Sensory OVERLOAD

Alas, I cannot update the blog much at the moment - because house repairs/updates from the flood of last year are in full swing, and HOLY MOLY the amount if noise and shuffling and weeding of possessions and all sorts of furniture and containers and belongings in places where they should not be and clutter and detritus and strangers in the house disrupting the flow of my activities and HELP ME I CAN BARELY FUNCTION. 

I have never wanted more desperately than I do now, to have a safe, quiet, calm place to Just Be. But no. 

And because of Reasons I do not want to talk about, having strangers moving family possessions around in our spaces is upsetting in a very visceral way. These are very nice people, respectful of our things, efficient and hard workers. But I still want to scream, because of Old Buried-and-now-Resurfacing... Trauma (the word, perhaps overly used in pop culture these days, seems appropriate). Beloved Husband, who has not had the experiences I have had, cannot understand. So I must power through the difficulties I am experiencing solo. 

The house will be lovely when it is done, to be sure. My nerves will be frayed. But perhaps once stillness settles over the house again, I will feel better. 

I need a nest. Or a hollowed-out tree. Or the safety of larger-than-life arms to encircle me and tell me it will all be OK (and mean it).  Arms that will not be bothered when I am twitchy or tearful or bent out of shape by the goings on. Because no matter how stoic I try to be, I can only contain so much MUCHNESS at once. 

One day at a time. 

Thirty-Four

 Herself speaks.

Beloved Husband and I have been married for nearly fifty nine percent of my lifetime now.  For some reason, it feels as though it has gone by quickly. Or perhaps the memories of the earlier years become crowded and compacted, like layers of sediment, by the later years. 

Every now and then, a piece of our shared history is unearthed, especially now as we are doing some much-needed upgrades to the house. I wade through a container of grade-school papers from the Offspring, or find an occasional photo from Days of Yore. I sort the box of little T shirts that our elderly rescue dogs wore for comfort. That little hook there? My Dad gave it to us, because it matched the decor in that bathroom -- I'd forgotten until Beloved Husband reminded me. Little pieces of an entire life, slowly being weeded and organized. It's odd, after years of organic chaos of Offspring and pets and Everything, to slowly and methodically tidy all the pieces of our life together.

There's such a sense of -- Completion? Empty nest? -- without any Offspring or dogs or any pets that make noise (the sound of bunnies rummaging in hay is not loud enough to count) on weekends. I feel old? Or tired? Perhaps it is time to plan some new adventures, as we step into this next phase of life. 

We travel on. And time moves ever swifter. 

Little by Little

A little Duolingo gets done. 

White Sands/Moonrise

 Full moon, August 9. Lovely.

Fifty-eight

Well, I'm fifty-eight.
It is perilously close
To sixty years old.

On the other hand,
This means I can pick and choose
Which f*cks I will give.

Towering

The kitties sure do enjoy their new tower. 

Nice. 

Time Flies/Dragonflies

Facebook flashback reminded me that this beautiful photo was taken ten years ago. 

How I miss those times: walks in the Albuquerque Biopark, conversation and creatures and quiet. It's almost a visceral sorrow, knowing that those days will never come again. 

Sometimes, I am tired of carrying around the sadness of all the losses, small and large, in all their permutations, from the past several years. 

But what is sorrow, after all, besides love with nowhere to go? 

August Aspiration

I am working on taking better care of myself. 

Someone should take decent care of me. And it turns out that I am that someone.