Finally Feeling Spring

"When spring came, even the false spring, there were no problems except where to be happiest. The only thing that could spoil a day was people and if you could keep from making engagements, each day had no limits. People were always the limiters of happiness except for the very few that were as good as spring itself."

 ~Ernest Hemingway

A Moveable Feast

The battle is officially over! We are satisfied with the result. It will be enough to move on, and pay some bills off, and get settled into a new place. There are still some details to be ironed out, minor things like the date we will receive the check, and there will probably be a nondisclosure on names, dates, and amount of the settlement, but that's just the usual behind the scenes workings, no additional drama will take place. So, all that's left to do now is to finish the packing, and finding a new place to call home. Fortunately, we have found a really nice, and very helpful real estate professional to guide us through the next steps in this big adventure. So with the biggest part of this behind us now, I have been reassessing how I feel about things.

Q1. With the settlement check on it's way, am I still angry?

A1. You bet I am! I have forgiven the situation, but in truth, that is more for me than for them. Forgiving means you can move on with your life. It means you can heal. But will I forget? NOT LIKELY.

Q2. Will I still be grieving the loss of the cottage a year from now?

A2. A part of me will always miss this cottage. It was our home for 14 years. There was a lot of joy, and happiness that took place here, as well as a lot of pain from grieving the loss of Elvis, Alan's brother Daryl and June, my dear friend, as well as missing friends who had to move on for one reason or another. I still think of the last conversation I had with Mr. November. I was sitting at my desk, and it was goodbye. But that memory is just that, a memory. And I can keep it with me always, wherever I go. This cottage has been the place I can shut my eyes, and feel what I need to feel as I move through life. But when we find the new place, I know I will come to think just as fondly about it, and feel just as comfortable, as I have here. And I will love it for it's own merits. 

Alan and I are an unbeatable team. When someone put our family in jeopardy, we hugged each other and went into battle. Like a few times before, we thrived in a dark time. Trust in marriage really is the key to everything. Supporting each other daily, so the other one knows, even with just a hug, that no matter what... we are each other's priority... that is what makes our marriage work! It's a strange feeling to know that ours will be the last love story the cottage will have in it. And sometime in the next few months it will be torn to the ground, but I am hoping the rose garden I planted will somehow tell whoever ends up purchasing the property that love existed here. A deep, trusting, funny, silly, surreal, kind, steady, romantic love. And there was much more joy here than there ever was sorrow.

Mood: HAPPY

~Me :)

Heels... And The Shoes They Wear

"If you were to ask me what's under my bed, I'd tell you shoes. They're brown, and they're still attached to the body that's been decomposing there since I hid it three days ago."

~Jarod Kintz

This Book Is Not For Sale

Finally... we arrive at Friday. It's been a long week, and at the same time, the last 3 weeks have flown by. Time is a strange thing isn't it? Alan went back to work yesterday, and slowly, but surely, I am returning to something resembling my life prior to the big reveal that I have been living in an illegal apartment for 14 years...well, it will be 14 years on May 2nd. I still plan to celebrate it, as I have done each year since we moved it. It is my place of safety, my comfort, and while there is now some tragedy attached to all the memories we made here, there are still some moments of great joy that I will never erase from my memories. Like the day we brought Hendrix home. After Elvis's death, it was so quiet in here but along came that little force of nature, Hendrix, and he helped Alan and I through our grief.

It's an odd thing... I keep finding pairs of shoes in different parking lots throughout the East Bay. This the fourth pair I have found since the beginning of the year! Is it the Year Of The Shoe? I thought every year was the Year Of The Shoe. LOL. I just packed 3 boxes with nothing but shoes. Boots. Flats. Canvas Deck Shoes. A pair of tennis shoes that used to belong to Alissa Milano I bought of eBay. LOL. Yep, I am one of those girls. I like shoes. I think you can tell a lot about a person by the kind of shoes they wear. Take the man criminal who I used to call Mr. Landlord... he wore some expensive brown leather shoes, that were strangely scuffed. I always found that a curiosity. Of course now I see that he probably scuffed them while trying to wade through his own bullshit. It's not easy being a brown heel I suppose.

Mood: Okay

~Me :)

The World Offers Itself To Your Imagination

Bird In The Tree

Land's End

San Francisco, California

April 2nd, 2015

"You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you of mine.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, not matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting...

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things."

~Mary Oliver

Believe it or not, that is not a bird drawn in the tree, that is how it appears naturally. The tree is located in the parking lot of the San Francisco overlook, Land's End. Isn't it awesome?

Mood: Tired

~Me :)

The Art Of Floating

"It's a very beautiful day. The woman looks around and thinks: there cannot ever have been a spring more beautiful than this. I did not know until now that clouds could be like this. I did not know that the sky is the sea and that clouds are the souls of happy ships, sunk long ago. I did not know that the wind could be tender, like the hands as they caress... what did I know... until now?"

~Unica Zurn

Mood: Ready For A Monday

~Me :)

Is Age Really Just A Number?

"I'm not young enough to everything."

~Oscar Wilde

Is age really just a number? HELL yes, and I feel like I am 114! Maybe it's just all the stress and packing. The unknown future. Maybe I am just quickly becoming an old coot! I don't know, but I do know, as Mary Engelbreit said, "Time flies whether your having fun or not." But I also know that, "this too shall pass." funny thing about that phrase... some think King Solomon said it, but it's not so, in fact that phrase is not to be found in any translation of the Bible. Others believe it comes from an Old English poem, while still others think it comes from Persian Sufi poets. LOL. Hey, at least I am not old enough to confirm any of those theories! LOL!

Mood: Happy

~Me :)