The Highwire Of Life

Balancing a 40 hour work week with participation in a spiritual community, running, eating, dog walking and going to the gym has become a big deal. I have not done it well for the past almost three weeks and I am trying.  Last night I just took care of cleaning up after the dogs who have wrecked havoc with the house, did laundry, bathed yet again in a day, ate dinner and read my new book.  That was a night off and it really did not seem like it very much.  The dogs really don't help matters right now.

I suppose having a human at your beck and call for a year with a human hot spot every day made them soft.  They have become used to having me here though they never helped me look for work.  In fact, they really did not care.  Now they are making a muddy mess in and out of the dog door because all is not right in their world.  I am working like a dog and they are not.  They are just being dogs.  Damn them.

I am doing the best that I can emotionally and my hands and knees hurt from the job.  I am struggling to make sense of being in a lovely place and not really feeling a part of the staff.  I am a native English speaker and the staff, except for only a few of us, are non-native English speakers.  They speak their common language to one another and I just sit there watching their faces.  It feels a bit lonely and maybe paybacks are a you-know-what. 

The best thing about today was a man who lives in the Assisted Living Unit.  His wife still lives in their apartment.  G. walks with a wheelie walker and he is slower on the draw than he used to be.  His wife is elegant and has a wide smile and porcelain skin.  She seems like she was once a dancer. 

I talked with them both today because G. wanted to meet me officially.  I stopped chucking the leaves while making compost and talked with them.  G. gave me a blessing and I spent the rest of the day thinking about him. I wondered what it would be like to be parted from my wife because she could no longer care for me.  This is the reality of our lives and yet it struck me to the core today.  The high wire of life is the act of balancing between life and life's tasks and the teeter totter of health and the weathering of our human vehicles. Some of us are still looking for the net.

Shedding The Past

October is a month of loss for me, shedding of the past, remarking on anniversaries of divorces, deaths, endings of friendships and birthdays of those I have loved in life.  Autumn brings a turning inward trend for the earth, also shedding her trappings and casting them downward to become compost for the spring and summer beyond. The earth seems to have an easier time of it than I do though she is well practiced and wiser than myself who still wants to cling to people, places and things as if those complete me.

How I navigate loss sometimes seems like a magic act or simply a slight of hand that even I am not shrewd enough to catch.  In order to stay present, and I am not there yet, I try to absorb the radiance of the changing light, the deep blue sky that is a backdrop for sunrise, birds collecting and skittering around at lunch and trust that my humanity is part of my humanity and this too shall pass.

I thought of Janis Joplin's song that claims "Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose.." as a way of making sense of loss and all that it attends to my heart these days.  In other words, feeling loss and the pain of no longer feeling connected to careers, people or places is  part of being here and the freedom comes in knowing that one does have nothing left to lose except everything.  What would Jean Paul Sartre have to write about that?

The Beautiful People

Today we went to volunteer at a food bank event called Calabash.  It is a good money maker for the food bank that serves 650 county humans living with HIV/AIDS.  It is a tadoo with over 150 volunteers over a six month prep period.  There is incredible art auctioned with gourmet food and wine served to the beautiful people who come to schmooze and ogle and participate in cocktail banter. 

For me now that I work 40 hours a week, taking an afternoon/eve to volunteer is a big deal.  Sad but true.  However, being of service and giving my time for things that I believe in sustains me and also sustains the planet we share.  I saw some handsome men and women, some bedecked artist types and one very odd necklace made of a monkey's skull replete with teeth.  That was gross not art.  I gave my time so that money made could feed men, women and children in our county who live with a virus that could easily kill them. 

I noticed several people who have crossed my path in my former profession, known to me by phone and attitude though they did not realize who was giving them a bidder number. I noticed several people who acted like they have wealth and may indeed have commas in their checkbook balance that I can only dream of having.  I noticed many humans with beautiful faces and stylish clothes and I wonder what that could be like to try on for an afternoon or a week maybe.  What would it be like to be one of the beautiful people admired simply because genetics played a winning hand in the poker game that became your body?

The Undertow And Finding Knee Pads In Petite

Sometimes I think that the composting of life as an unemployed human and as a newly hired human share the same source of angst, balance, tenacity and perseverance. Or maybe that is just my process in life and the challenges that come require plenty of water, a good rake and some knee pads. 

I have made it to Day 10 and I am tired yet happy with my progress.  However, the worms turned and I was able to identify several slippery and some turgid waters where the undertow could have pulled me under and out to sea. Thankfully I know a riptide when I see one and the keyhole in the water took the form of humans doing what humans do in order to make themselves seem bigger than they really are in life.

Yet finding out that my brand new employer may merge with a corporation was devastating to me today.  I could see the past in the side view mirror and began to unwind with some of that cloak and dagger information that is banging about the place.  I know what corporations do to people or rather, I know what people who run corporations do to people.  It is hard to believe that I have come this far, with sore knees and tired limbs, feeling buoyed by working on such a peaceful campus and wanting to thrive there and knowing that a corporation put in charge of F.H. will lay waste to the blessed nature of everything once inspired by Quakers.

For me, it will be the slow and steady decline of peace and love and a huge change for the residents and staff that will leave us looking for the pods tucked away in the lobby, the gardens, the S.N.F. and in the break room.  It will be as if the body snatchers have done their best to make it seem like just another day of the week.

A Reason, A Season Or A Lifetime

Day eight and I am still alive and well.  It is more of a transition to work as a gardener in triple digit heat though we find shady garden areas or lots of leaves to rake when it reaches the pinnacle of the sun's trajectory.  We have to in order to survive.  I drink lots of water and the sweat runs down my face at times just the same.  So, still happy to be working and especially working outdoors in such a peaceful, blessed place.

The hardest part to any new job for me is balancing the idea of being teachable with my own insecurities about being perfect-rather not perfect.  My perfectionism was alive and well in High School when I received a 4.0 GPA my last two years at S.R.H.S. and my B.A. at S.S.U. when I worked full time at night and went to school during the day, surviving on Dr. Pepper and coffee to stay awake.  I graduated with honors just the same.  It is a handicap to have that kind of drive in life though it has brought respect and attention to my threshold, it comes at a price.

And so, now I work as a gardener and I know quite a few things and I am the new girl on campus and I make mistakes or I am just corrected just the same.  I must swallow the directions in broken English and realize that my humility as a gardener is just as important as this journey's trajectory.  The truth does lie within my acceptance of my less than expert position.  I am still, a work in progress.

I am saying farewell to some people who have been my friends for the spring to summer season and that will come to feel better as the days progress.  It is difficult for me to realize that some of my connections with other humans are for a reason or a season. Autumn brings leaves to the grounds around me and also some the the relationships that will naturally retreat to the background. Painful and true at the same time.

I also say farewell to a woman who helped me step back from the brink of death as my government career came to an end.  I was crazed, terrified, angry and unreachable.  This fine woman brought a kind and reassuring presence to me and at times I clung to her as if a ragged piece of wood from a shipwreck at sea without a beacon or a lifeboat or a survivor in sight.  I believe that she saved me from death.  Thank you Sandra, you saved me from myself. 

The Old Woman And The Swing

E. comes to sit in the swing,
a patch of sun slanting across her
frail legs on a
Monday afternoon
and falls, head back,
mouth open
alseep.
A furrowned brow nonetheless,
E. sleeps and she is
97 years old as she likes to say.
I toil nearby removing weeds and leaves
from the tree ring of
one of the many fruit trees here,
giving the tree
a fresh start fo the
coming winter.
I check E. to see that she is
breathing
because she is 97
and I think
it would be a sweet entry to
death for her
there on the swing,
half in the sun
on a Fall afternoon in
September.
I wish that kind of death
for her,
a soft landing as my sister likes to say,
and yet
she rises later to
push her walker forward
back to her apartment,
a lonesome figure,
a prickly and tenacious
97 year old.

Peggy Lee And My Father's Law Office

Yesterday we sauntered downtown to Courthouse Square for a book fair on a temperate Sonoma County afternoon. The streets were cordoned off so that aspiring writers could hawk their vanity press books and the library held down the corner with a used book sale.

Whenever I walk around the square, I think of my father's office in the Empire Building years ago. Actually, decades ago now. I loved that building that once held Empire School of Law with its marble lobby and clacking elevator. My father's office, on the second floor, smelled of old books and had high ceilings and always seemed so bright and alluring.

You could look down onto 4th street from the windows and my eyes followed the smooth, warn back of his wooden swivel chair to the safe behind him dark green with gold swirls outlining the face. That safe was a child's mystery to me and I wonder what he did with it when he retired. The images reflected in my thoughts now of the smells and the sights of my father's very earnest law practice.

Yesterday though, I just sauntered through the book fair in my very meager hometown, letting my mind wander behind my tired body. I felt happy until across the table of used books a familiar voice said hello. Suffice it to say that former partners, spouses and lovers can bring up stories and events better left to the cobwebs of years past. For me, this particular ghost, though coming up on an eight year anniversary of the divorce, still holds a sharper edge than I thought or wished upon myself on a sunny Saturday in September.

We cannot usually choose our memories or our lessons. Perhaps I could have handled our interaction with more love and neutrality than I did. For me, a quick recognition and a feigned lack of emotion was my defense. The thoughts trailed on for several hours afterwards. For me, loving another human so deeply and being slayed by their rejection may be a lifetime's healing path. I shall give myself a break for still feeling the loss of someone once so very dear to me.

Strange or not, I thought of Peggy Lee and her song "Is That All There Is" to round out a tiresome week that ended on a discordant note. No breaking out the booze for me though I feel similar sentiments as if I were watching old ghosts flutter past my gaze thinking there would be more to a fire than what I saw.