Tending Joy

 Begin with the end in mind.

So the "end" I seek is enjoying my life.

Just now that looks pretty narrow. 

I start to talk about my general good health, and right away a paragraph emerges that is all focused on the momentary back spasms I've been having since about Thursday. I know what caused them, I'm pretty sure my chiropractor will give me lots of great help, the minutiae of exactly what happened and exactly what it's been like, moment to moment, is of no interest, even to me. But I've had to throw away that paragraph three times. I might not keep this one either.

So yes, part of "enjoying my life" is "enjoying my robust good health." More genuine exercise seems appropriate. I gave up a gym membership I wasn't using, but maybe it's time to go back? At least, I think I'll start regular swimming again. I could eat slightly more intelligently, but first I would have to be willing to give that some attention, which isn't happening this week.

Then there's the question of 'useful work.' 
 
Cherry Hill Seminary deserves more of my attention than it gets, many weeks, but other weeks I find myself diving right in and doing a decent job. I suspect my days of doing a stellar job might be over -- not enough consecutive memory, and a certain amount of dropping the ball -- but it's hard to tell if that's permanent. And in the meantime the Student Handbook I wrote has been mostly subsumed into the new Catalog with excellent results.

I continue to feel that I'd like to be volunteering at the University of Santa Monica, but I would have to live there to make that workable. And at this moment I'm not sure I really want to do that -- except for USM and the fact that one of my kids lives there, I don't enjoy a lot of Los Angeles sprawl-and-freeway life. If I live close, it's expensive; if I live far enough away to be cheaper, then it's a long freeway drive. So I don't seem to be moving in that direction at the moment.

Hospice volunteering continues useful and fascinating by turns, but highly variable. Offering Reiki to people with illness, injury, pain or disturbance continues to feel comfortable and valuable. And sometimes it feels self-serving. Does it provide genuine relief that people experience? or are they just being nice and allowing me to do something that obviously feels so right to me? Sometimes I'm not sure.

And what about companionship, relationships, interactions?

A few good friends. A few groups that seem to value me; sometimes I enjoy my participation, sometimes it's a chore, occasionally it feels like a "pass time" in the same way as playing solitaire. What is in my life just now that actually has value to me? Where am I attached to the wrong things? Where am I not attached enough?

Dear Husband is in Guatemala. I am here. When I'm on the boat, I wish we were sailing, I miss my loom, my coven, my friends, my New Jersey life. But here in New Jersey, I look around and wonder what there is in this New Jersey life that keeps me from sailing?

Perhaps what I'm experiencing just now is depression. Or perhaps it's the end of an era, a time of reassessing and culling and choosing. When we move out of this house, what will I keep? What space do I really require? What space would I prefer? Can I afford the difference? 

Perhaps what I'm experiencing now is the beginning of old age. First I gave away my ice skates (a bone scan with "osteoporosis" in the title is enough to say 'no more falling on ice for you.'). I want to go skiing this winter but it's been about five years since I did. Maybe I'm not really in shape for skiing just now, but what would it take to train for it? I want to imagine myself lean and lithe, flexible  and strong, but it might be wishful thinking.

My skin in the mirror is wrinkled, beginning to thicken. My hair is grey, beginning to thin. When I get dressed up I look dressed up, but no longer am I able to look ravishing or strikingly beautiful.

If my goal is to enjoy my life there are some things I'd better change.

Gray day. Third day home from Thorn's class ... and still I haven't made time for personal practice. Is this the inner saboteur? What am I afraid of? What am I making more important than my work? my word? my Life?

Keeping commitments is good, but some of these commitments were only made, really, because someone asked and the calendar was empty. How do I change my habits to make my time more focused? When I seek empty avoidance behavior (the most typical lately is mindlessly playing computer solitaire), what's going on in my life? in my head or heart?

Today I will glaze a bowl and several smaller pieces. Today I may finish the sample weaving I'm making with the loom waste from the prayer stoles of three years ago. Today we move the RV from the brake-and-wheel-bearing repairshop to the roof-leak repair shop. Tonight is Macha's workshop on Grief and Death. Then what?