Winter is Coming!

Winter is coming! The end is near...Save yourself. A garage would be such a civilized accoutrement for our house, but it will never come to pass given the historic nature of the property. Old and run-down, yes, but worth preserving. It's twenty degrees and dropping right now.

The roads cleared up by late morning, but the commute for the gainfully employed was bad. Some people coming from Broomfield had their 30 minute drive turn into almost a two-hour commute. Last year at this time I would have been out there on the road with the masses. One thing I liked about today's icy mess was looking out the window, knowing I didn't have to spend hours of my life driving in it. And UPS brought me a shiny new book to read. Life is good even if winter is coming.

Flights are delayed when it snows.

The calm before the snow last night.

Good reading weather.

Life's Transitions

I know several people who are going through difficult transitions right now, and a few who are going through less serious, but life-changing transitions. Different ages and different situations, but all are struggling to get through the process.

At least three are stressed out about employment. Prolonged uncertainty is hard to bear. Finding a new place to live, in a tight market, is a big problem. Having a baby is several kinds of transitions one right after the other. Finding out you have cancer changes who you are just as much as becoming a parent. I have faith that each of these people will get through their problems in their own way, in their own time.

I'm in a transition as I attempt to reconcile how I thought my life would unfold with how it's actually unfolding. In truth, it's not really unfolding (which sounds so delicate), as much as it's a flash flood.
All that mental debris getting carried along, some dangerous boulders of preconceived notions, then (I hope) the desert will bloom. Right?

You have to try to take life's transitions in stride.

 Transition can cause you a little stress, or it can knock you flat. I've been waylaid by different things. All I can suggest is, when this happens, do like I do: don't look around to see if anyone saw what happened (they did),  jump up to your feet, and pretend that the face plant didn't really happen.

Grace under pressure takes a lot of practice but, luckily, life provides plenty of opportunities to stumble.

Transitions are growth. Trust the process.

Quacking Quackcaphony

A mommy group has commandeered the large table at this coffee place. I came here to write, and plan to meet with friends later. They are happily trying to out-shrill each other. Even the babies are sitting in stunned silence. It's like sitting next to a heavy metal band of ducks. I swear my ears are starting to hurt. I'd leave if only other people weren't meeting me here. They aren't even saying anything worth overhearing. A curse on young mommies desperate for adult conversation! If only they wouldn't laugh. The pitch goes up to ice pick in the ear level when someone is funny. 

A Roadside Attraction

I was about 20 when I went with my boyfriend and his mother to the Sacramento Delta region in California to buy asparagus. Asparagus was very much a seasonal treat back in the day and, every summer, his mother would buy and freeze as much of the vegetable as she could. We went to a roadside stand manned by an elderly, blind Japanese man. The mother said his asparagus was the best, and well-worth the drive from Turlock. I found out that the lush agricultural land behind the levees and the house had once belonged to the old man. The present owners were kind enough to let him live on the property when he  had returned. "Returned from where?" I asked. I was horrified to learn of the internment camps that had been created in 1942 for Japanese people living in the United States. Even the children who were born in the country were forced into camps, sometimes with only the clothes on their backs. The more questions I asked, the more annoyed the mother became. I don't know if she was shocked by my ignorance, (no surprise given my family dynamics and the Vallejo school system) or, as I strongly suspect, she was embarrassed by what our government and its citizens had done to our Japanese citizens.

After being locked up, the Japanese weren't given their lands and homes back. Some had been given the chance to sell off their homes and businesses with only a few days to do so. You can imagine how badly they were ripped off.

There are plenty of books that go into the subject. It's an important part of our country's history and shouldn't be hidden away.

 "Farewell to Manzanar" by Jeanne Wakatsuki is usually the first book read by young people.

Camp Amache in Colorado is now a National Historic Site. All that's there now is the cemetery, foundations of some buildings, and a sign.

Wyoming had the Heart Mountain Relocation Center. This camp now has an interpretive center.

Throughout all of this, the men were subject to being drafted into the military to fight for the U.S.

Saturday Grinds to a Start

Woke up at 5:30 with a headache. Not a good way to begin a lovely day. I watched the sky become golden while waiting for the Advil to kick in. I uncovered the parakeets' cage so they could start singing and squawking their homage to the sun. Parakeets are messy little creatures but so damn cheerful.

Going to be a warm day, by November standards. The fence is partially painted with primer and needs to be finished. There will be very few days warm enough to paint outside, so time is of the essence. But, besides the torture of sitting on the cold ground slapping paint on little boards, I hope to do some more writing today. I've been trying to rewrite my crudely finished book, but haven't been able to get enthused about it. A new story has been ricocheting around my brain for a few days, so I got off to a good start on it yesterday. 

My new muse

Such a beautiful fall day will require some time to be spent outside just for sheer pleasure. Plus I need the Vitamin D. Since it's early, I think I'll go out in the chilly morning and resign myself to paint for a couple of hours this afternoon. 

Not bad for November

As I Read at Que's

"But you can't change your nature and mode of consciousness like changing your shoes. It is a gradual shedding. Years must go by, and centuries must elapse before you have finished. Like a son escaping from the domination of his parents. The escape is not just one rupture. It is a long and half-secret process. "

-D. H. Lawrence