Monday 9-22-14
The day has come to an end. I have hibernated most of the day.
Feeding my soul with what it needed - peace and quiet and
seeking answers on the internet for many things I am looking into
I have had the urge to attend the Jewish High holidays here and much to my dismay
have found that tickets for nonmembers can run upwards of $250 here.
After about 2 hrs of searching and phone calls, I have found some loopholes
and have two reform Jewish temples I can choose to attend.
The need to honor familiar traditions has gripped my soul even
though this is not where nor how my daily spiritual needs get met.
I am relieved and grateful that my persistence and patience has paid off.
It will be good to reconnect with my past this way and to see what
this Jewish community has to offer. I have always loved Jewish music
and attending the services part seems to be the best way in which I can
honor my father who was a regular participant at services in his temple.
So this high holiday will be the first one in many years that I will attend.
L'Shana Tova, or happy new year to all who celebrate this sacred time.
Monday, September 22, 2014
9-16-14
Sitting in the morning like I used to once, watching the morning skies roll by
in clumps of grey and white, pink flowers jutting out on ends of a staccato looking bush,
hearing the birds chirp, the morning begins.
A neighbor drives off to work
the car port empties
I hear the sounds of airplanes overhead,
their jet streams tunneling loudly in their wake like sonic booms
The flies hover around my dog who sits beside me.
He is contented to sit on the concrete slab in the cool of an 80 degree morning.
Temperature is all relative here.
The prickly pear cactus in front of a neighbors home
sits awakened by the rains of yesterday, its points sticking sharply out
into the nothingness of the air.
I sit on a lounge chair and hear the roosters crow on all sides-
the loudest is from the south where the neighboring horse farm is,
the north is more distant, probably muffled by the bushes by someone's home.
I am able to sleep through them this year or is it just that they have
moved a little further away, or are my earplugs working better to lull me back
to a sound sleep after the heat of a humid 90 plus degrees of a fall day.
This is the first mooring I have found my spot out here on this concrete slab
of a porch by the side of the mobile home.
A far different thing from my old screened in porch or the swing in my yard filled
with trees and grass in Cincinnati, but it will do.
The sounds of nature are all around me,
the trees, bushes and flowers are beautiful all year long
and I can take my pen with me wherever I go
Awakening to the dawn of a new and blessed day
how sweet it is be at peace again.
9-17-14
Reality has thrown me a curve ball with its flashing fluorescent lights
and its neon number changing signs.
its paging announcements every five seconds.
I sit in the DMV off in Mesa Az and it feels like the Social Security office
in downtown Cincinnati.
All I'm there for is a license.
I am instead bombarded from every direction by external sensory input
which frazzles me to the core.
Thankfully, I am only there about an hour (everyone else had told me it would be at least 3)
but when I leave, I don't know where I am.
My hands and limbs vibrate, my head feels like its been put into a salad spinner
and is still going around.
I cannot drive.
Ultimately, I begin to laugh then cry,
Sensory overload, maxed out.
I grab my hematite stone and it helps me for a minute.
You've never moved before, he says.
You're right, I respond.
I am so disoriented, ungrounded, off center, off base.
The settling back into my own skin takes a while.
I sit in a chair outside of Fry's grocery and rock to calm myself
I am "off" for much of the day.
9-21-14
Another new day in Arizona
I am again disoriented this morning from my first time ushering at Gammage theatre
last nite and coming out and not being able to find my car- my new red Prius.
It was a sea of neon lights in the parking lot.
I couldn't even discern the color red.
I wandered aimlessly for what seemed to be forever until I finally asked
a young theatre manager for help.
He said it happens all the time.
People get disoriented and exit the theatre at a different door from the one
they entered through.
Knowing I was not alone was a good thing, yet not terribly comforting at the time.
I have no bumper stickers for the first time in about 25 years
and its disconcerting that I cannot distinguish what is mine.
I don't want to plaster up a new back fender, but even if I did,
I wouldn't know what to put on it this time around.
My old identity seems to have disappeared and at times I feel that I am lost.
Not yet ready to replace the old and needing to just let the void be
until whatever it is I seem to need shows up.
We find my car, almost too easily once we are where where I should have
started from.
I knew when I passed a fountain twice that I just didn't recognize, that something
was not right, but I was too tired to figure it out.
Somehow, I got out of the lot, found my way home
and crashed clothes and all atop of the bed.
Spent
Disorientation brings up a lot of fears and insecurities.
Who do I really know to call here? What will it be like to age here?
Will I be truly happy here?
Mortality….friends dying whose funerals I cannot attend.
Sickbed of a dear friend's father I am unable to be by to comfort her and
see him one more time
My grief feels like a bottomless pit at times.
the void made larger by the vulnerability that disorientation has brought on
This too shall pass. Today I shall start my blog and take care of me.
giving voice to all that I need to give voice to.
My pen on the page is my therapist in the moment.
always telling me the truth that I need to hear.
Today I shall listen to my body more and take it slow.
It has not been even three weeks that I have made this place my home.
One day at a time….
Sitting in the morning like I used to once, watching the morning skies roll by
in clumps of grey and white, pink flowers jutting out on ends of a staccato looking bush,
hearing the birds chirp, the morning begins.
A neighbor drives off to work
the car port empties
I hear the sounds of airplanes overhead,
their jet streams tunneling loudly in their wake like sonic booms
The flies hover around my dog who sits beside me.
He is contented to sit on the concrete slab in the cool of an 80 degree morning.
Temperature is all relative here.
The prickly pear cactus in front of a neighbors home
sits awakened by the rains of yesterday, its points sticking sharply out
into the nothingness of the air.
I sit on a lounge chair and hear the roosters crow on all sides-
the loudest is from the south where the neighboring horse farm is,
the north is more distant, probably muffled by the bushes by someone's home.
I am able to sleep through them this year or is it just that they have
moved a little further away, or are my earplugs working better to lull me back
to a sound sleep after the heat of a humid 90 plus degrees of a fall day.
This is the first mooring I have found my spot out here on this concrete slab
of a porch by the side of the mobile home.
A far different thing from my old screened in porch or the swing in my yard filled
with trees and grass in Cincinnati, but it will do.
The sounds of nature are all around me,
the trees, bushes and flowers are beautiful all year long
and I can take my pen with me wherever I go
Awakening to the dawn of a new and blessed day
how sweet it is be at peace again.
9-17-14
Reality has thrown me a curve ball with its flashing fluorescent lights
and its neon number changing signs.
its paging announcements every five seconds.
I sit in the DMV off in Mesa Az and it feels like the Social Security office
in downtown Cincinnati.
All I'm there for is a license.
I am instead bombarded from every direction by external sensory input
which frazzles me to the core.
Thankfully, I am only there about an hour (everyone else had told me it would be at least 3)
but when I leave, I don't know where I am.
My hands and limbs vibrate, my head feels like its been put into a salad spinner
and is still going around.
I cannot drive.
Ultimately, I begin to laugh then cry,
Sensory overload, maxed out.
I grab my hematite stone and it helps me for a minute.
You've never moved before, he says.
You're right, I respond.
I am so disoriented, ungrounded, off center, off base.
The settling back into my own skin takes a while.
I sit in a chair outside of Fry's grocery and rock to calm myself
I am "off" for much of the day.
9-21-14
Another new day in Arizona
I am again disoriented this morning from my first time ushering at Gammage theatre
last nite and coming out and not being able to find my car- my new red Prius.
It was a sea of neon lights in the parking lot.
I couldn't even discern the color red.
I wandered aimlessly for what seemed to be forever until I finally asked
a young theatre manager for help.
He said it happens all the time.
People get disoriented and exit the theatre at a different door from the one
they entered through.
Knowing I was not alone was a good thing, yet not terribly comforting at the time.
I have no bumper stickers for the first time in about 25 years
and its disconcerting that I cannot distinguish what is mine.
I don't want to plaster up a new back fender, but even if I did,
I wouldn't know what to put on it this time around.
My old identity seems to have disappeared and at times I feel that I am lost.
Not yet ready to replace the old and needing to just let the void be
until whatever it is I seem to need shows up.
We find my car, almost too easily once we are where where I should have
started from.
I knew when I passed a fountain twice that I just didn't recognize, that something
was not right, but I was too tired to figure it out.
Somehow, I got out of the lot, found my way home
and crashed clothes and all atop of the bed.
Spent
Disorientation brings up a lot of fears and insecurities.
Who do I really know to call here? What will it be like to age here?
Will I be truly happy here?
Mortality….friends dying whose funerals I cannot attend.
Sickbed of a dear friend's father I am unable to be by to comfort her and
see him one more time
My grief feels like a bottomless pit at times.
the void made larger by the vulnerability that disorientation has brought on
This too shall pass. Today I shall start my blog and take care of me.
giving voice to all that I need to give voice to.
My pen on the page is my therapist in the moment.
always telling me the truth that I need to hear.
Today I shall listen to my body more and take it slow.
It has not been even three weeks that I have made this place my home.
One day at a time….
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