5 Acres of Solitude

I don’t really have a clue what my next project will be. But I do have a goal……….By this time next year I am going to know what I am going to do when I retire. I’ve committed to working in the public schools another year. My friend Kathy has to work one more year to get her full retirement. If she can do it, I can ,too. But then what?? Daddy always said. “Don’t retire until you know what you are going to do.” Something has to replace ‘work’. I want that something to be fun. And meaningful  I also want that something to provide a stream of income. So far in my life being a speech pathologist is the only thing I’ve been willing to do for money. I’ve either got to find another skill or turn speech therapy into a fun thing to be doing. My plan is to practice wonderment……….and keep writing my Morning Pages. And oh, yeah…….keep having a good time. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Love, Lynne

Where to begin? With this new year, of course. 2012—the year we’ve waited for since we were introduced to the Mayan calendar. 2012— the year for great change. Maybe even for the good. This is the year we officially begin our Old Age. No more denying our passage now that we are on Social Security and Medicare. We denied Midlife until the crisis was over and we had missed the fun. We were way too serious about being happy. Age successfully was our motto. We set out on our quest for happiness and learned way too much about who we are and why we are here. Now what? Be happy is the only answer we get these daze. We declare this our happiest year yet. We have already begun the year with a strong sense of gratitude for life and friends and family. And with a better sense of humor than we’ve ever had. We have also made some good changes—quit smoking, bought a new car, started exercising, and decided to enjoy our work. Aren’t we gonna be pissed if the universe explodes on December 21 and we spent the year not smoking or crabbing about working in the public schools?

So at least for this year we are going to follow the change energy as mindfully as we can. We have declared ourselves officially beginning our Old Age. If we are not happy now, it is not too late. We declare ourselves students of Happiness and we set our intention to share our learnings with others. We keep doing what we are doing, but we put more action into it this year. We make our dreams bigger, give up silly fears and do what we need to do to be the best Old Person we can be…….and have a good time doing it. One project at a time.

I wonder what is next???

Go get your galoshes cuze this is gonna be deep. It’s a piece of my fire story. Ultimately it’s a gratitude story that took a lot of letting go to materialize. I’ve known for years that letting go of stuff was a good thing to be doing as I grew older. A divorce and three moves gave me the opportunity. Building a three room house provided the necessity. Deciding what to let go of over the years became simple. If I didn’t have a story connected with it, I didn’t keep it. If somebody else wanted it, I gave it to them. Easy Peesy. So there I was on September 4  faced with the need to evacuate my dream home in the forest and all my favorite stuff. What do I take with me?? The dogs. My computer and hard drives. My favorite hat. What else? I didn’t have to worry about old family pictures and mememtos. I had already given those to my nieces. As it turned out denial of the severity of the fire kept me relatively calm. Once I drove through the smoke at the end of my cu- de-sac, the reality hit me. There were no cars on the highway. I was the last person to get out of my neighborhood. Ten days later I learned that the fire had stopped about 100 yards from my house and forest. I had been spared and could only hope I deserved it. I was grateful I had not been forced to ‘let it all go’. My place. My stuff. My contentment with the life I had chosen. I was especially grateful my name didn’t go on any of the Need Anything? lists. Way too many names continue to be on those lists. Soooo when you are faced with the need to leave it all, what will you take?

Lynne Russell
Bastrop, Texas

Now I am in another writers’ group……..community folks who get together once a month to laugh and encourage any writing endeavors we might have. We’ve chosen prompts like My Worst Job and My First Car. This month we decided to try our hand at writing fiction.  Here’s my submission. I was tickled that it was well received.   Love, Lynne

They’re Comin’ Back

Sally ran into the house, through the living room and down the hall shouting, “They’re comin” back. They’re comin’ back.!” Her brother ignored her. He had heard Sally’s return of the aliens story many times. Sally was the only one who heard them say they were coming back. Everyone in the small west Texas town had seen the aliens a year ago. The drought had finally ended and folks were able to celebrate the Labor Day holiday with roasted hot dogs and marshmallows over a campfire. Being prepared to view the famous lights of Marfa that night, most of the celebrants were not particularly freaked out when the aliens landed and joined the festivities. The experience would give them all a fresh Marfa Lights story. As it turned out, each had an entirely different story to tell. Eddie enjoyed rapping with five purple guys who looked kinda like regular TX people. Jamie was taken to the space craft and given chocolate candy and a spa treatment. Cindy told a similar story as she recalled a glowy kind of feeling on her return to the campfire.

Over the year people were interviewed, stories were told, screenplays were considered. But it was Sally who insisted they were coming back……this Labor Day weekend. “They’re comin’ back. They’re comin’ back!”, she continued to shout throughout the town. Should we worry? Should we prepare? Should we be afraid. Should we get our nails done? Why are they coming back, Sally, they shouted. Why? she said. They’re comin’ back for SMORES.

Here’s another submission to my writer’s group.

If I were a person with perfect autobiographical memory, how would I choose my Best Day? I’d have to scan the stored memories of every day of my life and rank them according to some scheme. Then I’d have to rate aspects of each as adding to or detracting from the greatness of the day using a numbered scale of some kind. Maybe I’ll ask Marilu Henner what she would do…….

Luckily I don’t have to go to that much trouble. I remember lots of good happenings in my life and very few bad things that could ruin the greatness of a day. But whole days escape me. Besides I know that “What is the best day of my life?” is a trick question. And I know the answer. TODAY is the best day of my life. I’m sitting in the middle of my new labyrinth with my puppy by my side. The sun is shining, It’s a warm winter day. I hear the soughing of the wind in the pine trees overhead. The world feels lighter to me today than it did yesterday. Today I am the best communicator, writer, teacher, learner I have ever been. And by the end of the day (if the creeks don’t rise and the Internet doesn’t shut down), I will have submitted my Best Day story and put clean sheets on my bed. Yup……this is the best one yet. TYG

Love, Lynne

To make myself write more than email messages, I joined a writer’s group last year. We get a prompt each month. Here’s what I wrote about ‘PAIN’.

My pain story is less about the pain and more about my fear of health care. But mainly it’s a story about gratitude. Gratitude that I broke my left arm and not my right.. Gratitude for my friends who nurtured me the first couple of days of the ordeal while I was goofy on pain meds. And especially gratitude that this was the only time I’d dealt with a surgeon in the 20 years since I had quit working in hospitals. There was nothing in the experience that allayed any of my fears of health care in general or surgery in particular. When the orthopedist said my bones had become displaced and I needed surgery, I almost went limp. Telling him ‘no’ was probably the most self aware thing I’d ever done. My body said ‘no’ and so did I. It was at that time that I learned surgeons don’t like being told ‘no’ They think it’s because you don’t have health insurance and that you are not a responsible citizen. After my decline of surgery he treated me with disrespect (aka, like s–t) the rest of our relationship. The best part of my subsequent visits was chatting with his tech assistant who was interested in speech therapy as a profession. She was kind and gentle and I liked her. Anyway she was not on duty when I went for the last visit to have my cast removed. The new guy had nothing to say to me. He took his cutting tool, zipped it down my arm and hit a sore spot that shot a pain through my body I will never forget. He walked out of the room and closed the door. I passed out. Not for long, though. I was sitting up again by the time the doctor came in. I tried to look cool and calm. I figure he had planned it all. That’s my pain story. I’m grateful the pain didn’t last long. That short burst was enough for me. The lesson?? It’s important not to fall down, especially if you dislike dealing with doctors.

Once there was a woman who lived in Conroe, Texas. She decided to settle in the Lost Pines of Bastrop instead of back packing through Peru until her inheritance ran out. She was already 60 years old when she faced the life-changing opportunity to do something else. She could not keep doing what she was doing. She had to settle her parents’ estate, divide up the money and move. She could not hang around until something came along. She had to decide, and she had to decide on her own. No one else was involved or needed to be considered. Spirit would have to move her, and she would have to pay attention. The Move to Bastrop story starts with her standing in line at the HEB grocery store checkout. She waited behind two of her friends who lived in Bastrop. After a little chit-chat about life’s changes, the husband asked her why she didn’t move to Bastrop. “Your friends are here, and we’re not going anywhere,” he said. That’s when ‘stability and support system’ rose to the top of her decision making list. On her drive back to Conroe that evening, she wondered what this move to Bastrop would look like. She remembered the Lost Pines. Living in a forest became her first choice. She emailed a friend when she got home. By the time she went to bed she had a plan to buy 5 acres in the Lost Pines of Bastrop and build as “green” a house as she could. The decision gave her clarity and relief. The decision felt good and the plan fell into place. The perfect people showed up to create the perfect place. Lessons abounded. Especially ‘You cannot create, if you cannot decide.’ On her Tree Deck in her forest she learned the joy of journal writing in Nature. While engaged in that writing she learned that gratitude for being alive feels really good. Of all the changes she experienced—selling her parents’ home, moving, living for months in her AirStream, watching progress, stagnation, progress, wondering what she had done—the mightiest change came from feeling good in gratitude.

This is my year to give up fear…….and chronic anger along with it. I came to this realization during the full moon eclipse and winter solstice. QT Pie and I caravaned  to west TX  to view the event. I went with two intentions. To have a good time with new friends and to experience some kind of transformation that I hoped would be a surprise. Well, I did and it was. Long story short, I began the trip with anger at the public schools and afraid the bad guys are gonna win. I ended the trip with the reminder that fighting city hall has never worked for me. I gave up the fear and anger, felt the relief and started looking at fear in other parts of my life. Krishnamurti says that “what is important is that one should totally, right through one’s being, psychologically, end fear.” One must pay attention to it, learn about it, watch it and come directly into contact with it. I think I will. This could be fun.

TYG

Love, Lynne

Dear God,

Thank you for the glorious day. Thank you for the success of Sunday Brunch in the Gardens. Thank you for my words that flowed easily and effortlessly. Thank you for the Joy it gave me. I had a great time and I think others did, too.

I wonder what I said………..Did I tell them about my favorite men? Carl Jung and the Dalai Lama. Did I tell them about trusting the wisdom of their body? Did I tell them about the Joy of journal writing? Did I teach them a tool? muscle testing with the whole body. Did I tell them that they can hear the Whisper even when their mind is chattering? Did I tell them to do what they think/feel is right even when others think they are wrong? Did I tell them God has a sense of humor? Did I tell them change is inevitable? It’s the only constant we’ve got. Did I tell them Happiness is life’s purpose? Did I tell them to quit being afraid?

TYG Love, Lynne