The View From Here/Up For This Week

The View From Here

It is ironic, when there are still several feet of snow on the ground in the higher parts of town, that this is such a dry place. The whole of last week was glorious sunshine, daytime temperatures in the 40s (getting to be too hot for Phil, beginning to approach my comfort zone, which is above 60). And the ground was drying out fast, as fast as we could plant it! We've used up almost all of our (admittedly meager) rainwater catchment. Today is the first overcast day for a week, and we're hoping that we'll get some rain on those little seedlings. 

That little moose that hung around our cabin throughout the big blizzard in March has been back daily, has eaten the tops off of all our currant bushes (damn!) and, small though she is, is more than a match for our tiny garden plants that are already pitting themselves in a race against the short season here. We may need to resort to more robust fencing than the stakelines designed to keep our friends' and neighbors' dogs from trampling everything…

Looking out from inside of me, the view from here is confused and low: looking outside of myself really is what I have to keep on doing, just keeping busy, so as not to sink back into despair. I have at least moved out of the intense death wish that possessed me for a week or two, but trying to ask myself what I want instead merely yields great confusion, so 'looking out' seems like a good idea, and keeping as busy as my energy allows.

Up For This Week

And so, looking out and keeping busy, up for this week is also some 'manifestation.' I swept the floor in the cabin this morning, which I hadn't done for way too long, and am ready to manifest a vacuum cleaner that is bag-less, quiet and functional. We have a big old deafeningly loud one that neither one of us can stand, and last I tried it wouldn't even turn on. Phil is convinced that he can fix it, but it's always going to be a low priority and I'd rather have a small, quiet one that actually fits in our corners anyway! So, for months, I've been sweeping with dustpan and brush, which is probably how I've cleaned for at least half my life anyway, but with the amount of dust and dirt here it's not very effective.

Does anyone have a recommendation for a bag-less, quiet vacuum cleaner? Do you like to clean? Do you use it as 'distraction/therapy' when feeling down? Or do you loathe it and avoid at all costs?

I'm also ready to manifest a camera that actually works. I wish I could have taken some pictures of the little moose again, and that baby rhubarb that I showed sprouting up a couple weeks ago now has chubby little stalks on it! An ironic thing, when I've been feeling like 'checking out,' that I seem to be finding 'things' to want that will bolster my feeling of participation.

I'm still, I guess, trying to find my own answers to my question of last week - 'why do we go on?'

One last little thought: last Friday the naturopath decided I needed an IV, and he prefers the veins in my left arm, which leaves me stuck in more than one way, since I'm left-handed! This time, I had to fill out some insurance forms for a couple blood draws and did so, rather messily, with my right hand whilst having the IV. As I went on with it, slowly, slowly, it forcibly struck me that my right-handed writing is so very inept purely through lack of practice. And I wondered what sorts of corners of my brain were getting stimulated by the unaccustomed use. I may have more to say about that later.

Last week I barely talked about food at all. Maybe this week I will some. 

Last week I posted some of my poems but no wordstalk: this week there will be one.