HOME SWEET HOME

This week I was reminded of how important a sense of home is, and how much I have strayed from the comfort of one place that I call home.

I'm sure I've written about this before, because I think about it a lot. In 2008, when so many people were losing their homes, I joined their ranks. I was divorced and struggling to hang on to a house that was too big and too expensive for one person. My sons were all grown, two of them were married and my youngest son had just graduated from college. I didn't need the house, but something made me hang on till the bitter end. What happened next has been a little hard to stop. 

I started running. Metaphorically. I moved from one apartment to the next over the next ten years, sometimes only staying a few months (oh yes, I've learned quite a bit about leases and dealing with unhappy landlords). I moved a total of 20 times. It seems unbelievable to write it, but it's true. 

About two years ago on my 60th birthday, I moved into a lovely little cottage in a quite neighborhood that reminds me of the house I was living in, when I first was married, when my boys were young. It is a yellow house (my dad's favorite color) and it's situated on a street that is a semi-circle with exits at both ends of the circle. It has its flaws, like any old house, but I love it.

I've been here for two years, and this week something terrible almost happened - I almost moved again. What the hell! I was preparing to leave behind my garage (what a blessing in bad weather to be able to walk just a few steps into a dry space to load and unload my car), and my laundry room (for five years I lived without a laundry in my apartment - what was I thinking?)

I wasn't thinking. I was running.  

I've been doing a lot of meditating on my blessings and learning to remain calm and stay put. I've been meditating on the joys of knowing what is in every corner, every closet, and not having unpacked boxes. I've been meditating on my garden and making this place work for me. And. Because I spoke up about the things that were making it hard for me to stay here (the giant yard and mowing and caring for it) my landlord stepped up and offered to help.

I've stopped running. I'm staying put. I'm going to embrace stability. I'm going to let go of the pain of losing my house - finally. 

This is my home sweet home. 

Oh . . . and I'm back here on Blogger - a more simple place for me to put down my thoughts. 

FESTIVAL WEEKEND

“August rain: the best of the summer gone, and the new fall not yet born. The odd uneven time.”                                          Sylvia Plath

Summer feels official over. In the town I live in, every September for the past twenty years we have held an art's festival. Artists and musicians as well as other vendors from all over the country come to our town and entertain us all weekend with art, music, food, and beer. When it's over, fall seems to loom closer. As my friend and I sat and listened to the last band totally entertain the crowd with fabulous old time rock n' roll on Sunday afternoon, we commented on this festival really marking the end of summer. Soon the wind will blow and the weather will be cooler. But for that moment we were all sitting in the perfect 70 degree sunny weather enjoying the band, eating festival food, and basking in the last moments of summer - as if we were still kids.

A DREAMER OF DREAMS

"You are never too old to set another goal or to dream another dream." (C.S. Lewis)

Goal setting has been on my mind lately. I make lists of goals and revise and make new lists. I do this all year long, and the other day as I was writing the date, I realized: it's August. The year is almost over.