Small is beautiful

Sometimes I tend to overlook the small stuff. But today, on my daily constitutional I brought the camera along. I love walking by the shore in the evenings, watching the light play on the water, the crows who line the shore learning new tricks (picking up the leftover crabs from the seagulls and dropping them from a great height to crack the shells), an errant seal bobbing up and down in play, rabbits, shrews, and flowers. Oh, the flowers that dance up when the sun has been kind. Like today.

The wild roses (dog roses my Granny called them) were brought over from Ireland back in the day and they proliferate everywhere here. I make rosehip jam from them in the fall - a jam I introduced to here.

Then these little purple flowers emerge:

The irises and lupines are on their way.

The outburst of green has been sudden here. Overnight we go from maybe-winter to full-fledged spring. Summer comes in July. And I hear the whales are in.

I must track them down. Tomorrow.

Travel

I love travelling in a car, where everything I just about own is thrown in, nothing is left behind and the open road is my friend, music going, dog in her car-bed, me and The Travelling Wilburys singing away in tune with each other.

Travelling across the Atlantic is quite nuther matter entirely. What to pack, what not. I'm a good packer, I should add. I rarely, if ever, have packed anything I haven't worn when there. Laundry facilities are usually good. For instance: I pack a cotton kind of nightie as a bathrobe for guest/hotel towels are usually too small and not conducive to galloping around hallways looking remotely decent after showering and your standard bathrobe is out of the question for packing. I will be moving around a bit when there, it is particularly challenging as to where I will land for a day or so as there are more friends and rellies to see than there are days to accommodate everyone. That's where the knapsack comes in.

As I get older, luggage weight can be a challenge. My arms have never been my strong suit though as I was bragging to a friend recently back in the day I could bench press close to 400 lbs with my legs. Seriously. Better than most muscular men. My legs have always been super strong. But they're absolutely useless when it comes to luggage carrying. And it's only me, no sturdy Charles Atlas striding beside me manfully managing all the bags as I hold my pinkie up dangling my lil ol' evening purse. I have to carry it all, switching airports with my big girl knickers on.

Light luggage is the best. And with that in mind I found one of those duffle bags on wheelies, soft-sided, multiple handles for manoeuvering on escalators, etc. and one of those dream knapsacks by Adidas, also very light and long with straps on the outside to hold jacket, whathaveyous and enough room inside for netbook, change of socks, ebook, journal, camera, etc. See photo above. Brand new both of them, found at a thrift store, and the price?? Under $8.00 for the two. Yes, you heard that right. I've been scouring thrift stores for a while. For I knew that the days of my hard-sided and more heavy luggage (though glamorous) were over.

I wish to travel way into old age if possible and this upcoming trip to Ireland is a total trial run for travelling alone with manageable light luggage.

So I'm wondering if you out there who love to travel light have good travel tips for elders. I sure would welcome them!

Blog Jam

Life is full of wonder, isn't it? My dog is extraordinarily playful. Playful enough to play hide-and-seek which we do now and again. She always finds me. I think it's that smell thing, 10,000 more powerful than a human's. She is ecstatic when she locates me and my catch phrase when she does is: "You found me! You found me!"

But the other day, wow, a first. I let her out through the back door and I was busy tidying up the back hall of winter stuff that needed storage when I felt two paws on my bum and turned around and there was the dog looking absolutely delighted with herself. She had raced around the house to the open front door and tore in and around to surprise me by jumping on me. And she did. I was laughing so hard I had to sit down. None of my previous dogs had this marvellous sense of humour she has. And when she's pleased with herself this huge grin spreads across her face.

In manifestation news. I mentioned to a select few I was doing the Tely 10 at the end of July, come hell or high water. And now others are joining me. And some supporters too. It's another dream come true. I was stubborn enough to do it alone but having other participants AND supporters is the icing on the cake as far as I'm concerned. I used to have it in Toronto back in the day of racing so having this comraderie in St. John's is powerful and validating and well, heart-warming.

On Being Alone

I had an unhealthy section of my day yesterday diverted by my aloneness. My solitaryism. It does strike me now and again how very alone I truly am. Don't get me wrong. 95% of the time I truly enjoy it. But the odd time it hits me in a wave of what, fear? fear of insanity? remorse over relationships gone south? Misplaced old friends who knew me well and can comfort like no one else can? This has nothing and everything to do with coupledoms. Many I see and hear out there do not raise a single thread of envy in me. Most of them are puerile. Many are all about negotiating, I'll do this then you'll do that. The odd one throws itself up as supportive, nurturing and comforting.

This was all started (I'm sooo overanalytical by nature) by an invitation to a lobster dinner and dance last night. I've gone to my fair share of these. And I truly don't play well with others in such an atmosphere. For one, I am surrounded by coupledoms. Those tiny fiefdoms of, well, smugness. Individually, these people are wonderful. Throw them into a party atmosphere and exclusionary fences are built. It's a challenge to sit by oneself while the rest of the room cavorts on the dance floor to the band on stage. Solo, abandoned, one can check one's nails, root in the change purse, play with a scarf or sulk in the bathroom for an unseemly length of time and lie about stomach trouble when a search party is sent (Oh goody, my absence was noted.)

Then again, one can march to and fro from the bar for more ice in one's water. How much ice can one possibly crunch in a crunch so to speak? Lots. And how is it when one is on the dance floor life passes in a hurricane but by oneself, sitting it all out, life has the consistency of molasses?

And then, the great escape. Slinking out when no one is watching as they're all on the dance floor. Saying goodbye makes a scene, a horrible one. Where one is forced to lie about aforesaid healthy stomach, or a cold coming on, or exhaustion. And the phone calls after the skulk the following day are a little heart wrenching: The what happened? The we're not good enough for you? The we were all worried about you! The why didn't you say goodbye?

Hoisted by coupledom petards. The only win is not to go.

And I didn't.

And today is fresh and beautiful even though grey and mauzy. But that lonely feeling is behind me now.

Procrastination - Revisited.

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Ansa on the East Coast Trail a couple of days ago. Click twice to enbiggen and you'll see her smiling.

I wrote about procrastination before. Here.
Things do get done. I was pleased to see that, yes, all that had been 'deferred' then has been taken care of. Eventually. But I find the tasks on my current list might well exceed my life span. Imagine how important this list will be to my heiresses when I pop off this mortal coil. Like, not at all. That is, if they could even find it.

So a fresh approach was needed. To make me feel better. And to see if it worked.

First of all I think the list itself was a problem. It overwhelmed me. And it all needed to be done. No escaping that. Some of it was idiotic you'd think. Like change my tires from winter to summer ones. How on earth could that be a 'task'. Well out here on the edge of the Atlantic, it's a task. The guy who changes my tires is 40km from here. And you don't just run in and out. It's a civilized thing. His wife might come out with a pot of tea and you visit. And then Tireman needs some bonding time with me. He's a collector of old gorgeous cars. And he shares his passion with a few of his fans, me included. You'd have to see his latest baby. 1959 Ford. Original upholstery. He's also a pet whisperer, you should see him with Ansa. But I digress.

Then there's a couple of visits along the way on tire day to friends who know my car and I can't just pass their houses. It's rude. So there's the whole day gobbled up to change the tires.

But I found what I have to do is transfer items every day from the long, long to do list on to a shorter list. And the daily shorter list gets done. I always include a task I was avoiding and then some 'fun' stuff which also needed attention. That included sorting the winter and summer clothes out. I have limited space here so if I don't want to be running around in an Aran sweater in a heat wave that must be done before summer kicks in. And there's my plot in the community garden which needs attention. And the Tely 10 training....

You get the picture. My daily shortlist is manageable. But if I look at the long list, I usually wind up doing nothing. Frightened.

Because in some ways, still, I'm 3 years old

Some Lessons

Favourite and rare blue fog outside my front door, May 2013

My father was a cautious, careful man. A man who didn't take risks. A man whose boundaries were very clear. A man formed by his own childhood, for aren't we all? It took me years to understand him. Another few years to toss out the stuff from him I didn't want or need. Another few again to sort out the chaff from the wheat. One of the most startling things of all was when I asked him (in my own middle age by then) what he would have done with his life if earning a living was not a priority and he said: "I would have bred roses". It was a side of my father he had rarely made visible.

We take from each of our parents character traits that are helpful or not. I don't like the words "bad" and "good". For that is too subjective, truly. What works for some doesn't work for others. It's neither bad nor good in my mind.

This thought process was rolled out by a simply marvellous book I just finished about a mother and a daughter - "Amy and Isabelle." by Julia Glass. There were many great lines in it. One of the most profound (among many), I found, was this one:

"Bewilderiung that you could harm a child without even knowing, thinking all the while you were being careful, conscientious."

As I slip and slide into the more serious elder years I share more of my inner with my loved ones. My ongoing struggles with procrastination. The changes I make in the behaviours that do not serve me well - like procrastination. In my own case I tend to get overwhelmed when there is too much on my plate. And it's not about the "too much on my plate" at all. I finally see this. It is in the way I manage it.

So for now, today, I strike one item off the list. And I feel accomplished.

And most important of all, I do not look at the rest. Until I pick another one from the list tomorrow.

Marketing

I find my head hurting when I pay-more-than-is-healthy-for-my-sanity attention to things. Subliminal advertising. Even though I'm not, by choice, subjected to the incessant onslaught of such rubbish from teevee. But I read ingredients on tins and containers and boxes for in our blessed-by-Obama-and-Harper-Monsanto world I need to be.

Case in point is this box of tissues:




I remember, and not too short a few years ago when one got 200 to a box. That was standard. Now the companies who make them, from what we hope are sustainable forests, have shaved the quantity away until the box now contains 132. 132. Nearly 1/2. The box remains, of course, the same size and has increased dramatically in price.

Then I look at the symbol of the Royale company which happens to be kittens. I remember - possibly an urban legend - a few years back a report of how these white fluffy kittens had died under the hot studio lights. Sacrificial kittens. On the altar of nose and toilet tissue. As to the kittens symbolizing the product I know the last thing I'd want would be their claws on my privates or nostrils. And now, if their deaths are true, every box and roll is like a memorial to the merchandising sacrifice of those wee felines. (I did a web search and not a thing on the death of those babies - maybe Kleenex in their wipe rivalry had a hand in that?)

If that were not enough though, the box also tells me that the tissues are hypoallergenic. Shouldn't tissues be? Shouldn't that be a given? I mean if you're busy honking away with your head cold the last thing you'd need would be an allergic reaction to your paper hanky surely? And what of the tissues from way back which were not (I assume) hypoallergenic? Should I be worried about dormant allergens nesting quietly in my lungs waiting to break out and kill me in some weak moment? Note: there is no medical definition for the word hypoallergenic



Bafflespeak. 1984? - We've left you far, far behind.

My Dumple Pan

Doesn't that sound delish? Dumple Pan. My very own word. I don't often get to use it - maybe twice baked potatoes, mini-Irish pies, those wee hors d'oeuvres with shrimp encased in a light pasty that you're sorry you started to make but now that you have and the shrimp are defrosted and omigawd there are so many, kill me now.

But today?

Thanks to the interwebz, I've collected and sent out more recipes through blogging than I ever have F2F. It is a great distraction from the angst of the world. Well, make that the end of days as we know them. We all need something to entice us and since drinking and falling down or eating till I explode are no longer options, well, recipes do the trick.

So one of my good blogging buddies - My Journal to Mindfulness - shared her recipe for cornbread. I could never master cornbread. Maybe it was the buttermilk or the bacon drippings I lacked, or proportions of everything or who knows. But today?

Today I hauled down my dumple pan and right up there is the result.

Splendid doesn't cover it by even a quarter.

Magnifique.

Here's to you, Ernestine!

Death. And Life.

"The life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living." Marcus Tullius Cicero

E is a good friend. One of those people that I'm attracted to. Full of life, open to change, supportive and demonstrative. Quick to hug, to hold your hand. Very beautiful in a round way. Beautiful round eyes. Round bob of hair. Round glasses. Someone you would hate to hurt. Her eyes fill with tears readily. If you are having a rough time she'll sit with you and weep too. It's impossible not to love her.

Recently her adult kids swept through her townhouse and dejunked it. She was a self-admitted queen of clutter. She was not open to the idea at the beginning but then came around to it and showed me pictures of the before and after. Especially her kitchen where they had created a nook for her to do her morning meditations by a window where they had installed a bird feeder outside. She even took pictures of the inside of her kitchen cupboards where she could see exactly what she had on hand: her supplies and how she was down to one set of dishes and pots and bowls. Unless one is superhuman, I think it a good idea for someone else to de-hoard a hoarder.

Then her world crashed around her. Her beloved only sister, C, a Type 1 Diabetic, had catastrophic organ failure with attendant myriad other health issues. She lapsed in and out of a coma (and horrific pain) in the past three weeks and died two days ago.

C's life ended on a rather high, though tragic, note. Her abusive marriage had ended a year ago and it seemed like immediately, her high school boyfriend, himself a recent widower, found her on FaceBook and they fell back in love, intensely and completely. C was the happiest she had ever been, E told us. And he held her tightly through her last days, hoping against hope.

I was at the funeral home yesterday. I'm there for E. I didn't know C and I get uncomfortable around the caskets of people I don't know in life. I hesitate to approach the corpse in case my interest would be perceived as prurient. And it is surely? We are all curious about death and the way we present it, aren't we? So I do my best not to gawp at the stranger-corpse for we are there for the living are we not? From my peripheral vision of C, the remains of C, I saw how young she was. Another friend whispered to me that there had been over 60 perforations in her bowels which caused her such agony in the time before her merciful death.

E came over, remarkably dry-eyed ("I'm all wrung out" she said to me as I held her.)

I met her mother (oh, to lose a child, how heart-wrenching, how painful and inutterably sad) and then E took me aside and said: "I can't believe it, you know what's happened, who's been my pillar of strength through all of this? My ex-husband, father of the kids. I don't know what I'd have done without him!"

Where there is death, there is life.

Mixed Feelings

I was sorting out the summer wardrobe which resides in a chest on my large landing. Reminiscing, as I do, over happy events where I inhabited these clothes.

And then the moment of horror and joy, when I realize that none of it fits me. I've been a long proponent of only having in my life - in racks and closets and drawers - only the clothes and underwear that fit me. Everything else, no matter the price or style or memory, gets tossed. I do not want to evaluate myself by a size number or a perceived dietetic or physicality failure. And my size has fluctuated wildly over the years.

Even my designer outfit, which I wore to my Seanchaí debut is now kaput, a good friend remarked: my gawd when did you start wearing a tent? I hadn't noticed, being swept up, as I was, by my patron's generosity. So yes, two of us could have resided quite happily in the yurt of my top. See above. Yes, a picture of the debut as promised with, through the kindness and skill of my friend Ramana, my anonymity preserved.

So today, as I was sorting through these linens and cottons and silks (Oh joy, summer is sorta here in Newfoundland) only a few of the items fitted. One I had trouble releasing, a favourite linen beige pants, which I upheld with a belt but when I looked in the mirror a drindl skirt effect was evident. Pleats and bunches surrounded my waist, lapping over the belt, drooping in folds, like a toddler's wet nappy, across my smallish arse. Toss.

I packed a huge bag up for charity, glad that someone could now avail of these somewhat lovely clothes. These cottony bits and pieces that no longer belong in my life.

I am simplifying and minimizing.

For after all, how much clothes do I really need?

Retreat

re·treat

/riˈtrēt/

Verb

(of an army) Withdraw from enemy forces as a result of their superior power or after a defeat.

Noun

An act of moving back or withdrawing.

Synonyms


verb.

retire - withdraw - recede - fall back - draw back

noun.

retirement - refuge - withdrawal - recession - shelter


Shelter. Refuge. But mainly withdrawal for me. A time of reflection and a gathering of spirit. Refreshment - to revitalize. Affirm the beauty of the earth. Invigorate the spirit.

Know that the power of goodness, kindness and love exists in this world and we can make it in this image rather that those of the opposing forces which are all about money.

I project love. Love returns.

Back from a weekend of spiritual retreat, where the sun shone and stones were cast in the waters of the lake as we stood barefoot in the sand while the wind blew around, through and on us, unwrapping layer upon layer of self. All is exposed to the light of day. And drums beat to the rhythms of our hearts far into the night. And joy shook me to my foundations.

All is well.

Bang Bang

Now and again my head explodes with the devastation inflicted on our little planet. By the greed for money. And the secrecy behind the money.

Seems like in Harperland (our country's not even recognizable as Canada anymore due to the arrogance and criminality of our prime minister, Stephen Harper) spends $16,000,000 of tax payer funds promoting filthy oil extraction and shaky dangerous pipelines. Oh yeah, he also rigged the voting last election. Prosecution? Are you joking? And bailed out one of our senators, a Mister Mike Duffy, from his false expense reporting. To the tune of $90,000, hiding behind the skirts of the House Speaker. I could go on. You get the picture of our emperor.

Then for good measure I read, from reputable sources - now, what is reputable you might well ask in this shoddy world we've created - that the devastating effects of the Fukushima blowout are being withheld from us simple peasants. 14,000 in North America and Canada already dead, foetal abnormalities and child cancers to come, not to mention the mortality and cancers of the Japanese people. Business as usual, of course.

And do you, like me, wonder if the pensions held in trust by our governments are already plundered and gone, one thread connecting to another in the economic melting pot that our governments dip into like it's the candy jar? And no accountability. I always beware when I hear the word "transparency" tossed around by these yokes. It never, ever is. My friend, R.J. Adams sums it all up quite beautifully in his post.

And that the Koch Brothers, those stellar saintly profiteers, the archest of arch conservatives they, are buying up USian Newspapers, something to do with their own rightwing agendas you think?

I needed to rant. It's good for the gas build-up in my brain needing the release of words. I'm sparing you the 100 other pages of derring-do that nest in my skull. This is enough for now.

As a counter balance to all of that, I bring you the view from my deck this morning, fog lifting like a curtain. All is well, just for today. Tomorrow? Who knows?

Do we still have free speech? Have they redefined "freedoms" while my back was turned? They did? Well, I never....

Post Performance

Wow! Wow cubed!

As promised, a report on the NIGHT.

Nerves vanished as soon as I sat on stool to Seanchaí myself: miked, filmed, applauded, dispatched to bar, where I met with many of the audience. The craic was ninety. There were cameras lurking in every corner as the crew who are making the series on the history of our bay want to catch the atmosphere and flavour and charm of rural Newfoundland. So into this melee a tourist from Boston, Mass. walks in to the bar to book a room at the inn for the night. First visit to Newfoundland. One couldn't script this. The place was packed. He is stunned at his reception, applauding the fact his family is from Mayo originally. So Cork meets Mayo in a Newfoundland inn on the edge of the Atlantic. I think the guy's head is still spinning at the level of the welcome.

The music was incredible, the talent awesome. Only in Ireland do you get the equivalent of a Newfoundland "time". Oh, well, of course, most of the inhabitants around the bay are descended from Irish stock. And brought the ceol (music), caint (talk) and craic with them.

I'm beginning to like this. A lot.

PS Anyone know how to pixellate a face out of a photo? I tried pikasa and can't seem to work it. As promised, I was going to post a picture of myself but with my anonymity preserved.....

No Time for Nerves

You know the way of it with something important coming up. The nerves take over a bit. Well maybe not for you. But certainly for me. Especially for public speaking. But only if given lead-time. Catch me by the seat of my pants and interview me on TV, so to speak, and off the cuff, I'm grand, just grand.

But I've been so busy over the last few weeks, there hasn't been a minute to fret and worry and construct and tear down the debut of the Seanchaí this weekend. Not to mention the thousands of "what ifs". I scheduled an hour for all that yesterday. I was in the city getting the car serviced and alloted the time between 6 and 7 pm for all that mulling while I rounded a "pond" (i.e. lake in any other corner of the world) on my daily constitutional. But it started to get mauzy, in that way of St. John's and there was a lot of business with the hood and and the zipper and keeping the socks dry and then I had to talk to the widower swan that everyone's paying attention to. He's an angry soul by the name of Oscar and attacks all who try to feed him and then there's his whining babies, the wee cygnets, swimming about. He is completely stressed out, what with the dayjob, the kids and the grief. So by the time I got back to the car, very damp, I realized I hadn't done any stressing myself. Ripped off by selfish Oscar.

And then the work, and a few calls and emails and today is just about shot as I have to be out of here by 5.45 to do some pro-bono work up the road. I say up the road, which is a laugh here. 20km is up the road. So I'm going to allocate 15 minutes in the car to stress and to worry and to fuss about Saturday night.

I'll let you know how that works out. I'm way overdue a good fretting session.

Mother Stuff

My mother and me. When I was her only.

This mother-stuff is so very complicated for some.

I've often said, and kinda half meant: I wish I wasn't so complicated. I'm fairly intense at times. And I feel. Oh, boy do I super-feel. I've heard addicts feel things seven times more intensely than non-addicts. Hurts, slights, dismissals, wounds. I've nothing to compare to, right? So how would I know? All I know is I can feel demolishing pain at any kind of betrayal, whether real or imagined. It's all the same to me. So I talk to people who are just like me and who feel the same sense of hopelessness and sadness and loneliness now and again over, well, the mysteries of life.

Some days I can be over the moon, really happy. Next day, and for no earthly reason, I will wake up in the depths of despair. Analyzing doesn't help at all. Picking up the phone often does and gentle listening and soothing and often laughing at how ridiculous life is, can comfort like nothing else.

I'm guilty of loving my daughters to death and also another "daughter" who, at times, felt more close than my birth daughters. For we do the best we can with the love we have to offer.

But maybe it's not the kind of love that they want or need. I get that. And maybe they've given us all the love they're capable of and there's no more in the bucket or they've moved beyond needing a mother and thus sever all contact.

And that's the part I don't understand at all.

Every day I think of my own mother and how valuable and wonderful she was in all her humanity. She wasn't perfect, none of us are. But I miss her with such an intensity at times it takes my breath away. Her little phrases, her wit, her creativity, her positivity, her support of me, her only daughter for many years in a household of males.

So today, Daughter and I chat for long time. She was upset. Her daughter had broken a promise to take her for Mother's Day brunch. And I felt her pain deep in my heart. But we talked it through, we managed a few laughs over pictures she had posted on Facebook and the lovely things she'd said about me there.

And I focussed on this most precious connection with her.

And then I lit a pair of candles and incense for my two other mother-beloveds locked in my heart but never out of my mind.

Happy Mother's Day to all celebrating on this side of the world.

May your mother-stuff be the size of a lunchbag and not of a trunk.

Surreality

>>>>>mein host behind the bar today in the midst of crew and mikes and lights<<<<<

So I get to the rehearsal today for the Debut of the Seanachie (she appears next Saturday night).

"What are all these film crews and cameras and lights doing?" I ask, shocked.

"Oh, didn't we tell you? Oops, sorry! The History Channel is here doing a documentary on the area. So, if you don't mind, could you sign a release form and then chat up your show next weekend. And your new play if you like as that's about the end of a way of life in an outport, so all part of the history, right?"

"Oh, OK."

Feeling oh, so glad I'd put on some non-jeansy type clothes and dabbed a spot of powder on the gleaming nose, and sorted out my hair before I arrived. Luck of the Irish as some calls it.

So we test the stage and head for the bar where the interview happens and I get such a strong feeling as I talk that a family member is present in spirit, a really strong feeling along with "He would really love this, it's like an Irish snug-in-a-pub even with all the lights and the action and crew everywhere."

And we wind it up. And it's all good.

And I drop in on a really good friend on the way home afterwards to tell her and she laughs and says, "They followed me as myself and a crew cleaned up the old graveyard earlier on today and I was able to tell them about the old gravestones -they're talking of a series in this area."

And I say "Yeah, they want to film some of our play rehearsals too."

And we're quite gobsmacked over dinner and can't stop grinning at each other (she's the executive producer of our theatre company). And sqweeing in disbelief. She had a feeling I'd show up so she threw my name into the pot of heavenly slow-cooking beef stew earlier in the day.

And I came home and swear to gawd, the brother I'd been thinking so intensely about was on the phone from Ireland and said to me: "I've had such strong thoughts about you today. Like you were here. And then I said to myself I've got this big birthday coming up in the autumn and the biggest present I can give myself is my sister here for it."

And then we talked for nearly three hours.

Come Play with my Toy

~~~~click to enbiggen~~~~

I was reading somewhere that 99.9% of adults forget how to play just for the sake of playing. Running/walking becomes a grim business of time and distance checking, cell phone manipulations and exhaustion. PBs (personal bests) join career achievements. Races and competitions become de rigeur. All the absolute fun is removed leaving the same stress levels as are on the job. I've been there with tennis, running and bridge.

I've made the decision recently that if it's not fun I'm not going to do it.

With that in mind I added a new toy to my life, see above. Yeah, I bought this second hand for a couple of bucks.

I can't stop playing with it. The lighthouse flashes, the water pours down the mountain into the sea and the gulls call and cry to each other.

It's like I vacuumed my brain.

I recommend.

Shut up Clint!

I bring you Clint Eastwood SINGING "I talk to the trees". Who'da thunk it? I came up with this version after an effortless Google for the song.

And why, pray tell, do I bring you this?

This song has never stopped irritating me since it was released in 1951 or thereabouts. it's from "Paint Your Wagon" a musical from that era. I do have a video of it kicking around in my overly vast and OCD movie collection. I think I stopped watching it when ol' Clint came on and sang his song. To add to my outrage, it became a party piece in Ireland back in the day and I'd grind my teeth at the lyrics as some oul fellah got up at a wedding or party and bawled it out. Part of me wanted to fall down and laugh myself into a coma imagining the kind of talk old Paddy would give to a tree.

I should add the melody I can tolerate in an instrumental rendition but, please, hold those words.

Why do I dislike it so much? I could never nail the reason until recently. I walk a lot. And the many areas where I walk have a lot of trees. And I don't do earbuds. I like to listen to the many sounds of nature. The sea, the birds, the many animals darting around and the trees. The trees.

Seems like Clint got it all wrong. He shouldn't have been talking to the trees.

He should have listened as the trees talked to him.

Avast

There are some that are fearful of the vast quantities of time that can open up at one's feet and suck you in to nameless dreads and freefloating anxieties when the day job is no longer there to fill the vacuum. I know a few.

As I am wrapping up my own day job I begin to see this. Part of me is excited at not being so constricted by this career that spreads its ooze more times than I care to admit into my nights. Plus there are vast swathes of time where I see clients, talk to them, soothe them, answer questions throughout the year, plan with them, etc. Da Schmooze in other words. Part of any job be it MacDonald's or Google or Bill Gates is the ability to schmooze. It takes up a lot of time. For me anyway. Usually there's an average of one business email a day througout the year, then software updates, professional associations, webinars, continuous learning as tax regulations change and permutate.

I have to be wary of this final announcement to quit the business. I gently severed some clients last year, ones that were at a major geographical distance or their businesses were expanding rapidly but then, guess what? Some of them didn't settle my final billing to them. In spite of repeated requests. Bummer, yeah? So this year I am withholding this announcement from the balance of my clients until I'm paid. There's nowt as queer as folks, even clients who were friends tell me they'll pay me once they have the funds but meanwhile could I help their new accountant in the transition. What do you think? Put further work into the dead horse or walk away with my precious time?

I admit to feeling exhilaration at the idea of my life opening up afresh without the constant rattle of accounting in the background. I haven't knitted in ages. Or read a book in a day. Or visited my Writer's Cabin. Or meandered around my village in the afternoon. Or edited novels. Or work on the new play. Or....

I am ready. Avast!

Doors and Windows Open Wide

I'm a firm believer in that if you put something out there, hang a hypothetical sign "Open for New Business", then it will come. Manifestation. Yeah, too woo-ie for some to swallow, but seriously, it has always worked for me.

Today I got a message when I was out, training for the Tely 10.

"Hey----, someone referred you to our company. We're having our annual meeting at W----- Golf and Country Club and we understand you are a story-teller and we would like you to perform after our dinner on June----, if your fee is acceptable to us, are you interested?"

Am I interested?

Can you believe this?

Talk of the speed of a bullet?

Manifestation. I bow before you.