I just found this

A woman from a group called the "Camino Companions" that work out of the Pilgrim's office in Santiago, had offered me a cup of coffee and said if I needed to talk about my experience she was available.  I hadn't thought I needed that, but there was a lot going on in my head, not the least of which was saying out loud the pain and anxiety I'd been feeling for months, things not directed at me, but that I feel nonetheless because I give a damn about others, the not sleeping, the broken or breaking of something inside, and then all the experiences and insights I had while (willingly choosing to be) an outsider, an "other," a "them."  The not being "enough."  The things I didn't feel like I had the "right" to feel or express, and so didn't know what to do with them, because I did feel them.

Anyway, my housemate just asked about my trip (I didn't realize anyone knew I had been gone, I'd only told my landlord.)  And after trying to explain it, I came upstairs and found these poems/thoughts, etc., that the woman I'd spoken to had handed to me when I was getting ready to leave.  I'd meant to read and think about them on the trip home, but that's a whole other adventure, so that didn't happen.

This is one of them:

Trust in the Slow Work of God 

Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are quite naturally impatient in everything
to reach the end without delay.
We should like to skip the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way to something
unknown, something new.
And yet it is the law of all progress
that it is made by passing through
some stages of instability-
and that it may take a very long time.
And so I think it is with you;
your ideas mature gradually-let them grow,
let them shape themselves, without undue haste.
Don't try to force them on,
as though you could be today what time
(that is to say, grace and circumstances
acting on your own good will)
will make of you tomorrow.
Only God could say what this new spirit
gradually forming within you will be.
Give Our Lord the benefit of believing
that his hand is leading you,
and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself
in suspense and incomplete. 

 - Pierre Teilhard de Charding, SJ

Ennui

I'm bored.  Out-of-my-skull: bored.  And is it hyperbole to say, "I've never been this bored before?"  I probably have.  It's the now it's-always-Sunday-afternoon feeling.  It's that what's worked before, no longer is, and the next thing hasn't come in to fill the void, so, I'm in the void.  Ultimately, it's a good thing, a good place to be, but...I'm bored.

And I decided to go to the doctor last week, because I'd been having throat pain (for a while), and I sorta' figured it was the thing I'd had four years ago, but wanted to rule out something more serious.  At the last minute, she decided to have her assistant run a strep test, and it came back positive, surprisingly; I don't feel all that bad.  Anyway, just have three more days of antibiotics left, but I took the day after off of work, in the event I was contagious, and that's when I realized how bored I was, so I went back to work the next day.  But seriously, what did I do before to occupy myself?  I've been trying to cut back on using the internet, my computer, and that's part of it, how much that had been filling my waking hours.

On the sick day, I finally finished uploading my trip photos (almost 4,000 and a very slow process), well, all the ones off of the first card.  Went out for a walk to see if the headache was actually from caffeine withdrawal, since it was already afternoon.  Ended up at the lake, spotted the giant orange fish near the shore, and was reminded that it was carp-spawning season, though they were just cruising around at that point.  A thought about released goldfish crossed my mind, and then an older man walked up to me mentioning something about koi, and we got into a long conversation about local wildlife, and then, tropical biology, bats and birds and that sorta' thing.  His wife works at the zoo, and they've traveled a lot in Central and South America, into the jungles and the cloud forests.  Ended up walking the whole lake, even though I'd originally planned on turning around earlier: I don't often meet someone that is interested in that.  (I'd spent time in a cloud forest in college, studying natural history/rain-forest ecology.)

And then I did eight hours of gardening on Saturday, and consequently slept most of Sunday, because I'm still rather exhausted.  I was awake for almost 40 hours trying to get home (was planning on sleeping during the 9-hour bus ride, but had a creepy dude sit next to me, so that didn't happen), and then the first week I was back, I had a bunch of life stuff to catch up on: an overgrown garden, volunteer commitments, choir rehearsal for a performance, a bake sale, the actual performance, the other rehearsal (which has an upcoming performance, as well), plus jet lag, etc., etc., and I can fill the time, but in a way, it's noise, and underneath the noise, is a restlessness, and what feels like boredom.  I don't know what should be there.  And I feel incapable of paying attention, or making any major decisions.  It's not the right time.  Something happened, something changed in my mind, in my view of myself, while I was travelling, and I'm only starting to catch glimpses of that, to begin to comprehend it.

And I've been feeling a little anxious that I have nothing new going on this year...I mean the travel (a super-privileged thing to have been able to do), the singing at Folklife, the theatre-workshop are all a deepening of things I've already done, nothing wrong with that...but life is short, and I'm more than half-way through mine: what could I be doing?  What do I want to be doing?  Why is depth not enough?

So many people I spoke with while traveling talking about having a mid-life crisis, or preemptively avoiding one, ("I'll be turning 40 next week." "I'm 50.")  And I guess I'm feeling a late one, now that I've gotten back home into the demands of every day life...and I suppose that's how it should be.

When you no longer feel the need to please everyone else, follow someone else's rules, to quell someone else's fears of the world, what do you choose?

Home again

I'm in a half-space, half back in this reality, half back in the one I left, the one without an importance of status, or time, the one of openness to the other, the one that says, "Good morning," to every passing face (or tree or ant or whatever.)  I don't want to lose the latter, but it feels too exposed and unwelcome.  A place without a phone, and with the exception of a tv in a bar (usually on futbol, or a game show, or an emerging scandal), and foreign-language newspapers, no contact with the "outside" world.

My body still in another time zone, but I wake up with the light (2 hours earlier here) and get up rather than linger.  Yesterday, arrived at work almost an hour early, because I just got up and started walking, thinking something would be open for food, nothing but Starbucks, and I had no food in the house.  And letting things go, letting myself not be responsible for everyone else.  Not everything needs to happen right now.

I need to sleep, found ants crawling across my bed, which made me feel itchy, and I was too tired to figure out where they'd come from: we'd never had issues with them in the house before.

I can feel the pain in my hands returning slowly.  Had no real RA symptoms while I traveled.  Took for granted being able to use my hands.  Something to think about: was it the sun? the dryness? the lack of stress? the lack of technology? the constant movement? the food? the new germs to contend with? (I ate potatoes like they were going out of style, and I can't do that here.)  What made the difference?  Can I replicate it here?

So, much silence, I could hear the thoughts that race through my head and run my day...so many small anxieties, adding up to dysfunction.  Someone told me to just focus on one thing to change, and if I fail, to try again tomorrow...every day, until I get it right.

Less than a week

Because I haven't written in a while and it's Lent, and...

Things I am grateful for:

It's spring.
The glorious muted-orange, western sky, last night, with the sudden rain.
I really like my dentist.
The cherry trees look like they might actually bloom before I leave.
Made it through the monologue.  The show was fun.
Even if it is a bit of whack-a-mole, loose ends are being tied.
The privilege to travel.
Lent.
Co-worker gave me her Spanish phone, so I won't have to buy one.
D, for tying that shoe.
B, for you thoughtful acts of kindness, that you choose to remember.
R, for the invitations.
For all the people that drive me home from wherever (been a lot of them.)
Creativity (mine and everybody else's)
Kindness (mine and everybody else's)
Courage (mine and everybody else's)
Getting out of my comfort zone.

Cheers.

Friday

I feel the gentle sting of the tiniest of rain drops as I make my way into work.  The volume increases, and my jacket is wet by the time I enter the building.  I'll let go of my wish for snow and take the 50 degrees and breezes that the day brings.  Been a cold and gloomy stretch of it.

Daffodils, crocuses, skunk cabbage, and others have been in bloom for a couple of weeks.  The cherry trees are holding off for warmer weather.  The buds are there.  Definitely later than in the past couple of years.  We actually had a winter this year.  (Checked my garden recently; the cold killed off the artichokes, but the arugula survived through all the freezes, all the snowfall.  Impressive.)

Insomnia, as usual, should have just gotten up.  Fell back asleep, had another dream about walking through unlit hallways, this time at work, and I could see light around the edges of a door frame, but decided if the door was closed, they didn't want to be disturbed.  After trying numerous light switches, found one that turned on lights, and the light was so blinding, I couldn't see.  Is that progress?  Usually, I can't find light in the dreams, and I'm alone.  I know there were colleagues around in this one; someone answered when I called out.  The new is not completely unknown.

A new bird outside my window woke me up, got me to work on time.

Emptiness

Sunday.  Looking forward to an evening of writing.  A day of emptiness, desolation.  In Discovery Park, unofficial footpaths that cross lonely fields, I hear voices, see people in the distance, but rarely make contact.  Finally join the main trail only to get lost, I follow a Japanese couple, the woman has GPS, finally checks her phone when we feel hopelessly lost, I've never seen this place before, I didn't grab a map, I have no idea where we are, or which direction to follow.  We do eventually end up at the visitor's center, the arrows make no sense, there is safety in numbers.  A man followed behind me, so there were four of us on the wrong path.

Childhood.  I remember the streets being empty, hot, deserted.  My memory is wrong, we were not the only people walking the sidewalks, hopping through open doors to buy a grilled cheese.  That can't be right.  But there is a loneliness of childhood, of abandoned military bases, or ones that feel abandoned.  Perhaps it's that they are always near a bluff, winds blowing the grass flat, open water before me leading into the unknown world.  Fog rolling in.  Traffic-less streets.  They all feel the same to me; I want to bathe in the melancholy.  I had a hard time pulling myself away to walk on the real paths, the ones with people on them, just one more pass through an abandoned field.  Just one more.  The day dark.  Rain and wood smoke.

I have a blister on my heel.

All day, unsettled, desolate, miles through train yards, the trains re-positioning; further on, engines run, lights on, but no engineers on board.  They don't head out.  The clank of movement.  I keep walking.  Finally in a neighborhood, a woman approaches, she looks familiar.  In the desert of the day, I cross paths with a friend, we greet each other and then go our separate ways.  I feel the need to continue on the way.  To follow the road to the end.

I wish I'd had a camera, I didn't know I would be there.  I missed a movie, doors locked when I arrived.  Walked toward the sculpture park, but saw a path, and decided to follow it.  I don't want to walk it alone again.

On the beach, a small patch of exposed sand, other footprints, I pick up a piece of brown sea glass, polished smooth, scan the other rocks, then remember that there is raw sewage in the bay, and I probably shouldn't be near the water, and make my way back to the path.  Look for a sink to wash my hands.  Where the path turns toward Magnolia, a man is darting toward the water, filling up his hands, then backing away, repeatedly.  I walk as far away from him as I can, I don't want him to notice me, there is no one else around, though, he is engrossed in his own ritual.  There is a sign to stay out of the water, because of the sewage; he takes no notice.

A woman stops to tell me about the cargo ships.  Flocks of birds I do not recognize hold lines of territory in the water, in front of the idle ship: no cargo loading today.  A boy runs over while I am in the visitor's center to play all the bird songs for me.  His mother tries to call him back over to her, promises of reading a book about reptiles, but he stays with me until he has engaged all the bird sounds for me to hear, and then returns to hear stories about snakes.  I talk to the woman at the desk about Mountain Beavers, wondering if anyone has actually seen one, she tells me she found a sick one, they get sick from dog wastes.  Outside on the grounds people let their dogs run free, even though it asks for them to be leashed.  No one to enforce it.  I go out and walk in the woods, enjoying the silence, in spite of my sore feet.  I walk until I am lost.

Snowday

Woke up to a snowday (email telling me not to come to work.)  Choir rehearsal was cancelled, too.  Went out and walked about 20 kms and now I'm trying to motivate myself to go cook something.  That's not going well.  I'm not actually nuts, I'm in training for a long hike, and I wanted to give my shoes and outerwear a trial run.  Shoes kept my feet dry, though, do not have good grip on wet, smooth rock, nor on slush; jackets could be more waterproof.  I stayed warm enough, though.  No blisters.

Then found out someone had created a fake facebook account of me, so, dealt with that.  Ugh, even messaged my friends pretending to be me, it's creepy.

Here's a view of the snow.

Morning, February 6/L Herlevi 2017

Only When It Snows, February 6/L Herlevi 2017

Rosehips, February 6/L Herlevi 2017

Woodland Park, February 6/L Herlevi 2017

Still can't sleep

Life is good in the crevasses.  Stayed away from the news most of Saturday, had long conversations about life with two of my housemates.  Walked the lake.  Worked the door at a show.  It was this performance art piece mostly performed with a slide show and voice over, called "Oil Pressure Vibrator," by a woman who had made a decision to become a hermaphrodite.  At some point in the journey, she decides to learn how to operate a piece of heavy machinery, the only woman in her classes.  She passes the "driving" test on the third try (everyone failed the second test.)  The last slide is a video clip of the machine in operation on the beach, and a woman made out of sand.  She handles it with such grace and tenderness, as if it is an extension of her own body, but in the end destroys the woman in the sand.  My takeaway from the performance was that I wanted to learn how to operate one of those machines, not for any sexual reasons, but because seeing it used in such a tactile way, rather than as a blunt object, was intriguing.  The artist is Geumhyung Jeong from Korea.  She's fascinating.

Breaking out in a teenage plague.  I think it's the prednisone, I'm trying to wean myself off, but it's makes me feel weird, puffy in the face, heaviness in my chest.  (It also helped with the pain, but I need to give my liver a break.)

Watched three hours of reality tv last night as distraction from the news.  (My usual distraction is falling asleep to youtube, I'm trying to stop, I'm sure that's not a good thing to be doing.)  I still wake up at three with my thoughts racing, unsure if I fall back asleep or not, if I do, it's not particularly restful.

Compassion isn't a weakness, and most religions call for it.  Cracking open, and learning to love your neighbor, or at least get to know them, isn't gonna make the world come crashing to an end.  If you always need someone for an enemy, once your defeat them, you will find another; you find what you are looking for.  If you look for the worst, you will find it, and if you look for the best, you will find it.  Fear can make you hate anyone, even those you once loved.  Fear tighten up your world, love opens it.  You always get to choose.  That's your power.  There is no "them" against any "us."  Those who wish to gain or keep power, will find ways to keep us occupied fighting against one another, to distract us from their bigger game.  They run off with the spoils, and we fight over crumbs, thinking we won.

Friday

The birds seem to have broken out in song again this week.  Perhaps it's the slow lengthening of the days, the minutes of daylight added to the morning.  It's as if the sound had been turned back on, to fill a silence I hadn't noticed as emptiness.

Today is one of  the last of the freezing mornings for a while.  Hasn't been this cold in a few years.  Last year, I think we had one freeze.  Made for brilliant sunrises, and clear nights, a full moon, and the brightest Venus I can ever recall.  So bright, I thought it must be a plane in the sky, or a light on a tower somewhere nearby.  Brilliant skies, but no snow here.

Last night I tried to rush up to First Hill to meet a friend for a drink, thinking I could still make choir practice.  Ran late, last minute things at work I had to deal with: a vendor came in late, a lock malfunctioned, etc., and my lack of paying attention to time, meant when I looked at the time, we'd been talking for almost two hours, and I was already late, and in the wrong part of town.  We left, he walked me to my Downtown bus stop, via the scenic route.  I first resisted, my cautious nature out in force in my head, but little by little, gave in to the route (I would never have taken it, and by myself, it wouldn't necessarily have been safe after dark).  I would've walked on well-lit streets.  We cut through various buildings, and a park, trees still lit with holiday lights, water frozen, or on the way to frozen.  Buildings and stairwells generally deserted, but doors unlocked.  There was a certain thrill and magic in it, nothing particularly subversive about it, but it was fun.

I told him later that my "20-year old" would've approved.  My 40-something year old self has become cautious in ways I hadn't noticed.  There isn't anything necessarily wrong with that, but the observation of it hit me pretty strong.  And we change, sure, but sometimes it's so gradual.  And is it just a compromise here and there, changing in increments to do the expected?  And again that's not wrong, but I guess I'd a wished the choice to be more actively conscious; not just a change to blend in with what is acceptable in a generic sense.

And then is the magic magnified in sharing the experience with another human being, versus all the wonder one can experience on their own?  (I mean I can recall road-trips gone wrong, in reality, that stand out as favorite memories because the experience was shared.)

And then I fell asleep with youtube running in the background, which got into my dreams, the voice of a card reader saying, "and this is your soulmate" and I was escaping a friend (who was causing herself trouble in the dream, finally done with the drama, myself) by accepting a ride with an acquaintance (one probably 20 years younger than I, in real life), and trying to get away from the voice, thinking, can't we just see where this goes (and in the dream, I was already seeing someone else).  Why does everything have to be made bigger than what is already there?  It's just an acquaintance.  It's just ride home.  It doesn't need to be more than that.

Starting over

It's a new year (Happy New Year!), the sun is shining, and it's cold.  I'm doing this thing today where I devote 15 minutes to one thing.  Might only last for the day, might be a longer term thing...don't know, but I've been pretty scattered, and unmotivated.  Finally was able to drag myself out of the house late yesterday for an early New Year's/birthday party, just as hail began to fall outside.  I went to the bus stop anyway, rain poured, and snow was predicted, but we didn't get any.  Lot's of black ice this morning, though, half-way down the front stairs, and grabbing the mailbox for support, I wondered to myself, "Is this a good idea?"  Slipped a few times, and ran for a bus (bad idea with ice, did break two ribs falling on ice a few years ago, but catching it would mean less ice to slip on overall), and made it to the U-District in one piece.  Now it's mostly melted.

The other thing I'd doing this month is a money fast, no eating out, no going out, or buying coffee, etc (though I do have to renew a couple of memberships).  It'll help me see where I am mindlessly spending, and also, I'd still like to take a vacation this year, and will help save for that.  There was another resolution somewhere in the back of my head, something about giving up sugar, or increasing the amount of vegetables I ate.

Part of the 15-minute thing is to re-learn both Finnish and Spanish.  The Finnish will be harder as there is no translation in the textbook, and the words all look familiar...I must still have some notes, somewhere.  That started because I wanted to remember how to say, "Happy New Year!"  (Not in the book.)  I had to look it up online, but my guess was close, just spelled wrong; and now my 15 minutes are up:

Hyvää uutta vuotta!