Advent 2020

I rather like the liturgical season of Advent, with its emphasis on waiting. In holiday seasons past, stopping each Sunday to light a candle and say a prayer has been a welcome moment of respite from the hustle and bustle of life.

This year, I'm going to have to dig a little deeper.

This year, I've been waiting.   and waiting.    and waiting.        Waiting for an answer to when this virus might be brought under control. Waiting to hear when the vaccine will be widely available. (effective options will soon exist - that's HUGE!) Waiting for election results.  Waiting to get the castle habitable, so I can get back to figuring out what I want to be when I grow up.

Why would I want to acknowledge yet another season of waiting?

Ah. This is waiting of a different sort. Advent isn't tap-your-foot-please-hurry-this-along waiting. (That's the type of waiting I've been doing all year.) Advent is pause-and-appreciate-the-here-and-now waiting.

My year has been woefully short of the Advent sort of waiting. While there were advantages to my headlong plunge into remodeling work - my days have been full, and after moving all day, I've been sleeping well despite the miasma of general anxiety lingering in the air - I haven't stopped much.

And my spirit knows it.

More and more, the problem of the moment is overwhelming. I grow short on patience. It's harder to get me to take care of my daily round of chores; I don't wanna. I don't want to get out to walk in the cold - until I get out there, when I thoroughly enjoy the crisp air. I am tired and grumpy and out of sorts and don't want to get out of bed in the morning.

It's time to stop and listen for the gifts the Advent season wants to bring to my life. Time to stop and light a candle and watch it flicker without distracting myself by reading the news of the moment. Time to look inside and see where I am; to see if any part of me is clearer yet on the next direction I want to take.

Time to pause. Appreciate the here and now. 

Appreciate that, despite the odds, I am still here.  Living.  Now.

Good Is.

 

Happy Thanksgiving, anyways!

Usually my Thanksgiving is a celebration of the best of the printable sort of f-words.

Family.     Friends.    Food.

That's it.

No drama, no unmeetable expectations. Just a lively gathering of people I love, too much delicious food, and pie to top it all off.

As with so many of my other plans for the year, COVID-19 is putting a drag on this year's celebration. With the virus running rampant, I am planning to follow the CDC's advice and celebrate with a very small group. There will be just four of us, and since one of the four doesn't live here, we will keep our masks on unless we're eating. When we eat, we will sit far apart, like we don't like each other or something. Bah, humbug!

In the spirit of the holiday, I'm trying not to focus on the parts I'll miss. (Based on the above paragraph, I'm clearly having a little trouble with this part, but I'm trying...) Rather, I'm doing my best to be aware of the abundance of good things in my life for which I am truly thankful.

I will still get to enjoy the too much good food part. And part of my family will be here. I won't be eating alone.

There will be lots of leftovers. I like Thanksgiving leftovers. (Good thing - is it even possible to fix a turkey dinner for four???)

I miss my people, but also know they are still there. This virus shall pass, and when it does, I will get to see them again, and we will share real hugs - none of this elbow bumping nonsense

Everyone I know who has gotten the virus is recovering. So far, so good.

The vaccine news is excellent - it's easier to hunker down knowing there will be an end to the hunkering.

Young Joe is showing no lasting effects from his premature entrance to this life. One of the best parts of the castle project is the part where I've gotten to watch him grow from day to day. (He's walking already!) The kid is just stinkin' cute. Not that I'm biased.

My health is good, I have enough money to pay the bills and still have a little left over for some of the things I want. My house is cozy, and on this cold, rainy, November evening, my furnace is chugging away without grumbling. The lights are on, and I can get hot and cold water just by turning on a faucet.

Beauty Is and Good Is and Love Is and no stupid virus can touch these, my bedrock beliefs.

So, Happy Thanksgiving (anyways)!

Almost there

Despite all the delays, the castle is almost ready for Joe and his family to move on in. The unseasonably warm weather has not only prevented the pipes from freezing while the boiler is on order, but has allowed us to continue working to get the place ready for move in.

The roofers finished up today. I was surprised to find myself a bit wistful as I watched them drive off. I'll miss young Mike's (they're both Mikes) cheerful good mornings, their frequent forays through the house looking to borrow this or that tool. I've learned to like and respect the two of them. Turns out, when we hired them, we hired a couple of artists disguised as tile roofers. They did beautiful work - the house hasn't been so spiffy looking in decades.

I've finished replacing broken window panes (seventeen windows in all), and have put the windows back where they belong. Joe's worked hard over the past few weeks to refinish the worst of the upstairs floors. The main hallway is almost ready to paint, which just leaves the kitchen to be made workable.

I don't want to jinx anything, but I think this unlikely venture might actually turn out well. Hard to believe.

As I've been working the last couple of days, my mind has started to wander to what's next. The sun comes out later and later each morning; it is almost done with its journey to the south. Its light is long and slanted. Winter is around the corner. 

While the darkest days are still to come, there is already a glimmer on the horizon heralding the new season to come. The latest news on the vaccines in development is excellent, and rumor has it they will be widely available by summer-ish. So, I need to lay low for a while longer, but it will not last forever.

I'm a bit concerned about where my mood will head once everyone leaves and I've lost my place to go and get something done each day. I'm not going to see much of anyone after they move out, and travel is out of the question until the virus settles down again. So, as a depression preventative, I've asked them if I can keep the cats through the winter, and they've agreed.

I figure it'll be good to have some companionship to help me through the dark winter days. Curling up on the sofa under a blanket turns into less of a pity party and more of a meditative experience when I have a cat to purr at me - and, historically, the cats have been more than willing to perform that role.

It feels good to have taken a positive step to take care of myself.

The virus has gotten around to infecting people I know and love. So far, they're all doing OK, but it's scary nonetheless. You all stay safe out there, hear????

Election Results

As I waited for the election results last week, I had the hardest time. I woke up Wednesday, didn't read anything, but looked at the map showing the race close and Trump in the lead in most of the swing states and immediately fell into a deep funk. I thought I'd been wrong to hope things would or could change.

Trump has been so divisive, his handling of the virus so inept, his manner so crude, his lies so plentiful, I quit listening to him speak long ago. It's been a tough four years for me. The way he treats women brings back memories of the bad ol' days when I thought I had to put up with harassment at work as part of the price of employment, of the days when it was customary for men to get away with judging women based on their appearance, not the competencies we brought to our jobs.

I have tried and tried, but still don't understand how so many of my fellow Americans - some seventy million of them per the election results - see him so differently than I. Character counts, dammit!

I'm not overly prone to anxiety, but at one point this week I ended up taking an anti-anxiety med: I curled up under my soft white blanket that Libby gave me, and one of the cats came and purred at me for thirty minutes. I focused on breathing and connecting to what is real for me - and lo and behold, it worked. I got up much calmer and more centered than I had been when I laid down. (I thought about contacting my insurance company to see if they'd cover any part of the med - say, the kitty litter? - then thought better of it...)

As the week went on, and the numbers continued to shift, I began to believe, despite myself, that not all hope was lost. Then came Saturday's news that Biden had won Pennsylvania, and my heart leapt with joy. I wasn't alone in wanting, needing, a more competent leader to be President, after all. Seventy-four million (and counting) people in this country agreed with me. As I listened to his speech that evening, the tension I hadn't allowed myself to acknowledge leaked out my eyes.

He smiles real smiles. He speaks in full sentences. He gives his family real hugs. He spoke of unity and building bridges. He is already assembling a group of people who will listen to science and work to lead us out of the shadow of the coronavirus, which is starting to strike too close to home. Instead of denying climate change exists, he will delve into ways we can, maybe perhaps, still soften the blow it is poised to deliver to our world. I know he has a number of daunting uphill battles to fight, but he will at least TRY to work with those who disagree with him.

Let the healing begin!

Time Shift

I was good about getting up and going all summer long. My main motivation was avoiding the worst of each day's heat while working at the castle; the thought of melting in the afternoon heat was enough to get me up and going at the crack of dawn most days. When the heat left for the year, so did my early morning starts. I've still been getting over there, but my arrival time has been inching later and later, in step with the delayed rising of the sun.

So, when the time shifted an hour later this past Sunday, I decided one of the perks of retirement was getting to ignore the time change if I want to. There's no one but me who cares what time I go to bed and get up these days, so why push myself through the grogginess of a week of getting used to staying up an hour later and sleeping in if I don't have to. So far it's been two whole days, and it's working. Without changing a thing, I've moved my wake time back from eight to seven, and getting a better start to my day. I feel more virtuous because I'm starting earlier!

As I was plastering walls today, I was ruminating on the whole charade. What's so magic about getting up 'earlier'? I still have the same number of hours in each day. I'm not punching a time clock nor is there anyone who particularly cares what time I start work. I'm working the same number of hours; starting at the same relative time I have for the past month. What part of starting at 'eight' instead of 'nine' is better?

All I could figure is that it's one of those rules I've carried over from my younger days. Sleeping in is bad, getting up early is good. It'll be interesting to see how long past the day the kids move out my newfound virtue will last. I'm guessing it won't be long. There will be no one to tell on me if I roll over and watch the sky for a while in the morning instead of hopping out of bed to be productive. I think perhaps I've overdone the whole productivity thing this year anyways.

It'll be interesting to see if I can convince me it's OK to stop doing for a while, and just let myself be. I don't think I'll be able to do nothing for long - I tend to slide down into depression without a to-do list, but I'm looking forward to changing the tenor of the items on the list. 

Perhaps instead of opening the lids on paint cans, I will open the lid of my piano and see if my brain and fingers can figure out how to work together and make some music once again. Instead of putting paint on walls, I will put it on paper and work on watercolors. (My friend, Rose, has a zoom art class she's been taking that I can join, so this one is high on the probability list.)

Instead of shifting the hours I sleep and wake, I will shift the activities I do within the hours. Back to Retirement 2.0 (COVID version) with me. Soon. I'm looking forward to the day...