Of Endings and Beginnings

It's been longer than I meant for it to be since my last post, but the last six weeks have been full of revelations, epiphanies, planning, and unexpected good-byes, so correspondence slipped to the bottom of my list. (Along with housework, but that's another tale for another time, yes?)

I won't try to sum it all up. Instead, just let me say this - sometimes you have to go away and spend time with people who care very deeply for you and who know you well enough to allow you to just be so that some wisdom can seep in the cracked places. I'm still trying to figure out what to do with the new information I have gained and I'm trying to be more intentional in my living. Hence, I'm starting to play with a simple "bullet journal." It's very easy for someone like me to get overwhelmed at all the "ooh, way cool!" versions out there (see the picture at the top of the post, for instance), so I'm trying to remind myself to keep things simple. As a costume designer once told me when I asked about a tan splash on one of her intricate renderings, "It's coffee. This is a tool to be used; it's not art." We'll have to see where this goes, but I'm looking forward to taking a few minutes at the beginning and end of each day to reflect and ground myself. It's far too easy to mistake work for Work, you know.

Further, in the time since my last post, I've attended two funerals and, although I was glad to see some not-often-seen friends, I've had quite enough of that sort of thing for a while. Death is, of course, a part of life, but it's a crummy, lousy, stink-like-three-day-old-fish part and I've had it up to HERE with it! While others may turn to the classical poets to attempt to make sense of the senseless, I am a simpler type and I think Jimmy Buffett said it as well as any of us:

Alone on a midnight passage
I can count the falling stars
While the southern cross and the satellites
They remind me of where we are
Spinning around in circles
Living it day to day
And still twenty four hours maybe sixty good years
It's really not that long a stay.

So let us be good to one another when we meet along the way.

Peace to you.