Keep Being Brave

It's the first Sunday of my two week vacation and I had to make a list. Vacation time should mean No Lists Required but we are where we are and I am who I am. (My inner gremlin would like me to tell you that I'm full of sh*t. I'm not but the gremlin insists.) I was in the office for a week between my emergency leave and vacation. Mid-week, we had a great session about resiliency and re-setting after working through an emergency event. This session led to discussions about what folks need and how they've adapted, skills and knowledge gained and unhelpful habits we should eliminate. I have already been thinking about this for months and months, but it was good to have everyone tuned in to these questions by professionals. We also talked about transitioning to vacation / leave and things we should to to help people prepare so they get real rest. Of course, this good advice arrived two days before I was to sign off on vacation so while I appreciated it, it made me feel like

I seem to have claimed the kitchen table as My Spot. Not the whole thing, but the chair where I can look at this ZZ plant or stare out the big window. My plants are here. I've got my laptop. A magazine. Space for tea. Napkins. Knitting. Watercolour stuff nearby. And the chairs are comfortable. Straightforward wood chairs with enough height and room in the seat to feel j ust right  as I type this, or eat toast, or putter away at something. It's a cozy nook at the end of a galley kitchen that holds our essentials and a few extras.  Home looks like plants on a windowsill, and favourite things within reach. Home smells like a spice cupboard full of my favourites. The cupboard is clean but the combination of spices is a pure riot of scent every time I open the cupboard. Home sounds like Dave playing Stratomatic Baseball in the other room, dice rolling in the box and the news or sports on in the background. Someday soon it will sound like our favourite people visiting and laughing wi

I am in a hell of a mood. I feel like I must write but I have nothing to say. Well, I do, but nothing I can share here or that I want to preserve. It's just been a peaks and valleys kind of day and I am now feeling extremely miserable. Contrary. Like the most expletivy expletive in all of Expletivetown. And so on. And what not. Today has been good overall. I called my Dad to give him an update about our accommodations, etc, and the next thing I knew they'd offered to come help. Later, my sister brought lunch and followed up with a visit after Dad and P arrived. We hauled a van load of stuff to the apartment and I went back later on my own for a bit. Alone was good. My feet are killing me. My sushi supper was delicious. My beloved is tired from all of the change, etc, but I am doing the heavy lifting and just cannot take one more question or interpretation. And my feet are expletive killing me. I just want to lie in bed (my own bed) and watch Ted Lasso for the fourth (fifth?) ti

  All I really want to share today are the lyrics from Mark Erelli and Dinty Child's magnificent song, Look Up . I heard it for the first time during a Rose Cousins concert (where I feel like I heard her for the first time, but I know I had before) where Mark Erelli opened. It was held in my church and there was a moment when I peered down from the balcony in the dark of the sanctuary and I was mesmerized. I followed the words of a song I was hearing for the first time but felt like I already knew, and it felt like something was being passed to me to hold. I can't quite explain it but the lyrics come back to me when I need them, and so does a sense of something calm and clear.  Sometimes it means slow down and look up. Sometimes it means stop looking down, look up. (Not cheer up, just look up) Sometimes, a lot of times, it means stop looking in, look out and look up. Sometimes it means something else. Yesterday, I was at my sister's house. One of her chickens had an unfortu

I woke up in a bit of a flap this morning. What felt like a flap.  Saturday mornings usually mean waking up around my usual time, relishing that I don't have to get up, reading for a bit, and then going back to sleep for a couple of hours.  I was exhausted when I went to sleep last night. I'd been coping with what seemed like the onset of a (rare) migraine and dropped off to sleep within seconds of turning out the light. Sleep was fine and I woke up around 7:30. My anxiety is trying to kick in but I am determined to manage it (that reminds me -- call the pharmacy). I think it's fair to say that some of the shock is wearing off and I want to go home. I've been out of my bed and away from my stuff for a few days and it's starting to sink in. Friends have helped with research and recommendations for longer term accommodations. I sent that off to our claims specialist yesterday...and now we wait. Likely all weekend. And the clean up crew's movers come early to mid-w

Here's the thing.  Everything in my last post is true, but it's also BS. I am stressed.  I have to work at maintaining my calm. It's effort. It's practice. One of the ways I do that when tough things happen is by trying to determine what I can do and what I've done before. What can we do and what we've done before. If we haven't been through something together, it's good when one of us has experience. There's a lot of turmoil but what do I know how to do? I usually end up reminding myself that I have done a lot of this before. And by reminding myself that it's normal to react strongly to surprise, change, discomfort. And I tend to talk about what's going on, what might be happening, so people know where I'm at and can sometimes help. Here's what I mean: "You'll need to call your insurance company" - Remember, we had an accident in 2018. It was a pain but we got through it, and there was a lot of big life stuff happening