have been devastated emotionally. There were traumas that might have left unhealable wounds.

But none of that happened. Why?

As I reflect on that question, I see the faces of kindness at each fork in the road.

Kindness.

In the last seven days, confined at home, one after another of my new friends have messaged me,

“We’ve found a test kit. We’ll drop it by…”

“You must need groceries, Send us your list…”

“How are you feeling today? If you need anything…”

“If you need anything…”

“If you need anything…”

Kindness.

My daughters were relentless. They knew far more about the virus than I did and my cavalier approach brought out the mama-bear fury in each of them. I was scolded, educated, and reminded how much I was loved.

I’m a bit ashamed that I had to be knocked flat out to realize the unsustainable pace I’d set for myself. It isn’t like there weren’t gentle nudges along the way. (Falling off the pillow and conking my head, for example – not so gentle but definitely a nudge.) Then along came Covid making it physically impossible for me to push myself.

If there’s a lesson to be learned from this, that’s it. Will this time be the charm? Will I accept that I’m human, elderly, and have limitations? Oooo. That’s a tough one. I guess time will tell.

Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!

10 Jan 2022 14 Comments

by writingforselfdiscovery in Bali, Mexico, wisdom, Writing Tags: , , , , , ,

I was making a video – something I don’t do often. I’d propped my phone precariously against a water bottle on an upside-down pot and it was catching too much ceiling and too little face.

Maybe it was because I’d finally gotten the perfect angle for lighting. Or maybe because the phone wasn’t threatening to plunge forward just then. Whatever I was thinking at the time, instead of finding something shorter to use as a base, I grabbed throw pillows from the couch and layered three of them on the slippery wooden seat of the chair determined to raise myself to the right height instead of lowering the camera.

As I hoisted myself to the top of the towering stack, the pillows began to slip.

I clutched at the table and missed. The chair flew in one direction crashing to the floor and I went the other. It would have been a laughable non-event had there not been that concrete pillar directly behind me. As I tumbled, the back of my skull cracked hard against the sharp corner of the square column. YOUCH! I pressed my fingers against the at small mountain that popped up and lay on my side on the floor wondering whether I would pass out, throw up, or have a concussion.

I applied more pressure to the lump and waited for ‘what next?’

When nothing happened, I gently removed my hand from the throbbing mound. It was smeared with blood. I hadn’t counted on that. Okay, time to move. I got up slowly, covering the wound with my palm, pressing, pressing… No dizziness. No nausea. I wondered what the back of my white sweater looked like. A fleeting thought.

In the bathroom, I dabbed at my blood-soaked hair with tissues and doused the gash with alcohol all the while thinking, Dangit! I will NOT let this stop me from recording that video today. I’ve already procrastinated too long.

When the bleeding was under control, I checked my face, the scarf at my neck, the white sweater. All good. Even my hair, from the front, showed no sign of disruption. The pain had localized at the point of my wound but only that was throbbing. I did not have a whole-head ache.

Okay, good from the front. Nobody will know the back of my head is hemorrhaging.

This time I did it right. I put the pillows back on the couch and found a prop that positioned the phone at a lower point. After a few false starts, I recorded a decent video. It wasn’t 100% perfect but certainly good enough under the circumstances.

That done, I unpinned my up-do and examined the damages in detail. It looked like a bad scene in a movie where the killer didn’t quite finish the job. I got in the shower taking care not to touch the golf-ball-sized goose egg, and gingerly rinsed out the matted stickiness until the water ran clear.

As I stood there with hot water streaming over me, I reflected on the fact that I almost never have accidents.

I can’t remember the last time I hurt myself. I’ve learned to be mindful. I only allow daydreams when I’m sitting down. Otherwise, I’m riveted to what I’m doing or where I’m going.

Bali was a veritable gauntlet of potential disasters: pieces of sidewalk wide open to the chasm below, a tree left growing in the middle of the path, or a low branch jutting out just where your head should be. Then, too, there were motorbikes going the wrong way on a one-way street, or zooming on the sidewalk to pass slower-moving traffic. I learned to be constantly on the alert.

San Miguel de Allende with its steep inclines, cobblestone streets, perilous stairways up and down the mountainsides pose equally treacherous circumstances.

But I was at home, fixated on making a video – a very uncustomary activity – and I lost my common sense for a moment. A moment is all it takes. One lapse in judgment, one mindless act…

I woke up alive this morning. I think the back of my head has survived though it’s very, very tender. But let that be a lesson to me! There’s no room for stupidity. Ever! You’re old, Sherry! Be careful. Be mindful. Be present. You were lucky this time…don’t press it!

In Defense of the Dustah (and other shapeless garments)

23 Sep 2021 14 Comments

by writingforselfdiscovery in Bali, pandemic, wisdom, Writing Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Lottie Nevin is one of the most intriguing women I ever met. She was living in Jakarta with her husband, Irishman she called him, when our paths crossed. He was teaching at a university there but they were often at their vacation home in Bali. Lottie and I were instant friends. Then they moved to Spain. I miss her.

She was a sunny-side-up, can-do person and everything she said was hilarious. One comment in particular has stuck with me. She was talking about her garment of choice. “I hold comfort in the highest esteem,” she said. “Why would any woman want to be trussed up like a Christmas goose and totter around on pointy-toed, spikey-heeled chambers of torture?” Her look of baffled disdain spoke louder than words. Then she shrugged, shook her head, and groaned. “But Irishman hates my dustah.”

“What’s a dustah?” I asked. It sounded exotic and foreign. She looked at me aghast.

“You don’t know? It’s that shapeless thing that hangs off your shoulders and doesn’t come in contact with your body anywhere else…the most comfortable thing alive. You can go naked as a jay underneath – it’s heaven.”

A memory took shape in my mind’s eye of my mother’s floral pastel, snap-up-the-front housecoat. She’d called it a duster – dustER. Ah-ha!

So that’s what we were talking about. Lottie’s accent was decidedly not English in the Midwestern U.S. style. It had the delightful flavor of the British Isles that made ah’s out of r’s.

I remembered Mom wearing her gown in the morning. But after school lunches were packed and breakfast eaten, she exchanged comfort for clothing that fit her form. It sounded like Lottie missed that step and dear Irishman didn’t approve.

Mom had Dad to impress. Lottie has Irishman.

I don’t cater to anyone but myself. But Lottie’s words stick in my mind every time I slip into my most comfortable outfit. I’ll have walked a mile or more with intense tropical sun beating on my head. I’ll be dripping, my clothing drenched in sweat. As soon as my feet touch home turf, I beeline for the shower and peel off the soggy garments.

Showered and refreshed, I reach for the dress. As it slips over my head, pure joy floods my soul. Stress leaches out of my body. Invariably I inhale, deep and long, and release a blissful sigh. Nothing else even comes close to the relief of lounging the afternoon away in unbound ecstasy.

The pandemic has changed my apparel. Comfort is the ultimate driving factor and yesterday I came face-to-face with the consequences of that. For eighteen months I’ve worn nothing snug – nothing that requires me to suck in my stomach. I’ve sat way more than I’ve stood or walked. Now that I’m packing for a trip to see family in the States, I’m trying on ‘real’ clothes. To my horror, a fleshy spare tire seems to have settled around my waist and hips. I’m pear-shaped with toothpick legs and that is not okay.

There’s not much hope of remedying the situation in the eleven days before I leave. But once there…

Jessa and Dan have promised long hikes on the ridges along the California coastline overlooking the Pacific Ocean.

In Minnesota, I’ll stroll the path along Minnehaha Creek to Lake Nokomis and Lake Hiawatha with my twin grandsons.

Pennsylvania with Joy and Kellen and my very active, very precocious granddaughters will be anything but sedentary. By the time I return to Bali I’ll be whipped into shape.

Re-formed.

Or…Maybe I’ll melt back into my ‘dustah,’ breathe that blissful sigh, and revert to my old, wicked ways.

Do any of you out there share Lottie’s love of the shapeless, unconfined comfort of the dustah?

Has the pandemic changed the way you dress?

Has anyone else gone pear-shaped?

Love is a Decision of the Will – Really?

27 Aug 2021 6 Comments

by writingforselfdiscovery in love, wisdom, Writing Tags: , , , , ,

It was 1981. I’d stopped in to see a friend, a strong, smart woman who had been married long enough to have three children – the oldest was four. She was large with striking looks, double the size of her husband, and she wore the pants. He was a sweetheart, mild-mannered, jovial, engaging. He adored her and took her bossing with a good-natured wink.

On this particular day our conversation turned to intimate themes. I can’t remember what triggered her statement, but I’ll never forget what she said.

“Sherry, love is a decision of the will.”

I felt as though I’d been gut-punched. I didn’t want to believe it. How cold. How unromantic. How, how, how…true?

I thought about the two of them, what an unlikely match they appeared to be. Was it a struggle for her? Was her morning mantra, I will love him today? Did she make that choice every single day, deliberately? Or was her comment in response to something I’d said? I hadn’t married the man of my dreams, but I didn’t want anyone to know that. It was all about the show, like my mother and our perfect family. But I felt safe with my friend. I might have let it slip that he was a disappointment – perhaps going so far as to say I no longer loved him.

Love is a decision of the will.

“You can’t mean that. Where’s the magic? What wife wants to have to will herself to love her husband? It shouldn’t be that hard.” At that time I was still trying to believe in happily-ever-after.

She didn’t smile. It was more of a raised eyebrow, you-poor-ignorant-child kind of look as she slowly nodded her head and sighed.

I ‘willed it’ with that husband for fifteen more years, long after any feelings of affection, any modicum of respect, any hope of change had withered. Her words gripped me with a force that commanded obedience and I obeyed.

Then one morning I woke up and chose not to love anymore.

There are two lessons here:

  • Words are powerful – what we say can change the trajectory of a person’s life, impact them emotionally for their betterment or their detriment, enhance or endanger their self-esteem, reverberate in their head forever
  • Strong statements must be tested – don’t swallow them whole even if someone you admire speaks them

Is love a decision of the will?

Forty years later, I’ve come to the conclusion that love is not one-size-fits-all.

For instance, there is nothing my girls could do that would ever stop my loving them. It isn’t possible. No matter what their feelings for me, no matter what their choices, no matter what, I will always love them. It’s unconditional. a response as involuntary as my heartbeat. It isn’t something I decided.

For everyone else, my love has an IF attached.

I’ll love a good friend IF they respect me, reciprocate my affection, and don’t misuse me.

Love for family members used to be automatic. I have to love you, you’re family. I no longer aspire to that belief. It takes a lot, but IF a relative won’t associate with me for whatever reason, I may choose not to love that person.

A partner?

Tricky, tricky, tricky. But I think I’ve learned a bit in my old age. Love cannot be based on a feeling. Romantic love is an illusion – a pleasant one – but an illusion nonetheless. It’s 70% hormones and 30% imagination and it’s unsustainable. Some of us can manipulate those percentages masterfully so imagination approaches 100%. It’s a story we tell ourselves to make believe things are better than they really are. It’s easier than admitting to a dysfunctional relationship. Easier than leaving.

We have to know ourselves well enough to understand what works for us and what doesn’t then negotiate the terms with our partner. There are those who have said:

I can love you IF we maintain separate homes. It works for them.

I can love you IF you will allow me the freedom to see other people.

I can love you IF I can spend one week a month away.

I can love you IF you give me $1000/week for whatever I want (Trust me – it happens.)

I can love you IF…

Then there are those precious ones who are so good to us that whatever they do that could be cause for annoyance is quickly forgiven and forgotten. Affection deepens with time. Trust grows. Love is easy. IF you are that good to me…

Love, then, is a compromise.

There’s more softness there. It suggests working together for the common good rather than one person’s steely-minded commitment not to hate. To me, a decision of the will says I will tolerate you, and that’s a beggarly substitute for love.

I don’t believe we can force ourselves to love. There has to be some element of love-ability which can be totally in the eye of the beholder and not visible to another soul, but it must exist.

These are my personal conclusions from a life lived with an abundance of misunderstanding around love. I very much enjoy deep philosophical discussions. Is love a decision of the will is a question ripe for exploration. You may wholeheartedly disagree with my point of view, and that’s wonderful. Let me hear your juiciest thoughts. Then I’ll decide whether or not I love you!

About the Monkeys…

18 Aug 2021 4 Comments

by writingforselfdiscovery in Bali, Covid, virus, wisdom, Writing Tags: , , , ,

Like slogging through a muddy rice paddy, we enter our seventh week of lockdown in Bali.

There are places to go. Grocery stores are open, Some restaurants ignore the take-out-only mandate and allow customers to sit and eat. It’s business as usual at petrol stations, banks, clinics, and pharmacies. What boggles me though, is the overwhelming number of buildings being built or remodeled. Is it optimism? Do they know something I don’t know? Or is it simply wishful thinking as numbers of new Covid cases in Bali nudged 2000 this past week. Builders’ supply stores are doing a booming business. That’s good news because I’m in the market for a new roof.

Ubud is home to The Sacred Monkey Forest. In the past, tourists paid handsomely to walk the mouldering jungle paths. They bought bananas at the gate which, one-and-a-half steps later, were snatched from their clutches to the absolute shrieking delight of besotted onlookers.

Those visitors have been gone for over eighteen months and none have come to replace them. The monkeys are bored without their daily entertainment. What’s worse, they’re hungry. Funds that used to feed them evaporated with the death of tourism.

They roam through town, performing acrobatics on electrical cables that festoon the streets. They savage neighborhoods, thieving food from fruit stands and pilfering bags full of groceries as customers depart the store. They stage war games on rooftops sending fragile clay tiles crashing to the ground.

My roof is in their path.

This never used to happen. The smart, mischievous macaques were happy in their forest sanctuary. At first they paid an occasional morning visit. As Coved droned on, that progressed to every morning. Then a late afternoon stop-by was added to the routine. Now they’re a constant presence, appearing throughout the day. If I lunch on the terrace I’m certain to attract a furry guest, or ten, who think it’s perfectly acceptable to snatch the plate from under my nose and eat the contents in front of me. Any move to salvage it is met with barred teeth and gut-chilling snarls.

It requires constant vigilance. If the house is left open and unattended, havoc is wreaked.

I’ve actually learned to tolerate most of it. But the roof is a constant source of concern. If a tile slips even a little, I’ll know it when the next storm passes through. If several are broken and I’m unaware of the damage, I’ll be scooping buckets of rainwater off the floor as mattresses get soaked and I practice words I didn’t know I knew.

Ketut spends more time on the roof than he does on dry land these days, replacing tiles.

That’s why we set out on the motorbike this morning. I’d found a shop online that sells metal roofing that looks like clay but it’s nailed in place. No slipping. No shattering into a million pieces on the ground. Ketut tells me metal isn’t completely monkey-proof. If one of those hungry beasts decides to break open a coconut up there, all bets are off. Even metal can’t withstand the jackhammer pounding of a determined monkey with a fresh nut. What are the odds that will happen? Quarterly? Once a year? Never? I’ll take my chances.

Today was gorgeous. Twenty-five minutes past lime-green rice fields, across bridges spanning bottomless gorges, through eye-blink villages, brought us to Sinar Sukses, a miniscule shop. The young man laughed when I told him Google said he had metal roof tiles. “Why would Google say that?” he shrugged. “This is a plumbing shop.” He suggested we try the building supply just a few blocks back the way we came and around the corner. Two women there listened to our request then pointed. Sheets of corrugated tin in various colors leaned against the far wall. No, they didn’t have metal tiles. Only the sheets. We asked if they knew where we could find what we were looking for. We left with an address a few miles away.

This store was large. It looked promising. We removed our helmets, washed our hands, entered and stated our business. A sad-eyed girl behind the counter shook her head.

It was on the way home that Ketut remembered a cousin recently roofed his home with metal tiles. He said he’d ask him where he bought them. A few minutes ago, the answer came. It was a building supply next to the market in Gianyar – the town we’d left a few short hours before.

I love it. I really do.

No, not the crashing roof tiles. That sound fills me with sickening dread and blood-lust – monkey blood.

I love the adventure. The thrill of The Hunt. The camaraderie as Ketut and I zip along roads that used to be clogged to a standstill with traffic this time of year. The laughter at our inside jokes that nobody else in their right mind would find even remotely funny.

The thing is, we’ll locate the tiles. Over much hemming and hawing – maybe this, perhaps that – a price will be negotiated. The job will get done. But right now, for my sanity’s sake, the longer a project takes the better. The more convoluted the search, the less time I spend missing my faraway loved ones. I seek out distractions with the same manic fervor I used to employ to avoid them.

It’s Bali. It’s lockdown. It’s life.

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