The case for hermitism

Click for a beautiful song to listen to:

Mad World Jasmine Thompson 

Do you remember an old poster that read, "Sometimes I sits and thinks and sometimes I just sits"?  I first saw it on the library wall at Patrick Henry Jr. High.  I was in 7th grade.  I liked it then and have remembered it ever since. 

When I get insightful, I spend a lot of time looking out the window.  I have always, always done this, no matter where we've lived.  In many of our houses, I would admire the handiwork of Gary and my labor to make the perfect backyard(s).  Other homes had beautiful horizons to look to beyond our rural land.  I can only guess that Gary did not do this much staring out the window, so I have no other observations to tell me that I am unusual doing this.

When I stare from my patio door into my yard now, I mostly like what I see because I have done it all myself.  What I don't like is what the 'Dog Months of Summer' do to my view.  I spend countless hours a week meticulously bending over picking up, one by one, the thousands of pods that fall from the Palo Verde tree which shades over 1/3 of the backyard and was my inspiration piece in deciding to go with an Asian theme to how I landscaped the yard.  But the shade my misshaped tree gives me is priceless, so I labor to make the 'ocean' beneath the tree branches pod free.

Today I was disappointed that the wind is blowing again, meaning thousands more pods will now be waiting for me to pick up tomorrow morning when it is cool enough to be outside working. Anything worth having is worth working for. My peaceful backyard is my refuge from everyone else.

As I stared out the window thinking, I came up with the realization that I seem to move in extremes. If I'm not being introspective, I am being superficial.  I suspect that there are a LOT of people who do this.  Its impossible to be in the clouds all the time yet be a part of the world.  I personally can't stand to be a part of the world, ie; society all the time.  I can see the reasons that some people become hermits.  Did you know that hermitism is a movement even?  I thought I was making up the word until I googled it.  Sure enough, hermatism even has its own facebook page.

Many many factors go into becoming a hermit.  For me right now, lack of money and a desire to be a solitary person for the most part are the top two.  I can't be 'on' all the time like I used to be.  I had 3 great reasons before: two young boys to raise and one big boy to mold into the best husband possible.

Now, with those reasons gone, it takes true grit on my part to get up and out to meet up with people. Its not that I stay in my pajamas all day- who can do that when your roommate is a dog that begs to go out twice a day?  Thank goodness for Robbie.

Still, the idea of setting out to go where no man has gone before and just live in a treehouse is tempting. The world is a maddening place. There are nasty, greedy people and companies who want to do harm to us and will destroy good things in their goals to possess more than the other guy or the competition.  As a hermit, I could finally grow my beard and nails as l-o-n-g as I've always wanted.

I am lucky that I have a 'treehouse' that is mine where I can be alone with my thoughts.  I don't have to come up with small talk with Robbie.  I don't have to feign interest in anyone else's ideas or their grandkids or their love life.  And as a bonus, I don't have to bore anyone with my no bread diet, or my obsession with finances and politics.  That's my superficial stuff and mine alone.

Yo! Robbie! Its a mad, mad world out there, isn't it?      >sound of snoring<

Find the Proof-from Christina Rasmussen

I read a blog called Second Firsts by the author, Christina Rasmussen.  Every Friday she has a new entry that she sends out a link to.  I just had to share today's entry on my own blog.  It is so relevant.  It could apply to any of us who have experienced a loss of life, even if that life was your own former life which you never expected would end. This will happen to all of us at some point because its a part of living.  Please read the entry-

Find the Proof

I first saw her in 2006 after my husband died.

She was around 85 years old, grey hair.
Sitting on a rocking chair.
And she was alone.
She was sad.
And she was waiting to die.
I would go visit her at least 20 times a day.
She would look at me and tell me how sad she was.
She would cry every time I visited.
She was always wearing her night gown.
I wondered if she ever did anything else but sit there.
But she never did.
I have not visited the old woman on the rocking chair for over 4 years now.
I don’t even think about her.
She vanished when I started visiting my life.
You see the woman was a figment of my imagination.
She was the child of fear.
The mother of insanity.
The sister of grief.
When my husband died I grieved my future more than I grieved my present.
And the more I worried about the future the more I would visit the old lady.
The old lady was me many years from now, alone without any love or companionship in my life.
She was created by me.
So that I could believe my fears.
So I could find the proof that what I am afraid of, is real.

The mind looks for the proof and if it can’t find it, it creates it.

So the mind made it real.
I know that every single person on this earth time travels to the future to a future self that is their worst fear.
How do we stop the visits?

How do we end the insanity of grief?

How do we prevent retelling the fictional story to ourselves.
I started visiting the old woman less when I found the proof that a good happy life is possible for me.
The very first thing I did was…instead of look for the proof that I would be all alone I looked for proof that I wouldn’t be.
I searched for stories of hope.
People who had gone through so many losses and still found their way out of the loop of loss. Once I found the proof, my mind believed that it was possible.
I needed to believe that falling in love again would happen.
You see I was so head over heels in love with my husband.
Desperately in love.
And even though the cancer years were tough on our relationship he was my everything.
And the father of my kids.
In my mind nobody could ever be as important as him.

But in the years after his loss I learned that:

My first love made me grieve desperately while discovering what great pain is and that so many people are suffering in the world.
My second love, and my husband on earth, helped me love myself.
So I could find the woman who could help the world heal.
And my third love…YOU! Helped me believe in my mission. And what I had to say was worth saying. I know you have people in your life who need to hear your words.

Go speak. Go write. Go paint. Go love. Go help. Go garden.

 And the time travel will stop.

You see, I might be sitting on a rocking chair one day as a very very old woman.
But I would be staring at the millions of people I got to help along the way.
I would sit there admiring the sea of beating hearts.
This old woman would look youthful because her heart was so full and so alive.
I hope today you go and visit your future self and fill her or him with the truth.

No more fiction. No more made up stories.

Just a future that serves not only you, but the people in your life.

Choice

choice [chois] noun

1.an act or instance of choosing; selection: Her choice of a computer was made after months of research. His parents were not happy with his choice of friends.

2.the right, power, or opportunity to choose; option: The child had no choice about going to school.

3.the person or thing chosen or eligible to be chosen: This book is my choice. He is one of many choices for the award.

4.an alternative: There is another choice.

5.an abundance or variety from which to choose: a wide choice of candidates.

adjective, choic·er, choic·est.

9.worthy of being chosen; excellent; superior.

10.carefully selected: choice words.

11.(in the grading of beef in the U.S.) rated between prime and good.

12.of choice, that is generally preferred: A detached house is still the home of choice.

Attention Class-

Today I want to talk about Choice and what it means or can mean to us.  Looking at this word in the Dictionary.com format gives you the idea that there is a lot to this word.  It is packed with a lot more nuanced meaning than I realized.

My earliest recollection of seeing this word after I learned to read was on our kitchen countertop. Dad always laid a package of meat out to thaw before cooking it.  We never worried about no stinkin' salmonella or bacteria.  If it didn't smell bad well, cook 'er up!  I would sometimes run my fingers over the cool plastic wrap on the bloody cut of beef and read the label noting the cost and the date the store put it out in the butcher case. If there were other stickers on the package, they indicated the superior cut or quality of the meat.  We didn't often buy meat with a shiny bright sticker reading "Choice", so when I saw it, it meant the meat probably cost more and that we'd better appreciate it when we ate it.

In life we have more choices than we know what to do with. So we(well, maybe just I) often avoid making them.  You might think that a decision is like a choice, but if you don't decide, then it remains a choice.

Living my life now is a daily choice.  How I live, what I put into my body, how I spend my day and enrich my mind, even what I think about: these are all choices.  Back in my former life when I was a wife, even then I had nearly total freedom on how to run my tiny day in my own tiny way. Those choices were different, based at least partly on what my better half wanted or needed.

My choice to start losing weight is a satisfying one for me.  The choice I've made on how to go about it is more interesting than satisfying.  It has pushed me to think about food in a whole new way. It has led me to want to read and learn more about how I and the rest of us all got to this crazy state of obesity that we live in.  

Yet again, the choice of learning to live this way in this day has led me to more people whom I've gotten to know by letters and phone conversations. I am scrunching my face up as I write this, thinking of how this is just so strange and wonderful!  There are people out there, all over the country who are interested in what I do and think about, even when it comes to how I lose weight!  One of these people was brought to me via the company whose diet plan I follow.  She is my counselor, phone friend, nutritionist(she IS a nutritionist by trade) and mentor.  She is in Arkansas and I would LOVE to meet her in person someday. We talk once per week on a conference call about food, nutrition and soooo much more.  She is on my mind more than she knows. 

I think I'm lucky to have the choices I have, although it is hard to confront them and actually take action to make the choice and turn it into a decision followed by action. I defer a lot of these.

Last night I took my neighbors out to eat to thank them for watching my house in my absence. We went to, of all exotic places, Chili's.  So salad, it was.  My neighbor lady is 'on' Nutri System.  Just like anyone and everyone else, they all think their choice of a diet plan is the best and my choice is wrong for me.  tch tch "No bread? That's not sustainable, you know..."


"When will you start eating 'normally' again?" I get asked again and again. Well.... the word 'normal' has about as many meanings as 'choice' does to me.  Uhhhh, if 'normal' means going back to eating salty, sugary packaged foods, processed, dried, frozen foods that truly cannot even be classified as 'food', then I choose to never eat what would be termed 'normal' again.

I've made quite a few changes from the person I was when Gary died.  I will never stop changing now.  I can't. Why should I?

I have an opportunity to go see an author whose book I have yet to read, but one I'd like very much to.  It is called Second Firsts. It seems like a good omen that this author will be speaking next weekend in Sedona and so I don't want to miss her.  I am not looking for answers from this book or the author as much as I am looking for affirmations that the choices I am making now are still the best ones I can make.

My new way of treating my body has rewarded me with a loss totaling 50lbs now.  I need to lose 35 more pounds before my mental goal is complete. It may not be a sustainable weight, but if not, I need to discover that for myself.  It will be my choice. 

 

 

Santa Faded

A footnote on my return trip.  While in Highlands Ranch, CO, I decided to book a two day side trip to Santa Fe, NM.  I have driven by the city many many times, never leaving the interstate to see it. 

We've all heard about the Santa Fe mystique: the history, the retention of culture and the artist colony enclave. Worth checking out? You bet- plus it meant two less days spent in 100+ temps of home.

I pulled into town and was totally confused at how to get anywhere.  My Google Drive route directed me where to go to get to the timeshare BUT the battery died on my tablet just a few blocks from the resort.  I did find it after some wrong turns. 

We all know that first impressions are supposed to be the most reliable.  The all knowing 'they' tell us this.  Sooooo, my first impression of Santa Fe?  >ICK<  It seems a little less beautiful than what I expected.  No, make that waaayyyy less beautiful.  Clogged roads with untimed traffic lights and backups. Deep pot holes messing with my Soul's suspension. Dirt, dust, gravel left on streets from snow removal, run down houses, and tired looking shopping centers completed my impressions.  It reminded me of some of the not so great neighborhoods in Phoenix or Southern California.

I won't rag on Santa Fe without going back again.  After all, I never did get to actually SEE the historical sites there. I had in my head that Santa Fe would be like a larger Sedona, Arizona  Sedona is downright pristine compared to Santa Fe.  The beauty is unparallelled, IMO.

What did I do on my stay there?  I sat inside a Discount Tire Store waiting and waiting and waiting for nearly 5 hours for new tires and rims to be installed on my car.  Some vacation, huh.

My tires, I was told, needed to be replaced BEFORE I left Arizona. Hah! I laughed at the thought of replacing them just because their little gauge(rigged, I'm sure) told them to sell me new tires. I drove away determined to put on another 30,000 miles until *I* was ready to buy new tires on my terms.

By the time I reached Santa Fe on my return trip, I was told during a tire check by the Discount guy, that I had very little usable tread.  He invited me to get out and look at the tires myself.  Sure enough, there was little to no tread on the outside of each of the tires. Driving the last 552 miles back to Peoria was not advisable.   Rotating them would do nothing to save me either.  So after negotiating the best tires for my driving conditions of the hot deserts I travel, I decided to spring for new tires and new rims which would enable less rolling resistance for better gas mileage and the open rims should keep the wheels and brakes cooler- meaning better control and less chances of tire blowout.  I am happy with my decision, but was just not ready to spend the money yet.  The Soul has some serious style now with her new rims and it was worth the investment since I plan to keep the Soul.  I like the idea that Gary liked the Soul and rode as a passenger in it back and forth to hospitals and oncology centers. Now Robbie is my passenger on that same seat. He rides on towels to protect the seats from dog hair.

So the day in Santa Fe was shot.  Aside from walking with Robbie in the hilly neighborhoods near the resort, I have no great experience to tell you about my time there.

I will make sure to go back as a tourist.  My future includes more drives to Denver, I'm sure, so I will make it a point to stop and stay again.  Perhaps a little more planning on my part will let me get to the things that are important to me.  Walking the historical areas and seeing some unique arts are what I plan on my revisit- a far cry from the scenic interior of a tire store.