Last Post of 2013

Two more hours in which to create a post for 2013.

So we're sitting here watching "That's Entertainment" on TCM.  Is there a better way to spend a New Year's Eve than lost in 80-year-old celluloid?  When I was a kid, New Year's Eve brought us the first of a genre that's quite familiar now--film "marathons."  My favorites were Marx Brothers' films or Fred Astaire/ Ginger Rogers musical extravaganzas.  Old movies and New Year's Eve are synonymous to me.

As 2013 passes into the record books, I hardly know how to quantify it.  It hasn't been a bad year.  But it hasn't been a good year, either.  It's mostly been a year of...transition?  The rest after the cyclone, or the calm before the storm?  It has been an opportunity to just "be." Which has been fine, and probably direly necessary.  But I think I've had my fill of just "being"....I'd like to "do" something--before I get too old to enjoy it.

During our trip to Klamath in January, I became enchanted with owls--a bird I never dreamed I'd see in the wild.  We encountered so many there on the Northern California refuge, in the short days of mid-winter.  Those encounters seemed to have set the tone for my entire year.  I've been nearly as surrounded by owls as ever I was back in the quintessentially owl-y seventies.  I'd like to believe that the Universe's desire to speak to me through Owl caused this owlish ripple in the fabric of American pop culture.

I'm not entirely certain that I have been successful at discerning Owl's message for me so far.  I learned today that Owl represents wisdom, clairvoyance, the ability to "see in the dark"--to discern things that are hidden from most people.  I can't really see how this relates to how my life played out in 2013...but I have a feeling that it's going to have more meaning in the near future.

As for the coming year, I think I received my New Year's message from the Almighty this afternoon in my back yard: 

A pair of birds appeared, as far away as I could see in the eastern sky. I went and stood in the middle of the yard, away from the shadow of the house, to get a better view.  I thought they might be eagles, but they were too far away for my failing eyes to tell for sure. The birds flew straight in my direction, circled away, circled back, while I stood there like an idiot, urging, "No, no, don't go away! This way! Over here so I can see what you are!" They fell in line and flew right over my head, softly calling so I would know exactly what they were.

Ravens. The Universe sent me ravens.

Magic.  Rebirth.  Renewal.

Let it be!

       

Happy Solstice

 
December has been zipping past in high gear this year.  I feel like I’ve been running behind the Holiday Train, trying my damnedest to catch up and grab a ride.  Wasn’t Thanksgiving three days ago?

Before yesterday, I had not crossed one item off my Christmas shopping list, even though it was drastically abbreviated by our opting not to exchange gifts this year.  About that:  I expected to be at least a little sad and disappointed that husband and I wouldn’t be ripping into gaily wrapped packages (of things we didn’t want and wouldn’t use), but in fact it has proven to be the saving grace of the holiday.  I know I, at least, have felt much less burdened and able to enjoy the season without that one very heavy thing hanging over my head.

And yesterday was Winter Solstice.  It was inconvenient that it coincided with the last shopping Saturday before Christmas, and that we still had all our shopping to do.  We spent the daylight hours skipping around electronics stores, book shops and home centers ticking things off our gift list.  At Lowe’s, we managed to remember to pick up a bundle of wood for my Solstice Fire.

As compact as the season has been, I haven’t done the meditation and soul-searching I managed prior to my first two Solstice Fires.  I’ve been reflecting a bit on whether I have fulfilled the Universe’s mandate that I pursue Joy in 2013.  I think I’ve done it, to the extent that I’m able.  Certainly our trip to Klamath last January started the year off on a most joyful note.  I’m still struggling with relationship issues and lingering after-effects of the café experience.  I see myself making progress in my ability to think before acting out in frustration or anger.  And I’ve tried to find at least a little joy in every day.  But I still have a long way to go.

Anyway, the busyness of the day yesterday had me lighting my Solstice Fire well after the sun had gone down, so the opportunity to obtain a message from a bird spirit was severely compromised.  Not too likely that I’d get a flyover from Kingfisher or be accompanied by the song of Hummingbird at my fire this year.  I contemplated, as I gathered my bells and my pen (to write down the things that “no longer serve” which I would burn in my fire) and my cedar branches, if there would be a message from an animal spirit at this year’s fire.  I knew it was unlikely that there would be a bird in attendance; but when I thought about the day, I realized that my daylight hours on Saturday had been All About Geese.  At first light, I was out in the yard filling the bird feeders and heard the sound of the cacklers milling over the wetlands by the channel.  As we drove around doing our holiday shopping, it seemed like every time I looked up, there was a group of geese overhead.  On the way home at dusk, we were surrounded by literally hundreds of geese dropping out of the sky to their evening resting places on the ponds and the rolling hills surrounding them. 

Geese are an important spirit guide for me.  They were, in fact, the first bird spirits to bring me a message, way back when I didn’t even know bird spirits had messages for me.  In my personal liturgy, geese represent family and ancestors.  Geese symbolize my beloved departed—my sister, my dad, my mom.  They remind me to honor those spirits, to call upon them for guidance; and they remind me to treasure, nurture, and draw strength from the family I have left.

Satisfied that I had indeed received a visitation from a bird spirit to set the tone for the coming year, I settled down to my fire.  Without regret and with no anticipation of an additional spirit bringing a message for me.  I chose six chunks of milled kindling upon which I would scribe the things that would no longer serve, set them aside and proceeded to build my fire.  It sprang to life quickly and surely.  All week long, predictions of rain on Solstice evening had had me feverishly devising ways to have my fire without being TOO cold, wet and miserable.  But the promised rain had held off all day, and stalled yet a few hours longer after dark, long enough to allow me to kindle my fire in relative comfort. 

I played my bells, and sang, and hummed.  I meditated on the past year, considered the coming year.  Thought about Goose, and my family, and what meaning they would have for me.  And gradually, I became aware of an animal presence that I could not ignore.

Skunk!

No…he didn’t waddle up and share my fire.  In fact, I never saw him.  He probably wasn’t even very close by.  But his presence was obvious and persistent.  It was impossible not to understand that my fire had been delayed until the hours after dark so that Skunk could be present to impart his message to me. 

Also remarkable was that I was joined at my fire by yet another spirit whose presence was entirely unexpected:  my husband. 

My first two Solstice Fires had been conducted in solitude.  I’m pretty sure the husband has been at least partially convinced that a lightning bolt would issue forth from his Polish Catholic God as I sat rattling and singing and meditating, celebrating my connection to the Divine in the “heathen” way to which I felt called.  I never even considered inviting him to my fires.  It just didn’t seem to be in any way something that we could share.

But to my surprise, somewhere around the middle of my ritual, a be-parka-ed figure stepped out of the house and made his way to my side.  “Where am I supposed to sit?” he asked.  To which I answered, when I found my voice, that he should just grab a chair.

The attendance of the husband was at once a blessing and a distraction.  It did burst my meditative bubble; but it was also a welcome bit of companionship.  I had just been considering burning “solitude” in my fire, which didn’t feel right, because solitude DOES serve.  It’s only too much of it that doesn’t serve.  So I chose to burn “loneliness” instead…because that is indeed what too much solitude becomes.  And as if on cue, out to my side ambled my “better half.” 

So we sat and gazed into the coals, both remarking upon the obvious presence of skunk, until the promised rain would hold off no longer and sent us snuffing the fire, stowing our seats and retiring to the house.

I don’t even feel the least bit embarrassed or silly that skunk attended my fire and had a message for me.  As soon as we were safely inside out of the rain, I looked up “skunk” in my reference book.  And this is what I found:

Be assertive and stand your ground as necessary, and don’t let yourself be manipulated or pushed around.

Make your self-respect and dignity a top priority, offering the same respect to others.  

You’re taking yourself far too seriously and need to relax, play, and trust that everything is all right.   

Now I have to do a bit of contemplating about how these admonitions and the strong influence of family will interact to create the story of the coming year.

     

Christmas Conundrums

This is turning out to be the Porsche Christmas Season—compact and fast, like the car.  Impossible to believe that the month is already nearly half over, and it’s less than two weeks until Christmas. 

This season has represented for me a bit of an opportunity to review my traditions, preparations and expectations.  I thought that last year was an anomaly.  I thought that the lassitude and distinct sense of “un-excitement” I felt for all the things I had “missed” about Christmas during the café years was simply due to some kind of post-traumatic depression.  But even though I’ve felt like I’ve been rolling along in a much better state of mind this summer and fall than in 2012, I find that, with Christmas staring me in the face, my outlook has reverted to almost exactly what it was last year.

The hyper-decorating in which I have traditionally indulged seems to have lost its appeal.  Decorating four Christmas trees in various rooms of the house has become a monumental challenge, rather than the eagerly-anticipated Christmas bender it once was.  I still love the decorations, and can’t resist acquiring more when I fall in love with something in a gift shop or a resale store…  But I just can’t muster much enthusiasm for the physical act of erecting and arranging all the paraphernalia once the season rolls around.  If I could wave a magic wand and everything would leap out of the boxes and arrange itself, all glowing and Christmassy, I would be on board.  But it seems to take more time (of which I have an abundance, so I don’t know why this should be a problem) and creativity than I am generally able to muster these days.

And then there are the other Christmas traditions.  Like Christmas presents.

Over the course of a long-term relationship, much of everyday conjugal life just becomes rote.  Habit.  Eventually, years and years of always doing the same things transform them from habit to mandate.  “We have to do this because we’ve always done this.”  But some things fall victim to random moments of clarity about who you are and what you have been doing together for all these years.

Such a random moment was our “discussion” of last June, wherein the husband declared that he had spent the past thirty-six years doing everything he could to make ME happy.  And that I had it pretty good—I pretty much got everything I asked him for, so why was I not happy??!?  So astounded, hurt and mortified was I over that revelation that I believe those words will come back to haunt me every time, every time he asks me, all innocence and magnanimity, “What do you want…?”

So about a week ago, when he broached the “What do you want for Christmas?” subject, I backed away from it as if I were facing a crouching tiger.  Unfortunately for me, it is my nature for my true thoughts to bubble directly to the surface in moments like these...my first thought was to snap, “You actually think I’d ask you for anything, ever again?!?!?”   But I knew that would never do, so I hedged.  I feigned ignorance.  Told him I didn’t know, didn’t need anything, he should just use his imagination.

But , don’t you know, he couldn’t let it die.  He started throwing suggestions of what he might do or buy out there…hoping for a negative or positive response from me to get him headed in the right direction.  Eventually, I understood that the only way to get out of this gracefully was to propose that we come to a mutual agreement not to buy gifts for each other this year.  Always the brave one for face-to-face confrontation, I sent him an email—“For many of the past several years, neat little stacks of gifts  we chose to give each other, either in stockings or whatever, have sat around unopened and unused for months, and then as often as not end up going to Goodwill.  Seems like kind of a wasteful tradition, at this point, n'est ce pas?”

It worked, I think.  We agreed to take a couple hundred dollars to our local grocery store and buy food for the food bank instead of blowing money on things we did not need and probably would not use just because we’ve “always done that.”  It’s a good idea, and I’m proud of us for making that decision, and proud of myself for avoiding an argument that would not have produced any positive result.

Still…there are moments that I really do wish things were different.  That Christmas was still a time of magic and joy and the comfortable knowledge that there was one special person in the world with whom you were going to share that magic and joy forever.  Christmas isn’t joyful or magical anymore.  It can and will be other good things, though.  I’m sure of it.

I just haven’t completely figured out what those things are.  Yet…   

Did I Mention I Hate Not Being Able to See?

Had a tense drive home from Eugene this evening.  Interstate 5 bogged down to a stop at Albany (only 40 miles into our 120-mile journey), so we bailed off the freeway and jogged west to Highway 99.  Now, Highway 99 runs parallel to I-5 (sometimes concurrent with it) all the way up the Willamette Valley.  It is the “old” road upon which the Interstate was based. 

And while the traffic on Highway 99 was moving, unlike that on the interstate, it is a two lane road that goes through, rather than around, all the little Podunk towns between Eugene and Portland.  And our late start out of Eugene meant that half our journey would be made in the dark—since it’s pretty much dark as the inside of a pocket around here by 5:00 pm, these days. 

What a nightmare!  My old eyes are in no way vigorous enough to drive 50 miles on a sometimes twisty two-lane road, in the dark, in the rain.  The road is not lit and poorly striped; and every set of headlights that passed left me blind for one or two interminable seconds after they whizzed by. 

This is an age-related disability to which I have not become accustomed, and it’s hard to say which emotion won out after the ordeal--exhaustion, fear or anger. 

All I know is, I’m so physically depleted from that hour of stress driving that I can hardly see the keyboard for all the yawning.  Maybe I should look into getting a pair of those “night vision” yellow sunglasses.  I’ll happily consider any suggestion from any source as to how not to let my diminishing eyesight seriously impair my ability to go where I need to go, when I need to go.

I HATE not being able to see.

Thanksgiving 2013

It seems like holidays in America are taking tougher and tougher beatings.  Everybody from Native Americans to unapologetic capitalists was out to kick the crap out of Thanksgiving this year.  One way or another, you were made to feel like some kind of freak if you just wanted to celebrate a "traditional" holiday at home with family scarfing down a huge meal and then dozing in front of the television for the rest of the evening.  

I suppose when you stop to think about it, our traditional Thanksgiving celebrations don't much resemble those of the past--say, a hundred years ago.  I imagine there are past generations who would despair of the Macy's parade and football games having become long~standing traditions of the day.  Why are we not spending at least some part of the day in prayerful contemplation of our blessings? We long ago replaced the giving thanks part of "Thanksgiving" with testimonies to the things of 20th century importance--consumerism and sports worship.   

It makes sense  to  consider the march of "progress" when you think to criticize the observance of very old holidays like Christmas and Thanksgiving.  And you must take into account the tenor of the times, which just happens to be argumentative, disrespectful and as self-centered as possible at present.  How can any day, any celebration carried out in the atmosphere of 21st-century America not be tainted by the swirling negativity that colors every aspect of our lives?

How, indeed, can a day that was meant to provide an opportunity to pause and reflect on the providence that has placed us where we are, on the pure grace bestowed upon us, be celebrated and appreciated in this "I got mine all by myself and screw you if you think I'm gonna help YOU" culture we inhabit?

Would it be too much to ask for  the culture of gratitude to permeate more than Facebook posts?  What if you could turn on the television or radio or walk down the street and be not merely  aware of a spirit of thankfulness, but actually surrounded by it?  

Not gonna happen, I know.  

But wouldn't it be nice?

Little Victories Are The Fountain of Youth

I know I am old, and I know that I am so far behind when it comes to technology that, if I look at my hands really hard, they take on the appearance of dinosaur claws.

So when I sally forth into the world of electronics beyond my four-year-old laptops and my crappy Century-link internet connection, and I actually slay that dragon, I feel pretty damn good.  I feel a little bit less like the relic I am.

A couple of days ago, I ventured into the world of the iPad.  The only other Apple product I have ever owned is my itty-bitty iPod Shuffle.  And I distinctly remember going through the tortures of the damned trying to get that thing to actually accept music and then play it back to me.  I got the hang of it eventually, but the experience served to make me more than a little reluctant  to climb out the Bill Gates window and try my hand at anything too far outside of it.

And yet, here I am...clicking out a blog entry on my iPad with its bluetooth keyboard.  This successful foray into "new" technology so emboldened me that, this afternoon, I tried my hand at installing a wireless router.  

Oh, yes...the thing comes with a dvd that supposedly gives step-by-step instructions that any idiot can follow.  However, I--not being your run-of-the-mill idiot--could not make sense of the instructions past about step 3.  In the end, what worked for me was to stare at and study the three pieces of equipment I had before me--router, modem and computer tower--and the two wires that were somehow supposed to magically make them speak to each other, and proceed to connect them together in every WRONG combination possible.  Why something didn't flame out, freeze up or reach out and slap me upside the head, I have no idea.

Finally, I arrived at the last possible combination--the last thing I could conceivably try (short of putting the whole assembly in a brown bag, swinging it over my head and screaming like a chicken...) before the dreaded call to the guy who cheerfully says, "Hello, my name is Bob," but you know you're really talking to Rajeed and American English is not his first language...  I have SO been to that hell, and would do just about anything not to go there again.

Wonder of wonders, that last combination proved to be the magic assembly that made the components speak to each other in a language the gods of the ether could understand.  And, presto chango! I have wi-fi internet at my sister's house in Eugene.

Once again...

Victory is mine!

Is This Cheating?

My month of writing is beginning to face some challenges.  Yes, that's right.  On November 1, I challenged myself to commit to writing something every day for the next thirty days.   And, by golly, I have done so. The writing may not be good, it Might not even be decent, but it exists.  And that is really the only goal I was pursuing.

Husband and I were listening to NPR Sunday morning, and they did a piece about a weekly online song writing challenge.  The members have to write a song a week.  It doesn't have to be great, it just needs to be a song.

Jason Mraz--successful musician/recording artist who has been addicted to the game since2006--makes the point that "anything you want to be great at, you have to practice."  And the little cartoon lightbulb went on above my head:  That is exactly what I am doing with my "write something every day" 30-day challenge. 

I don't know why we writers seem to think that the talent is just there, and all we ever have to do is sit down and turn it on, like a faucet.  When I go back and look at my best essays, I find they are usually produced during my most fertile periods, when I write daily, or at least several times a week.  Around about the end of summer this year, I took a look at the few posts I had made between June and September, and realized they were crap.  Got really discouraged for a time...and then decided to get off my ass and write.  Can't say I'm entirely displeased with the results...

This weekend is going to prove a challenge, though, since I'm down in Eugene for the holiday, in a home without wi-if.  I'm determined to keep the faith, though....  It's just going to take some creative thinking.

Anyway, for anyone who might have been wondering about my sudden flurry of activity here and at "Women On," my secret's out.

Technology Test

So...we're going to put the iPad Blogger app through its paces and see if we can post an entry with it. This should be interesting, since, when I first downloaded the app a couple of hours ago, it couldn't find "Coming to Terms..." With both hands.  I was just starting to fuss out about that, going on Facebook and asking if anyone else had had this problem and all...  And then I pulled up the app again  and voila! there was CtT...  Whatever...

Now that I'Ve finished with the "test entry", we'll have to figure out how to publish it.  Here goes... 

The Blue Bird of Gratitude

The weather has continued to be insanely lovely.  Today was our fifth day in a row of not-rain, and not-rain is forecast through Tuesday of this week.   Which is not usual for this time of year around these parts.  It has gotten pretty cold at night—down into the 20’s—and in the morning after the sun climbs high enough in the sky to thaw some spots in the yard, we are alive with birds.  Woodpecker, flicker, towhee and I’ve had another visit from the brown creeper; my little kinglet flitting around the branches of the apple tree.  A fat robin scarfing down berries from the pyrachantha.    The posse of chickadees, three kinds of sparrows (song, golden crown and white crown); starlings and bushtits on the suet, “stupid pigeons” (turtledoves) pecking at corn on the ground, purple finches, lesser goldfinches, the ever-present crowd of juncos and the continuing aeronautics of the hummingbirds.  And I’ve witnessed one visit by the Cooper’s hawk, though I’m sure he’s been around more.

Today we went out for brunch and stopped at the “nuclear park” on the way home.  I brought my camera, which is usually the kiss of death as far as photo opportunities go.  If I tote the camera along, I almost never see or get close enough to anything to get a decent picture.

So we got out of the car and scared up a couple of egrets that would not fly close enough for a good shot.  Then we walked down to the path around the pond, spotted a few geese and ducks…nothing we haven’t seen before.  We came upon another egret who also declined to stick around for a photo shoot.  (Egrets have been very much in evidence in my life the past few months…more on that later.)

The wind was up and we were getting chilled, so we turned around and headed back toward the car instead of doing the whole route around the pond as we usually do.  All the time scanning the branches of the tall, naked trees for SOMEone to immortalize digitally.  The trees were gorgeous against the slightly misty blue sky, but…empty.  Skunked again, I thought, and started to climb the embankment up to the road where we parked the car, capping my lens and commencing to stuff the camera back into its neoprene sleeve.

“Kronkkk!”   

“What the…”

 “Kronkkk!  KRONKKK!!”   from almost right above our heads.

“That’s a heron.  Where is it?”

“KRONKKK!!”   (Right up here, idiot!)

It still took me awhile to find him, in spite of the fact that he continued his intermittent croaking.  I finally triangulated the sound to a branch in a tree not far from us.  He was so well camouflaged I would never have seen him had he not called out to me.

He did not want me to leave without having a little face-time.  It was as if he was saying, “I’ve been sent with a greeting from the Universe.  And I was NOT going to let you go away without sharing it.”

Well.

All I have to say is,

“Thank you!”