Blossom Evolution

Hello loves,

After reading your posts, I have been thinking about all of this, all of us, being in this phase of life together. Being the elder of the group (ha, I am so wise and old!), I have identified so completely with everything you guys have been saying. That grasping of deeper purpose and direction that comes with this moment in life, and for me, a definite need to ground in and take root in a place to call home. ...That could of course be due to our extreme nomadic nature of the last few years, but I think it is also due to the phase that Pat and I have entered in life. I never thought I would be at a place where settling down was as exciting as backpacking foreign countries. But whoa! We have arrived! And yes, we still want to backpack and roam, but we need a friggin' root system that is strong and stable.

In moving back to the area that was home as a child, I have been so comforted. It has all the things we love-- ocean, mountains, and friendly, bright folks that are into things like raising chickens, collecting sap and raising goats, not for milk or cheese, but merely because of the fact that they are cute...which I find extremely valid. Pat and I just kind of looked at each other one day and said "Oh my gosh! We're home!" That has led us to put an offer on a house, (for which we are currently under contract!! you guys omg!!) and made us look at our lives and our dreams in a magnified way. It's the sifting through that is tricky-- the sampling of jobs, the experimenting with interests, finding that thing that makes your heart expand and makes joy erupt in your bones. For a long time, I thought that thing for me was teaching. And the process of finding out that teaching school might not be what I thought it was for me has been hard and disappointing, but illuminating in a big way. The thing is, I have realized that while I adore kiddos and have a knack for teaching, that doesn't mean that I have to love it as a practice or that I have to continue to do it. Because unless it feeds me in a deeper way, what the hell is the point?

Pat and I have been saying the phrase "Go get it!" to each other a lot these days. Go and get that thing that makes you feel freaking awesome and inspired and excited about living. He has found his thing and watching him unfold within in it has been such a treat! He comes home with work goggles forgotten on his head and sawdust in his beard after sharing a scotch with his boss at the end of the day. He looks like he is glowing! My hunt continues, but it is getting clearer and clearer everyday. I still want to help people a bunch
and think about caregiving in some way or another all the time. And other signs keep showing up and the universe keeps saying "hey idiot! you sold another big painting today! be a fucking artist!"

I had a thought the other day that I am going to start thinking of myself and other people as blossoms. Like intricately layered roses. Instead of a linear evolution, we all have these layers to ourselves-- different interests, passions, ideas, and we live them out as they unfold. So I don't need to say "I am a teacher" or "I am an artist", but rather "I'm a human!" And in being a human, we have the gift of being able to explore so many things, and to BE so many things. So now, rather than trying to define myself by my work, I am going to define myself by what I love, what feeds me and helps me grow as a person and a spirit. And that may shift over time. That's okay. It's all a part of the unfolding; the delicate and bold blossoming of becoming something beautiful.

Life Decisions are Hard/A Very Similar Post to Lisa's

Two weekends ago Antonio fell asleep while driving home after the night shift. He was very lucky that he was on our road going slow, that he only hit a couple of parked cars, and that no one (including himself) was hurt. His car is toast. It's left us both feeling kind of shaken, and feeling that something has to change.

Between this job and the railroad he's been doing night shifts for 3 years. For 1.5 years of that I've been fighting off almost nightly panic attacks triggered by being alone at night. For some reason we just keep toiling through all this because most of the time it seems like there isn't a choice. But now it feels like something is shifting.

We love Denver and Colorado, but we're both super unhappy with our jobs. We're making more money than we used to, but feeling more stuck than we used to because of the higher cost of living in a city. We miss friends and family. Is this adulthood? At the same time we're getting more opportunities with art and writing and yoga, though they don't pay well yet. At the same time we're enjoying the new adventures, opportunities, people, and cultures here. At the same time we're feeling thankful to have enough money and food, to have a roof over our head, and to have each other.

What's the next step? Do we find new work? Have we just gotten too serious and focused on survival that we need to make more time for happiness? Do we get ready to head back to New England? I wish signs were a little bit clearer.

I shall brighten this post with a cute Puff picture! :)

Who are you St. Paddy?

How widespread is the celebration of St. Patrick's Day? One of my coworkers from California has been looking forward to this day for over a week while an Egyptian coworker was clueless that this was a thing celebrated in the US. Oddly enough, the Egyptian was familiar with the Dropkicks while miss California was not.

According to wikipedia, the highest of resources, St. Patrick's Day is on the death of St. Patrick and celebrates Christianity coming to Ireland as well as "celebrates the heritage and culture of the Irish in general." Where is the day for the French Canadians? Apparently, the lenten restrictions on eating and drinking were traditionally lifted on this day - thus why everyone gets hammered. Perhaps this is why it is celebrated in more countries than any other national festival including Argentina, Australia, and New Zealand. The whole thing about the snakes isn't true as I guess Ireland really doesn't have many but is a metaphor for him converting people to Christianity and driving inconvertible druids out of the country. Hey, I think I write a better summary that wiki btw.

Nowadays, it is said Irish-Americans are the most feverish of this "holy day" although I'm not sure wearing "Kiss me, I'm Irish" t-shirts and downing beer and whiskey is the most religious of practices but hey, it's hard not to join in with a drunken merry group that proclaims that everyone is Irish on St. Paddy's. Reading on, Ireland and Great Britain have a public holiday and fancy parades. When it goes on to talk about American celebrations wiki literally has three sentences:

"St Patrick's Day, while not a legal holiday in the United States, is nonetheless widely recognised and observed throughout the country as a celebration of Irish and Irish-American culture. Celebrations include prominent displays of the colour green, religious observances, numerous parades, and copious consumption of alcohol. The holiday has been celebrated in North America since the late 18th century."

Canada however seems to be as legit as Britain and the motherland, Ireland, with Montreal leading the pack. Fun fact: The Toronto Maple Leaves used to be the Toronto St. Patricks and had green Jerseys! So maybe, just maybe, there is some mix of French Canadian and Irish blood and I really do have some Irish in me! Alanna, Nina, and Pat, I am one of you too!

I also have to include the wiki section about how people in space celebrate. Yes, that's right, Space St. Paddys:

"Astronauts on board the International Space Station have celebrated the festival in different ways. Irish-American Catherine Coleman played a hundred-year-old flute belonging to Matt Molloy and a tin whistle belonging to Paddy Moloney, both members of the Irish music group The Chieftains, while floating weightless in the space station on Saint Patrick's Day in 2011. Her performance was later included in a track called "The Chieftains in Orbit" on the group's album, Voice of Ages.

Chris Hadfield took photographs of Ireland from earth orbit, and a picture of himself wearing green clothing in the space station, and posted them online on Saint Patrick's Day in 2013. He also posted online a recording of himself singing "Danny Boy" in space."

No matter where we celebrate, it is a day to blast the Pogues, talk in horrible Irish accents, and wish we were partying with Michael Fassbender [and party in the best sense of party ;)]. Oh yeah, and wear green. So despite being in retreat on Friday into Saturday morning, maybe I'll find a moment to down a few car bombs and quote the dropkicks to a half decent looking man "kiss me, I'm shit faced."

So happy Irish day y'all, well, two days early.

The Big EW

Three o'clock in the morning sitting at our kitchen table with my laptop in front of us I was ready to punch Anthony. Oddly enough, he was helping me. I was failing my exisistentialism class not surprisingly as I spent most classes with my head down on the desk despite my best efforts to stay awake and Anthony had agreed to edit my final paper of which most of my grade relied upon. What the prompt was, I don't remember and I do remember summarizing Camus's views on the "point of living." Honestly, it may not have been Camus I was writing about but the only texts I remember reading are The Myth of Sisyphus and Beckett's Waiting For Godot. So to get on with the story: the essay was about someone's view that we were to live to spite living because there isn't a meaning to life.
The meaning of life truly is an existential wonder. As one that's struggled with suicidal thoughts since puberty it can sometimes be a question I grapple with daily if not hourly especially as a "spiritual" person. My recent car crash has put things more clearly. I now disagree with whomever we were studying and I believe in the "greater purpose" or power whatever it is. It can be the only explanation. I went off the icy road, over a ditch, rolled in my car between trees to land unharmed - except emotionally - and back to work and driving my car the next day. Not a scratch, not a bruise, no whiplash, nada.
A few days after the accident I went back to pick up any debris left by the car as I had promised the owners, who gave me a cup of tea and a warm place to wait on the 19 degree night, I would. There was nothing left. One of them must have already come to clean up. In daylight I was able to see that I slid off in safest place. With trees on either side and a rock wall beyond, I would have been hospitalized had I made impact with anything.
So maybe I'm lucky. But luck seems to be too easy of an explanation. So now I'm left to wonder, "Why am I here? What's my greater purpose?"