Falling Upward, Letting Words Pour Through Me

Such a postponed post, but I am back. I re-enter this space with the intention to share and be present. There was so much to stay before I left for my two-month trip to visit family in England and Israel. I'm in England now, on which more in my next posts. Here is Homer the morning I left, sunrise over the glacier. Look at that light, or its insufficient reproduction.

I spent the last week in Anchorage, and thanks to the furlough got to have fun and grand times with my friend Terry, rather than just holing up at her house while she worked as originally planned. Fall colors and gleaming silver birches were spectacular.

Fall it is. Falling rapidly into winter in Alaska. Freezing at night in Anchorage and Homer, snowed in Anchorage already, well into snow in Fairbanks and north.
A perilous time of year. Fall, it's called. When things sink, droop, die, rot, go dormant and rest--toward renewal and regeneration but still a long way off.

I had been falling for so long. I lost friends, I lost work, I felt there was no end to the bottoms. But this Fall, it seems I've been falling upward. I feel more stable than I've felt for almost two years. Almost a different person than I was earlier this year. The ways I was being then feel frightening to me now, as they should, but back then they were inevitable to me. 
At the bottom at that time, I found myself with a mountain of translating to do--the dictionary project that I love so much must end at the close of December. And a book to write! Or something like that anyway, my MFA thesis. Also a critical paper. Work to do. Meaningful work. I've been climbing that mountain. I've been working. Just five weeks out of the hospital now, and I moved twice and flew away. At first, I had no energy, I worked and slept. And ate. And worried, but had less time to do that, because I was working.
I'm working on myself too, on my personal stability and safety. My meds are working well, even though I can no longer take lithium, which I thought worked so well, because of the kidney failure. What I'm taking in place of it is working well in a minuscule dose. Mostly, because I'm not feeling crazy now. A good kind of circular effect--upward spiral?

It seems everyone I know is downsizing, myself included. Coming out of the relatively anchored position of being married to someone who owns a home (albeit tiny) with abundant storage space, where I allowed myself to acquire some heavier possessions (loads of books, extra clothes, VitaMix, dehydrator, rebounder, nonperishable goodies), I'm moving back into my former more itinerant way of being. 
I'm so grateful to my wonderful friends Tom and Jeanie for letting me stay in their home for those first four weeks back in town while they were still in the Arctic. A sacred space, and it was a haven. I'm so grateful that a house-sitting position came through for the winter, so I have a living space (if not a home) to return to when I go back to Alaska in December.
I was pleased that with my car not nearly full...

 ...and one scant pickup load...I was moved!

It was good to have that sense of settledness I did, to allow myself to have possessions like normal grown-ups do; it is good to let that go to some extent. On the other hand, having a stable space to be in is so conducive to my writing, and to mental stability, so I'm going to need to find a middle ground. Either get very good at settling in and making a stable space wherever I go, house-sitting permanently from one place to the next, or having a single space--a room of my own--but with the downsized, spare approach and aesthetic.

Gentle on the ground, portable in my work...Another way I enjoyed Anchorage's splendid fall sunshine last week was working at the library. In an armchair, sunlight floor to ceiling, external keyboard on my lap, doing work I love. 

I used to do this translating in fits and bits, flicking away as it loads up rather slowly, writing email or blog posts in between. I've always used the metaphor of the letter Y or a funnel: I'm translating out of ancient Greek and Italian, and making an English version--two languages pouring through me into one. Now, the process as well as the product is a letter Y, a funnel, letting the words pour through me. I translate in a vortex, my arms, shoulders, wrists getting more and more sore; when the pages are slow to load up I stretch and think about the words I'm working on rather than navigating away and doing something else.
Gratitude that I've been less tired despite the intense mental work; gratitude that I've been working on essays, poems, book reviews, critical paper, and that all the translating work has if anything been inspiring to that.

But now, back to writing on this blog also! That's an awful lot of typing...
When we walked up on this impressive bull moose at Kincaid Park in Anchorage (I hope you can see it--the sun was very bright), I thought of his being in a different universe from typing and writing. And my second thought was how sore his shoulders might get from wearing those antlers on his head everywhere he went.

 Greetings to all. Missed you!