Winter Solstice

And so the sun once again begins its journey north (for those of us in the northern hemisphere). Why tonight isn't celebrated as the start of the new year, I'll probably never understand.

The days are as short as they're going to get. According to my weather app, here in Kansas City, we add nine minutes of daylight between today and January 6th, but between now and then, the light shifts. We lose four more minutes of morning light, trading them for thirteen additional minutes of light in the evenings. The sun doesn't start getting up earlier until the 7th. I've never noticed this before, though it's probably been doing it that way my entire life. (you think?) Interesting phenomenon.

I've spent the last few weeks in my annual struggle with the darkness. My energy lags, I find myself caught in spirals of dark and gloomy thoughts. I mentally gloss right over the good news parts of life, and find my thoughts lasering in on the dark side.

And then, to add insult to injury, I start feeling guilty for letting the gloom take hold. 'Tis the season to be jolly, not Grinch-ish!

*sigh*

Fortunately, years of coping with the holiday blues have taught me to enjoy the holidays anyways.

I've managed to do all my Christmas prep despite my tendency to stop and curl up on the sofa underneath my white fuzzy blanket when the mood strikes. The blanket came from Libby a few years back. I've been missing her something fierce as the first anniversary of her death has rolled around. She'd be all about my taking time to poke the Libby-sized hole in my life to see if the edges have started to heal. She'd have absolutely zero patience for the times the edge-poking turns to wallowing, and I can hear her voice when I cross the line: Remember to live the days you have!. Once I hear her, I get up and start living my day again - she's still hard to ignore.

Candles and Christmas tree lights do a wonderful job of adding beauty to the darkness.

Tonight, I will both acknowledge the darkness and celebrate the anticipation of the return of the light. For it's all part of the cycle of life, and if we never knew the darkness, we'd also never know the stars.

Happy Winter Solstice!

Operation DoGooder Has DoneGood!

Have you ever stumbled into a project, and it's as if the Universe was just waiting for someone to line up the pieces so it could tip over the dominoes? Well, that's what happened with Operation DoGooder!

A local law firm, without charge, notarized the limited power of attorney form I needed to be able to represent Kevin in his search for a home.

Bank of America had an ad in the paper, asking me what I'd like the power to do. When I told them I'd like the power to help Kevin find a home, one of their people responded, did some research, and connected me with a local transitional housing group, reStart.

A conversation with the leader of reStart got him to the top of their wait list, and, poof, Kevin had a bed he could count on each night.

He also automagically fell to the top of the 2-3 month wait list for the subsidized housing complex where we'd filled out a pre-application just two weeks earlier.

Ms. Mary, the complex manager, was wonderfully patient with me as I stumbled through the process of clearing his credit and gathering the necessary paperwork. Each time she ran into a roadblock, instead of just deep-sixing his file as she could have done, she gave me a couple of days to clear things up.

I talked to more lawyers to clear up a paperwork error regarding a prior eviction; the error would have kept him out of most local housing, not just the place where he was applying. (One of the lawyers called my power-of-attorney form 'dubious'.  Hmph. After I'd printed it out myself from the internet and everything. I was able to work with him anyways to get the error cleared up.)

I paid an old outstanding electric bill, and worked with the reStart people to get a letter vouching that he was, indeed, homeless. (who knew such a thing existed???)

As it became clear that a place to live might actually happen, I started to scout around for the furniture Kevin would need to start over. I started by asking my neighbors who were selling their house nearby if they'd donate a mattress. (I knew they'd have an extra one after the house was sold.) They not only said yes to the mattress, they came up with the entire apartment full of furniture, right down to a starter set of dishes for the kitchen and a shower curtain for the bathroom.

I finished working with Mary to get all the boxes checked and all the revised paperwork in just before Thanksgiving. I had a garage full of furniture, and high hopes that if the Universe had gotten things this far along, it would make sure the story ended well.

The Universe didn't let me down. I got an email last Tuesday - his application had been approved; please let her know when he would like to come down to fill out the lease agreement.  I went down to the library to find Kevin, and when I told him the good news, he wanted to go fill it out right then. Not really surprised, I called Mary to let her know we were on our way.

She graciously made room in her day to print out the forms and walked him through signing them. We walked up to the third floor, and she opened the door to a small, neat, clean, one-bedroom apartment. She walked him through the place, and handed over the keys.

That first night, he stayed there with just the contents of his four suitcases and two white plastic trash bags (the sum total of his belongings). The next day, I found some help, and we were able to deliver the apartment starter kit my neighbors had pulled together.. Now, he not only has a place to go to each night, he has a bed, a comfy place to sit, and a bookshelf to store his quickly-multiplying books.

Kevin has a home!!!!

===========

I've gotten some high praise from people who have heard this story. I don't feel as if I deserve it. I certainly didn't get this done by myself.

Everywhere I turn these days, I hear stories that shrivel my heart - caged children, climate change; rancor and division seem to be everywhere. Operation DoGooder was my chance to try to tip the scales just a little bit; to bring a glimmer of light and hope to the darkness.

It was the right thing to do.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Kansas City's Union Station

Thanksgiving has long been one of my favorite holidays - what's not to like about food, family and friends?

My friends, Dale and Brian and their two offspring have long been part of my Thanksgiving tradition,.The year I was remodeling my 'new' house and part of my family wanted to come down to restart our every-other-year-in-Kansas-City tradition but I had no kitchen, they offered to host the dinner.

Turns out Dale can think of nothing better than planning and cooking Thanksgiving dinner for twenty of her closest friends. (We're pretty sure she's still of sound mind...) The new tradition is for my family to come to town, but eat dinner at Dale & Brian's place. I have to admit I rather like the twist. I still make the pies - my favorite part - and get to see my family, but I don't have to plan and prepare the bulk of the meal, so I can focus on getting everything else ready.

I thoroughly enjoyed our gathering this year. We gathered at Dale & Brian's around noon for appetizers, ate too much good food at three, then just sat (or napped) for a bit and let the food settle. We went back to my place just in time to work off a bit of the food by traipsing down to the Plaza to watch the annual lighting ceremony, then went back to my house for pie.

I'm not sure what I did to deserve friends willing to go so far above the call of duty, but I am most thankful they are part of my life. ** insert happy sigh here **

In the olden days, I'd always have a project for my family to do when they came to town, but we've all gotten older, and my list of projects smaller, so after a quick game of Shuffle Janice's Furniture (I couldn't pass up the opportunity to take advantage of the many willing hands), we had time on Friday to visit one of Kansas City's landmarks, Union Station.

My hat is off to the people in charge of holiday planning there at the Station. There are a half-dozen model trains set up and running at the back of the North Hall, a small train set up for kids to ride. The overcast sky provided the perfect backdrop for the banners and lights streaming from the ceiling; the crowd was not too heavy, but heavy enough that one could lean on the rail of the second story balcony, and pretend for a moment that it was 1940, and all these people were here to meet loved ones coming in on the train. (It IS still a working train station, but few of the people there were actually there to travel.)

My clan headed back north on Saturday after breakfast; all made it home safely despite the snowstorm. I managed to fit in just a few chores, but found myself collapsing around four, happily exhausted from the gatherings.

Happy Thanksgiving!!!!

Time Warp

I swear, it just just Monday the day before yesterday, yet my phone insists today is already Saturday. I've noticed this phenomenon time and again over the years. Time speeds by at an ever-increasing rate, laughing at my feeble attempts to embrace today and to stay in the now.

Rumor has it I'm not alone in my time warp. And research even backs me up.

Where has this week gone?

Well, a lot of it went in the direction of Operation DoGooder. The lady at the housing complex where Kevin's application is under consideration continues to work her way through her check list. Several times in the last few weeks, she's run into a obstacles. When she finds a box she cannot check, she calls me up. I run downtown the next day to find Kevin, and take him to do whatever needs to be done to keep the process moving along.

I don't dare procrastinate after she's let me know of a problem. I know places in her building are in demand; she could throw Kevin's application in the dead file and move on in a heartbeat. Fortunately, she cuts us a little slack, and thus far, has been gracious enough to grant us the time required to come up with all the paperwork she's needed - who knew there was such a thing as a letter documenting you are homeless? Paperwork submitted, we are now back in wait mode. Fingers crossed!

There are the hours I lost to watching the sky lighten through the prism of the stained glass in the south window of my bedroom. (Time well spent, just ask me.)

I spent daylight hours on the chores I used to cram into the evening; several evenings, my newly freed time has largely filled itself with solving back editions of the New York Times crossword puzzle. I'm still not convinced it's a good idea to give me limitless access to their archives...

Oh, and walks in the park. I can go for a walk in the park just because I'm restless and need to clear the cobwebs from my brain.

I think my brain is still trying to wrap itself around my newly unstructured existence. It still thinks, if I'm not working at the computer all day, it must be the weekend. It's starting to get a little confused - this past weekend has been going on for some three weeks now. I'm beginning to realize anew that the Universe abhors a vacuum. I think I'd be well served if I learned to guard my hours the same way I guard my monies.

Perhaps I should start a new reflection at night:  Where did I spend my hours today? Did I spend them doing the things I wanted most to do? Did I waste them on the high-calorie, low-nutrition fluff and dandruff offered by internet rabbit holes, or did I spend them deliberately, on the things I wanted most to have done by the end of the day? Did I leave room for fun, for work, for exercise, for friends, for myself? How do I want to spend my hours tomorrow?

The hours I have been given are precious. That I now have the freedom to spend them as my whim moves me still boggles my mind, time warps notwithstanding.

Freedom!!!!!

November Blues

I wish Libby would send out another one of her updates.

I miss her and wonder how she is doing now.

Shortly after she died, someone asked if anyone had a compiled list of her status emails. No one had, so I compiled one for them - it's about 90 pages long. It starts with her first diagnosis and ends about a month before she died, almost a year ago. I haven't been able to bring myself to read it. Not yet. Soon.

I cried some then, but since tears have been leaking out all week, I obviously haven't begun to finish mourning her absence. When I start to cry, if I can, I crawl onto the sofa and curl up under the soft white fuzzy blanket she gave me shortly after she first got sick, after she visited and all I had for throws when she napped were the old hand-knitted kind. They were not near as soft as she wanted them to be, so she fixed that problem, she did.

I hold the softness to my face, and let my mind wander back over the times we spent together, the stories she wrote. I remember the way she railed at her fate. I remember when the whole chemo thing was too hard and she wanted to quit partway through a series and I called to try to talk her out of stopping and she yelled at me and cussed at me, and then completed the course. (Even then, we knew it wasn't going to change the end of the story, it would only extend its length.)

I remember my last visit to Minnesota to help her clean up the items on her todo list. It was just a year ago; she'd done most of the things herself, but the last turn of her illness had taken her by surprise. She'd been going along for some time, doing just fine, and then...  she wasn't.

I remember her insistence that she wasn't battling cancer, and that when she died, we were NOT to say she'd lost her battle. And I agree because cancer is not the enemy, Fear is. And while Fear struggled mightily to get her to give up the days she had, and even managed to get on top a few times, she never stayed down for long. She faced Fear down. She faced her fate with trepidation, but also with the conviction of one who believes in Life after life. She lived all of the days she was given.

I remember the last time we said goodbye.

I still struggle with a huge case of the "why not me's". We were sisters. Why did her disease lead her on an unrelenting march to death, while mine shows no evidence of returning just yet, almost eight years later?

I feel guilty, undeserving of the gift of life, as if, somehow, my survival caused her death. My head knows better, but survivor's guilt is real.

I can picture her now, yelling at me for even thinking about going down that path. If she were here, she would have none of it.

Remember the blog post I wrote early last year, where I lost some earrings, and after I asked her if she wouldn't mind helping me find them, they both turned up in the unlikeliest of places?

Well, last week, I lost another one. This time, I didn't ask for her help; I figured it was just one of those things.

And. Two days later I sat down in my rocking chair in my living room and looked at the rug - and there the missing earring was; smack dab in the middle of the room. *insert an unexpected flood of tears here*

I know, I know. There are many logical explanations for how it happened. But for today, I'm going to take the illogical route and read it as a message from her.

She is lost, yes, but also true, she is found.

Saturday, again!

I've been in a time warp this past week. Turns out, every day is Saturday.

The first two weeks of retirement went by in a blur as I spent all available daylight hours painting. Then, when I went to Alaska, well, that was vacation, so of course I didn't have to go to work.

This past week, it finally started to sink in - I'm really NOT going back to work. Not tomorrow, not later this week, not next week, not next month.

This past week, I may have been luxuriating a little overmuch as I woke up each morning when the sun came up (and not before!) and went through my mental list of 'things I'd like to get done today'. Every day, I had a list of tasks to get done. Tasks I've been cramming into my Saturdays, since I like to slack off on Sundays, and I didn't usually have the oomph to get much useful work done after I worked all day. Every day, like Saturday's past, I'd get some of the items on the list done; the rest got pushed to my next free day.

The difference is my next free day is now the next day.

I'm liking this.

That's not to say I haven't run into a few glitches. I'm having trouble talking me into turning on the computer to pay my bills, because I can do that tomorrow. Paperwork I managed to keep corralled when I had much less free time is now starting to pile up, because, surely, I'll get to it tomorrow. (Good thing bills have due dates, or I'd never get them paid.)

Laundry is in the same boat; I have clothes for one more day, so it can wait until tomorrow. Turns out, the problem there isn't running out of clothes; it's that my sheets and towels are perhaps not as fresh as they historically were. Fine. I'll do laundry tomorrow.

If every day is Saturday, what happens to my lazy Sundays?  Where do they get to fit in? As much as I don't miss them yet, I think I might need my productive Tuesdays. And Friday evenings. My hang out with my friends night. I KNOW I don't want those to fall by the wayside. Drawing on the wisdom of my friends who have retired before me, I know I'll need to build some structure into my days. It'll be down the road a ways, probably in the spring or early summer.

For now, I'm thoroughly enjoying working around the house. For the first time in ages, I'm crossing things off the list faster than I'm adding items to it! I get to go grocery shopping when Costco is quiet(er), take time for random walks in the park. I've had some time to work crossword puzzles. I used to like crossword puzzles.

The holidays are coming, then I'll spend a couple of months watching baby Joe during the day, after his mom returns to work. After he moves off to 'real' day care, I'll spend some time visiting Kate and Lexi in California.

Which gives me months and months to figure out what shape the structure will take. I figure there's no real hurry - after all, tomorrow's Saturday; I'll have time to ponder the question then.

North, to Alaska

Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center

Visiting Alaska has been on my bucket list for a long time. I kind of always thought I'd go in the summer, prime tourist season, but when an invitation to my college roommate's daughter's wedding arrived in the mail a while back, with a date set for late October, I decided weather wasn't everything. I wanted to be there to celebrate with Mary and her family. (I padded the trip by a day or so on either end, so I could spend time reconnecting with Mary - one of the perks of being retired!).

Turns out Mary is an excellent wedding planner - the list of activities included a morning of sight-seeing for the visitors. This time of year, it doesn't get light until 9AM - so the crew left long before dawn.

As we drove, I was watching out the side window from the back seat. At first, all I could see was the intense unrelieved blackness of countryside beyond the range of city lights. Then, I could see black on black; the mountains in the background taking shape against the imperceptibly lightening sky. A short while later, I could make out reflections in the water of the bay between us and the mountains. beautiful. Since I was being driven by Karla, one of Mary's local cousins, I didn't have to divide my attention between the scenery and the road - a treat in and of itself.

We drove about an hour and a half south, and there, I was able to get my first glimpse of a glacier. I wasn't able to get right up to it; it was an hour's hike away, and part of our crew were non-hikers, but it was majestic nonetheless. Totally worth the drive. A stark visual of the effects of global climate change, the grandest glacier in the area had retreated beyond the view of the visitor's center built just to look at it some 30 years ago. *sigh*

On our way back into town, we stopped at the Alaska Wildlife Conversation Center, run by a group dedicated to the preservation of wildlife. There, as we were making our rounds and ogling the animals, a group of brown bears wandered right up to the fence. I was taking photos with my phone, but stopped to just lean on the fence to watch them amble by. As I put my camera down, one of them stopped and turned to look me in the eye. We stood there for a few minutes, me watching the bear, the bear watching me.It was an awe-inspiring moment - the bear's face just an arm length from my own. I stood there, barely breathing, until she decided to move on. Power, grace, majesty. It'll be long and long before I forget the sight of those unreadable eyes taking my measure.

Oh, yeah. The wedding. It was a beautiful celebration of the launch of their life together. I like weddings - the public announcement of hope; the commitment to do what they can to make their connection last for a lifetime. Most of the group stuck around for the next few days. We hung out together a lot, ate amazing seafood; I made new friends.

Turns out late October is the perfect time of year for a trip to Anchorage!

Painting the House

This retirement has not started out restfully.

One of my goals for this year was to get the house painted. But since much of my summer project time ended up taken by the unanticipated wall repair project, the painting got pushed to fall. No problem, I thought. Plenty of time after I retire in mid-September, I thought.

But then my retirement date was pushed back and pushed back a little more, all for good reasons. So, last week, once I no longer had to work, I was up on a ladder for six hours every day, in a race against winter to finish the job. (the weather around here turns too cold to paint sometime in late October or early November.)

By working evenings and weekends, I'd managed to complete the front before I retired. It's the hardest part of the job, involving the scariest ladder climbs and lots of 'fuss work'; main body, shutters, trim, and door all in different colors. But the rest of the house awaited.

While I wouldn't want to do it as a full-time job, I don't mind painting. Part of my mind is a nervous mix of all the emotions - happy and hard - Retirement II brings with it. Nothing to help one mull things over like a brush, a bucket of paint and a wall. The work takes just enough focus - breathing with the brush strokes on the fine edge work, making sure to get enough, but not too much, paint on the brush - that it keeps me from being bored, but leaves my mind free to wander. Kind of a productive meditative state - I can get into the zen of painting.

As I worked, I decided it's not my inner two year-old that I need to get in touch with this time around. It's my inner perfectionistic mean girl. She was on a tear. Wouldn't take any excuses for not being out there painting when at all possible. She's a familiar part of me. With time, I've learned how to bring some balance back to my life when she gets her teeth into something - she CAN be reasoned with. kind of.

But then, since I was out there in my zen state and all, I went a little deeper. Why is she so driven, so harsh? What's underneath her conviction that I must do it all, and do it all right, and do it right now? As I painted and mulled, I wasn't surprised to find fear driving the boat. It's magical thinking. If I do 'this' job just right, then everything else will be OK.

Ah. She is afraid that if she is not perfect, she is (I am) not worth loving.

This is a familiar refrain; I don't know why I'm always surprised when it resurfaces. Fortunately, once I was in touch with the underlying emotion, I was able to slow down a bit. Even if I don't finish before winter, I will be OK, the house will not fall apart.

Reason tells me chances are good I will have enough good weather to finish the painting before the real cold hits. It helps that I will have ALL the days free. Unlike when I have a job to attend to, I don't have to wait for the magic combination of warm weather and weekend day. When it's warm enough, I'll be able to get out there and get it done, even if that day happens to be a Tuesday.

If I don't finish?  I'll cross that bridge if I come to it. I'm close enough to being done that it's unlikely I won't be able to finish the job, especially with the help of good paint that can be applied any time the temp is over 45 degrees. (that part helps a lot.)

In the meantime, I'll compromise with her. I'll work MANY of the days, but not all of them. I'm going to start to take some time to relax and to 'waste' time on non-productive pursuits, just because I can.

I could get used to the freedom of getting to choose how to spend my days. (yeah!!!!)

Operation Do-Gooder: Update

blue skies!

I first wrote about KC - Kevin - last December, shortly after Libby died. He's homeless, but different from the other homeless guys I've met. He's sober and he reads.  Books.  Real books.

I tried to help him out by getting him a phone, but the experiment turned out to be a dud. He never did learn how to use it, and it eventually got lost, in one of his moves between shelters.

He spent much of the winter in a good place in Olathe, KS. There was a group of people there working to make a difference, and they had a temporary shelter set up in a gym while they worked on a permanent location.  Unfortunately, the permanent location fell through just as Kevin was getting his feet back under him, and back on the streets he went.

I've stayed in touch with him since he found his way back downtown in early spring. Since we started working from home last summer, I made a point to stop by the library on the days I was in the office. Sometimes, he'd not be there, but most days, I'd catch him. We'd sit and talk for thirty minutes or so each week.

It's tough to be long-term homeless. Since he's one of the old-timers, he gets shuffled to the bottom of the list a lot; shuffled right back out the door and onto the streets for the night. When this happens, and it happens regularly, he doesn't have a safe hole to retreat to and spends the night wandering the streets with his backpack and his rolling suitcase.

I haven't given up on helping him. As I've gotten to know him better, I've also gained an understanding of why getting him a phone wasn't enough; I know now why he is unable (not unwilling, unable) to make those daily phone calls.

I brought him to another of the social services agencies this past week - Catholic Charities this time. They made some calls and got him on the waiting list for one of their senior affordable housing units. (He's now old enough to qualify for those places...)

I've made a commitment to myself to make the follow up phone calls for him.  I'm going to call every few days (the plan is to call often enough to keep him on their radar screen, but not so often that I'm a pest...) to see where he is on the list. From what they said, it's a list, but a 2-3 month list, not a once-in-a-blue-moon list.

In the meantime, I've got him on the hunt for the documents he needs to get into the place once his name rises to the top. I hope he follows up.

winter is coming.
fingers crossed.

Ready, Set... (reprise)

Acadia Park, Maine

I have one more week left to work.

Last week, I bought a pair of flannel jammy pants and a pile of books. Retirement planning complete.

No?

No. I thought I was prepared, but it turns out that's not quite the case - I was not ready for the churning emotions I'd experience making this leap for the second time. As I did eight years ago, I'm leaving a perfectly good gig, only this time I really, really hope to never NEED to get a paying job again.  (I might do it, but only because I want to. I hope.)

These past few weeks I've found myself in full avoidance mode. I'm filling my days with work; evenings are spent painting the exterior of the house in a race against winter. I go to bed tired, but wake up most nights at about 2AM, my mind roiling with all sorts of doomsday scenarios. Turns out, if I set my imagination loose, that there are all sorts of ways for things to go wrong.

That's OK. I'm doing this anyways.

There are always more ways for things to go wrong than there are for them to go right. When I stop to think about it, I see miracles everyday in the way our bodies mostly don't break. Most days, I don't wake up to find I have cancer. My eyes, ears and fingers all still work. I can think. I can walk and make decisions and ask questions. Food goes in, my body miraculously turns it to the energy I need to make it through the day. Without thought, I breathe in. My capillaries know how to work with my lungs and my heart to trade carbon dioxide for oxygen - good thing, because I sure don't know how to do it. I breathe out.

I am a walking, talking, breathing example of things going right.

I suppose I'm back to the trust thing. (Somehow, my life keeps circling back to the trust thing.)

It's scary to trust, but I'm doing this anyways.

Along with all my fears, somewhere inside, my inner two year-old is stirring. She cares not at all for  doomsday scenarios. She remembers days of freedom, days spent working on the art of being, days spent seeing beautiful places. She remembers the freedom of not having each day tightly scheduled, time spent wandering where the road went.

She's thrilled to be awake again, ready to give this another shot.

She's ready, set...