Right turn, the off-grid nature hippy part…

 

Sooo….now it’s been more than a month, and when I saw the charge come across my path for another year of OD, I thought, oh, snap, I’ve fallen off the frequent writing train again. I am trying to be gentle with myself and also hold myself accountable. Not sure how that works, but I’m trying.

I am also behind on my Erotic Blueprint Course. I am discovering that I need processing time to deal with these issues, suggestions, and ideas that make me question the things I think I know, who I am, and the person I want to be. I believe everything I’ve written and there’s so much more to it than that. Today, I am going to talk about another piece of things and my life. One that often has conflict in it….

I’ve thought for a long time, like, everyone when they are middle-aged has an existential crisis right? Like, WTF am I doing with my life? What is the meaning of life and what is the meaning of MY life? What do I WANT the meaning of my life to be? Is this it? You just work for the man until you retire, you have a few good years and then die. What do you leave? What matters and what doesn’t? I decided a long time ago that wasn’t going to be my fate. Like, as long as basic needs are met, who needs a bigger house? Nicer car? WTF is up with people who hoard riches or jewelry? How empty that existence seems to me! Blech, not me….I want OFF that friggin’ crazy train….

I have an adult son who is in his 30’s. When he was fresh out of high school, he tried going to college for awhile, and was killing himself working a full-time and a couple of part time jobs to pay for college and living. About 2007 or so, I think, he decided to join the military. This broke my heart in a lot of ways. I have huge admiration for the military, but as a mom, you want more for your kid. My biggest fear is that he would come back damaged in a way that I could not help him with. He may have, but life has been good to him, and he’s seen the world in a way I have not, for which I am grateful. Like, I guess all of life is a trade off eh? At any rate, on his last tour in Afghanistan (he had three), he was having a hard time, so he and I used to communicate about different ideas and ways to get off the consumptionist crazy train and make a life we thought was worth living and passing on to future generations. He send me on a wild goose chase out the wilds of Northern Nevada to look for some place to be “off grid”. Once he came back from Afghanistan, he was transferred to Washington state and bought a beautiful home up there. At some point, he said to me that he was going to have to sell the property in Nevada. I told him not to, that we would buy him out in it. I talked with my husband about this, because this is a commitment. There was so much to think about, but in the end, we decided this was the way to go, for us.

Living this lifestyle and figuring out how to do it in a way that works for you is hard. I don’t think folks are ever certain, most of us just wing it, wouldn’t trade the lifestyle for anything, and learn as we go. We’ve now had the property about six years I think, and we have decided we are going to build a home from shipping containers. It’s a rabbit hole of learning, though, and of watching and doing stuff. This is where I’ve been this Winter Break. There’s so much to do! Lots of learning. And we are moving forward…..

I call our place the Kow Bus Kompound and Manifestation Station!

This is what I WANT to think about. Being out there is so peaceful. The holiday was good. We don’t celebrate Christmas, per se, we are Solstice celebrators, but it was fun to watch the kids open stuff. Grandkids, that is. I am yearning for some bus time, it will happen in the next few weeks as we get more containers delivered. How come retirement is 8 years away?!? I am ready….I think it’s going to be hard for me to transition back to office life. I probably have six months left of working remotely and I’m already dreading going back hahahaha. And I like my job, I’m good at it, it’s just logging days now, though, until we can be out there more.

We hope to eventually have enough infrastructure and stuff in place to welcome visitors and let folks come and visit, maybe even teach folks how to live off-grid.

That’s about it for now, I am off to watch more YouTube videos of people building their dreams.

Peace.

Path to Passion – the Pre-Cursors and Motivation

 

Long ago, let’s say about 2001, I began attending an event in the Nevada desert. It’s an awesome event. About 2003, I began volunteering at that event. The event is amazing and life-changing, when people ask me what it’s about I tell them they have to go. When people ask me what it’s done for me, I tell them it allowed me to get out of my own way. I’ve always cared too much what other people thought. This event helped me realize that I was afraid to do some of these things, and to do them anyway =)

The first year I went, shortly after I got home, a friend of mine contacted me and said “Hey, I’m taking this bellydancing class, you should join, it’s a real hoot!” The old me would have said “I’m too fat for that. No one wants to see me dance….” She said it was non-judgmental so I went for it. I LOVED it and realized this was a part of myself that I had been suppressing, because I thought others would think badly of me. Now, as I careen through my crone-dom, and with age and some might say wisdom, I have about zero fucks left to give who judges or looks unkindly at what I do. I adored bellydance and I did it sometimes paid, sometimes free for over a decade…..

When I was still looking at and getting better at bellydance, I started doing fire safety for a local group of fire dancers that also go to this festival. This transitioned in to me doing fire bellydance, which was a real kick in the pants. It also lead to me being in leadership and eventually, producing events. If you had told me when I moved back “home” to Nevada, from Washington state, that I would have done any of these things, I would have laughed and laughed at you.

For many, many years, I had a leadership role in my volunteer time for the festival. The general role is we act as non-violent community mediators that work to ensure folks are having a good time and if they need help, we try to help them come up with new and innovative ways to solve their own problems. Part verbal Judo, part de-escalation, this role is the thing that gave me a creative outlet in this world where it seemed, to me, I had never been traditionally creative. It was a way to “fit in”. It gave me a way and a reason to walk in to people’s camps and approach them for no other reason than to say hello, and see what they were up to. It has allowed me to see the very best and the very worst that human beings have to offer each other.

By virtue of THAT work, I saw a lot of sad things. I saw sexual violence and got to help survivors cope with said violence. I had a year where this seemed to happen a lot, and I spent a lot of time in the off year thinking to myself “Why is this happening?” What can we do to change this? The more I thought about it, the more I realized that humans are never taught how to relate to and with each other. They learn it from watching others and wow, if you know anyone with an anger management problem, learning from watching them can really be a recipe for disaster. It makes me smirk to think of this, but it’s absolutely true. We also aren’t taught emotional intelligence or how to ask for an receive what we want out of our lives.

Simply, this comes down to Consent Culture. This sub-culture, of the festival, has 10 Principles that they follow. Some regional events have enacted a third principal of Consent. Whenever we interact with others, we should ask their permission to do so. Don’t offer advice, say “I have an experience that is similar to that. Can I give you feedback on what you just said?” If they say “No”, you can still say thank you for setting a boundary and then abide by it. I became convinced, and I am still convinced, that if everyone in our world, in our country, and at our event, were to have this education, it could go a long way towards solving some of these issues. I developed a three prong process for this. Explaining the essentials of Consent and what it is. Because most people also need to have personal accountability, the second step is “Developing a Personal Safety Plan” and the final step is “Bystander Intervention”. Again, I believe if these things can be learned and people can really ingest what it’s giving and being, we can substantially decrease the amount of violence in general, and sexual violence exponentially.

This is how I met the woman who invited me to Path to Passion. I initiated a speaker series called “Consent Conversations” and she was one of the facilitators. I started off cautiously optimistic and before I knew it, every event of hers that I attended, I became more hooked that I needed to learn and be able to impart part of this in what I was trying to do.

That’s probably enough for now….but it’s been very good to write and to get all this down. It’s been rolling around in my head for some time, and it’s great to let it out.

~Peace

Path to Passion – Journaling

 

So, I’ve been on a journey for a couple of years. My primary relationship has been frustrating for me. There is a lot that’s involved in it, I am sure more will come out at some point, but suffice to say that for the last several years, I have been in a sexless marriage. I never asked for this. The irony of this is that to some degree, I think this is somewhat of a coping mechanism for my partner. He has unresolved childhood issues and his mom died a few years ago. In addition to that, he comes from a family that was very “Patriarch/Father” centered, and that’s how he believes the world is. His dad was also a chronic cheater, to the degree that after their mom died, the other adult kids got to meet the “other woman” and essentially his dads other family. So, I have been trying to have a fully embodied, awesome middle-aged sex life, been denied by my partner, who was forming bonds with other people. It all blew up a few years ago, and I basically told him to figure out what he wants.

Since then, I’ve been working on myself. The bottom line is that I have no control over anyone else’s happiness but my own. I knew I wanted this for myself, so I started studying with a tantra teacher. Even without the sex, I am not unhappy with my partner. We generally get along well and we co-habitate well. Tantra has been huge for me as far as forgiving and healing myself from all sorts of trauma and abuse that happened in my younger years. I’ve been heavy all my life and there was a lot of self-hate, stressful times that had me encasing myself in a layer of fat to protect myself, part of myself and sort of keep my self-loathing at bay. But it was still there. I had a huge amount of trauma around my sex organs, had always been told that masturbation was wrong and to be honest, my mom had taught me that the female orgasm is a myth. That having sex with men was something you did to get men to take care of you, and you just had to submit when they wanted it, no matter if you wanted it or liked it. It’s take A LOT of healing to learn to love myself and love and appreciate my body. It was time to move to the next step….

I started working with a coach over a year ago, and she just seemed so fun. She always seemed light and airy and she had such wisdom and a way about her. She taught things like authentic relating, and it was all deliciously nerdy and cerebral for me. A little while ago, she invited me to a thing she is a coach for called Path to Passion. In some ways, I wish I could call it something different because yes, it is path to passion but it’s also an entire other way of things about life, sex and pleasure that helps heal so much within us. This Path to Passion thing was a three day conference that was amazing and I am continuing to work through things. I am going to be journaling here about what’s happening, what I’m learning, and how it’s affecting me and my relationships. There may be diversions, as this relates to some other important work that is super meaningful to me, but there’s nothing like letting it all hang out, so here we go.

You should start to see two divergent types of entries here. I’m going to continue to work the anti-racism path and answer those questions, then there’s Path to Passion stuff, and also consent educations. I’ll explain that in the next entry. For now, time to hot tub <3

~Peace

A4BL – Day 1 – Accountability Questions

 So, today was day 1 of this training. The title of this course was “Foundations for Black Survival and Wellness”.

Q: How do you now understand the ways in which anti-Black racism manifests personally, relationally, and collectively?

A: I have done a lot of thinking and a lot of pondering on this question. I feel like a different person, back on June 19th, than I was before that. And that’s my own ignorance. It manifests everywhere. All the systems we’ve learned, grown up in and helped sustain are racist. I remember things, and they were done so nonchalantly, and they  reinforce the idea that the white man is the apex of our society. Relationally, my mom understood this on a a level I didn’t, but I don’t even think SHE understood how systemic it is, I think she just always said to us “This is how things are”. Bullshit.

Q: Reflecting on your personal experience as a non-Black person, what moment in your life, recent or past, solidified the reality of anti-Black racism?

A: I mean, in some respects it seems trite to say that George Floyd was the catalyst. I think that modern media and proliferation of cell phones have helped amplify this, but I’ve always had a sense of this. I guess maybe I thought it was something of the past, but didn’t realize how prevalent it still is today. I was alive and able to watch the original “Roots” mini-series as a child. I remember thinking how awful it must have been for PEOPLE to be treated like that by OTHER PEOPLE. When I was in middle school, there were fewer than six black people at our school. There was a pair of sisters and one guy. His name was Harlan. I heard at one point that he liked me. I remember feeling uncomfortable with that, but I didn’t know why. Other people made fun of me because the black kid liked me. I think they made fun of him too because I was the chubby kid. We never did get together, but I always have had lingering guilt when I think about Harlan, because I think I would have liked him too, if I had allowed myself.

Q: As you ponder on the experience above, how (personally, relationally, and/or collectively) did anti-Black racism manifest?

A: I think personally, it manifested because I felt shame for not allowing myself to like this person who liked me because he was black. That wasn’t done, and I had lots of people tell me that it was bad, bad, bad. Relationally, I likely deprived myself of an amazing experience, perhaps friendship and perhaps more because of racism I didn’t even know I had, it was just THERE.

Q: Continue to reflect on the experience above, in what ways did collective anti-Black racism facilitate that experience?

A: I have only now realized how absolutely automatic these things are. When I was a later teen, I dated a black man and had a brother who was very upset about it. By this time, I had gained some perspective and definitely more confidence. My brother and I did not speak for a lot of years because he was not willing to see the man I was dating as an equal human and I was unwilling to have that sort of behavior in my life.

Q: How have your intersecting identities (gender identity, dis/ability, religion, class, etc.) as a non-Black person impacted your understanding and awareness of anti-Black racism?

A: I just realized this year, in doing much of this work, that people see me as white. This was truly a revelation to me because I don’t see myself that way. I realized I’ve had this privilege all along and didn’t realize it, because to most people, I do pass, I look white. This actually offends me. Brown, white-passing, female. Those are my intersectionalities, as I see them right now.

Q: Identify barrier(s) that may impede you from immersing yourself into understanding and being aware of anti-Black racism?

A: I try hard to see the barriers. I think white people or white passing people not being open to new ideas are a part of this problem. I think learning to say “wow, I never thought of that” is a start. Also, being willing to listen no matter what. Also, I think we do tend to center ourselves. Being aware of that and conscious to ensure it doesn’t happen is key.

Q: How will you begin to address the barriers you named above?

A: Staying open to all viewpoints, even if I don’t agree.

Q: Reflect on your thoughts, emotions and physical reactions throughout this conversation. What came up for you as you engaged in this conversation? What do these feelings indicate to you?

A: I am now doing this several months after the course. I’ve sat with it and processed for a long time. I have to keep doing the work. I see how offended other people are, and I shake my head. I hope at some point, they are willing to look within. I’m not perfect, I am sure I will make mistakes. I will ask for understanding and strive to do better in the future.

Black Lives Matter…Doing the Work

 

 

Okay, ya’all, it’s about the get real up in here. I’ve known for a long time that Black Lives Matter, and this has been a thing for me for a long time, before this, and yet. I have intersectionalities that make me recognize oppressions, or “otherness” to some degree, but I am not Black and I will never, ever understand what people go through who are judged only by the color of their skin. This isn’t about me…100%.

And…this has been so heavy on my mind and on my soul. Dang, it really, really hurts me. I had been searching, for what I wasn’t sure. I know that I have not done enough with the privilege that I have. In my day job, my department, although we support, install and maintain classroom technology, is technically attached to the libraries at the University, it’s a long and convoluted story why, but there are things I love and things I love less about being attached to libraries. One of the things that I love is that the librarians on our department-wide list often post stuff they think might be interesting to others, and for the general education and well-being of all. Earlier this month, someone was awesome enough to post about a class that was constructed by a group of Black scholars named “Academics for Black Survival and Wellness”. It was sort of an ad, or a link to connect one to a course that would run for seven days and  would spend 8 hours a day for seven days teaching people about Black Oppression and the war and terrorism that has been waged on Black People in the United States from before slavery (so, really, from the 1400’s) through today. It started on Juneteenth. I was late to the game. They engineered “accountability groups”, so that folks taking this class could say what they would do and what they would continue doing to help end Black Oppression. Since I missed that part, I am making my diary my accountability group.

I need somewhere to download all this stuff, get it out of my brain and to help me codify my thoughts. My hope is that someone will see this and engage with me. I don’t want this to be about me. I am so, so, so aware of my privilege in so very many ways, and I also need a place to put my accountabilities, a place to express my feelings, because this is heavy work. I am behind. I found that I could not “take” eight hours a day. Yes, that makes me a chicken shit when being taught by people who have spent their entire lives in oppression. I am an empath and I can’t watch stuff like that and not cry. Because I see the humanity in people. They are PEOPLE. It’s hard for me to watch kids in cages, see people treated badly, abused, shot, killed. And, my inaction thusfar isn’t enough. My tears and my feeling badly are not enough. It’s not enough for any of us. If we are not actively engaging to change these systems of oppression, we are complicit in it’s continuation, and that is no longer okay with me. So, they concluded the seven day course today, and I am on day four. I am going to continue to get through the material, because I don’t know how much longer it will be up, but I am taking copious notes and pictures, and will also be pasting resources and stuff here. For myself, and for anyone else that might be interested. This will be geeky, and it will be hard work. It’s not easy to see and hear and ready about this stuff that has happened. It makes me physically ill, which is why I sometimes have to stop.

However, in the same way that I visited Auschwitz while I was in Germany, I feel a need to do this work. During WWII, 6 million Jewish people were annihilated. In the work I have done over the last four days, one scholar estimates that over 100 million Africans died as a consequence of the European Slave trade. Think about that for a second.

As a primer, if you are someone who is in the podcasts, the New York Times did a podcast called “1619”. It’s the tip of the iceberg on this, but has amazing information. Here’s a link to it: 1619 Podcast  

From there, the last two episodes are about a contemporary black farmer who has been systematically forced to not farm because of discriminatory lending practices. They have a GoFundMe, and I have donated, and say, if you can, please do. Provost Farms GoFundMe

Let’s see how this goes.

Peace.

The Big Pause

 

I gotta be honest here. I was in a supervisors Teams meeting today, and I told them I volunteer to work from home for the next 9 years until I retire. I’m kind of loving it and kind of dreading going back to work, to “the grind”. For reals.

In our lives, we all make choices. When I moved back to my home town, over 20 years ago, I made a conscious decision to work in the public sector. Less money, more freedom, better benefits, more stability, better chance of getting to “be there” for my children as they grew up. Sometimes I wonder what life would have been like had we chosen differently, but in general, I am okay with this choice. Right now, I feel a tremendous amount of privilege also. I’m still getting paid. I am “working from home”…still accomplishing what I need to, and also having a tremendous amount of freedom once those things are done. Not having to fill the hours between 7am-4pm EVERY DAY at a place that isn’t my house. I like this.

I just realized that I never posted this. I don’t remember now when I wrote it. Likely…..mid-April? May?

I spent a quiet birthday this year. 52!! Completed a major project. We have a room that was my son’s when he was a teen. It had become our “closet room” several years ago, which most recently had translated in to “throw stuff here when we don’t know what else to do with it, we’ll deal with it later”. Something else that had been very clear in my life is that I literally pay for the house we all live in, and yet, *I*, in particular, had absolutely no personal space to call my own, where I have my own things and where my stuff could BE. The first challenge was clearing out a whole bunch of stuff, which happened, then creating my space. It came out SO GOOD and now I type to you from this space.

I think as things continue to “normalize”, I hope that more people are able to acknowledge and realize that this sort of “reset” was absolutely needed on so very many levels. I think this is enough for this entry, let’s publish!

Peace!

 

 Today marks one week of being off work. Or, rather, “working from home”. I have so much privilege in my life, I feel guilty a lot. I try to be aware of it, see it.

I honestly can’t see life going back to the way it was before all this hit. I now have a personal connection with COVID-19. A very dear friend I met via Burning Man is recovering. She was asthmatic before and got it. My grand daughter just got out of the hospital Saturday, they wouldn’t test her because she hadn’t travelled but we also believe she is asthmatic. She was supposed to go see a pulmonologist two weeks ago, when all this started and they called us the night before the appointment and told us not to come. Our goal is to get home oxygen prescribed so she doesn’t have to go to the hospital when she gets sick like that. There are sick people in hospitals, dammit.

She’s my daughters youngest, turned 3 last November and she has the most awesome hippy name ever. My daughter outdid herself on this one. Her name is Aurora Rainer. Their last name is Starry. She is the spitting image of my daughter when she was a baby and that often melts my heart. The sass is also strong with that one, so we are all in big trouble. Here’s an older picture of her. Think I am going to go back now and see if I can find the pics from when we moved the bus out to the property….

And then the world changed…

 

Man, life is a trip.

I’ve always been a happy person. I try really hard to be thankful for what I have, recognize my privilege, and understand how much worse life could be. I’ve been so lucky in my life, truly. I love my job. This last week has been hard for me because at times, I don’t know what to do with myself. I like going to work, contributing, feeling like I am making a difference on the college campus where I work and put in lots of volunteer time to make the world more beautiful.

In many ways, much of my life the last twenty years has prepared me for this moment. I participate in a perpetual experiment in temporary community known as Burning Man, for almost the last twenty years. We pack up everything we need to survive and head to the remote Nevada desert and build the states sixth largest city for seven days and then make it disappear, as though it never existed. I know how to be isolated. I say I am an extroverted introvert. I CAN public speak, perform, and be “on” all the time. But it takes a toll, then I need to isolate and recharge myself. I like being alone and generally am my own best friend. For me, the challenge hasn’t been “how am I going to do this?!” But rather, “ What if I like this new, slower life and world BETTER and what will I do to make my life stay that way?!” I am at a crossroads in my life too. I just passed 21 years at my job, was planning to work or buy out to 30 years and then retire to our off-grid property and maybe travel a couple times a year.

Here’s the thing. There are defining moments in time and history. Now, we all know it’s possible to work remotely. I have a part time gig with the folks who run that event and almost all their folks work remotely. Do I take a lesser retirement and try to find a gig or wait for one with this place? I’d be lying if I said the thought had not crossed my mind….

Do any of us believe, after this 30 days is over, or however long it takes, that things will just return to how they were before? There’s a very big part of me that sincerely hopes not. This is a huge wake up call for humanity. It’s easy to scoff and call something welfare or socialism when it’s still possible to deny the dire straits some people live in. Much less so when literally over 50% of our population is affected….service workers must go to work sick because of lack of leave, incomes disappearing because of closure. What will happen after?! I hope people who need to see these things do. Maybe we can use this as a jumping off point to do better….here’s hoping.

I needed to get that out.

Peace.

Trouble at the Kowpound…from 2016

 

Uh-oh…..

 

So, this is the first picture we took of what we thought, then, was the Kowpound. We were super scared and nervous. We had gone to scout it out. Hubs had a cool program for his phone that put those lines and stuff on there. But we were upset because THERE’S A CONTAINER ON THE PROPERTY!! That is not our container…..

We were getting ready to start doing the things! How could this happen? Did someone already squat on our land?!

It doesn’t really get more rural or barren than that. I mean, for reals….we had to get to the bottom of this!

Turns out, this sale had gone through a place called “Government Land Sales”, which sells off previously federally owned land. When I had first communicated about taking over the contract on what was my son’s property then, we had email exchanges between a guy who works at this place. He had sent us an internet link we had saved, and it went to this plot of land. On further investigation and after I’d sent the panicked email, the guy emails back and apologizes. I guess they recycle the links based on which pieces of land are still available. He actually had a few, so he had said which he thought was the best, and since this had all come up, they’d be willing to give us any of those available, for just like a hundred dollar transfer fee, or whatever.

Now, for folks who are saying “Wow, that’s great, but I’m sure that’s not affordable for me.” Government Land Sales, people. It is rural. There are no improved roads. Everything is dirty. BUT. buying ten acres of land out here was less than the cost of a car. It was literally about $10k. 10 acres. We aren’t sure yet, even still, if we will have water or how we will solve the water issue. It’s near a military installation, but as I’ve already said, it’s beautiful and we’ve fallen in love with it….

We are going to try to make it work….the story continues moving forward, but trying to get in the habit of writing again. Here’s another sunset, from the early days…

Peace….

What was the most painful thing I ever went through?!

 

(this post was from Open Diary, my first online journaling home, and when they were awesome, they used to post a "theme of the week". This was my response to that weeks theme.)

Without a doubt, the most painful thing I have ever gone through is the process and act or losing this woman. This is me and my mom. She passed away in December of 2006. The year she left us, this was the picture we took on opening day of the Oakland A’s. She was a rabid Bay Area baseball fan, really a fan of all baseball.

She was ready to go, but that didn’t make it suck any less. She had a massive stroke that pretty much decimated 3/4’s of her brain. Had she had a milder stroke, she would have woken with us talking about amputation for one of her feet, that had become gangrenous due to complications from type 2 diabetes.

She was my best friend. I miss her every day. There are a million ways in which I wish she was still here, or that I could talk to her again. But not at the cost of her continuing to live or being more disabled than she became at the end. She told me, once, near the end, “If anything happens to me, you let me go. I HATE being disabled! I have been a strong independent woman my entire life and now I’m not. I am done with this life, when it’s my time, I am ready to go.”

After the stroke, we had no way to take care of her at home, so she had to go to a nursing home. I lived with her in the nursing home until she passed. The sad and terrible thing about that is that it was a relatively new facility at the time and I was the first person who ever stayed with their loved one so they would not have to die alone.

Yeah, that. You only get to help your parents and loved ones die with dignity once. Put the paperwork in place if and as soon as you can. We didn’t do that and it caused more pain in the end, I think. But I will always be glad I advocated for my mom and her wishes.

Peace.

What was the most painful thing you ever went through? What did you learn from it?

Remember to tag your entry #TOTW68 down at the bottom, so it will end up on the Theme Page!

Preparing for the future…

 One thing I haven’t written about here. Just shy of six years ago, my son was active duty in the Army. He was on his third deployment to Afghanistan and I  think he would agree the most difficult. He used to message me while I was at work, and we’d talk about things that didn’t have to do with war. He was starting to dream of life outside the military, and that turned to future plans. I think Americans have like, this innate sense of a need, in some respects to pioneer. I’m sure like our forefathers, the IDEA of pioneering or off-grid is often very different from reality.

My son bought some property site unseen in very rural county in which we live in Nevada. I drove out to scope it out for him. We would talk all sorts of plans for the future.  I’d like to think it helped keep him sane during that last deployment…

As time and plans changed,  he ended up getting out of the army and settling in Washington state. He bought a lovely house and was happy there. He now lives overseas, but just shy of four years ago, he told me he would need to sell the Nevada property. I told him not to, discussed with my husband, and we bought it from him.

There is something magical about this place. It’s so quiet. It’s in a valley with hardly any trees, but surrounded by mountains. We call it the Kowbus Kompound and Manifestation Station. As of now, it’s our off-grid retirement plan. I think this blog may turn in to my Kow Bus story land and documentation.

Here’s a sunset:

That’s what I’ve got for now….

Peace.

 

Updates, again….

 So much for the daily….or even weekly thing. But, here I am.

I have now been doing Keto for over a month. I believe my blood sugars have stabilized, which feels good. A couple of weeks ago, I started a “21-day fix” exercise program with my daughter. Health-wise, I am feeling good. I somewhat feel old….my body hurts. Cardio-wise, I feel like I am managing well, but man, working the muscles again makes them angry and sore =) And when it goes away, it starts to feel better =) We are going with that….

Earlier this morning, I was feeling super contemplative, I’ve been that way recently. As the wheel of the year turns, I have been ruminating lately on the passage of time. Seeing babies grow, people I know die, others getting cancer and facing uncertain futures….grand children, the passage of time goes ever onward. It’s all so fleeting.

I’m still feeling the contemplation, I felt kind of dumb on Saturday, came across Toy Story 3 and was balling my eyes out as Andy is getting ready to go to college, finds new homes for his toys. So much time, so many transitions…it all seems to go by so quickly sometimes. I want to remember it all, and I know I can’t. Precious things happening always.

My grand daughter recently spent a week in the hospital. Her older siblings each attend a different public school; the poor kid didn’t have a chance with a new bug coming home on an almost daily basis. She got RSV, but then it developed into pneumonia. Her little lungs, it was so hard for her to breathe, it was very sad. My daughter is such a trooper and handled things so well. I remember sitting in the hospital telling her about when her older brother had had pneumonia when he was a baby. Holy crap, that was 30 years ago!

I participated in the Women’s March in my area Saturday. I am so glad I did.

I’m in the middle…

I had an interesting interaction the other day, Friday. I was having lunch with a co-worker, we were seated in the middle of the restaurant, we were flanked by an elderly man on our left, who was sitting with a lady, and on the right, in the far back corner, another older white man. My co-worker was asking me some questions about the current state of the government, impeachment, and we were talking about the orange cheetoh shit gibbon. I was talking about the UK Parliamentary system, and how if a majority of both houses of parliament give a no-confidence vote, essentially, the Prime Minister loses their job. WHY DON’T WE HAVE SOMETHING LIKE THAT IN THE US?!? So, we went on to talk. I saw out of the corner of my eye, as I had been talking, that the man and woman on my left were occasionally shaking or nodding their heads. The man on the right was getting more rigid and angry as I spoke. When the couple went to leave, the man clapped me on the shoulder and said “Young lady, we agree with everything you just said, you are intelligent and well-spoken. We appreciate your words.” Not to be out done, the guy in the corner speaks up and says “Yeah? Well, I’m sitting here too, and I happen to have a different opinion. I happen to think our president is doing a great job and is the greatest president since Ronald Reagan. My opinion matters too.” I said “Absolutely. You are entitled to it.” Blink. Blink. There was nothing I was going to say that was going to change this man’s mind, and he wasn’t going to change my mind. My co-worker thanked me for my restraint, which allowed him his own, but it was a near thing. We were eating at a burrito place. At the Women’s March, I loved this sign….

Perhaps my favorite though, which perfectly exemplified what happened at lunch on Friday was “Uuuggh. Where do I even begin?!?” Or something similar. Where, indeed?!

Now, I am out of time to spend on this reflection.

I am thankful for all the things. Today and always. I recognize my privilege and strive to make the world a better place.

Aho!