A Magic Trick Awaits Us

I met a young woman today at our wee local art store who told me, as I was buying a few things for our New Year's Eve "vision map" collage project, that she had been unemployed for over a year and only recently came to work at the store.  She told me that she worked on an organic farm in Tomales for a season before, after a year, the art store called her.  She understands what we are going through in our house.

I ran around the lake, today with the addition of my gloves because it is so cold here this winter.  I ran because it makes me feel connected to the earth and to life.  I am running for my life you see.  It is the last day of a turbulent year and I am "honoring the end" with hopes for a dramatic appearance somewhere in 2013 that will include a good, well earned paycheck. 

We both have made our vision collages of the things we hope and wish for ourselves.  Something needs to change in a big way and like all years, there were good times and low times.  I am fortunate, unlike the man I met who parks on our street at night in his RV, to have a home.  Likewise, I have a partner who loves me and understands well what makes me tick.  I have a few people who know me and know that I care deeply about the earth, excellent writing, dogs, cookies, an honest day's work and truth.

May 2013 include all of the above and a road trip to The Grand Canyon and Monument Valley or Hawaii and not necessarily in that order.  Be well and be strong.

Happy New Year!

Griswold Family Christmas Tree Part II

A 40% off Christmas tree from our favorite, loving nursery people, a whole lot of freaking ornaments and a few bright lights to cheer us on past a difficult year and somebody's idea of having fun on a dark, December night. 

Merry Christmas everyone!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNJXWfXyqgA

Yellow Slicker Fisherman

Today, the solstice, I got up early and took the dogs for their morning walk,  It was raining, as it has done a fair amount so far this season, and we all put on our fleece lined raincoats.  It has become our ritual, and being unemployed, I do so gladly for them and for me. 

When we came back, shed our wet coats and mopped up the floor, I donned my running gear and headed off for my Friday run.  It was still raining and very sharply crisp. I seemed to be the only runner today, with a few stalwart walkers trekking around Lake Ralphine and Spring Lake.  As I trucked up the second dam, the wind bit into me hard enough to slow my pace, sharp and cold.  My view across the lake was dark and brown and I felt a little crazy, a little slow and a little old.

I run because it gives me a purpose and I run because I feel good doing so.  I am not a fast runner but doing well for someone in my age range.  Finding employment in my age range is much, much harder and that is even more of a reason to run.  Cold, raining and windy.  Kinda like my job search!

As I came into the home stretch, now soaked but feeling good, I gazed across Lake Ralphine as I always do to spot birds or a lone, red canoe anchored.  My sights fell upon a lone, yellow slicker of a fisherman on the bank far across the lake.  Another crazy human, like me, losing their blues by being outside in the cold, windy and raining solstice of this December.  I am so glad to see that I am not alone.

Franklin Kay 12/17/06-08/03/1996

                                                                Happy Birthday Dad!

Hard Candy Christmas

I was scooting down the Avenue we use to get to and from the heart of town, having mailed packages from our wee community P.O. to my family in Texas, found an extra cookie sheet at the store and then sought vegan chocolate-not so easy for Santa!-and on came that Dolly Parton song that I love so much. I turned it up with my window down on this cold, clear day nearing to Christmas.

 How did Dolly know so much back then? Her voice is crystal clear as she sings about a difficult holiday that she is finding things to be grateful for, though very bittersweet. OK, so I started crying and I do mean streaming down my face and wondering why. At first thinking I am crazy and then, realizing that this is how I show up for life, my life, I remembered the wish I had almost 27 years ago on Christmas in 1985, that I would get sober and find my feelings.

I realized that I have said goodbye to many things this year and it is just all that catching up to me, in the Mini, on the way home on a clear, blue, cold day here. This is our first Christmas without Ginger and we are all still feeling the emptiness of the third dog bed.  I think Omi is affected the most as she continues to vocalize, mournfully, about her sadness each day.  We each find the loss of Ginger still ever present.  How could it be any other way?

I have said goodbye to many things this year including a difficult friendship, job offers and jobs in particular, my beloved Prickett's Nursery, Friends House as a benevolent campus, a trip to Austin that I hoped would change our lives and a spiritual community that I had thought held me dear.  Loss is part of the fabric of life and I know that in a very sharp way. Hard candy.

I have much to say greetings to for the new year.

For 2013,I wish to find new friendships that are truthful and loving, new employment that fuels my search to serve others and be seen for who I am instead of who I could pretend to be in the interview, a great job for my partner who was laid off unceremoniously and continues to hunt for something better just like me, a spring garden and a truckload of fresh mulch for another season and a trip to the desert.  I want to see the sunrise over Monument Valley and hike down into the Grand Canyon again.  I yearn for it.

I want to find a bagpipes teacher and begin to learn to play the pipes.  I want to travel to Hawaii and snorkel again in those healing waters.  I want to see more of the people I love and keep them close in my thoughts as we traverse 2013. I want to learn to do stained glass. I want to be more present, meditate much more. I want to stop judging others, including my broken self, and just love them.

There is some hard candy for this Christmas with tears, and joy and gratitude for life and everyone who has helped me this year. Thank you and bless you all.

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DaRp9j4Faec

 

 

 

A Hummingbird In Winter

The wee Hummingbird who has lived off our nectar producing plants is still with us and I see him from sunrise into sunset trying to find new blossoms to get him through another chilly day.  He is so tiny and I have taken to supplementing him with some sugar water that he no longer has to share with the bees and yellow jackets, now gone. 

He is living off of the salvia and abutilon blooms that persevere through winter.





He seems undaunted, eating to survive and surviving to eat.  I don't see him sitting on some bird couch, looking out the window and wondering where he is headed in life.  He knows somehow. As for me, I apply for jobs, working hard on the cover letter to set myself apart and listen to the silence of my resume hitting the black hole at lightening speed.  Me and everyone else.  Well, not everyone else but there are still so many of us. 

Recently, I applied for a job at the City of Santa Rosa and was invited to sit for the exam.  When I entered the lobby of the auditorium, there were many people there, checking their devices or looking nonchalant or trying to appear relaxed.  I dressed the part thinking it might boost my spirits.  I must say, it was a weird exam and I did alright.  However, as I did not score in the top five %, I did not get the interview.  I have been working on finding meaningful work for two years.  Whew, I almost had to buy a new suit.

Even more recently, I have applied for whatever seemed remotely interesting with the same deafening silence.  As there are two of us in our house looking for jobs, it is good to just vent about it with someone.  It does feel as if nothing is going to change but, like the Hummingbird, we must persist and try our best, sometimes hungry and a bit broken, and sometimes more neutral.

Just the same, to be a Hummingbird in winter means that each blossom holds the promise of a meal and each sunrise holds the hope of a job that can sustain us through the new year.

Christmas Is In The Air

Greyhound style...