Life By The Numbers

As I age, I find more so than ever, that numbers take on more significance. I suppose they always have taken some prominence in my life as I was (and still am) an accountant during my survival years. I don't use the word survival lightly. How often do many of us work away at something that is basically a kind of spirit destruction for the artist within, toiling, collecting the cheque, toiling some more, looking for better toiling and so on and so forth.

In those toiling years. I squeezed a lot in of the creative nature. Around the edges of my life. There was never enough time to express that aspect of myself then. So I pack it in now, even as I'm slowing down.

I was sorting my weekly pills into the dispenser this morning. A weekly task. It takes 15 minutes. About 30 pills a day including the supplements of niacin and turmeric and magnesium et al. It's a slow process as I tend to drop the little guys on the floor or on my lap. Not so much today but some days. You know.

We are forgetful as we age. I was supposed to go to the opera with a friend today but I think she forgot and I was glad. It was her first opera and it was probably my 6th time seeing it. Madame Butterfly. Not that I minded, I love it, but the whole getting ready thing, organizing thing. Well, you know. And then a kind of mandatory coffee thing after. I just wanted to be home. In my PJs doing creative stuff.

But I played the magnificent Humming Chorus from it and it never fails to make me cry. So cry I did. Sublime.


When I was desperate for work in the old days, or desperate for anything, a shaman advised me to face east in the dawn and hold out my hands and tell the universe I was ready for work. And then go out, broke as maybe, and give something to a far needier person than I. It always worked. I never expected anything from my actions, I should add. It was a spontaneous thing. On Thursday I gave my 80 year old cleaning woman a small raise. She never asked for it, it was just that she takes care of me in little extra ways. She was over the moon. She kept saying: you like my work, you like my work! And on Friday a totally unexpected project came into my inbox, one I will definitely enjoy and will be compensated very well for. A referral. Something oddly numerically karmic about that.

And a very odd thing. I say odd. Because I remember thinking a while back when a man I knew who was dying looked up a high school sweetheart and they totally fell in love again and she was with him for his last couple of years. I remember thinking, she went into this knowing it would all end in tragedy and heartbreak. Could I do that?

But the heart does what it does. And the brain can't stop it. And recently I met a man who is dying and I want to pull away. Now. Immediately. And the heart says absolutely not. I can't explain it. But now I understand. Numbers again. Do they matter?

My Christmas cactus. A little confused (like me)

Carrying On

The act of being creative (for me) is healing and validating.

Today, January fled the scene and February opened her unpainted canvas with green grass and dazzling sunshine. And warmth.

I recognise, as if for the first time, that any kind of creativity requires discipline and the perseverance necessary to take apart and begin again. And the concentration required is a reprieve from repetitive hopeless thoughts.

It was thusly with a new afghan I am designing and knitting for a friend. I treated myself to some new wool in those "new" colours (pumpkin - everything old is new again) and cream and an oceany mix and I took the time to design and measure and swatch and started it and then recognised about 6" into it wasn't going to work. So rip, rip as I watched "J. Edgar" which says a lot about that particular movie. If you feel compelled to read my review go here.

And I started all over again with an adaptation to my original design and this time it worked.

#4 Bro has a valuable connection to someone who may be interested in a book I wrote so I will explore that opportunity along with others. And keep plugging away at writing and revisions and editing.

Being curled into a ball of grief has its upside. Feeling the feelings is necessary in order to clear the darkness and let in the sunshine.

Thank you February.

Additions

I often bring you views of the ocean at the front of my house - but this is a view of the meadow at the back.

"Magical are the additions to one's life that don't involve money or material goods." (an original quote from me)

Following up on the last post, I reflected on what I had added. I try not to take anything for granted but some lovely stuff just slips under the wire and I hardly notice until I think. Hard.

1. Being present at my own life.
2. Participating in the full spectrum of life.
3. Being of service in whatever way I can.
4. Physicality - dancing, walking and, lol, racing.
5. Music, ah the charms, listening to it, dancing to it, singing to it.
6. Writing.
7. Writing.
8. Writing.
9. Excited as each fresh stage of my life unfolds - I must post about the latest soon.
10.Directing.
11.Photography.
12.Rediscovering cookery, experimenting with more exotic and fancier dishes, sharing these discoveries with others.
13.Blogging - making new friends and actually meeting some on the flesh so to speak.
14.Crafting of all kinds.
15.Book Club.
16.Theatre troupe.
17.Gratitude - what a wonderful feeling that is. Focussing on what is in my life and not what is NOT in it.
18.Staying in the moment.
19.Learning from the past.
20.Realizing everyone is here to teach me both what not to do and what to do.
21.Seeing clearly that it is not the years in my life but the life in my years.
22.Some incredibly supportive family and friends.

Endings and Beginnings

This is my very last tax season. There. I've said it. Right out loud. I just need to make the announcement to clients now and not be persuaded to NOT hang up the calculator. Like last year. I truly, truly am finished with it all. I found this nearly over season (still quite a few boxes and files kicking around my office) extraordinarily taxing. And do pardon the pun. I'm not smiling. It's not funny. To me at least.

A huge negative was in the past years I would add up your 250 medical receipts, for example, and have my mind somewhere in my next book. Or play. But not this year. It required every last bit of my mental energy to add those prednisone scripts and chiropractic chits. I tried meditation to graciously accept the work, I tried gratitude exercises for Gaia's munificence. NONE of it worked. I even burned karmic incense (direct from Tibet!!) to restore my chi to balance with the universe. The smoke fled out my door, leaving me gritting my teeth.

It is over, I am done.

I sent out a song to my lovely young actress to rehearse for my new play tonight.

This brings me joy, excitement and anticipation.

Something that's been hugely lacking in my life through this past trying month 2013.

And what, pray tell, is more important than bliss?

What Are We Without a Sense of Wonder?

I watch the dragonflies outside, swooping and darting, chasing the mosquitoes. Who eats the dragonflies?

I've never forgotten the seller on Ebay who mailed me a handcrafted towel rack for the kitchen with a hand-drawn map of where every screw went. It still works beautifully and holds towels and potholders and dishrags and my oven mitts. A self-taught man who loved his work.

I am a firm believer in that some things can't be taught by others. At least to a creative level. Try as we might to teach it or to learn it. I think if we truly want to learn something, fire up a hobby, fulfil a passion, we just go ahead and acquire the resources and then the skill and then experiment and do it. This belief comes on the heels of trying to teach software and then Irish rug-hooking and writing and now people asking for more writing classes and Irish knitting workshops and photography lessons.

I should clarify that I am writing about mid- and elder life learning or rediscovery of self.

I think that passion comes first and that whets the appetite for more knowledge. No one has ever knocked on my door with a piece of knitting looking for help. Or with a chapter of a book they are writing. Or with an album requesting a photo critique. No one. I would love if they did. Advertising workshops and then conducting “classes” in creative arts is a waste of everyone's time, I believe. The huge dearth I perceive out there is a sense of wonder.

One can't teach a sense of wonder.

I could riff off further into what I've come to believe on all of this but I'm still thinking about it.