October 26, 2021

Me

The State of Things :: October 2021

I'm sitting in a rental house outside of Abiquiu, New Mexico, in a shabby, purple velvet chair. My husband is cooking dinner (chicken with red chile, and broccoli) and the sun just set. The cottonwoods are glowing yellow in the remaining light--the leaves swishing to the ground... We are here for a week, just roaming. My husband wants to move from Santa Barbara and we aren't sure why. I especially am not sure why, but I like adventure, and am willing to cock my ear and listen. 

Before we left for New Mexico it was the typical end-of-summer stuff. Beach days...

Harvesting the food/fruit that we grow. Writing stories. Homeschooling, laughing at our dog (who is afraid of flies),

me trying to be a better friend/daughter/mother/wife.

For the last few months, I have been spending a lot of time trying to support my youngest son in his desire to become a film scorer. He is on a mission to listen in real time, play, and record for his own use instruments from all over the world. Last month I arranged for a young man who plays the violin and the accordion to visit our backyard, along with a friend who plays all sorts of African drums. I am hunting down an organist to visit, and while playing O Susanna on the harmonica, we learned that our dog likes to sing along! I've listened to countless soundtracks these last many months while driving my son back and forth across town--like that of the video game, Ori. Suddenly I hear music differently.

Meanwhile, Covid is and isn't. It is, because we just had an almost near friend, younger than ourselves, pass away from it. Lord, have mercy. It isn't, because we sort of wear masks now, and go about life close to normally. What a weird dichotomy. It's hard for me to wrap my head around it all.

I am watching a Korean drama with my son, because the protagonist acts like a gentleman, and I want my son to know what a gentleman is. Are there even gentlemen anymore portrayed in the media? 

And lastly, I can still do a cartwheel. 

I hope I can do cartwheels for another 20 years. I am feeling like it's time to become an athlete again. I'm not sure what that means in real life, but between March and August I lost seven pounds. After a year or two of trying to get rid of this weird middle that was developing, I finally decided to track calories and increase my time moving. I did my typical stretches and exercises each morning before prayer, but then I added a long walk in the evenings. Careful of my calorie intake, which also pushed me to make sure that each calorie had the most nutrition possible, I started losing weight just a couple of ounces at a time. It took all of those months to get rid of that middle, but now it's gone and I'm thinking of either finding a dance class, or a martial arts class. I miss movement a lot. I miss being really strong, and able to leap and tumble and fly! Any thoughts? 

That's the current state of things. Today I have a work meeting from our little rental house to talk about progress on an upcoming coloring book. Once it's done I'll lace up my boots and we'll head out to explore some more, crocheting while my husband drives, toting along a notebook and my field watercolor set just in case. Tomorrow we head to a monastery for evening vespers. 

Hope you're all well! Sending love...