Really?

Two years? 

Really?

A month or so ago, after a very dry period for writing, I realized that if a day goes by with nothing remarkable, I am not living the life I intend.  I started journaling at least for each day's remarkable events. 

It's working.

I am even dreaming again.

More to come.

a meditation

Today I give thanks
for every life that has touched my own
for each molecule, atom, particle and wave
as it has moved through me.

I give thanks
that he said
"You look like hell" and
"You surprised me... I never thought you'd amount to much."
that she said
"Go on, write."

I thank tears, paper and flame
the small warm hand in my own
the arms that held me
the vastness behind those questioning eyes

Croonings and shrieks of unseen birds
the wounded and the whole

Mosquitoes and bats, seeds and finches
the mouse I released into the yard this morning
the cat that had left it corralled in a box

The stone in my shoe
the bone in my foot
the juice of strawberries
staining my chin

This day

My goals for today were to finish cleaning the floor so I could have a studio day, and to take a bike ride.

I had breakfast sitting on the east deck in the morning sun. I was listening to a streaming radio show from Lincoln NE (I do that to feel more connected to my son and family) when I realized sandhill cranes were calling from the creek. I muted the computer and listened, sharing it with BiL who had been inside. After a minute the cranes were silent. I listened to the show again, and again, the cranes began. This time I muted the computer, and even tho the cranes stopped soon after (maybe they heard something crane-like in the banter of the program) I left it off, and enjoyed the rest of my breakfast to chickadee and finch song.

I finished the floor as I listened to streaming NPR from California (again, a link with a son who lives out there). I swept water and mud from the garage and set the fans to dry it (this is swamp season in our garage if we don't stay ahead of it). I got very hungry and ate my lunch. I put in a new load of laundry.

I stepped outside to hang a shirt on the line and have a cup of tea, and I could not bring myself to go inside, even to have a studio day.

I did some repair work, instead, to the fencing that discourages marmots from using the deck for a toilet.

For the first time this spring I got to listen as a light rain fell on our metal roof. No bike riding today, but I don't feel compromised.

I felt very satisfied and very hungry by dinner time. I ate again, watching a movie with BiL.
We also watched our first rainbow of the season.

So much satisfaction in one day.

A call to unwire

Hmmm.... It has been a voice in my bones lately to become unwired, whatever that means.

I guess I will find out.

My motivation is that being online is severely limited everything else in my experience.

nuff said.

Call me if you like.

Peace, out,
Rox

Movement

Maybe 'blur' is more accurate.
I am looking back on the past months since my last post, and it really does seem that, but not in a bad way at all. It has been relentlessly rich.

Josh graduated in May, and all my grown boys were here together to celebrate, and as only Josh would do it, his graduation walk took place on the banks of the Boiling River. His closest friends had a fine congrats barbecue for him at their house that night. I learned once again that the emerging generation calls its own shots, sets its own way. And Josh took that another step.

After trips to high places and low in the West, he joined me in a trek to NE in July, and then went on his own quest into the Frank Church Wilderness, where he met himself so to speak (this was his goal) and came out sooner than he had planned, but understanding a greater plan at work, even tho he debates endlessly with that Power.

And while he settled back into Bozeman, and took on the shepherding of this years Bioneers presentation, I was keeping occupied with my heart's work at hospice, and several jouneys with BiL , exploring everything from the lovely Bow River in Banff, Canada, to the low running Gallatin near Belgrade. Bears and guests graced our decks and gave us plenty of stories to share.

It has been quite a summer, surprisingly social for this introvert.

Today BiL and I joined a march in town, demonstrating our strengths in the face of a fear group which is attempting to make a stand here. The march was smooth, the folks enthusiastic, and I saw many faces I knew and many more that I didn't.

I was reviewing my previous post and am musing at where it left off and where this posting begins and ends. Something in that previous post was about reformation .. community... etc.

The synchronicity knocks my socks off at times like this.

Reformation... a rambling

It is springtime here, and we are in the beginning of a lovely spring snow today. The critter, here, showed up a few days ago just outside of our front yard. It was also seen yesterday by others just up the road. The snow is deeper now, and we are expected to get up to 8 inches today. Having all this soft beauty sure makes impatience for spring greenery subside, at least till the next thaw time. And none of us will complain about the water the snows will provide to the streams, come spring and summer. Well, I guess too much at once would not be an easy way to go, but it is a natural rhythm here. Better to realize that than change it for convenience sake, I think.

Last evening Josh came over for dinner and it was lovely, but we had a humbling experience when we discovered no water from the tap! We were all thinking something wrong with the well, jumping to the most horrendous cause in our minds. It turned out, a toilet had been running awhile and had drained the lines. Once that was resolved, within minutes all was back to normal, all of us appreciating our well water's abundance that much more for it's momentary absence. We watched the last episode of Northern Exposure after that, the one fairly brimming with community love and awareness of decisions that reach out globally.

It got me thinking, about my own cultural upbringing. The tendency to jump to preparation for the worst thinkable problems, when they may never manifest; the idea that you have to be smarter than what comes along or that the world is basically a trap to snare the unwary. My present conscious thought flys in the face of this, yet the form I was raised in keeps coming up, asking to be renewed each time. Maybe this is how true change comes.... with many practices.

Reformation. I remember that word from my Lutheran catechism classes. Funny, my church was born from discontent with the status quo, of brave people willing to risk all to find a better way to be. After many years of their hard won independence, they were fighting off stagnation from familiarity. I was one of the folks who sought other expressions of my faith. My little home town church has renewed itself over the years with a new population of families, with just a few people that I knew in my youth, still there. Living things are good when circulation is freshened. Change of what is familiar can be a very good thing.

My life has really undergone some changes since I last wrote. My time and energy are consumed for the most part with my daily work, and I wonder at times if that is a good thing. I keep repeating my efforts at balance in my life, of creativity and service. I am still practicing at that. I've not yet perfected it.

As I write, I'm watching the snow swirl outside, the juncos dancing along the railings, kicking the crushed sunflower and nyger seeds from under the snow, the crossbills and chickadees jockeying for position on the birdfeeders. As I often do, I ponder what I might glean for my own soul from what I see out there. Persistance? Community? Doing what you are born to do?

And then, as my recent teacher said, sometimes the sound of rain simply means that its raining.

Into the Chill (how my cold hands n feet stayed warm)

(Disclaimer: the links are for those who want to know what gear I am talking about... I have accumulated it over the years, and bought most of the pieces on clearance sales. If I were shopping today I might try Campmor. They often have bargain prices.)

Yesterday at 3pm a good new habit kicked in... the urge to go for a walk hit me.

The temp was a single digit. 1.... below. This is how to stay warm: I slipped another long john (cuddleduds) over my silks, swapped my jeans for insulated ski bibs, and added a light hoodie to my thermal top. I slipped a second insole into my McMurdos (I got them a size too big to allow for extra layers).

My head warmed with a bacalava, the hoodie, and a railroad cap, I put up the hood of my winter coat and put on my toaster mittens, and I was ready. BiL and I grabbed our hiking poles along with some water (just in case) and walked into the fine snowfall. We had not gotten far when BiL went back for an extra top layer. I paced to get my heart rate up while I waited. He rejoined me, and we headed along Pistol Road. My vague goal was the mailbox, 2.5 miles away, but neither of us knew if even one of us would make it. As we walked along, I realized I was enjoying my self-created warmth all the way down to my toes! This is really unusual for me... I am always the one cramming toe warmers into my boots when I ski.

BiL had decided to keep walking with me beyond his usual turn around point. What I did not know was that as I was adding base layers, he simply had worn his jeans. He kept saying "keep talking to me, Rox, and if I don't think about it, I can walk farther." The farther we walked, the greater the depth of ice on the road. And, not unexpectedly, by the time we got to the pasture, we were feeling a light wind, but that's all it took to ache any exposed skin.

BiL's titanium knee was hurting with each step by this time, but there was nothing to do but go on once we crossed the tracks. We picked up the pace as much as we dared on the ice, got the mail, and hurried back over the tracks... we DID NOT want to get stuck by the trains that regularly stop there to share the pass's rail space with oncoming engines and their loads. Thank God, no trains came and we cleared them. The winter sun, already dim behind the snowclouds, was beginning to set, dusk coming on.

In the eerie half-light, a deep point on my hip told me about the dropping temperature with every step, even tho I did not feel cold at all. I was breaking a sweat beneath all my layers and felt very comfortable otherwise. I could only imagine the discomfort of my honey, several paces ahead of me most of the time, hurrying to relief that he knew waited next to our woodstove.

We made it, and my thoughts along the way kept going in amazement to those who have lived in these conditions with so much less comfort clothing. Our plains ancestors, and those who lived through these Montana winters in so many years past, were not taking walks for exercise or self-challenge. They were out there, finding water, hunting, feeding livestock, and keeping the home fires burning daily, to bring about a future. From the earliest residents in their lodges, to the settlers and miners, I thought about what a short step of time it was from their tracks to mine. How well would I survive day to day without the ease of the well, the furnace, the grocery store, and the car? Would I? While we baked pizza, we checked the thermometer... 6 below. We'd been out 2 hours.

When we had come in, we had brought a basket of wood up with us for the fire. I thought I would keep it burning through the night, but the fresh air must have relaxed me to the core, as I got the best night's sleep in recent memory. Just six hours after I went to bed I got up feeling fully rested, and built the first fire of the -14 morning.

And here I sit, looking out at fine snow continuing to drift down, anticipating Christmas shopping with a high forecast at -1. The shopping is BiL's idea. I know what gear I will be wearing.