Being Grateful for the Process When The Goals Seem Insurmountable

My home
My Joy
Is Barred and Bolted
And I...
Won't Letcha In.

Kate Bush - The Dreaming

My partner and I bought this house in September, 2004. I cannot believe that nearly six years have passed since we moved in and began the process of renovation. We knew this would be no overnight project, but we certainly did not anticipate that it would take all of six years.

I chose the above verse from a Kate Bush song because for six years this house has all but been barred and bolted. Our visions of gatherings 'round sizzling barbecues or nights spent around a game board have been placed on hold until the renovations made the house hospitable. Yet, what defines hospitable?

As happened with the death of my father, I am awakening to the onslaught of time and yet another ungentle dose of reality, which, put simply is that I may be waiting a very long time until my visions become reality, and in the interim life streaks by me.

How can I alter this reality that has come to dominate my life? How do I encapsulate the larger than life, what cannot be accomplished in a day's work into an achievement that can be appreciated at the end of a day?

These and many other answered questions await me each morning when I pop out of bed. They would overwhelm me if I didn't take a moment to meet with my Maker for some much needed guidance. If I spend a few minutes just sitting quietly thinking about God and am grateful for all that God has created in this world, I can gain the perspective I need to confront the daily projects.

As I see it, the Maker didn't necessary create the world in which I live just for me, yet I have never failed to find something in it that touched me deeply. Perhaps I should do as the Maker does and be joyous in the creation, and let those around me share my joy as they are able at their own pace. Some of what I make may not be meaningful to one, but will be to another. What one cannot appreciate, another will even as I have waxed hot or cold to the elements in the world around me.

I will strive only to be happy with the work of my own hands, and the blessings of the Maker delighting in what each day brings to me. Whatever I do has been done before, but not in my unique way. I believe that it pleases the teacher to see the student find solutions each in his or her own way.

Converting a Patch of Quicksand into a Patch of Dandelions

My moods can swing as swiftly as the stars careening through the sky on a cold Alaska evening. Sometimes the pace at which they alter troubles me, but lately not as much as they have in times past. I have this buffer now between my thoughts and corresponding emotions. I can pause for just a brief second before my emotions run roughshod over me leaving me full of remorse or regret.

My emotions have been difficult to cope with since my dad's death. Some days every good emotion was immediately followed with the thought that something bad would happen, and my spirits fells. Other days, no happy feelings existed at all. My chest felt like quicksand sucking thoughts and emotions into it to swirl around in a morass of self pity and even despair.

How does one pull the plug on a tub of quicksand? I don't think you can, but I could do was back fill it feeding more emotion into to create a more stable platform on which to stand.

If my thoughts were negative, I let them pour forth, but not without blessing them with a rational thought or two. For instance, the emotion of sadness was fortified with the thought that I deserved to grieve because grieving made me stronger, honored my father, and if allowed to run its course would allow me to move. I resisted the urge to quell my feelings. The quicksand thickened. The positive nature of my thought words restored the pH balance of my emotions. The quicksand turned to nutrient rich soil wherein happier emotions could take root and produce tender shoots. I tended my new found garden with more positive affirmations turning sadness to contentment. I greeted all emotion with joy letting the feelings wash through me. They collected in the quagmire and were treated with a compost of my own making: a collection of past happy memories of events related to the negative emotions, and a mental picture of how the present sadness would morph into a pleasant future. The quagmire turned to soil and from the soil sprang my favorite ground cover - the dandelion.

You can eat the leaves of the dandelion while they are young and tender. You can harvest the roots and consume them as well in a tea infusion. Dandelions excel at surviving. When the soil beneath them begins to run fallow, they will kick into overdrive and produce flowers in great abundance. Those flowers transform into the most beautiful fuzzy tendrils with seeds at the ends of their lengths. When the winds pick up, the dandelions produce some sort of chemical that relaxes the follicles holding the seed stems, and they are released into the wind. The wisps on the seed stems are perfect air foils and the seeds are carried to far reaches in the hopes that at least some of them will find ripe soil in which to grow.

Dandelions do not horde their life energy. They instinctively know to release the bounty of their offspring to chance. All life is chance, and no amount of clinging to it will change that fundamental concept. My life is extraordinary, and what I have experienced, good and bad, should be released. The seeds of my emotions and thoughts will not be corralled into tiny pockets of memories to be stored forever as personal treasures. Each thought must be free to compliment each emotion. Memories must be pliable enough to transformation lest negative ones grow unabated into pools of quicksand that cannot support new life, or positive ones become monuments to joys that can never be matched causing regret to the heart that holds them.

I release the bounty of my life to the wind, and I laugh as they climb unfettered into the atmosphere that has sustained my breath. Who knows where they will land and into what substrate they will take root, or even if I will witness that burst of life or gentle withering. Even the withered ones will replenish the soil upon which they landed, and even in passing they will provide nourishment. I am content for now just to witness them dance and whirl about me as they do what all life must do - change. I can stand upon my once unstable patch of quicksand and know that I have stepped back to allow the Master Gardner to do His work, and that I need not fear being sucked down into its depths. I am free, happy and blessed.

4th of July at Fort Ticonderoga

Yesterday was yet another magical day spent with family in New York. My second cousins, Aurora and Edan, kept me occupied most of the day with swimming and archery. I really liked the archery. I enjoy letting myself get lost in the rhythm of notching an arrow, drawing the bow, sighting the target and releasing the string. The arrow striking the target with a solid thump is very satisfying.

My cousins and I swam as much as possible. There are two beaches at the Y. The one on the point offers the most room. Aurora dove for mussels and snails letting me inspect each one as it was retrieved. Edan caught me up on the history of the resort, as details of her family's move from Albany to L.A.

I bought a kite to fly on the commons by the tennis courts, but by the time I finished meditating with my Uncle and some of his friends, the wind had stopped blowing and the bugs had launched into the warm, hot air from their blades of grass. Although they don't bite me, they can be quite annoying. I fled the commons giving over the field to God's most persistent creatures.

The family gathered at the dining hall for a very nice dinner. Everyone visited each table and chatted in a natural ebb and flow of conversation. The children bubbled as children do, and there was joy.

Sometime around eight, my cousin Aaron, began the process of gathering family and friends together in an effort to get us all to the fireworks display to be held in the town of Ticonderoga. Gathering a McEwen is no easy task. They have very long legs and can be pleasantly unpredictable. Watching the gathering event was in and of itself enjoyable. I claim no superiority of time management, for if I were with my clan, I doubt I would have been much better able to get from point A to point B.

Eventually all were gathered into various cars and vans, and we all drove to the town. Amazingly enough, we found everyone very easily. The group split into two groups with one group opting to remain at the fire station, and the other heading further into town in search of the mythical carnival grounds. I was apart of the second group.

Our group found a nice hill on which to sit. The toy boys in our bunch made good use of the slope rolling down it and running back up it repeatedly until dusk fell. The grandmothers asked them to remain close to us so they could be seen and tracked. One grandmother bought them a ring of glowing stuff with which they played until the fireworks started.

The fireworks were spectacular as only fire works can be, and we all oohed and awed. After the final burst, we quickly made our way back to the outskirts of town and found the first group who apparently had had sprinklers turned on them just after we split up. Tired and happy we drove back to the cabin. My Uncle dropped me off, and went straight to bed.

What an incredible day!

Welcome to Silver Bay YMCA of the Adirondacks

A Wedding in the Beautiful Adirondacks

Today I am joyously occupied with activities and sightseeing. My cousin got married last night in the chapel at the Silver Bay YMCA. The wedding was as all weddings are simply magical. The chapel were they took their vows was built in the late eighteen hundreds. It is of the sort you find all over the east coast with walls erected of local stone, and a high vaulted ceiling made of locally milled lumber.

The theme for the reception was Scotland where the two newly weds will spend their honeymoon. The guest tables represented the isles of Scotland, and each guest knew their seating arrangements by looking for their names on the rocks at the sign in table. On the backs of the rocks was writ the name of the isle or table where they were to sit. Beautiful.

Everyone made merry. The children, many and varied in age, height, gender and temperament, danced until the staff shut the ball room. Those who chose to imbibe of spirits did so with gleeful abandon having no worries of driving home.

I have reconnected with my family on my father's side, and I am thrilled to have this opportunity.

I arose this morning filled with energy. I began with a thirty minute run, then donned my swimsuit and did a few laps in the lake. Wow. You can actually swim in the water. It was cold, but the body adjusted quickly and the joy of swimming in a lake overwhelmed me. I cried. What else could I do?

After meditation, I went down to the boat house and checked out a kayak. The livery master suggested I head into the wind south on the lake, Lake George. I took his advice and went about a mile down to a point. The lake stretches out quite a ways, several miles perhaps, but I do not really care for the details of its geography. I yelled as the bow of the kayak cut into the foot chops spraying me with copious amounts of warm water. Such a rush! I am not afforded these opportunities in Alaska where the water can kill the unwary. I gave myself over to the rhythm of the strokes. Getting back was bit trickery as I had to adjust for following seas but the peace and quiet on the water made it worth the effort.

The day has not even begun to unfold. The wedding couple reserved the archery range for one p.m. Adults and small children will be notching arrows. Oh, pray that we all emerge from the experience unscathed.

I am the sole representative from my father's lineage. I am a bit sad, but feel privileged as well. I want to carry on my Grandma Fuller's tradition of keeping in touch with family and friends. I felt her spirit at the wedding. I had to stifle the urge to break out into a soulful rendition of "Sunrise, Sunset" from the musical Fiddler on the Roof. It was one of Grandma's favorites. Sigh. I resisted the urge, and let the moment pass. Still, it could still happen....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjOF6byeKEI