Tags
Earth - I worked my butt off this weekend in my yard. Trees and hedges were trimmed, grass was mowed, weeds sprayed and cut down. In working on my back yard, I discovered that the ground is still so saturated from all the flooding up here this summer, it was like mowing down a swamp. My gas-powered mower was required to get any of the bottom of the yard finished, and even then it kept choking up because of all the wet foliage ground and mashing inside the blades. It was a long, slow process of start – mow- splutter – stop- clear – start again. But I got it done, and after spraying for weeds, at least tentatively, I hope it will help.
It felt great to get my hands elbow-deep in greenery again, though. Trimming away the wild stuff, re-shaping the landscape, there’s a deep sense of accomplishment and personal satisfaction that goes along with finishing the job. There are still a couple of issues that need to be taken care of as far as weeds go, but they are minor clean-up. All in all, I got a lot done, and it looks great again.
AIR~ I love having the wind in my hair. I hate driving with the windows closed, sitting in my house without at least one window open, or the front door, or the ceiling fan in the living room running. Even when it starts to get cooler outside, I want the fan on the furnace running to keep air circulating through the house, and I prefer to have the ceiling fan in the living room going almost non-stop. Even if that means scrunching down under a blanket because it’s getting chilly in the house at night. I don’t care. I hate the closed-in, stale air feeling of a closed up house or car. This is just one of the reasons I don’t care much for winter, or even high summer, for that matter. Both pretty much require having the house and vehicles closed up to alternately run heat or air conditioning. I’d much rather have the freshness of Mother Nature’s breath than the recycled over-heated or over-cooled canned air.
This drives my children crazy. Why? Because there’s always a breeze in the house, sometimes a rather chilly one, and they end up buried in fleece to stay warm. Ah well, can’t please everyone, right? Just mom.
Fire – Seems I had a fire going in my head this weekend. I had a hard time sitting still, and when I tried it, I ended up jumping up just a couple of minutes later, restless and bored silly. Yes, this means I got a lot of work done, inside and outside of the house – but it also means that I started over-analyzing a lot of things in my life (namely, the whole “dating thing”). I’m having trouble reconciling a lot of the things that have been going on, and as much as I want to, I can’t seem to resolve any of the issues involved. I know that I need to break contact with one of the gentlemen I’ve been talking to, as there have been a few “red flags” waved in my face over the last few days. But then, I have trouble with goodbyes. And it would be easier to just fight, and storm off in a rage, but there’s been nothing really to fight about. I can’t just start a fight for the sake of fighting, I hate confrontation.
And I know, in my head, that right now is one of my “Danger-Will-Robinson!” moments. I keep hearing this little pessimistic voice in my head telling me to just “scrap the whole dating thing, it’s never going to work”. Among other nasty little comments I’ve heard my own voice say to me inside over the years. It’s low self-esteem, and a fear of getting hurt that jump in and tell me to RUN AWAY – BAIL! I’m tired of running, but I’m scared. Never a good combination.
Which leads me to…..
WATER ~ Emotionally, I’m about 2 minutes from digging a hole, crawling in it, and pulling the rock over the top to hide under for a while. I know what drives this flight response, but I can’t seem to fight it. Anxiety about the unknown. It’s terrifying. I told friends on Facebook the other night that I was going into “lurk mode”. I do this from time to time, when I’m emotionally exhausted, or scared of a situation. I feel like I’ve been swept out by a riptide, and can no longer touch bottom. I need the water to wash away all this fear-stink and buoy me up so I can swim to the shore.
Physically? I’ve had enough of water to last for a long, long time. I still love the sound that the rain makes when it hits the roof at night, and in fact, it rained again tonight. There was a crack of thunder so loud at the beginning of the storm, that my children both jumped and looked to me to assure them that it hadn’t actually hit our front yard. But again, there’s still so much water soaked into the ground here that I could probably grow lily pads in my back yard – and not have to water them for a month. We. Don’t. Need. Any. More. Rain. As much as I love the sound the water makes as the drops hit the roof, I cringe whenever I hear it start, because then I think about where all that water’s going to go…namely, probably my basement, again.
Take all these elements and put them together, and you get the fifth element – the human element of :
SPIRIT. Mine has been rather “turtlish” lately. Namely, tucked in and hiding from things that frighten it. I suppose it’s a natural reaction, but I’m tired of hiding. Tired of running. There are things I still need to finish (like the novel – no, I didn’t forget about it, I just… set it aside, afraid to finish), and there are other things that need doing. Both within and without, to bring my balance back. I’m working on them, slowly but surely.
And someday, I might even get there.
That’s a beautiful image. The weather does seem to be weird this year. Summer took extra long to get here. Our garden and the blackberries seem to be 1 to 2 months behind schedule. The garden is looking rather sickly this year.
We can talk ourselves into almost anything. It’s hard, but you should really watch for and listen to what those red flags are telling you. Are they real or imaginary? You need to know. You don’t want to let anxiety make a mountain out a molehill, but on the other hand some red flags might be little lines in the sand that must not be crossed.
It sounds like you want to be dating. Try to do it on your terms. There’s plenty of time and no need to rush or compromise on anything. You’ll know when it feels right.
Beautiful post.
I love to have my windows open and truly dread winter when they are closed. Whenever I visit my parents in the summer they use central air conditioning and I hate it. The worst is around 2 am when it’s cool outside and we have all the windows closed. I wake up feeling like I’m suffocating. I open all the windows in the room and go back to sleep. I don’t care if the central air turns on again – I need real air!
Pingback: Just breathe « Retrograde Learning
This is a fabulous post. I’ve been feeling swimmy and disjointed for a while, and I think it’s because I’m trying to quantify the whole without really looking at the parts. .
By the way, I’m with you when it comes to the wind in my hair, and circulating air!