Blog Jam

May Sarton:

"Solitude is a way of waiting for the inaudible and the invisible to make itself felt. Solitude is never static and never hopeless."

Me:

Embers of Time.
_________________
These last fragile moments,
These burned out coals
Hold no flame now.
But I blow upon their
Dusty pink ashes
And a tiny flicker wavers
Long enough to spark
A memory of fire
To warm me briefly
In the uncertain light.
______________________
WWW 09/30/18

Questions:

Does the inner life grow richer, more fearless as we age?
We have more time for reflection and creativity even if it resides only in our inner.
Do we keep these strange thoughts, these rich inner happenings to ourselves?
Do these griefs and joys and inexplicables remain forever under lock and key?

Know Thyself

I'm buggering off for a while. I need to regroup. I found myself a small farm way off somewhere in the middle of absolutely nowhere and booked in for a week. A small farm? Well, a change from the constant seascapes which are stunning, but I felt change, even in surroundings, needed to happen.

I thought of lurking here with the car hidden away and curtains drawn but at my age that could be misconstrued quite badly and white coated "helpers" might not be far away. I'm packing my unfinished manuscripts, some reading, some knitting, my journal. I didn't even check to see if there was internet as I don't care.

On the one day off I had in a MONTH (truly) a dear friend barged in and said it was an emergency and could I divest myself of my pyjamas and dress up a bit and go across the bay with him to sign off on some really important documents for the lawyers, it would only take a few hours.

And something snapped in me. I felt I had only one remaining nerve ending in my head and he had crunched it. Nothing to do with him, I still love him dearly but when your calendar has been crawling with crap for 4 weeks straight and there's not even a day you can call your own in your favourite pyjamas the precipice yawns.

And the grief. Too much of it. And the health, still shaky. And families out here on the Edge, they are all so tight and supportive of each other, never seen the like, adds to the sense of tribal isolation at times. And becomes unreasonably magnified

I may not do well on my own, driving over 600k to the farmhouse (and back, I trust) but I'm ready for different surroundings and being alone with my writing. And reintroducing myself to me. Being alone with words. Being alone to write my inner outwards. There hasn't been time to reflect in yonks.

I need that.

So desperately.

Mixed Bag

I'll write of the good stuff first:

One of the highlights of the summer is that Grandgirl is coming here for a month. I never expected this. She will be 18 this coming October and off to university in September. I am over the moon about it as she will see two performances of the play and we can hang out as we normally do.

I'm off to a surprise 60th birthday party tonight which should be fun. We're going to celebrate the birthday of a 'new' friend who is more like family to me. Serendipitous is this rare circumstance when one meets someone and knows right away. In my case it was the right place at the right time. She had just gone through a terrible upheaval at her longterm workplace. I was able to share a similar equally devastating experience I'd had in a workplace years ago and could offer concrete support and advice. Hire a lawyer being the first piece of it.

I've taken on too much and this is the downside of my life right now. Daughter and a long term friend said to me that I've again lost the ability to say 'no' when others ask me to take on a 26 week commitment which holds no interest for me whatsoever and will bleed my energy and will demand skills which repel me - and also being with others excessively. I do not play well with others when they are too much with me. I need a lot of alone time. More than most. I resent intrusions into my creative space and taking on others' ideas of where that can go. No. No. And NO. I am rehearsing the word.

I was reminded of what I love to do. Being creative and in my bliss. Deciding when and where I can be in community with others (and I am surprised by how little I do need outside community stimulation). I'm self driven for the most part. I think other artists are with me on this. Solitude is a balm.

It took me a while but I am cancelling the daily newspaper which occasionally publishes me. Why? I counted the negative articles in the last while. Nearly all. I can almost feel my blood pressure rising as I read an old fart's half page on why feminism has destroyed the world. Seriously. His main point? We are finding fulfilment in outside interests and refusing to breed, thus endangering all countries as decreasing populations can't sustain them. Seriously. This moron has obviously not heard of our existing rampant population growth which endangers the world and starves millions abd millions of children? And he gets a full half page to enrage women and thinking readers?

Enough already.

You can see in some areas I am an extraordinarily slow learner.

And that's /30 from me.

To Live Alone

According to statistics, the majority of adults in the USA and Canada now live alone. A fairly new demographic that is just about invisible judging from the media. No one wants to talk about it or write about it, it seems, apart from some fearless bloggers that tread outwards into uncharted territory. My blog buddy Ronni Bennett wrote about it yesterday and she was also featured in a piece in the New York Times on Wednesday.

I wrote about it recently:

Alone.
Sometimes lonely.
Solitary.
Independent.
Selfish, some say.
Why?
Why not?
To choose
The perfect space
In all the world
For one
Such as me.
By me.
Sea.
Old house.
Woods.
Silence.


UPDATE

Living Single

As of 2000, the most common household type in the U.S. is a person living alone. - Hobbs, Frank. 2005. “Examining American Household Composition: 1990 and 2000.” U.S. Census Bureau.

A Day in the Life of a Solitary Woman

I live alone - well, apart from Ansa - but I am rarely lonely.

Like last night, I came home from the day’s events and find that Leo had filled the woodbox. Not only that - and this is so special - he had laid a fire in the grate, ready for me to put a match to it. We place a lot of value in each other, Leo and me.

Today, I entertain a gentleman caller to lunch. My famous woodstove soup, some lovely smoked salmon and soda bread, a camembert cheese and small salad. He is 89 going on 40. He teaches me a lot and is a considerable and well respected artist in wood.

We enjoy talking to each other. We are both coming from the Church of Reality and are surrounded by the Cult of Christianity where we often dare not speak openly of our beliefs. It is a blessing to talk freely and spontaneously with each other about so many events and changing times without the pall of a mystical Invisible Cosmic Housekeeper hanging over us.

Later on, I moved my laptop out of my office and in front of the fire. Not a good thing, perhaps. No reading, writing (apart from this) or knitting is being done as I play on it in front of the flames, toasty and warm.

Tomorrow I head into town for The First Annual Sparks Literary Festival which promises to be a day overflowing with authors and readings.

I sometimes ask myself, where would I squeeze in a full time relationship in all of this? He'd have to be a very busy man indeed.

My Rules of Life---Part Two

EMBRACE SOLITUDE - FIND A PASSION.

It seems to me, in this world I inhabit, that I am perfectly content with my alone status 95% of the time. But that other 5% wherein I dwell can be fraught with loneliness, neediness, the poor mes, and the nobody ever wants me syndrome.

I was swimming around in the Chinese Astrological Charts today and found an interesting paragraph pertaining to me, I was born in the year of the sheep/ram/goat, as was my elder daughter, interestingly enough. So here goes:

Goats often do not fare well in romantic liaisons. They are very high strung and tend to feel insecure. They are worriers. To quell their uncertainties, Goats need to feel loved and admired at all times. Goats are extremely sensitive and will fret over the most trifling things. Conflict within a relationship will make Goats retreat further into their minds or physically remove themselves from the scene.

There goes that high strung thing again. And I do worry - about the teensiest, tiniest things. Never the big issues. And I am the STAR when it comes to retreating. I am hopeless at conflict.

But to get back to embracing solitude. I do. I can honestly say I've never been bored. And this is in a world where I rarely watch TV and don't have one in this house. I fill my time with reading, writing, knitting, learning, the web, blogging, planning and plotting - oh just about anything. And I love socializing but not empty socializing, there has to be meat in it. I make room in my life for many friends and keep up with them all, along with family.

I'm very happy inside my own head and I think the secret of happy solitude is/are passion(s).

Elder Revelation or HawHeyWhoYah!

I'm a fan of Padraic Colum and have always admired his poem "The Old Woman of the Roads.
I was forced to learn it in school but over the years, it comes back to me and I get this overwhelming feeling of gratitude. Maybe the Sisters of Mercy knew what they were doing, making us memorize all those poems!



Picture is that famous old optical illusion of the young woman/old woman.

I've come to this conclusion:
This suits me: The age I am, the distance I am from everything that used to be important. In this place I now call home, I’ve always felt as if I received a second chance to live. I play house here. I only put up my own artwork, or cards from friends, or photos I like, or my mother’s embroidery. Even the odd poem gets a wall to itself. I use mismatched china and mismatched chairs. And boil a ratty old kettle on the woodstove for my tea. I invite people I like in to my house to share meals with me. And show them some chairs from 1860 that someone found and gave to me, as there were only three of them. Who’d want three? Well, me. I’m so far away that no one can check up on me.

I find I don’t really truly miss the familiar as much as I’d thought. I’d lived on the same street as my daughter and granddaughter forever it seemed. I co-parented my granddaughter to all intents and purposes and saw her every day and she did her homework in my Toronto office. I even went to her PTA meetings when her parents were working and did the parent teacher thing all over again. I thought one day, I might be doing this for my great-granddaughter, who knows. Does it ever stop? You’d think I’d miss the grandgirl. People tell me I must miss her dreadfully, all the daily doings. Well, yes. And no.

It seemed like every time the phone rang in my old life, someone needed something from me. Nearly always. I got tired of that. Call me selfish. I won’t justify myself. My grandy-friends, left behind, complain about all the demands on their time. They’re the sandwich generation, taking care of their senile parents and their rambunctious grandchildren, sometimes all in the same day. They’re fed up. No time for themselves at all. Lucky, lucky you, they say to me. You got out.
Self-preservation has always been my strongest suit. I make no apologies for that. Enough sacrifice, I say. Did I mention I called off two engagements, negated them, because in each case a daughter took a dislike to the situation and threatened to leave home? That’s how enmeshed I was. How much I didn’t know myself. I thought taking care of myself meant keeping my daughters happy no matter what the cost to me.

Now I’ve disentangled myself. I’m left to my own thoughts, my own books, my own writing, my truly, truly own space. Yes, it would be nice to share it with someone, a soul-mate of my own choosing. Maybe that will happen, maybe not. Meanwhile, I think I’ve gotten to know me and like me and honour me for the first time in my life. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

It’s alright actually. And we all deserve a bit of the alright.