House on the market

Friday, June 17th, 2011 03:56 pm
joyfinderhero: (Default)
 All the milestones are met.

So far this month we have:

Reduced the furniture we collectively own by 4 chairs, 1 dresser, and I'm not sure what else.
Reduced the clothing by more than 10 bags, mostly things that no longer fit, were part of an outfit that is now missing a part, or were terminally dated (60s, 70s, 80s, 90s).
Packed up all the winter clothes.
Packed up all the books that don't fit on live shelves just now (this doesn't count the 20 boxes of books to our local used bookstore or, if rejected by them, to the local thrift store, library, and prison-donation box).

Cleaned everything including some parts of the house that had not been cleaned for, literally, years.

Designed and installed the mantel we always said we would have -- and given up on the flanking bookshelves in the original plan.
Repaired four minor problems in basement and kitchen.
Resurfaced concrete steps on all the porches.
Sold the dead vehicle collection and removed all the weeds from the driveway.

So far this week we have:

Hosted our first open house for real estate agents -- this one for agents in the local offices. Next week there's another for the agents in nearby Princeton.

Tomorrow we have our first official showing to actual buyers.

Each of the four of us is processing all this change in our own unique ways. No two people seem to be having the same emotional experience. Each of us is doing the best we can to do the work that is required. All of us our tired. We take turns feeling like we're at the end of our ropes. There's even been a bit of taking turns feeling like this is impossible, too much work, going too fast.

If we are very lucky we will all be in new environments by year end. If we are even luckier than that, we will all be adjusting well to new circumstances and have come out of this situation better than we expected.
 
Please send light and love -- some of us seem to need this a lot just now.
 
joyfinderhero: (Default)
Progress.

Talking, planning, figuring out.

Recognizing that both of us need better communication skills.

Tears. 

Drained.

Quiet.

Do you know what you want yet?

Spending lots of time the past few weeks clearing out, consolidating, cleaning up. Several trips to the thrift store's donation site. One trip to the auction house with a half a truckload. A dozen things on eBay and craigslist, about an equal number sold as not.

Lots of dreams about houses in disrepair. Struggle. Today I argued with everyone in the house for at least a few minutes, one at a time. Maybe tomorrow I won't be on my feet from 6 am to 5 pm.

Tired.

(no subject)

Sunday, April 3rd, 2011 09:38 pm
joyfinderhero: (Default)
I dreamed and journaled and planned and figured my way into a fairly large 'next step' and then waited for Dear Husband to get back to the states from helping a friend move a sailboat -- a five week journey that he seems to have enjoyed at a very deep level. I drove 1400 miles to meet him for some deep and serious conversation.

He was, as always, patient and supportive. He surprised me by being willing to look objectively at next steps and offering a couple of different trial periods. I surprised myself by having far more trouble speaking up for myself that I had expected. We surprised each other several times over, both by the amazing ways each of us could misunderstand a one-sentence comment or a single question and, later, by the level of resilience and flexibility each of us could demonstrate, at least in the short run of a couple of days.

Decisions made:

We will sell the house. It will be sooner rather than later. We may not be 'fully ready' when we list with a real estate agent. This will require both of us to confront the many demons lurking in boxes that were packed in 1980 if not before. It will require both of us to cull collections of books, tools, and artwork. We have a number of ideas about what to move to, and where -- and no decisions at all about that -- but 'when' has become 'this fall if possible, but certainly by spring.'

We will break up the household -- four of us in one house becoming two households, or maybe more than that.

This is going to require lots of flexibility, grace and generosity for the four of us who have lived together since 1991. It promises to be at least occasionally rather fraught.

In a month or less DH and I will dedicate a chunk of time to doing counseling together and see if we can redesign our relationship along the lines of where it was decades ago.

I will get my dancing fix without him. We will need to develop a shared activity that has some of the same benefits. What else? I wish I knew.

The hardest parts are probably still ahead.
joyfinderhero: (Default)
How lovely to have the Full Moon and the Autumnal Equinox coinciding!

One result is a luscious abundance of ritual. Sunday I celebrated a new connection to an initiatory lineage (though not an initiation, at least not yet), and then an hour later retraced the journey of Persephone in a celebration of Mabon with the same group. Tuesday celebrated Mabon with a less-structured group of mostly longtime friends, singing and chanting and weaving vines. Friday (today) celebrated the Moon with magic to clear and ground.

Lessons, so far:

* The well-worn path may be easier to follow simply because it is wider, more clearly defined, the pitfalls labeled and warded.

* The eclectic path may have more freedom, and certainly offers more opportunity for experimental, unskilled participation -- with results that can be surprisingly effective, or surprisingly unsatisfying, by turns.

* We are all connected. The incidence of serendipity has been extraordinary.

* It seems possible that the chief purpose of family is to drive me crazy until I surrender. Twice this week (or maybe more?) I have had the experience of finally feeling fed up, stating a firm boundary, walking away to honor my unwillingness for that boundary to be violated ... and at once found the offending family member stepping forward to honor (in one case, for the very first time) my request.

* There is nothing so wonderful as deep work with friends.

* There is nothing so wonderful as deep work with people I may hardly know in ordinary circumstances but can know and trust deeply in ritual space.

* This is a wonderful moment to be incarnate.
joyfinderhero: (Default)
Arrived home (New Jersey) Friday night about 11. That makes 16 hours travel on Friday plus 6 on Thursday. A good dinner and a comfortably plain hotel room didn't make the trip better, just less exhausting.

Since coming home I have:

Given Reiki to two new clients
Held a first meeting with folks who want to craft a custom ritual.
Unpacked everything except my multi-pocket travel vest, which still holds passports, money in two currencies, my Guatemala cellphone.
Washed two loads of laundry (one to go).
Cleaned up the kitchen, which had a backlog of stuff not yet put away.
Attended the first-ever block party on our street.
Opened a box of books ordered from Powell's last time I was home, including several for my granddaughters.
Read Dr. Seuss's book, You're Only Old Once. (If you have personal knowledge of the truth that old age ain't fer sissies, you may LOVE this book.)
Put the finishing touches on the parts of the Student Handbook that I have control over, and framed my questions for the parts I don't.
Cleaned out my shelves in the mudroom, and thrown away candy, cough drops, and chewing gum with date codes from 2004.
Opened all my mail from the past three weeks away.
Changed my outgoing voicemail message on two systems.
Checked in with the Hospice coordinator to say I'm available.

I have not yet:
Taken action on the three pieces of mail that require it.
Spoken a single word of Spanish since I got on the first plane Friday morning.
Pulled the loom out of its corner and out from under its dust-cover.
Phoned the five or six people I would most like to see or talk to this week.
Received a reply to several e-mails to grandchildren.
Eaten a meal with my housemates.

Tomorrow I must:
Take my car to the body shop for an estimate after I lent it to someone who misjudged the location of the garage door.
Phone my dentist to apologize for missing an appointment last week that I thought I had changed.
Phone my optometrist to see about updating my glasses as the quick replacement pair I got the day I left in March are just a little bit off.
Finish the Student Handbook and get it posted.

My energy waxes and wanes, but so far it feels like I'm more or less on schedule.

The Witch

Wednesday, April 4th, 2007 11:53 pm
joyfinderhero: (gateway to home)
This was actually written a month ago, in response to the invitation below. Since these ideas continue to roll around in my head, occasionally lifting an eyebrow as if to ask 'what are you doing about this?' ... I figure I better post it here.

The Witch

            Knock. Knock. Knock. Someone is at your door. You have eaten, cleared the dishes, and readied for bed. Who would come knocking at this late hour? Who is it standing there under the full moon's beacon in the high night wind? You cautiously open the door. Before you stands the witch. What do you feel about this person on your threshold?

            For this exercise, consider that you are the author of a piece of writing with a witch in it. The witch is standing behind you as you write, dictating how he/she should be presented. What is the witch telling you? Is it a list of rules? A monologue? A story in itself? Random thoughts and phrases? A recipe?

            The Witch. She stands behind me, looking over my shoulder. She plays with my  hair while she watches what I am doing.

            The Witch. She sits in my lap, snuggling for warmth. She reaches for the  food on my plate.

            The Witch. She stands before the mirror at midnight. She stares into my eyes  and wonders if I can see her. I wonder if she can see me.

            She blinks. I hesitate. Something's happening.
  

            The Witch looks out the window, watching the dark woodland as the wind blows. The moon, just rising, lights the faces of the streaming clouds as they flee beyond the thrashing trees. By its light her face is thinly reflected in the glass. Behind her, the mirror shows my face.

            Something's happening.

            I've waited a long time for you, she says. You're older than I expected. What were you doing with all that time? No, don't tell me; I'm sure you thought it was important, or someone else did. Or you thought someone else did. It doesn't matter anyway; you're here now, and time is all Now to me.

             I listen, spellbound. She turns, regards me. Am I to speak? Apparently not, for no words come.

             At least you're healthy, she says, and complete. Last time we met you'd already lost a leg, a breast, most of your wind and a great deal of your disposition. Why was that, I wonder? --No, never mind. You don't remember anyway. It was a long time ago, and that wench has been dead these many centuries.

              A shadow zips through my mind and is gone before I can catch it. Was that an owl hooting? the smell of woodsmoke? Did I see a speckled mirror hanging from a nail?

              Sit down, she says, and a chair appears in the gloom. My chair, the pink silk I inherited from Griffin Lovelace's wife. The chair I lost in 1969.

              I sit; what else can I do?

             We've much to accomplish, she says, and time is short. You've much to do before death claims you this time.

             She gives her attention to the hearth a moment. I sit silent. Ideas and images float chaotically inside my head; my awareness feels speeded up and jumbled. I remember ...
            
             I remember Katie asking me, "What would you do, if you knew you could not fail?"
             ("Write the 'Great American Novel'," I said. A host of other things flew out of my mouth after that -- the seminar that would revolutionize teenage angst and bring accelerated maturity, reduced pain, improved self-confidence, greater freedom to the youth who were willing to do the work; the movie, the book, the public-speaking career, the ashram, the yoga practice, the sailboat. Dozens of dreams I hadn't allowed myself to know came flooding out.

            That list is still there. I know where it is. I could look it up.)

            I remember Chris telling me I was in charge here, though I'd forgotten it was my turn to lead.

           (And the wonderful group Tarot reading we manifested, in the sacred space we created at my direction, that people still tell me about).

            I remember my shocked delight the moment a piece of homework from grad school turned into 125 pages of useful and fascinating material.

            I remember beginning to write poetry in an online class ... and the strange sensation of finding a different 'myself' at the keyboard. It's happening again, this awareness of a different 'myself.'

            Are you willing? she asks. Don't tell me if you're not -- it won't do you any good. The time for saying No is past. But look within yourself: Are you willing? And if you find that you're willing, then look again: Are you ready? Do you choose to focus your attention? Do you choose to pay the price? Do you imagine you can choose to ask the price first, and then decide? or will you just commit yourself? Which will it be, then? No, don't tell me -- it's not me you need to answer.

            Be clear, she says, for clarity is all that will serve you now. Speak only what is true and certain. Say only what you choose to manifest, for your every word has power in this place. As it does, as it has, in all of your life -- as you know by now. Be clear; be honest; speak wisely and well.

            You must work daily, she says, watching me with narrowed eyes. Each day that you skip practice presents an opportunity for the work to fail. You must work this each day, the dailiness is part of the work. And the deeper truth is, you are working each day whether you do the work or not. Practice shapes the day in one way, and unpractice shapes the day in another way, and both ways forge the work as it goes forward. You must choose, and choose again, though the time for choosing otherwise has long passed.

            You must focus, for if you do not then the work will be fuzzy and unkempt. Each time you are wayward the work will be made waywardly. Choose focus, and then choose again.

            You must persist, for the work will still need doing if you do not do it; and if you do not do it, you will return to have it to do again. Choose persistence, and then persist, and then choose again.

            She stirs the fire she has made, and the flames leap up. By their light I see that her gown is blue, not the black I had imagined in the darkness.

            Have you listened deeply enough? she asks. Can you smell what the work is, yet? Is there any doubt in your heart or mind or spirit or body? Do you doubt that you know what the work must be? doubt that you can do it? doubt that it is time, and past time, to begin it? Do you know, yet, how challenging the work is? (and how much harder it would be to 'not do' it?)

            I nod, still dumbstruck. I know exactly what the work is. I know exactly my place in the work. It is the place that has been mine all my Life -- this life, and the one before it, and the one before it, and the one before that. Not one single word of it forms in my mouth, but I know it.

            The fire quiets. She turns her back to me, her blue robe sending a purple shadow along the floor.

            A bird flies across the face of the quarter moon. The fire buzzes and hums. Music sings in my imagination's ear, or memory's: "Give yourself to Love, if love is what you're after ..." and then "It's in every one of us to be wise, find your strength, open up both your eyes ... " and then "You are the crown of creation ..." and then the singing fades, and I am left with an orchestra in my head -- Rhapsody in Blue, and Take Five, and the drums of Babatunde Olatunji. I am crying; I wipe my face.

            When I raise my head she is gone. The woods are quiet, and then absent. I'm sitting in the cabin of a small sailboat, at anchor in a sunlit harbor, this computer on my knees.

            Already my experience of her is fading, but I don't seek to edit it. Every word is the plain truth.

            NorthLight, March 13, 2007, 6:15 pm.

            Yikes.

             <^>
               w

Structure

Friday, October 20th, 2006 12:07 pm
joyfinderhero: (Default)
This entry began as a comment in a friend's journal ... and then it just kept growing (grin). Thanks to [personal profile] bellamagic
For me there can definitely be "too much" structure ... I have found myself running so fast to keep up with my 'schedule' that there seems no time for reflection, relaxation, love, meditation, sleep, or friends. (This happened a lot during the years of two-job household with two teenagers in residence ... but it also has happened during the retirement time, just because there's so much delightful stuff one might commit to doing.)

And there can definitely be "too little" structure ... when I’ve had just one project due any time this month, and arrived at the 5th of _next_ month without having started. Having done just pretty much nothing -- or only 'reading junk' and 'playing computer solitaire', which is pretty much nothing -- for the whole time.

Nowadays I find that the purpose of a plan is to keep me in focus in the present. It might _also_ be to accomplish the original goal in the plan, and it _may_ even be that all the steps in the original plan get completed ... but the chief purpose is that having a plan keeps my minute-to-minute experience in focus. And I enjoy that more than other modes of 'just randomly being'.

So it helps to sit down before bed and write the six things I'm definitely going to do tomorrow -- appointments, phone calls, do-list items, fun, whatever.

So it helps to have a longish-term project in progress -- graduating from Cherry Hill Seminary, say. Or the novel-in-progress of which about 50 good pages exist, together with an outline of parts One and Two (out of Three or at most Four) that's pretty solid.

And it helps to have a medium-term project in progress -- say, the placemats I just finished for Bob and the ones I've just started for Harry, which keeps me weaving (which I deeply enjoy) and which follow from last year's commitment in a charity auction ...

And from these it follows naturally that today I will tie on at least another 24 threads of the 136-thread warp for Harry's mats. And today I will continue cleaning up my office from the end of the marathon Novel-writing workshop that helped me make 50 good pages out of 150 rather wandering pages last quarter.

And also today I will call the tax person, set up an appointment for an oil change, take back the yarn that shrank appallingly last week, eat both yogurt (for breakfast) and lots of citrus (for the cold that continues to demand it), do laundry. Do my daily practice, do a few yoga stretches, do my homework.

... and experience my day and myself as 'in focus.'

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