Only A Dream

I have been on both ends of taking leave.

The one who leaves...and the one who is left behind.

Even if you want to go and know it's for the best, it can be hard to leave.

As hard as it is to leave, it hurts more to be left behind.

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The song in my head this week is by Mary Chapin Carpenter. Years ago Ken heard one of her songs on the radio and thought I would enjoy her music. We bought her current CD at the time and have been fans ever since. Eighteen years later this haunting song still touches my heart.

Only A Dream
by Mary Chapin Carpenter, from the album Come On Come On, 1992

I can recall the sound of the wind,
as it blew through the trees
and the trees would bend
And I can recall the smell of the rain
on a hot summer night coming through the screen.
I'd crawl in your bed when the lightning flashed
and I'd still be there when the storm had passed
Dead to the world till the morning cast
its light all around your room.

We lived on a street where the tall elm shade
was as green as the grass and as cool as a blade
That you held in your teeth as we lay on our backs
staring up at the blue,
and the blue stared back.
I used to believe we were just like those trees,
we'd grow just as tall and as proud as we pleased
With our feet on the ground and our arms in the breeze
under a sheltering sky.

Twirl me about and twirl me around
Let me grow dizzy and fall to the ground
And when I look up at you looking down
Say it was only a dream.

A big truck was parked in the drive one day,
They wrapped us in paper and moved us away.
Your room was no longer next door to mine,
This kid sister thing was old by that time.
But oh how our dreams went bump in the night
and the voices downstairs getting into a fight
and the next day a silence you could cut with a knife
and feel like a blade at your throat.

Twirl me about and twirl me around
Let me grow dizzy and fall to the ground
And when I look up at you looking down
Say it was only a dream.

The day you left home you got an early start,
I watched your car back out in the dark.
I opened the door to your room down the hall,
I turned on the light and all that I saw
Was a bed and a desk and couple of tacks
No sign of someone who expects to be back.
It must've been one hell of a suitcase you packed.

Twirl me about and twirl me around
Let me grow dizzy and fall to the ground
And when I look up at you looking down
Say it was only a dream.

Flat Rate Priority

Leo is packed and ready. Where do you think he'd like to go?

Sew Sew

I started sewing more than 40 years ago. I made many of my own clothes while I was in junior and senior high school. The summer before I left for college I made a quilt with the remnants from the clothes I had made for myself and others over the previous five years. Can you tell that I like lime green?

Three years later I was planning my wedding, and my grandmother wanted me to make my gown. I said no to that, but I did make my little sister's dress to wear as the flower girl. She was six at the time. Ten years later my seven year-old daughter wore that same dress to attend my brother's wedding.
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And now I am making my dress and my daughter's dress to wear to my oldest son's wedding. He will be married on August 14. I like a classic, tailored look and found the perfect Vogue pattern for a fitted two-piece to make up in moss green brushed satin. My daughter likes simple lines, too, and selected a beautiful teal linen for her dress. With any luck I will have photos to share soon. If anybody asks, we bought them at Macy's Department Store *wink wink.

Red And Green

It looks like my red daylilies will be the only ones to bloom this year. I transplanted several plants of different colors last year. I have been told it can take a couple years for them to adapt but that they will all bloom eventually. The red is vibrant and a sure sign of summer ~

Then there are the green acorns that have begun to litter the yard and deck. Acorns equal fall in my mind, and I am not ready to go there yet ~

Sleep And Rain

Sleep. It felt awkward to write about my problems with sleep, but I am glad I did.

First, I feel better knowing that I am not the only one who has dealt with sleep issues. I honestly thought that post-menopause would bring better sleep, not worse.

Second, I am so far from what most of you have found that works that I am going in the opposite direction: late night desserts; a glass of wine with the thought that it will help me relax; no regular bedtime or get-up time; laying in bed fretting in the middle of the night; neglecting to buy another bottle of calcium/magnesium when I ran out; not trying any natural herbs that promote sleep; and not paying attention when I am tired. I didn't start doing all the unhelpful things at once, but one thing led to another which led to another and I didn't know how to get back on track.

Now I can make a fresh start. Thank you.

Rain. Pounding rain hit my area Wednesday night. I was actually on my way out to meet a friend when she called to say heavy rain was on its way and tornado warnings were up for the counties south of us. I battened down the hatches and watched it pour. I expected some damage to our newly planted hillside and newly laid steps, and there was. It could have been worse ~ we didn't get a tornado. But there are deep rivulets through the plants, where the roots are hanging on for dear life, and dirt and mulch to reclaim and put back where it belongs. I have a dozen new plants in my car that will, hopefully, hold more soil in place until everything settles in enough to stay put.

The song in my head this week is "Rain" by Patty Griffin. I have listened to this song many, many times over the past eight years but today I heard it in a way I've never heard it before. Some may hear it as a sad love song. Today I heard it as an internal plea for an open heart, a way to live I haven't lived before. There are things I have been unable to give myself, and now I want a chance to try again.

Rain
by Patty Griffin, from the album 1000 Kisses, 2002

It's hard to listen to a hard hard heart
Beating close to mine
Pounding up against the stone and steel
Walls that I won't climb
Sometimes a hurt is so deep deep deep
You think that you're gonna drown
Sometimes all I can do is weep weep weep
With all this rain falling down

Strange how hard it rains now
Rows and rows of big dark clouds
But I'm holding on underneath this shroud
Rain

It's hard to know when to give up the fight
The things that you wanted that will never be right
It's never rained like it has tonight before
I don't want to beg you baby
For something maybe you could never give
I'm not looking for the rest of your life
I just want another chance to live

Strange how hard it rains now
Rows and rows of big dark clouds
But I'm holding on underneath this shroud
Rain

Strange how hard it rains now
Rows and rows of big dark clouds
But I'm still alive underneath this shroud
Rain

Six Hours

Last Friday I told my acupuncturist that I was sometimes getting six solid hours of sleep at night. She said that's not enough. I know that, but I was pleased because it was an improvement over the three to four hours I had been getting at a stretch.

I think I jinxed myself.

It started over the week-end. I spent hours each day outside. I was physically tired. Fresh air and physical activity should equal good sleep. It didn't add up. I slept three to four hours at a time, and I woke up exhausted. It didn't help to go to bed earlier because then I woke up in the middle of the night, exactly three hours later.

I love the late night hours. I always have.

It backfires when I give up that time because I wake up in the middle of the night and still feel exhausted in the morning. If I stay up I enjoy my favorite time of the "day" and I manage to get things done. I figure since I will be tired anyway, I might as well stay up.

Mornings are lost on me. No matter what time I get up, and I can arise at 5:00 if I have something to do, I do not hit my groove until 10:00 a.m.

My acupuncturist says the hours between 11 p.m. and 3 a.m. are the most important to be asleep. I think the first two hours are for kidneys and the 1 to 3 time slot is for the liver. I'd like to know why those organs got my prime time....

But either way my body is not happy. The night I was in bed before 11 I was wide awake at 2 a.m. The night I stayed up reading until after 2 I was awake at 6; I didn't get up because I was so tired but sleep after that was fitful.

On the one hand I wish I didn't need to sleep.

On the other hand I used to love to get a good night's sleep. There's nothing better than clean sheets, a cool room, and time to sleep as long as you want.

I have those three things. I am just not getting enough sleep.

I am at the point where I am willing to try just about anything.

The Two Of Us

Ken and I worked outside all week-end. We were expecting thunder showers, which never materialized, so we kept working while the weather was good. Ken positioned two railroad ties in front of the wooden stairs to the deck to provide a solid place to step as part of the mulch landing. I dug holes among the rocks and tree roots on the hill beside the steps after I decided to plant wherever I could find clay soil willing to yield for an astilbe or hosta. Then we started spreading super fine mulch, which is wood & leaves run through the shredder twice to make it better for plants and easier to compost. We are making progress ~

We will spread more mulch among plants in the flower beds and on the hillside, although we may need to make a special path for Leo, who still refuses to walk down the new steps ~

Sunday evening we made a point to stop working early enough that we could enjoy grilled steak and potatoes outside on the porch ~

We ended each day tired but happy with what we had accomplished. Ken and I talked about how fortunate we are to be able to do this work ourselves. After his bout with pneumonia last summer we don't take our health for granted. We know we're lucky, and we're grateful every day for that.

SIMH: Coming Around Again

Songs in my head. Summertime is prime time for music, especially songs from the past. Music marks time for me. The soundtrack of my life is peppered with songs by artists like Carly Simon, James Taylor, Mary Chapin Carpenter, John Hiatt, and Patty Griffin.

When I was 30, life as I had known it for thirty years fell apart. I didn't know then, like I do now, that that had to happen to make room for the person I was learning to be. There's only room for one "me" in my life.

Although the changes in my life are not as radical this time around, they are as significant.

The song by Carly Simon that I thought of as my theme song in 1986 has been one of the songs in my mind:

Coming Around Again
from the album of the same name, 1986

Baby sneezes
Mommy pleases
Daddy breezes in
So good on paper
So romantic
But so bewildering

I know nothing stays the same
But if you're willing to play the game
It's coming around again
So don't mind if I fall apart
There's more room in a broken heart

You pay the grocer
Fix the toaster
Kiss the host good-bye
Then you break a window
Burn the souffle
Scream the lullaby

I know nothing stays the same
But if you're willing to play the game
It's coming around again
So don't mind if I fall apart
There's more room in a broken heart

And I believe in love
But what else can I do
I'm so in love with you

I know nothing stays the same
But if you're willing to play the game
It will be coming around again

Women Food And God

For days I have been thinking about writing a post about Geneen Roth's book Women Food And God (Simon & Schuster, 2010). I am not having much luck.

My dilemma is that the book is written by a woman, who has had problems with weight, for women who have trouble with weight. I don't fit that description.

Yet I had a feeling that this book would speak to me.

I was right because this book is about so much more than gaining or losing weight. It is about clearing out the clutter in our inner lives to get to the heart of who we really are ~ not who we we have always been told we are...or who we think we should be...or even who we think we will be someday.

It's about facing the truth about ourselves now.

Roth writes, "Another way is possible - seeing what's actually there beneath our interpretations of what's there - but it requires questioning that which most of us have never, not once, dared or even thought to question: the many assumptions we take to be the truth" (p. 100).

We face that truth through our bodies. If we pay attention to what we are physically feeling, we will get in touch with what is true about us. We are afraid of what we will find. We shouldn't be. What we will find is that we deserve love and kindness.

She doesn't say it's easy, but the reward is great. "But when we welcome what we most want to avoid, we evoke that in us that is not a story, not caught in the past, not some old image of ourselves. We evoke divinity itself. And in doing so, we can hold emptiness, old hurts, fear in our cupped hands and behold our missing hearts" (p. 34).

I was running the vacuum today and thinking about this book and where I am right now. I thought, women have been suffering long enough.

It's time to find another way. No one else can do it for us, but we can do it for ourselves.

Circles And Points Of Light

Eleven years ago I was looking for a new massage therapist. Someone recommended a woman who worked in a nearby town. When I found the address, I realized it was also a place that offered acupuncture. I introduced myself to the man in the shop and told him who I was trying to find. That woman was out on maternity leave, but he had the name of another woman who was a massage therapist; she is the person I still see regularly for massage.

The man I met that day is an acupuncturist and a colleague of the woman I see for acupuncture. They are friends and worked together for years, although she now works in a wellness center.

The man I met that day has studied astrology for thirty years. He is the man who assembled and read my birth chart last week. As I listen to his voice on the tape of the reading, I think of how I met him years ago. I am now looking to him for guidance in an area of my life that I have only begun to explore. There was no way to know that we would meet again some day.

Circles. Things come around again, and sometimes it actually feels like there is a plan.

Then there are times when it feels like there is no rhyme or reason.

In a comment on my last post, Joanne asked if I felt like I was challenging myself at my core with the opposite traits that are part of who I am.

That is exactly what it feels like. There have been times in the last three years when I questioned my sanity. Why was I so conflicted? What happened that all my plans could fall apart? Why couldn't I pull myself together? How was I going to find my way?

I am going to find my way by finding me. My true self will accept no less. My friends will support me and my faith will sustain me. I have all I need. I will think less and feel more. My heart will tell me what I need to know if I listen, really listen.

Birth Chart: An Overview

On July 1 I received a reading of my astrological chart, which is based on the date, time, and place of my birth and where I live now. This is what the chart itself looks like ~

The person who crafted my chart spent 90 minutes explaining what it means, an overview really. I know that now because the next day I showed it to my acupuncturist, and with just a glance she picked up on another detail. This bears deeper exploration. I have an invitation to call back with questions that come up, and I can schedule another reading to explore current life transitions once I have a better understanding of my birth chart.

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I listened to the tape recording of the reading again this evening. I immediately wanted to play it a second time so I could take more notes and glean more meaning. Instead, I reread the notes I took originally and thought about what stays with me of what I have learned from this experience so far.

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These are the things that come to mind: My birth sign is Aquarius, an air sign, the water bearer who brings a new perspective. I feel everything emotionally. I value my freedom and independence. My friends are very important to me, but my aloofness can make it hard to get to know people. I protect people's space so they can be themselves. I am someone who likes structure and follows the rules, yet I am also creative and rebellious. I have confidence that I can have everything I need, while I also fear persecution if I make my desires known. I want to be seen for who I am, but I hide. I excel at communicating; I need to learn to listen to my heart. I set long-term goals; I need to learn to let go of control. My work is to figure out what I believe and follow my heart. I need to move past my fear.

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It was stunning to hear much of what I know about myself ~ things I like and things I would change if I could ~ read from a chart by someone who does not know me. It was all right there, down to the health issues I have with my knees, lower back, and teeth. Upon hearing that my acupuncturist said, "Of course, those all have to do with the kidneys, which have to do with fear." Meanwhile, my nightly dreams are about discovering my inner life and my concern about criticism if people know who I really am.

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The pieces to the puzzle are all there. I just need to figure out how they fit together. Life is fascinating, isn't it?

Steps In The Right Direction

For the most part, this July 4th holiday was a working weekend for us. Ken and I made a lot of headway on the first of many landscaping projects: new steps from the driveway to the deck. A few weeks ago, Ken [with the help of his trusty tractor] dug up the gravel path ~

In mid-June he placed railroad ties at regular intervals, which apparently did not meet Leo's approval ~

This weekend things really started to take shape. We turned the soil over on either side and enhanced it with peat moss, green sand, and gypsum. Mulch [made on site with our new chipper/shredder] fills in the space between railroad ties ~

Though still not completely finished, the steps and plants alongside go a long way to improve the entrance to our house. Leo still prefers to take the long way down ~

*Tomorrow I will post what I learned from the reading of my birth chart. First, I want to review my notes and listen to the recording of the session. It was fascinating but a lot of information to take in at one sitting. It was also a more emotional experience than I expected. Now I am ready to forge ahead.