If you are new to this WP blog site you might not know that the prompt questions are new each day for a year, but then repeat.
I’m fine with answering them again. Often I don’t remember what I said the first time.
I thought I’d look back for this one though.
What do I like about myself?
I said last year that I like that I love sprucing things up. Which I do.
I like moving things around and making things look a tiny bit better. Or a lot better. Arranging, styling, repositioning. I do like this about myself. It makes cleaning fun. I almost never tire of doing arranging. Depending on how much liberty I can take, I could be doing it for days.
But I think I might like retiring to look a lot like what I’m doing now.
I like staying busy. I like having a variety of projects going. My brain might not love total retirement. It’s hard to know. There are somethings about having to work that suck, but the alternative may weigh out not so much in my favor.
I don’t have a typical situation so I really don’t have a good answer. Art has always felt like I’m playing more than working. Even after hours of this sort of work/play, I wish there were more time to keep working. (I’m often embarrassed by how long I spend)
It’s weird.
Yesterday I washed and waxed my car, it looks great, but I didn’t feel like I wanted to keep doing it, but if I had to meet the plumber or find a sink, or finish a painting, I’d be all in. Pay or no pay, I guess I’m not ready to retire from my projects.
I finished the book by Bruce Lee’s daughter. Finally.
There was a full moon the other night, which we couldn’t see because of all the rain and dense clouds.
It was a large moon, close to the solstice, pinkish in color and significant for other reasons I can’t remember. Called a strawberry moon, (I’ve never heard a moon called that, but I’m not very well read on this topic, so it might be a thing)
I missed it.
One thing I learned from beach walking is that a full moon affects the ocean tides. The bigger (closer to earth) the moon, the higher or lower the tide. It’s that powerful. I suspect that even though I missed seeing the colorful, larger than normal moon, I may have experienced it in other ways.
Bruce Lee talked about our center. He said our power is the strongest and calmest at our core. Like a hurricane. He suggested that we be like the moon reflected on a stream. Stillness in our core, moving without movement.
I love this concept. It’s true, as steady and still and strong that we are at our core, the stronger we will be in martial arts, yoga, and most anything in life, When I stay the truest to myself, things are clearer, I feel more powerful. I get things done.
Sometimes it’s with things that don’t seem very important in the grand scheme.
Our time here on the East coast is always interesting. It often involves a fair amount of trouble shooting. This took me a little while to first realize, then get better at. As Brad Pit once said, you can get better at anything.
And I have. But first, I had to get clear about what is important to me personally, then also learn how to not compromise. I tend to place a high value on peace, which sounds fine, but if I ignore my own peace to keep another peace, I don’t end up feeling very peaceful. Little irony, I guess.
I have learned many things about myself. (Most of my life seems to be lessons for me, about me).
Turns out, I need my own space. Last year I made a place to paint in the garage attic. That was brilliant, until the middle of the summer heat drove me outside. So we created a beach that could survive high tide.
This year, I’m creating a kitchen. This endever has been off and on, and feels like climbing a steep mountain against storm-like winds. Or moving one, (probably two).
Surprisingly, I am doing it. Or maybe not so surprisingly, because I am standing squarely and unmovingly in my center. This on again off again, permit impossibility, crazy idea has been inching forward. It’s happening. Differently than expected, but it is absolutely becoming a reality.
Sometimes you have to do the end things to get others to see that the beginning things are possible. Thats how I have a kitchen without water and an appointment with a plumber set for the end of the month. We even have a guy to dig the below-the-frost-line trench.
In the meantime, I’ve made a pretty functional kitchen. A sink will come eventually, I don’t mind washing dishes like a 17 century Jamestown colonist. At least for a little while. I have a system. Boil water, wash, then rinse in my cute metal tub (it can also double as a planter).
In the meantime, I feel like I have accomplished something cool. I’m happy. I can cook. I might even bake a pie.
Spring is full of possibility, sunshine, flowers, new life, fast moving energy and change.
I like the busyness of nature in the spring. I like all the seasons for different things, but I love watching great bursts of life jumping into existence every Spring.
In California roadside hills turn pink with blooms, giant prehistoric looking plants get big cone shaped flowers in blues and purple and pinks. The sun burns through the marine layer, water warms up, beaches fill with local surfers. Kids are still in school and vacationers haven’t shown up yet. Spring happens early, and quickly. It’s beautiful.
In New England, so much has to happen so fast. Spring is dramatic here, and I love drama. Trees go from bare and seemingly dead to vibrant flowering, giant leaved massive greenness. By late spring, green has taken over the horizon.
Suddenly wildlife is everywhere. Birds are in a collective rush to make nests and babies and fend off other birds. Squirrels, deer, rabbits, fish, hedgehogs, chipmunks, it’s as though I stumbled in to a Beatrix Potter story.
I like waking up to the bird frenzy. I love experiencing so much aliveness. Longer days, flowers, boats on the water, gardens , the smell of grass being cut…Springtime.
This is a true luxury. No one NEEDS paint and brushes. No one needs charcoal or pastels. I’ve lived without, but thankfully never for long.
When I was a child art supplies were in short supply. My mother kept an immaculate house. If she saw anything messy it went straight into the trash. Broken crayons didn’t stand a chance. I hid paper and shabby boxes of crayons under my bed, which was not really a hiding place if you’ve ever lived with anyone like my mother.
I had fun aunties who restocked my little stash on birthdays and Christmas, but there were long stretches in between that challenged my creative brain.
I pillaged sewing scraps from my mom’s sewing room waste basket and taught myself to sew. I know it sounds crazy, but it was the seventies, my mother was more likely to notice if her good scissors were misplaced, than whereever I was hiding out using the giant silver Fiskars at age four.
It was a golden time for a lot of reasons. Freedom and opportunity fueled my ingenuity. I made myself tiny stuffed animals. (Stuffed with toilet paper, they were cuter than you’d think).
Houses were being built near where we lived. Drywall chalk is great to draw on the road with. I guess I invented my own sidewalk chalk. No one I knew had ever heard of the thick pastel filled tubs kids have today.
I cut paper grocery bags into paper and used my mom’s check writing pens to draw. Any show with an art activity segment, captivated me, gave me ideas. I was clearly motivated. I often wonder why I was born with such a need to create.
Art is a luxury I have always found ways to not live without.
It’s been putting together groups of pics from photos and adding music. Every morning a new slideshow. I’m sure there’s a technical explanation for why this has recently started happening, but I like the magical morning surprise of being shown (in a random AI way) that I’ve had a good life.
What made it good?
When I ask this question looking forward, my answers are different than when I look back.
I think the answer is something like
Do a lot of things.
It’s a good exercise as humans to try to make things good for our future selves, as we try to incorporate things that we think will make a good life. Gratitude, money, a house, but really we are just guessing. We all know people with the right ‘good life components who don’t seem to be living a good life.
So what is it that made Clarence say to George Bailey “…you really had a wonderful life” and George to really see that he did? (Jimmy Stewart, It’s a Wonderful Life 1947)
It might have something to do with just showing up and doing stuff.
I really don’t have a good answer, but I have a feeling it has less to do with what we have and more with how we see things we do.
Thought I’d paint in my kitchen (it’s raining again)
I spend the most time with myself.
At this moment, I have time and ideas and things I’m interested in learning. I’ve gotten nicer (to myself) over the years, I like my ideas even when they aren’t working the way I want them to. I enjoy my time hanging out with me, scheming, figuring out how to execute plans that I’m just making up. I appreciate that I can make a plan and execute another simultaneously. I even like having ADD. It has its down side sure, but there are perks.
I might be finally giving myself enough attention and appreciation. I may as well, since that’s who I spend the most time with.
One of the things New England has taught me, is to really appreciate a warm sunny day. There’s a reason everything is so green, no one takes sunshine for granted here.
This year has kept us in our winter coats even through today. Windy, rainy, cold. My phone Ap says “51 degrees, Feels like 40” because of the 30 mile an hour wind.
Third wettest May on record. Five minutes of sun will give me a lot of joy. A L O T
There’s a marathon of yoga today, thank goodness! I’ll stay dry and out of the wind at our cozy yoga studio here in Niantic.
Peace Kit 