My wired coffee shop turned out to be the Boulder library, second floor near the windows overlooking Boulder creek. I suppose that you have to get here pretty early to claim a spot at the window, and my hunch is that once you have your spot you don't easily give it up. As I was at the front desk turning my temporary library card into a permanent one (now that I have a piece of mail with my new Boulder address) I was helped by a man who was simultaneously trying to slough off the insistent complaints of a grubby, red-eyed bearded homeless guy, something about his card not working... The librarian seemed patient at first, stating politely that he was going to help me now, and would the complainer please wait a minute? But then as the security guard came over he casually said to her, "can you get rid of him please?" And she did, with quiet efficiency. There are so many visible homeless people in this town, so many people on so many street corners with cardboard signs reading things like "I fell off the fiscal cliff" or "homeless and hungry." Most signs say "anything will help." Sometimes they make eye contact with you as you wait for the light to turn green. Sometimes I smile and once I gave a guy a buck. Do the good, generous people of Boulder have a ready supply of ones that they hand out to whomever asks? Or do most people become blind to these folks after a while? I want to learn more about them, why they're here, what happened to them, where they sleep at night. It's an uncomfortable juxtaposition to find a place for them in my mind and heart while I'm spending so much time pondering the enormous amount of money that we're thinking of dropping on a house of our own. And because its uncomfortable I should stay there a while.
Speaking of uncomfortable, let me go back to the idea of productivity and what I am doing with these days in my life. I'm nowhere near having a crisis, but as the days come and go I find myself struggling with the rhythm and flow of the hours. I'm quite cognizant of my mandate: to allow myself to just be, without schedule, without appointments or commitments. To nurture my long-
neglected parts and to become a whole, healthy person again.
And so, this is what I've been doing: I get up at 6am, have coffee, read email and news headlines, check Facebook and the weather, make Mark's lunch and maybe breakfast and help him get out the door by 7:30. Enzo and I take a walk in the morning, usually from about 7:45 to 8:30. Then I clean up the house a little and get ready for yoga if I'm going in the morning. I leave for yoga at 9 and by the time I'm showered and ready to leave its 11:30. Then....well, recently I've taken a number of exploratory trips to neighboring towns to see if we could live there. And the answer is an emphatic "no" so far. "Sprawling" is the most apt word. Anyway, so then I come home by 2 or 3 and let Enzo out of his crate, play with him for a while, maybe read for a while and then start to get supper ready for when Mark gets home at 6 or 6:30. Last night I got upset at him because he made a joke--an innocent joke--about something I was talking with him about. That's when I realized that I needed to refocus my thoughts--recalibrate my compass--to remember just what's going on here. I was feeling momentarily dependent on him for validation of my current existence. Aarrgh. And that's when I also realized the extent of the loss of my job at Odyssey and the proximity of my friends...the daily interactions and conversations with people who knew me well, who cared about me, who valued my contributions. Which brings me back around to productivity--if I'm not working at a job, how am I being productive in the world, and do I even need to be productive, and does the business of taking good care of myself, my husband, dog and house count? Ad the deeper question, the more honest question is, can I stand being quiet with myself for an extended albeit limited amount of time?
Friday, January 25, 2013
Productivity
This won't be a long post; I just need to get something down to break through my resistance to go where I know my writing wants to bring me. I feel like a 5-year old being dragged by the hand through a museum or on a winter walk, reluctant, resisting the possibility that this could be good, fun even. The dearth of tangible stuff going on in my life is lately matched by the overflow, standing-room only show going on in my mind as I navigate through my days.
I learned how to write my blogposts on my iPad so I think I might go to a wired coffee shop and do some writing today. Maybe the Laughing Goat on Pearl. More later.
I learned how to write my blogposts on my iPad so I think I might go to a wired coffee shop and do some writing today. Maybe the Laughing Goat on Pearl. More later.
Sunday, January 13, 2013
Dancing at the Dickens
Mark and I went out last night, no easy feat considering the post-game somnambulance having as much to do with beers and tortilla soup as with the double overtime ending in a loss for Peyton and the Broncos. But out we went to the Dickens Opera House in Longmont to meet up at a Grey Wolves Meet Up (look for the balloons) with a couple dozen other over-40's. Johnny O's power trio was on the stage, compelling a middle-aged frenzy of spastic, gleeful movements. I love to watch people dance, especially the ones who don't take themselves too seriously. My inspiration for how to dance comes from Steve Martin and Lily Tomlin in All of Me, at the end of the movie when they're lost in a silly, joyful boogie on the black and white tiled floor. Last night there was blue shirt guy who unabashedly whipped off his sweater 30 seconds into the first song, hawaiian shirt guy who sported the white man's overbite like a champ but who partnered his adoring girlfriend with drunken abandon, the older couple who moved like saplings bending toward each other in a warm breeze, always in harmony created over years of dancing together through breakfast dishes, children come and gone, hospital beds and whispered dreams in the dark.
The Opera House, the "best place music venue in Colorado" is a dark, high-ceiling-ed, red-walled historic behemoth with well-marked exits and not a few disco balls sending sparks of light through the fog machine haze. And two yellow smiley-face balloons telling the Grey Wolves where to meet up. We sat aside from the group at first, both of us a little shy about meeting new people. During the break we sat down next to Sue from Lafayette and Steve from Jackson, up in the mountains. Sue said it took her 3 years before she got her nerve up to attend a Grey Wolves outing. Maybe all humans are essentially insecure, all looking for companionship, relationship, connections.
We ask everyone we meet about where they live and how they like it. We've talked with native Longmonters, transplants from everywhere else, folks who love conservative suburban Broomfield, folks who love liberal hipster Boulder and folks who love the redneck freedom in the mountains. For us it will all come down to where we can picture making a life, where we'll feel that we're home. Even though the farm is a financial stretch we find ourselves circling back to thoughts of making that property our home. We talk about the direction the sun will come in during the winter months and where we'll sit during different times of the day. We talk about where we'll put our Christmas cactus and fig tree and where we'll find boards to make a dining room table to fit the space. We talk about how we'll situate our grapevines on the land and whether we'll pay an electrician to wire the studio or whether we'll do it ourselves. We talk about filling the house with the people we love and where they'll all sleep. It's a beautiful, special home and if we can see a way to pay for it I believe we'll put an offer in. There's so much waiting in real estate, so much being patient and holding the tension. We could be doing all this dreaming and unbeknownst to us another offer is floated, this one without the constraints of a work-around mortgage and a down-payment scraped together from 5 different savings accounts and a truncated retirement fund. But that's the game and that's the price to pay for the opportunity to call another place our home. We'll know more tomorrow when the bankers tell us about the possibilities or lack thereof.
It's 7 degrees this morning, chance of more snow showers. A fire is taking hold in the stove, Enzo is on his first nap and pancakes are calling to be made. The Patriots play at 2. Today we nap, overtime or no overtime. Sunday afternoon naps in January by the fire could very well be sacred.
The Opera House, the "best place music venue in Colorado" is a dark, high-ceiling-ed, red-walled historic behemoth with well-marked exits and not a few disco balls sending sparks of light through the fog machine haze. And two yellow smiley-face balloons telling the Grey Wolves where to meet up. We sat aside from the group at first, both of us a little shy about meeting new people. During the break we sat down next to Sue from Lafayette and Steve from Jackson, up in the mountains. Sue said it took her 3 years before she got her nerve up to attend a Grey Wolves outing. Maybe all humans are essentially insecure, all looking for companionship, relationship, connections.
We ask everyone we meet about where they live and how they like it. We've talked with native Longmonters, transplants from everywhere else, folks who love conservative suburban Broomfield, folks who love liberal hipster Boulder and folks who love the redneck freedom in the mountains. For us it will all come down to where we can picture making a life, where we'll feel that we're home. Even though the farm is a financial stretch we find ourselves circling back to thoughts of making that property our home. We talk about the direction the sun will come in during the winter months and where we'll sit during different times of the day. We talk about where we'll put our Christmas cactus and fig tree and where we'll find boards to make a dining room table to fit the space. We talk about how we'll situate our grapevines on the land and whether we'll pay an electrician to wire the studio or whether we'll do it ourselves. We talk about filling the house with the people we love and where they'll all sleep. It's a beautiful, special home and if we can see a way to pay for it I believe we'll put an offer in. There's so much waiting in real estate, so much being patient and holding the tension. We could be doing all this dreaming and unbeknownst to us another offer is floated, this one without the constraints of a work-around mortgage and a down-payment scraped together from 5 different savings accounts and a truncated retirement fund. But that's the game and that's the price to pay for the opportunity to call another place our home. We'll know more tomorrow when the bankers tell us about the possibilities or lack thereof.
It's 7 degrees this morning, chance of more snow showers. A fire is taking hold in the stove, Enzo is on his first nap and pancakes are calling to be made. The Patriots play at 2. Today we nap, overtime or no overtime. Sunday afternoon naps in January by the fire could very well be sacred.
Friday, January 11, 2013
Snow in the mountains
There's a line of clouds that you can clearly see about a third of the way up Bear Peak and I know that it's dumping snow up there. Enzo and I just went out for a walk up to the trailhead just off of Shanahan Ridge but all we encountered were a few stray flakes. It's cold, though and getting colder. We had to go for a walk because if we didn't I fear that I might have killed him. It's just that the lady next door was having her carpets steam-cleaned, or her basement pumped out, whatever endeavor requires a small truck and a large hose; a continuous whiny roar emanated from the truck in such as way as to alarm this small dog who then thought it his duty to alert me to the nefarious goings on. No matter how I redirected, pleaded, threatened, attempted training strategies with Cheerios, looked deeply into his adorable black eyes to help him understand that we were not in danger, Enzo was fully connected to his instinct and would not be called off. The only solution was another walk. And so now, an hour later he's curled up in a contented white ball on the sofa while a fire crackles away in the stove and I sit here feeling foolish for becoming angry at a lovable little ball of instinct.
It makes me think back to when Laura was a tiny baby and I was an emerging young adult, inadequately prepared to handle the day in, day out demands of a 7 pound human being. I remember thinking back then--I suppose I had the presence of mind to realize just how dire the circumstances could be--that I understood how parents could shake their babies to death out of terrifying, unadulterated frustration. "Why won't you stop?!" I held my daughter up one time in front of me, shouting at her little body to stop crying. It was in the stairway, on the way up or down, it was probably during the daylight hours. Nothing extraordinary had happened, it was a regular day in a regular week and I was simply reaching some limit in my ability to safely and lovingly care for my screaming infant. Possessing a certain history of sanity and restraint I didn't shake her until her neck snapped. I didn't have to call the police to report that there was something wrong with my baby and oh my god, she's not breathing. We carried on and to this day no one has ever known how close I came to the edge. I should have just put her harness on and taken her for a walk.
It makes me think back to when Laura was a tiny baby and I was an emerging young adult, inadequately prepared to handle the day in, day out demands of a 7 pound human being. I remember thinking back then--I suppose I had the presence of mind to realize just how dire the circumstances could be--that I understood how parents could shake their babies to death out of terrifying, unadulterated frustration. "Why won't you stop?!" I held my daughter up one time in front of me, shouting at her little body to stop crying. It was in the stairway, on the way up or down, it was probably during the daylight hours. Nothing extraordinary had happened, it was a regular day in a regular week and I was simply reaching some limit in my ability to safely and lovingly care for my screaming infant. Possessing a certain history of sanity and restraint I didn't shake her until her neck snapped. I didn't have to call the police to report that there was something wrong with my baby and oh my god, she's not breathing. We carried on and to this day no one has ever known how close I came to the edge. I should have just put her harness on and taken her for a walk.
Thursday, January 10, 2013
A house is a house for me
The first house I remember living in was in Ridgefield, Connecticut. I was around 4 years old and lived there with my sister, mom and dad. The smell of an autumn leaf pile will bring me right back there. We had the most enormous leaf piles in the world. I remember the sound that my grandmother's heavy clip-on earrings made when they clacked together from where they were clipped to my stuffed brown dog, Gog, who wore them happily. Gog was a plain dog who liked to dress up when Grandma came to town from Boston where she lived. I suppose that, being the soulful child I was that I named him partway between God and dog, which is a pretty good name for most any of the canine types.
After Ridgefield we moved to North Kingstown Rhode Island where I spent my early adolescence. 1970 to 1977. It was an awkward fashion time for me, big glasses, big limbs, shiny braces. I had cute friends and I wanted so badly to be cute but never quite attained that. Marsha Matthews was cute. She was the first girl I knew who spoke about french kissing behind the library stacks in our open-concept school. Our house in Rhode Island was, from my memory, a huge center stairway colonial with a vast back yard suitable for rabbit hutches, gymnastics shows and, way up on the hill, my mother's vegetable garden. I've driven by it since, and wasn't all that surprised to see that it's gotten significantly smaller over the years. We lived nearby, but not in, the neighboring development that contained hundreds of houses. My best friend lived in that development but we were always a little on the outside. At the farthest border of the neighborhood I could still hear the supper bell that my mom embarrassingly rang for us when it was time to come home and get washed up. It was required for us to respond to the bell, "coming" which we grudgingly did.
In November of 1977 we moved to Woodbury Connecticut so my dad could take a job with a friend of his. To this day, at age 51 I'm not sure what type of work he did there. I do know that there were frozen veal cutlets involved because occasionally my dad would come home with a box of frozen cutlets, like a warrior returning to camp after battle with meat for the winter. The job only lasted for 8 months. 8 months of my sophomore year. I briefly dated a guy named Monty who reminded me of a character from Chariots of Fire, the lanky, laid-back, likely always a little under the influence of something blonde runner. When I say we dated I mean that I think we kissed once and I rebuffed his attempts to get into my bra, the cups of which were audaciously and necessarily supplemented with cotton balls. Our house in Woodbury was on top of Upper Grassy Hill and it was wrapped in aluminium siding. The wind blew all the time up there and we ate a lot of frozen veal cutlets.
Woodbury led us to Tolland Connecticut where my dad got a good job as an executive in a wire manufacturing company and where I graduated from high school. Tolland is where I started keeping journals, pages and pages of adolescent angst and passionate longing for a boyfriend to love, self-acceptance, true beauty, actual breasts and makeup kits from the back of magazines that were worth well over $50 but that you could buy for only $10.00. We put a screened in porch on the back of our Tolland house, smaller than the one we had built on the back of our North Kingstown house, but adequate for our purposes. I suppose that having a screened in porch was a small concession for my mom who stalwartly packed our things each time and unpacked our things in a different house, always making it our home. My sister and future brother-in-law announced their engagement on that screened in porch. My grandfather was living with us at the time and I'm not sure he really understood what was happening. Too many people speaking all at once.
I'm going to have to pick up this thread of writing later because I don't want to be late for noon yoga. I have a chill after my trail run this morning and am looking forward to the 106 degree studio. Before I go, I'll list the rest of the places I've lived:
Mount Carmel Ave, Hamden, Connecticut, the basement apartment I rented in college
108 Riverside Drive, New York City
102 Whapley Road, Glastonbury, Connecticut
45 Hudson Street, Manchester, Connecticut
Buckland Hills Drive, Manchester, Connecticut, the apartments by the mall
Otis Street, Manchester, Connecticut, the apartment in the big old mansion near Main Street
Starkweather Street, Manchester, Connecticut, the little yellow dutch colonial I bought on my own
11 Treetop Lane, Broad Brook, Connecticut, Mark's and my first home together
17 Park Place Circle, West Hartford, Connecticut, our condo which we rented out as of yesterday
3640 Silver Plume Lane, Boulder, Colorado, our rented house on Table Mesa in South Boulder from where I write at present.
...all of which has been written down to allow me to explore our next move to our next house.
After Ridgefield we moved to North Kingstown Rhode Island where I spent my early adolescence. 1970 to 1977. It was an awkward fashion time for me, big glasses, big limbs, shiny braces. I had cute friends and I wanted so badly to be cute but never quite attained that. Marsha Matthews was cute. She was the first girl I knew who spoke about french kissing behind the library stacks in our open-concept school. Our house in Rhode Island was, from my memory, a huge center stairway colonial with a vast back yard suitable for rabbit hutches, gymnastics shows and, way up on the hill, my mother's vegetable garden. I've driven by it since, and wasn't all that surprised to see that it's gotten significantly smaller over the years. We lived nearby, but not in, the neighboring development that contained hundreds of houses. My best friend lived in that development but we were always a little on the outside. At the farthest border of the neighborhood I could still hear the supper bell that my mom embarrassingly rang for us when it was time to come home and get washed up. It was required for us to respond to the bell, "coming" which we grudgingly did.
In November of 1977 we moved to Woodbury Connecticut so my dad could take a job with a friend of his. To this day, at age 51 I'm not sure what type of work he did there. I do know that there were frozen veal cutlets involved because occasionally my dad would come home with a box of frozen cutlets, like a warrior returning to camp after battle with meat for the winter. The job only lasted for 8 months. 8 months of my sophomore year. I briefly dated a guy named Monty who reminded me of a character from Chariots of Fire, the lanky, laid-back, likely always a little under the influence of something blonde runner. When I say we dated I mean that I think we kissed once and I rebuffed his attempts to get into my bra, the cups of which were audaciously and necessarily supplemented with cotton balls. Our house in Woodbury was on top of Upper Grassy Hill and it was wrapped in aluminium siding. The wind blew all the time up there and we ate a lot of frozen veal cutlets.
Woodbury led us to Tolland Connecticut where my dad got a good job as an executive in a wire manufacturing company and where I graduated from high school. Tolland is where I started keeping journals, pages and pages of adolescent angst and passionate longing for a boyfriend to love, self-acceptance, true beauty, actual breasts and makeup kits from the back of magazines that were worth well over $50 but that you could buy for only $10.00. We put a screened in porch on the back of our Tolland house, smaller than the one we had built on the back of our North Kingstown house, but adequate for our purposes. I suppose that having a screened in porch was a small concession for my mom who stalwartly packed our things each time and unpacked our things in a different house, always making it our home. My sister and future brother-in-law announced their engagement on that screened in porch. My grandfather was living with us at the time and I'm not sure he really understood what was happening. Too many people speaking all at once.
I'm going to have to pick up this thread of writing later because I don't want to be late for noon yoga. I have a chill after my trail run this morning and am looking forward to the 106 degree studio. Before I go, I'll list the rest of the places I've lived:
Mount Carmel Ave, Hamden, Connecticut, the basement apartment I rented in college
108 Riverside Drive, New York City
102 Whapley Road, Glastonbury, Connecticut
45 Hudson Street, Manchester, Connecticut
Buckland Hills Drive, Manchester, Connecticut, the apartments by the mall
Otis Street, Manchester, Connecticut, the apartment in the big old mansion near Main Street
Starkweather Street, Manchester, Connecticut, the little yellow dutch colonial I bought on my own
11 Treetop Lane, Broad Brook, Connecticut, Mark's and my first home together
17 Park Place Circle, West Hartford, Connecticut, our condo which we rented out as of yesterday
3640 Silver Plume Lane, Boulder, Colorado, our rented house on Table Mesa in South Boulder from where I write at present.
...all of which has been written down to allow me to explore our next move to our next house.
two books
I'm reading two books these days, the first is One Man's Meat, a series of essays by EB White. The second, purchased yesterday from a small independent bookseller in Louisville, is Writing Down the Bones, the classic tutorial on how to write. I had not gone looking for the book but happened to notice it as I was browsing through the new book section. I was in Louisville for lunch and exploration, the first of which I accomplished quite successfully at the Huckleberry Cafe on Main Street. And the second is ongoing.
I was intrigued and comforted to read in my new guide to writing that the author had over the years filled and half-filled numerous notebooks and journals with petty ramblings, shallow complaints and immature longings, much like I have. Since high school and maybe earlier I have used journals to record my thoughts and feelings; some times in my life I've been quite prolific, at other times I let great spans of time go by without jotting down so much as the date at the top of a page. I was thinking that if I found all of these journals and combined them chronologically I might have a telling record of what I was doing and thinking for all those years. Truth is, I'm not looking forward to this because I know what it will sound like: most of the time when I wrote it was sorry, miserable complaining and longing for something more/better/different. It took me a long time in my life to figure out how to make things happen for myself, and I spent a lot of time just longing, wishing, missing out. And luckily I had the impulse to write all that shit down.
But as my new writing tutor said, writing is a practice, and only by doing it regularly and honestly can one become a better writer. I think I would like that, to become a better writer. I feel as though I have stories, thoughts, observations to write down and share. I like to write, I usually like to read over what I've written. Sometimes it amuses me, often it bores me, but I find that I do come back to the desire to get thoughts on paper. Or screen.
Today I'll put on my trail shoes and go for a long, fast walk across the hills near our rented home up here on Shanahan Ridge. It's sunny but chilly still, good conditions for a brisk walk in the plains. I'm just waiting long enough for our resident coyote to slink back to his burrow (if that's where coyotes sleep) for the day. I have no pepper spray, little aerobic capacity and no desire to engage him in any way.
I'm fighting a desire to skip my yoga class today, but I believe I'll overcome that. Yoga practice...writing practice. Practice makes perfect....or at the very least, better.
I was intrigued and comforted to read in my new guide to writing that the author had over the years filled and half-filled numerous notebooks and journals with petty ramblings, shallow complaints and immature longings, much like I have. Since high school and maybe earlier I have used journals to record my thoughts and feelings; some times in my life I've been quite prolific, at other times I let great spans of time go by without jotting down so much as the date at the top of a page. I was thinking that if I found all of these journals and combined them chronologically I might have a telling record of what I was doing and thinking for all those years. Truth is, I'm not looking forward to this because I know what it will sound like: most of the time when I wrote it was sorry, miserable complaining and longing for something more/better/different. It took me a long time in my life to figure out how to make things happen for myself, and I spent a lot of time just longing, wishing, missing out. And luckily I had the impulse to write all that shit down.
But as my new writing tutor said, writing is a practice, and only by doing it regularly and honestly can one become a better writer. I think I would like that, to become a better writer. I feel as though I have stories, thoughts, observations to write down and share. I like to write, I usually like to read over what I've written. Sometimes it amuses me, often it bores me, but I find that I do come back to the desire to get thoughts on paper. Or screen.
Today I'll put on my trail shoes and go for a long, fast walk across the hills near our rented home up here on Shanahan Ridge. It's sunny but chilly still, good conditions for a brisk walk in the plains. I'm just waiting long enough for our resident coyote to slink back to his burrow (if that's where coyotes sleep) for the day. I have no pepper spray, little aerobic capacity and no desire to engage him in any way.
I'm fighting a desire to skip my yoga class today, but I believe I'll overcome that. Yoga practice...writing practice. Practice makes perfect....or at the very least, better.
Wednesday, January 9, 2013
Wednesday January 9
Mark is going to Minnesota for a couple days so it's just me and the dog and my blog. Which is now going to be published in an online magazine called Midlife Bloggers. And though it's strange for me to think of myself as midlife, I suppose, at age 51 that is precisely what I am, making this publication appropriate for my ramblings. Is there anyone out there who might have the slightest interest in what I have to say? We'll see. Maybe someday I'll get a comment.
I'm exploring Louisville today to get a first impression and see if it's somewhere we might be able to live. It's supposed to be much different than Longmont, which seems to be (first impression) a sprawling, ugly, industrialized, impulsively designed nothing of a town. We don't want to live in Longmont.
It's another absolutely gorgeous day here in Boulder, brilliant sunshine, warming temps...does this ever get old?
I'm exploring Louisville today to get a first impression and see if it's somewhere we might be able to live. It's supposed to be much different than Longmont, which seems to be (first impression) a sprawling, ugly, industrialized, impulsively designed nothing of a town. We don't want to live in Longmont.
It's another absolutely gorgeous day here in Boulder, brilliant sunshine, warming temps...does this ever get old?
Tuesday, January 8, 2013
Winds on the mesa
There are sustained windspeeds of 42mph with gusts up to 64mph recorded at NCAR (National Center for Atmospheric Research) this morning up here on Table Mesa. It made our morning walk a bit dramatic, what with all the leaf-chasing and trying to stay upright. We've been told that the wind howls off the mountains onto the mesa and although we've had some gusty nights, nothing like this until today. I put the NCAR icon on my desktop so I can check back frequently. NCAR is very close to us, about 10 minutes away by car. The building was designed by IM Pei; it sits on top of a smaller plateau nestled up against the Flatirons. Very cool nearby resource.
So now we're back, laundry in, tonight's chicken is brining, giblets on the fire for gravy stock and dog treats. I'll do the noon yoga class then meet our realtor and Mark at another house right over the border in Longmont, also north of the reservoir. Last night we had a lightbulb moment in which we realized that we might have been treading in places (price ranges) that were not ok for us. I think we got caught up in the Boulder real estate prices and our bottom line kept creeping up and up until we were looking at houses in the $800,000's. It's hard to even think that with a straight face. We had been looking at this amazing small farm property with a renovated house owned by an artist who did it over with super high-quality materials and an exceptional eye for design and detail. Almost 3 acres of flat land, an adorable summer cottage, etc etc. But it was causing us to become stressed about how we could swing this mortgage while we still own the condo, etc. It was like our sensibilities were temporarily recalibrated to think that getting an $800,000 mortgage was reasonable. So I think that last night we came down from that ledge and are thinking more clearly now.
Our latest plan is to rent the condo for a year (our back-east realtor says he's got a nice German couple who love the place and want to rent it unfurnished) and look for a house that we can afford while still owning the condo. This means, in all likelihood, that we'll give some serious consideration to living outside of Boulder proper. And that might be ok. I think that Mark and I have both been feeling that we came here to live in Boulder, not a suburb of Boulder. But the reality is, we came here for his job, which is in Boulder right now but which will probably be relocating to one of those suburbs within a couple years. A Boulder address is cool, and people recognize the coolness of the town when you tell them you live in Boulder. But what difference would it really make in our lives if we lived 10 minutes outside the town, or 5 or 20 minutes outside of Boulder? We were never going to live within walking distance to Pearl Street, and we really don't even want that. We can easily drive to Pearl Street and all it's funkiness and shops and restaurants from any of the places around Boulder.
So I think that tomorrow I'll take a trip to Louisville (pronounced Louis-ville, not like the one in Kentucky) to see what a small outlying town is like. We heard some guys in a bar last Sunday (the Hungry Toad, a gritty little irish pub where we felt quite at home with our shepherd's pie and local brews) about the robust music and culture scene in Louisville. So it's worth checking out.
I'm reading One Man's Meat, a series of essays by one of my favorite authors, E.B. White. What a luxury, to have time to read during daylight hours.
So now we're back, laundry in, tonight's chicken is brining, giblets on the fire for gravy stock and dog treats. I'll do the noon yoga class then meet our realtor and Mark at another house right over the border in Longmont, also north of the reservoir. Last night we had a lightbulb moment in which we realized that we might have been treading in places (price ranges) that were not ok for us. I think we got caught up in the Boulder real estate prices and our bottom line kept creeping up and up until we were looking at houses in the $800,000's. It's hard to even think that with a straight face. We had been looking at this amazing small farm property with a renovated house owned by an artist who did it over with super high-quality materials and an exceptional eye for design and detail. Almost 3 acres of flat land, an adorable summer cottage, etc etc. But it was causing us to become stressed about how we could swing this mortgage while we still own the condo, etc. It was like our sensibilities were temporarily recalibrated to think that getting an $800,000 mortgage was reasonable. So I think that last night we came down from that ledge and are thinking more clearly now.
Our latest plan is to rent the condo for a year (our back-east realtor says he's got a nice German couple who love the place and want to rent it unfurnished) and look for a house that we can afford while still owning the condo. This means, in all likelihood, that we'll give some serious consideration to living outside of Boulder proper. And that might be ok. I think that Mark and I have both been feeling that we came here to live in Boulder, not a suburb of Boulder. But the reality is, we came here for his job, which is in Boulder right now but which will probably be relocating to one of those suburbs within a couple years. A Boulder address is cool, and people recognize the coolness of the town when you tell them you live in Boulder. But what difference would it really make in our lives if we lived 10 minutes outside the town, or 5 or 20 minutes outside of Boulder? We were never going to live within walking distance to Pearl Street, and we really don't even want that. We can easily drive to Pearl Street and all it's funkiness and shops and restaurants from any of the places around Boulder.
So I think that tomorrow I'll take a trip to Louisville (pronounced Louis-ville, not like the one in Kentucky) to see what a small outlying town is like. We heard some guys in a bar last Sunday (the Hungry Toad, a gritty little irish pub where we felt quite at home with our shepherd's pie and local brews) about the robust music and culture scene in Louisville. So it's worth checking out.
I'm reading One Man's Meat, a series of essays by one of my favorite authors, E.B. White. What a luxury, to have time to read during daylight hours.
Monday, January 7, 2013
Savasana
As I was in savasana at the end of the bikram class today I realized that it felt almost exactly the way I feel when I come out of the ocean on a hot day, dripping wet and on my back on a towel. The sweat pouring off me felt and tasted like seawater, the hot room accentuated by a beam of low, strong January sun on my face and upper body enabled me to be in complete relaxation, drifting on my thoughts and quiet ambient room noises. I love this feeling; I had been wondering whether I'd miss the ocean terribly out here in Colorado, but it's kind of fun and comforting to think that I can, in a way, conect with the ocean in my bikram classes.
And on the way home I was thinking about this period of my life, these months in front of me. I don't think it could or should be too reminiscent of Eat, Pray, Love (which coincidentally we just saw on TV) but I do think that there will be phases of my time here, my sabbatical. The first phase is easy, it's a time of release. Letting go. Just being. I don't mean it's easy to do, just that it's easy to name. I don't have anything I have to do for the next 3 months. Isn't that amazing? And as fate or karma would have it, I have the opportunity to do as much yoga as I choose to in these 3 months. So until April 2 at least, I'll be in a "release mode" in my life. My essential daily work will consist of taking care of the house, the dog, our food and myself. Taking care of myself means doing my very best in my bikram classes to just be in the 90 minute meditation of the class, knowing that in the stillness of my mind and the effort of my body I'll reap the most benefit. It also means spending as much time outside near the trees, mountains and sky as possible. It also means dropping the background anxiety about "doing something" productive with my life. Old habits, old judgements..hence the need for release.
I feel that I'm already getting stronger in the classes; I still get light-headed and overcome by the heat, but I'm becoming more flexible in my body and more tolerant in my mind of the repetition, length of class, dialogue, etc. Friday's class seemed to go by really fast, so I know I was in the zone. I'm recovering more quickly from the classes and tend to look forward to the next day's class. I'm starting to recognize some of the people who attend and even had a conversation with a woman named Laura on Sunday!
After today's class I got a 15 minute chair massage from the in-house massage therapist, a lovely young man named Gabriel who told me that during a regular hour-long massage class, for the price of ten dollars I could upgrade to having him massage me with marijuana-infused coconut oil. You gotta love Boulder.
And on the way home I was thinking about this period of my life, these months in front of me. I don't think it could or should be too reminiscent of Eat, Pray, Love (which coincidentally we just saw on TV) but I do think that there will be phases of my time here, my sabbatical. The first phase is easy, it's a time of release. Letting go. Just being. I don't mean it's easy to do, just that it's easy to name. I don't have anything I have to do for the next 3 months. Isn't that amazing? And as fate or karma would have it, I have the opportunity to do as much yoga as I choose to in these 3 months. So until April 2 at least, I'll be in a "release mode" in my life. My essential daily work will consist of taking care of the house, the dog, our food and myself. Taking care of myself means doing my very best in my bikram classes to just be in the 90 minute meditation of the class, knowing that in the stillness of my mind and the effort of my body I'll reap the most benefit. It also means spending as much time outside near the trees, mountains and sky as possible. It also means dropping the background anxiety about "doing something" productive with my life. Old habits, old judgements..hence the need for release.
I feel that I'm already getting stronger in the classes; I still get light-headed and overcome by the heat, but I'm becoming more flexible in my body and more tolerant in my mind of the repetition, length of class, dialogue, etc. Friday's class seemed to go by really fast, so I know I was in the zone. I'm recovering more quickly from the classes and tend to look forward to the next day's class. I'm starting to recognize some of the people who attend and even had a conversation with a woman named Laura on Sunday!
After today's class I got a 15 minute chair massage from the in-house massage therapist, a lovely young man named Gabriel who told me that during a regular hour-long massage class, for the price of ten dollars I could upgrade to having him massage me with marijuana-infused coconut oil. You gotta love Boulder.
Thursday, January 3, 2013
Thursday January 3
It's a bright sunny day, promising to get up into the mid-30s. The mountains take on the morning glow which goes from golden to pink depending on the nature of the sunrise over the plains. In the winter we can see the top of Bear and South Boulder Peaks quite clearly, so it's just this beautiful morning ritual to watch the mountains light up. I'll take Enzo for our morning walk in a few minutes.
Temperature regulation is funny here, maybe because of the lack of humidity in the air. We struggle to get the house up to 65, so we're thinking there must not be very good insulation. It's better with a fire in the woodstove. But during the night I've been having either hot flashes or night sweats, waking up and throwing the comforter off, then cooling down too much, starting to shiver and bundling back up. It could be that the comforter is just too thick for 2 people, especially if one of them heats up like a boiler all night long. Then, outside, when you're in the bright sunshine it's really warm, but as soon as you get in a shadow you feel the actual air temperature. The thermodynamicist I live with tried to explain it to me...convection, radiation...all I know is that the sun feels amazing.
I'm pretty darn sore from my first Bikram class yesterday, but I'm going this morning and will keep going. It's both physically and mentally challenging to be in the heat for 90 minutes.
After that I'm meeting our realtor and Mark to see 2 properties; we'll see 2 more tomorrow.
Temperature regulation is funny here, maybe because of the lack of humidity in the air. We struggle to get the house up to 65, so we're thinking there must not be very good insulation. It's better with a fire in the woodstove. But during the night I've been having either hot flashes or night sweats, waking up and throwing the comforter off, then cooling down too much, starting to shiver and bundling back up. It could be that the comforter is just too thick for 2 people, especially if one of them heats up like a boiler all night long. Then, outside, when you're in the bright sunshine it's really warm, but as soon as you get in a shadow you feel the actual air temperature. The thermodynamicist I live with tried to explain it to me...convection, radiation...all I know is that the sun feels amazing.
I'm pretty darn sore from my first Bikram class yesterday, but I'm going this morning and will keep going. It's both physically and mentally challenging to be in the heat for 90 minutes.
After that I'm meeting our realtor and Mark to see 2 properties; we'll see 2 more tomorrow.
Wednesday, January 2, 2013
Day 1
Today, January 2, 2013 is the first day of what I'm calling my sabbatical. It's not an official sabbatical, of course, as I have no intention or ability to return to my job. But it is a sort of sabbatical, a break from my regular life for the purpose of growth in other areas. Health, avocation, relationships, peace...these are some other areas.
My computer clock still reads east-coast time, 8:30am. I know exactly what's happening at Odyssey right now, I know who's already in trouble, I know what the kids are excitedly sharing at morning meeting. I know the volume of emails to be returned, the likelihood that reentry will be difficult for many kids, the number of decisions to make even before the first cup of coffee is cold. And I'm not there. Not ever again, which is really kind of hard to wrap my mind around. In a way it seems like the time between when I gave my notice in September to now was compressed, three months squeezed into a much shorter time. Sitting here now, I'm struggling to not think that I abruptly abandoned the school, just up and walked away from something so important to me. Rationally I know that I did take enough time to make the transition, to leave with grace and integrity. It's just a weird feeling I have that the last 3 months happenened in a blink of an eye and now I live in Colorado and I don't have a job. Time is moving at a faster pace now. Is that because I'm 51 and squarely into the other side of my life? I really don't know, but it does point out the obvious to me:
Here in Boulder with this gift of time I intend to soak it up, to live it fully no matter how ridiculously fast it goes.
I'm starting my 3-month experience at Bikram today. I'm thinking I'll go at least 4 times a week and also get onto the trails several times a week too for a good cardio workout. And during all the other hours....I'll get back to you.
My computer clock still reads east-coast time, 8:30am. I know exactly what's happening at Odyssey right now, I know who's already in trouble, I know what the kids are excitedly sharing at morning meeting. I know the volume of emails to be returned, the likelihood that reentry will be difficult for many kids, the number of decisions to make even before the first cup of coffee is cold. And I'm not there. Not ever again, which is really kind of hard to wrap my mind around. In a way it seems like the time between when I gave my notice in September to now was compressed, three months squeezed into a much shorter time. Sitting here now, I'm struggling to not think that I abruptly abandoned the school, just up and walked away from something so important to me. Rationally I know that I did take enough time to make the transition, to leave with grace and integrity. It's just a weird feeling I have that the last 3 months happenened in a blink of an eye and now I live in Colorado and I don't have a job. Time is moving at a faster pace now. Is that because I'm 51 and squarely into the other side of my life? I really don't know, but it does point out the obvious to me:
Here in Boulder with this gift of time I intend to soak it up, to live it fully no matter how ridiculously fast it goes.
I'm starting my 3-month experience at Bikram today. I'm thinking I'll go at least 4 times a week and also get onto the trails several times a week too for a good cardio workout. And during all the other hours....I'll get back to you.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)