Constant Vigilance until Death

Constant vigilance.  That's how life seems to be lived at times, as though I am standing sentinel at the gates of my experience.  Does this thing I'm about to do or think pass muster?   Is it good enough, does it align with the rules I've set for myself and if not what price in guilt will I pay?  A momentary 'bugger' and move on or will I think about it the next day and the next?  How much guilt is enough guilt?  And if my thoughts are not always generous and kind, unselfish and loving, how much self disgust is enough?  Even if I don't act on those thoughts, the very fact that I've had them proves how bad a person I am. 

I often feel trapped now.  I won't leave Richard, I'll see it through but what I envisioned for myself and what I've got, especially in the future, is not the same.  Sometimes I feel as though I can't breathe.  I long for positions with long vistas and height.  I want big sky and lots of air around me.  I know why this is and why I am so anxious to move.  Then I feel guilty for thinking these things, for feeling these things when I have so much and most of the world has so little.  How dare I complain?  How dare I even feel these things?  Hence the vigilance.  Gratitude is a constant mantra.  Mostly it works, sometimes it doesn't.  Sometimes joy, under a blue sky with infinity beyond, imbues my very being with song.  But joy isn't summoned, it just arrives, unannounced. 

And I'm alone.  No parents for advice, no best friend that I can burden with the 'badness' of my honest feelings.  I know Richard senses my restlessness.   He is more loving, more vocal about his love for me than ever before  - and he has always been a loving man.  If he loves me enough I won't leave him to face the future alone.  He's scared too and God knows what he's going through.  I think he's still of the belief that Parkinsons isn't progressive.  That how he is now is how he'll always be. 

But I know it ain't so.  And that looming oppressive cloud colours much.  My vigilance includes him.  I listen for him.  Has he made a noise in the shed, is that a gate closing, did I just hear him speak to one of the dogs?  After he fainted last year, I listen.  What if he collapses and I don't know?   His health is good other than Parky but still, he did faint and no one discovered why.  So I remain vigilant.  Always vigilant. 

And frankly, I'm sick of it.  I want to relax into my life, into myself.  So I'm not perfect, I think bad selfish thoughts, I allow myself to get scared, I eat too much sometimes or have too much wine occasionally, so what?  This life is over so quickly.  Hell, I'm nearly 60 now (and how the hell did that happen?!?) and before I know it I'll be breathing my last.  I don't want to regret the past and think, well crap, why did I waste so much time worrying about everything?  THIS dying, now this is something to worry about except this is my last breath so it's too late.  Oh cra....

Storybook life in words and pictures

Memory.  The farrier was here today and we gasbagged as usual.  One thing about talking with the farrier is the ease with which we move from solving the world's problems to horse gossip to humour and back again.  The conversations never get too personal but after years of chatting we know each other well enough to be comfortable.   We were talking today about memory.  Or I was.  I'd read this article on Huffington Post (and have just spent 15 minutes trying to find it again to reference here, without success) about a 92 year old woman, a refugee from Nazi Germany, a dancer, yogini, who lives up three flights of stairs, still cooks for her family, has a personal trainer and tangos every week but who, to her mortification, briefly forgot the name of her daughter.  So now she practices, like she does her dance routines, a memory game.  She chooses 10 random words and memorizes them.  The trick is to remember them the next day. 

Sounds easy, huh?  Uh huh.  It's not.  I started with five words.  Havana, verily, car yard, have forgotten the other two.  That was the first day.  The second day, ten words, which I remembered for that day but couldn't recall the next.  The following day better and the day after better.  Yesterday I remembered the ten words for that day AND the ten words from the day before.

But I can feel my brain creaking with the strain.  Thought learning a language would be enough but obviously it's not.  I've always been poor with memory.  Years ago when I was going through a near destitute period I didn't have enough money for the laundromat so I'd wash the sheets in the bathtub of my rental house.  I'd walk up and down the tub while I tried to memorize some of John Donne's poems.  Unsuccessfully.  I couldn't retain the words.  Like smoke on the wind, gone with the first distraction. 

So now there's another to do on my to do list.  Growing older is inevitable but if I'm going to grow old in a way that suits me I'll have to work at it.  No coasting allowed.  In some ways being alive is harder now than it ever was.  Perhaps because I'm aware of  how much is at stake.  I see how easily health and mental acuity can slip away.  How quickly people go from hale and hearty to the rest home.   I'm not going there.  Ever.  Made up my mind.  Will die at home or quickly in hospital after falling off my horse or some such thing.  No going slowly and meekly into that good night.

So part of my daily walk is devoted to memorizing ten random words.  There is a pleasant side effect to this.  The words themselves.  The last five words from yesterday were:  yellow muffin pulls analogy ... darn, I've forgotten the last word.  Typical.  No matter.  What is important are the words.  Because I'm concentrating so deeply on the words, I hear and see them at the same time, they assume an importance in themselves and in relationship to the words next to them.  Like really bad poetry. 

And I miss words.  I miss the companionship of words.  Words reflecting me back to myself, very narcissistic perhaps but when I was traveling solo and had no friends, vitally important.  Again, in a way, as we all are ultimately, I am traveling solo, traversing the arc of life on a slippery slope of destiny.  There is only one outcome.  I accept that.  But I still want to describe the trip to myself in vain hopes that I might understand what it all meant, my four score years and ten.  A story book in words and pictures.  I've got the pictures and now I'm writing (again) the words.

To Be or Not to Be Happy

R has gone into town to do a few errands.  He will also stop in and see a friend of his who returned from the coast recently.  R won't be home until well after lunchtime which means I have a few free hours.  Did the old roll the die (The Dice Man, Luke Rhinehart) to see what I'm to do. (As a side note, read reviews of the Dice Man.  Polarizing.  No one kind of likes it or kind of dislikes it.  They either love it or hate it.  No middle ground.)  Anyway, back to me -  I don't quite feel like doing yoga, although it's on the list, along with icky chores like grubbing lantana and digging out the ever numerous khaki weeds.  But I was lucky.  I rolled 'Blog'.

Don't often blog, usually because blogging, at least for me, requires solitude.  R, bless him, usually wanders in with a 'whatcha doin'?' at least once.  I don't write things that he can't read.    Nevertheless, the words don't flow if someone if peering over my shoulder.  Even if they aren't.  It's his presence that puts me off.   Not because it's him.  Anyone in this room, save for a cat or 3, would throttle the flow.  If there is a flow. 

Blogging or keeping a journal is something I should do on a daily basis.  For my own mental health.  "We all skate so close to that line and so far from satisfaction." (Joni Mitchell, Song for Sharon, Hejira).  I'm usually pretty adept at skating far away from that line and being satisfied.  I make a practice of gratitude and seeing beauty.  I look for it.  Living well means working at it.  Being happy doesn't just happen, one has to find the happiness in spite of appearances.  For the world is apparently a cruel and unhappy place.  Seriously cruel.  And senseless.  I think there's hope and then read of 148 students being massacred in Kenya because they weren't Moslem.  And the same mindset? 'God hates Gays' iced onto a cake, except the baker refused to do so.  Humans must have a stupid gene encoded into our DNA, one that compels us to knowingly self destruct, not only self-destruct but have enough despair and self-loathing to take everyone down with us.  In view of what scrolls across my retina every day, it is hard to remain hopeful.  And happy.  Is the way to preserve happiness possible only by ignorance?  Don't watch the news, don't read the news, love my husband, ride my horse, pet the cats, listen to the birds, cook fine meals, create drawings, read nice books.  Is that how one keeps hold of happiness? 

Believing in the crap of evil, does that create more?  I'm not of the mindset of revenge.  History proves revenge just perpetuates violence.  But I do get frustrated with us.  We seem to be an experiment gone wrong.  There are so many lovely normal people who just want to be here, want to love others and be loved in return.  Unfortunately, they get subsumed by the crazy people and become victims.  Like the refugees in Yemen, trapped between two murderous ideologies which will sacrifice them without a qualm. 

Yesterday, as Balthazar grazed on the sweet grass in Pedersens laneway (at ride finish, I dismount, loosen girth and walk him home, allowing him to graze on the way), I looked up.  A fig tree was brilliantly lit against the  sky.  The grey white bark and the dark green leaves were so sharply etched it looked like a  two dimensional Japanese woodcut.  Just an idle glance and breath taking beauty right there for the looking.  For free.  All around.  Peace and happiness.  One has to make a choice.  To brush away all the dross and believe in Beauty and Truth and Happiness.  Despite appearances to the contrary.

Today Is Not That Day

Had our second viewing (in a year) of the house.  A nice couple from NSW wishing to downsize and be near their daughter who's attending UQ Gatton.  They spent a long time with the realtor traipsing around the property and going through the house.  Thought, hoped, that perhaps we had a reason to be optimistic, until, when they were leaving the man said, 'Thanks anyway'.  Heart sank.

Now I'm just tired.  We scrubbed, pruned, mowed, polished, dusted, rearranged, swept, mopped and did everything but vacuum the cats getting the house ready.   It looked a treat.  It's a lovely old place, over 110 years now.   But its age is only obvious in its grace and beauty.  Structurally she's a rock. 

Thought I had a reason to be hopeful.  Even the elements seemed to conspire to create the perfect picture.  One of the orchids in the fernhouse is blooming, a glowing rich magenta.  It had rained enough to turn the grass into an emerald sea.  The weather was cool.  The skies were grey, threatening rain so we turned on some of the lamps which showed how warm and cozy it can be.  Still. No deal.


Then there were the nerves.  Not sleeping, pacing in my sleep, tossing and turning in anticipation.  All to naught.  Like Richard said, we won't be doing this again.  Once we move, that's it. 

So I feel a little deflated and a lot enervated.    Until next time when we go through the process again.

Realised that not selling our house and buying another in the past year has actually been a good thing as we've refined our ideas of what we want.  Whereas before we would have been happy to go as far as Crystal or Nobby's Creek, now we want to be on the east side of Murwillumbah.  Also, we want a view.  No matter how nice the house is inside, without some elevation and a view, it won't do for the long term.

We find houses that are perfect in imperfect surroundings or perfect surroundings and lacklustre houses.  So the right place hasn't appeared. 

Yet.

Just heard on the tv 'but today is not that day'.  That's for sure.  Another day will be that day.  Of that I'm certain.