A Blank Page

   

      A blank page.  This morning when I thought about what I would write about, nothing came to mind.  That is not altogether true.  Nothing came to mind that I thought would be clever enough or good enough or whatever enough to elicit likes, followers or comments.  That got me to thinking, why was I writing?  Was it for me and if so, how was it for me?  For the kudos I would receive, for the recognition that someone out there read my blog and knew I was there.  Ah, the AHAH moment.  Why do any of us write, or for that matter do anything?  Are we doing it for the recognition, or because whatever we do has to be done, for the pleasure of it, or because the relentless voice in our heads will not go away until we do.  Does anyone really know what we are doing here or why we are doing it?  (Chicago's song, "Does anyone really know what time it is?" has popped into my head). There are plenty of people out there who claim to know, none of them have resonated with me.  Their truths are not my truths and my truths are changing all the time.  I remember being in one of the "truth boxes" and when I stepped out of it, lamenting the fact I had stepped out and wanting to go back in, but as in the movie, "The Matrix", once you take the red pill, there is no going back.  But what if the blue pill is the truth?  Depends on which truth you embrace.  There are plenty of red and blue pill realities plus a plethora of other colors to choose from.  Nothing really to write about today except questions of the Universe that have no answers.

3 Weeks

  

    It is week 3 of our year in an apartment.  I have tried to break the time into days or months but they both seem so daunting, weeks seem much less.  It is just how my brain works.  Our house in Bulverde is still on the market, we did receive one offer but is was so insulting and as this is our "Move to Colorado" money, we are not willing to budge too much.  That is the plan.  A year here, and then Colorado.  I have been trying to move to Colorado for 5 years now and knowing that every day I am closer and closer to that goal keeps me going.  Why Colorado?  My Soul soars there.  I feel at home.  Not an easy task for a military brat that went to 13 different schools and has moved 20+ times.  I am ready to settle down and make peace with myself.  Plus I can breathe in Colorado.  When I am there on vacation, I take deep breath after deep breath and my Spirit is renewed.  It will happen.      
     I have taken a part-time job in a tasting room.  They are in need of a tasting room manager, which was my position at my last two jobs, but I have not been quick to apply.  I have told them I am more than capable of doing the job and helping their business grow, but I am not sure I want to fall into the same trap as my previous jobs where I worked my can off for someone else's success.  It is a constant daily battle for me not to act as a manager.  It is what I do, but I also remind myself they are not paying me to be a manager and as most companies, although I do not think they do it intentionally, they will abuse the situation until the situation no longer exists.  I am setting boundaries early, trying not to repeat the same mistakes over and over again.  This part of my life is about changes that I choose to make.  Which includes respecting who I am, what I am worth and allowing the best into my life.

Steps

     It is funny how my perception changes with situations.  One of the reasons I did not care for our house in Bulverde anymore was because of all the steps.  One had to go down 5 steps to go to the kitchen and dining room and up 12 more steps to the master bedroom and office.  On my days off I was continually going up and down the steps.  I tried my best to talk myself into liking it, “Oh this will be the 5^th time you’ve done this, your body is so grateful”, but after about the 10^th time I was not so grateful anymore.  When we were looking for an apartment, I insisted on a first floor.  My husband wanted a 2^nd floor apartment; it was more secure, you could see more from the balcony etc.  I did not want steps.  We live on the 2^nd floor.  After our first big grocery store haul, he understood why I did not want a second floor.  Too late.  I have now started a health program where I walk around the block every morning, and have incorporated walking up and down a set of steps in the beginning of my walk and the end.  Go figure.  When I am in the mode of “I am doing something healthy for body”, the steps do not bother me.  When I come home from work or shopping, they are a chore.  It is all in the perception.

My Balcony Is Empty

   

My balcony is empty except for a few items I brought from the house.  I have walked around the apartment complex looking at other people’s balconies, seeing how they decorated or did not decorate.  Some of the balconies are totally bare, some have a couple of chairs and maybe a table, a couple of plants or the balcony is filled to the brim with plants and/or stuff.  I am drawn to the ones that have a variety of different sized pots, plants and flowers.  My husband calls them jungles, I call them sanctuaries.  I enjoy flowers.  I enjoy color.  I enjoy variety.  I wonder to myself why I need to put anything more on my balcony.  Is it for my enjoyment or for others to see, without me having to shout out, “I am here, look at me!”, instead it is, “Look at my balcony, I am here!”  Do those who have nothing on their balcony wish to be anonymous? Or do they just not derive joy from the same things?  Do they prefer to spend their money on other things or experiences rather than chairs, flowers……  I also wonder where my love of flowers comes from.  My dad had a vegetable garden when I was growing up, which I abhorred working in because I had better things to do like play than work in his garden for stuff I did not like to eat in the first place such as acorn squash, rhubarb and summer squash, at least to the extent that we ate them.  He grew so much one summer that we put a box out on the sidewalk full of vegetables with a free sign.  No one took them.  As I take my morning walks, I look at the different front yards and enjoy the ones with plentiful flowers.  The houses that have none I make immediate judgements that they must be rental houses.  Funny how the mind works.  Or at least mine.  I have no doubt that I will have a full balcony by mid-summer, but I believe I will take my time, visiting different nurseries, only taking what truly takes my breath away.  And maybe that is the process,  using the mantra, “Does this take my breath away?”, in all things I choose to bring forth into my life. 

The Winds Have Shifted

    

     The winds have shifted to the north so my morning writing is much noisier now, with airplanes leaving the runway via our apartment route instead of coming in via that route.  My husband tells me it is because it is easier for the planes to take off into the wind, I don’t know, I have never understood how planes work anyway though he has tried many times to explain it to me.  My mind is just not wired that way.  As the planes pass by I wonder where all those people are going.  What adventure awaits them at their destination, are they visiting families, on business, or “getting away” as Southwest puts it so well.  It saddens me that the generation now and future ones will not have the pleasure or the thrill of seeing their family members when they come off of the plane.  We are now subjected to waiting at the baggage claim, as if we are claiming our family, or waiting for the phone call in the cell phone waiting lot.  I do realize the tribe made this decision to step up security after 911 and other incidents to make us more secure, but at what cost?  And has it really made us so much more secure?  I admit it has made more jobs for people, new products, new ways to keep others out.  Alas, I do not want to go off on a tangent on how the money could be better spent on education, feeding those in need and all the other great causes there are out there to spend time and money on.  I have always lived in a bubble.  My life has been fairly easy, I have made my own dramas, and continue to do so, but they are small dramas compared to others I have seen or heard about.  There have been some scary situations where my life could have ended, but did not.  I used to question why I was so lucky, so blessed, but I do not anymore.  I let the question go.  I just appreciate the fact that I am here, wherever here is, knowing my time will come when I will no longer be in this space; be it this apartment, this state, this body and try to remember in my “drama” times that I can breathe, that I can see, smell, hear, listen.  The winds have shifted again.

No Place To Hide

    It is not that I was actually hiding from him.  He just saw it that way.  At the house, I had my meditation room, which I could only use when no one was there because someone would eventually  knock on the door to ask me a stupid question, there was Chelsea’s old room which I turned into my “white horse” picture room and did the majority of my creative writing and reading, the upstairs great room with a huge desk, which has been traded in for a TV tray where I paid the bills, kept records and had a second TV, the front porch for morning coffee and a backyard full of beautiful flowers, a dog and two cats.  I now have a balcony.  He has commented more than once since the move that he can now “find” me.  And again, it is not that I am hiding, it is just that I have always been someone who needs time to themselves, time to think, to listen, to breathe, little sanctuaries.  I have not yet learned how to be in my sanctuary when among others.  I do have my public moments of Zen, when I greet a dog with a wagging tail or see a pretty garden that has been tended to with love.  I guess my goal would be to see all moments with love, with an understanding that all is tended with love, a Great love, a love beyond comprehension, a love that all is well even when it does not seem that way.  A love that does not require a place to hide.

Routines

    New routines are hard to start, especially since I currently do not have a job or anywhere to go.  I am still exploring the city of Grapevine, but that will get boring soon enough.  My previous routine was to wake an hour before everyone else, feed the animals, make my coffee and sit on the front porch watching the deer walk through my yard; sometimes stopping to see if I had anything for them, watching Jasmine stalk birds and most recently watching a house being built on the lot next to us.  When everyone else woke up I would then take a shower and do all the things necessary getting ready for work, what clothes to wear, picking out jewelry and shoes.  I am not a makeup person and luckily my last few jobs did not require me to wear it although I did on special occasions.  I’ve never understood the whole makeup thing.  Reminds me of a Billy Joel song, “The Stranger”: “Well we all have a face
that we hide away forever, and we take them out and show ourselves, when everyone has gone……”    
     My new routine is to wake up, make coffee, sit on my balcony and while looking for a job on the internet (has anyone ever found a job on the internet?), watching the squirrels scramble about and people walking their dogs and leaving for work.  I am trying to remember what I did when we moved back from Reno to Bulverde and I did not work for 3 months.  I did have a yard to take care of, I cooked a lot, my house was definitely much cleaner and I did a lot of shopping.  This situation is different and I am different.  I have no yard, I have cooked a little, the apartment takes 10 minutes to clean and although I do enjoy a good day of window shopping, I am not looking for “things” anymore.  What is that U2 song?, “I still haven’t found what I’m looking for.”

Small Adjustments

The adjustments are small, the closet light being on the outside of the closet instead of inside, having to lock the front door, and cars, going up and down stairs several times when bringing home groceries, (now he understands why I wanted a 1^st floor apartment) and the list goes on.  The apartments were not built for a 5’2” person.  I will have very strong calf muscles after a year of stretching on my tippy toes each time to reach for the plates and cups.  Unpacking was almost done in the first day, but there have already been changes.  One does not realize how much some things are really used, example, the small colander.  It had been placed on the top shelf over the stove, it is now in the pantry as the step stool had to be used to get it down.  Going from 10 kitchen cabinets to 5 has been a feat.  There was a whole lot of purging before we left, but evidently not enough.  My morning coffee view is definitely different and much nosier.  I do have pretty trees to look at, and plenty of birds singing, but also get to watch others leave for their work, and listen to airplane after airplane leave.  Jim commented that he did not realize how noisy the planes would be, and I replied I choose to believe it is the sound of the ocean splashing against rocks.  He gives me that look of “I really don’t know what planet you came from.”  We have our coping mechanisms!