In the early dark light

Sitting here watching the light change, darkening early with the storm of snow drifting in heavier once again, I am enjoying knowing that I am alone, completely right now. It is a lovely combination, no reason to leave this house right now, except perhaps to walk the tenth of a mile to the mailbox, so I can just sit, and zone out, contemplate, watch tv, read, nap, work, or pet the cat. It is a sweet freedom for which I am grateful.

It is a unique confluence of opportunities that has put me here, where I can ponder, reflect and check my center after a delightful, sometimes challenging long visit with BC. We had eight weeks together, doing various holidays where we recreated old traditions and began to carve out new ones together - testing the waters of what a family together might look like. We even had the opportunity to experience a family vacation by going to Disney World, under the guise of BC running the marathonroller coasters for the first time defying my decades old stance of I don't like them, don't do them, have no interest. It turns out they are fun and I rode them like they were nothing. Few screams of alarm leapt out of my mouth, but essentially I just simply enjoyed the sensations. I also challenge my identity of "I don't like amusement parks." It is true they are never going to be my first choice but I can learn how to loosen up and enjoy the moment, especially when with BC and TK.

Since leaving last Tuesday morning it has been a world wind of traveling about. I discovered that I can make the eight hour drive from Cleveland Heights to Brooklyn in one day and not be totally drained. Yeah me! In Brooklyn I stayed with Greg and Janet, working with them on the new database and other business things. We went to see The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. It's been at least a century since I was there! The movie was a visual delight and there was some interesting twists through the psych of various players. As someone who did not really track Heath Ledger's career or death I did not find the interesting device that was created by his absence distracting or hard to sit with, I found it compelling.

Friday I drove to New Paltz to pick up Hrana on the way to 9 Mountain for the DNE Visioning Weekend in Plainfield MA. First we did some shopping at Trader J*e's, stopped for dinner at Paul and Elizabeth's in Northampton, and then hit Dance Spree. I reached 9 Mountain about 12:30am. The weekend was full, fun, loving, and interesting. Getting to spend time with folks that I usually only see once a year was such a delight, it's hard to express how much it satiates my soul to see them. Sunday, after dark I drove to Sunny's so I could accompanying her for an 8:30am appt for an out patient procedure in Manhattan, which took a good portion of the day (she's fine by the way). Wednesday I drove up to New Paltz to arrive at this lovely place and began to settle in for the next month.

Of course true to form my schedule is fuller than I originally had envisioned. Tomorrow I pick up Greg and Janet to visit Alex and Allyson Gray's property in New Hamburg. The weekend after next I will return to Western MA for the DNE budget meeting. A few days after that BC will visit which will be nice after so much time apart.

In the meantime I need to learn how to create a new layout in FileMaker, follow up on a few web based writing opportunities, do my own writing work (I finally bought The Artist's Way after thinking about it for a decade), knit, read, continue to train for my hike and my health, stay in touch with friends, make weekly visits to Sunny for work, etc etc!

While writing this the light has lightened, darkened back up, and is now brighter. The windows to the right of where I sit have a more glow like quality visible as the sun is veiled by thinner clouds and begins to shift downward. Perhaps in the next few hours I will build my first fire, as in the first time I will do this completely by myself, there is no one but myself to lean on. I am loving my approach of just trying things, dropping away the walls that have phrases like, "I might fail," "I can't," "I don't know how," "I'm too scared to try," etched into them. There will be times I will stumble, by blocked by those walls, but it is just temporary, I have the ability to find a way around or through them. This is my mantra.

Now to the southwest there are patches of blue and sunlit clouds.