At home

The front yard, the front of the house, and the pond escaping its usual confines.

I’ve always tried to make a home for myself, but I have not felt at home in myself. I’ve worked hard at being the hero of my own life. But every time I checked the register of displaced persons, I was still on it. I didn’t know how to belong. Longing? Yes. Belonging? No.

~ Jeanette Winterson, Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?

When you are born–what you are born into, the place, the history of the place, how that history mates with your own– stamps who you are, whatever the pundits of globalisation have to say.

~ Jeanette Winterson, Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?

The storm before Christmas brought flooding.

Happy New Year!  You probably have your own hopes and wishes and blessings for the new year.  I will add to those, if it’s okay with you, my wishes for you to find peace, love, and joy.  May they be present in your life as often as possible.  May they be the core of your presence.

How were your holidays?  What did you celebrate?  How did you celebrate?

The backyard was flooded. We’ve never seen the water this high before.

I went adventuring again.  Hence the lack of posting.  We went to the Bogs, as I used to call it, for the holidays.  Back to Ohio where the most important members of our family reside.  It was lovely to see everyone and somehow — call it a miracle, if you wish — we have not yet gotten sick.  M and I have been home since Saturday and I suspect that we’d be showing signs of a cold or something by now if we were going to get sick.

We had a wonderful time with our sons, their wives, and our grandchildren.  There were glitches here and there, but nothing major and everything worked out fine.  Travel to and from was relatively uneventful in spite of the weather trying to make it otherwise.

Flooding in the front meadow, something I have never seen.

I decided on, settled on, “Home” as my word/theme for the year. “Teach” and “Beauty” want to hang around with “Home” and that feels appropriate.  It seems to me that beauty and teaching should begin at home whether we think of home as within us (intuition, heart, wisdom, the wisdom of heart, the temple of our soul) or as a place outside of us.  (See this post if you’re not sure why I bring up “Teach” and “Beauty.”)  I believe the word Home has a great deal of potential.  It’s a word that can teach me many things on many levels.  I’m starting with where my spirit/soul abides.  In this body.

We were doing a sankalpa (heart or soul intention) practice in a yoga class I participated in for the last six week or so, and we were to create our own short mantras to encapsulate what came up as our heartfelt (or soulfelt) intention for the day.  A mantra that came up for me, over and over again, was “Joy in the body.  Peace in the bones.”  I think it is this, more than anything else, that helped me decide on the word Home.

This is not where the pond normally lives.

I’m sure I will have more to write about Home, but want to move on to other things right now since I’m playing a bit of catch-up.  As you can see from the photos, where the water normally lives shifted for a while right before Christmas.  It was the big storm that wreaked so much havoc in upstate New York (and other places, but New York made the news frequently because there were so many deaths as a result of the cold and snow).  The day before we left for Ohio the storm blew through and it was that blowing (huffing and puffing and gusting and blustering) that drove the water from the Chesapeake Bay to the land.  Not only were the fish swimming in the woods, they were swimming in our entire backyard and a good portion of the front yard.  I’m pretty sure you could have driven a good sized boat through the woods at the height of high tide and the flooding.  The wind, the new moon, and the tide all conspired to reach maximum flooding.

Home, as in our dwelling place, did not suffer.  The water almost made it to the garage, but not quite.  The house sits a little higher than the garage so even if it had gotten that high, the house would probably have been okay.  While were outside moving things from the barn to higher ground, we heard a tree fall.  In fact, we got the sound on video (we were doing a Marco Polo video for our grandsons, showing them the flooding).  So, I’m here to attest to the fact that if a tree falls in the woods and someone is nearby, it certainly does make a sound.  A very loud sound.  It also shakes the ground you walk upon.  I cannot, however, answer the proverbial question about sounds when no one is around to hear it.  That would be impossible to discern.

Shifted.

After the rain and wind came the abrupt drop in temperature.  We went from the 60’s (nearly 70 F) to near zero in a matter of hours.  The storm came through on the 23rd.  We left here, with some trepidation, to travel to Ohio on the 24th.  Luckily, the roads were good.  Dry, for the most part.  We didn’t hit any snow or ice in the usual places (I’m thinking of you, Somerset, Pennsylvania, aka The Land of Bad Weather).  What I’m trying to get to in this long story is that we were unable to get out and check for any storm damage around the property because the trails were iced over in the early morning on the day after the storm which was the same day we left here.  We drove home on New Year’s Eve day.  I finally got out a chance to walk around on Sunday (New Year’s Day) and although there was plenty of debris and plenty of shifting, there was no major damage.  The boardwalk to the dock was shifted off the cinder blocks it is attached to.  That was easily fixed yesterday.

Fixed.

We returned home to relatively warm weather.  Unseasonably warm, as they say.  Having planted some new trees just before we left for the holidays, I worry that they’ll be confused by this warmth, especially since winter will be returning by the end of the week.  I also wonder about the good dose of brackish water the baby trees received during the flooding.  I hope they survive it.  They will need to be tough to live around here.

At sunrise on New Year’s Day.

I kind of feel sorry for the month of January.  There are a lot of expectations placed on this month.  New year, new goals, new life, sort of things.  I generally try to avoid making New Year’s resolutions.  I figure if I need to make a change, the current day is as good as any other day to start.  However, I do get caught up in the feeling of the New Year, New Life, New Resolutions vibe because I’m human and we’re conditioned to do so.

I did not make a bunch of resolutions even though my mind has run through the usual list.  I am going to make one resolution and make it right now.  I resolve to post on my blog at least once a week, every week, this year.  I’m thinking Tuesday will be a good day for a once-a-week post, but we’ll see how that goes.  I am also giving myself some leeway when I travel.  If I have time to post, great.  If not, that’s great, too.  It means I’m adventuring or exploring or otherwise occupied.

Twas a foggy New Year’s Day.

The reason I would like to post at least once is a week is to help me get back to writing.  I noticed that when I’m drawing and painting, I am not writing.  The drawing and painting are another way of expressing what I would otherwise put into words so there is no pull or need to write.  Maybe I will settle into that eventually.  Even so, I don’t want to give up writing or blogging.  There is community here and I would miss that.  Very much.

When I used to blog on a daily or near daily basis and someone who hadn’t visited in a while would come around and comment that they were trying to get caught up with me, I would always tell them to forget getting caught up.  Just start where you are.  I am going to take my own advice.  I apologize for not keeping up with you and will try to do better.  I hope I have not missed any major events that you wrote about in the last few weeks or so.

There is something magical about the woods on a foggy day.

On that note, it’s time to end this lengthy post.  Thank you so much for stopping by and visiting with me today.  Let’s meet out at the Point for sunset.  Clouds have been moving in throughout the day, but you never know what might happen at sunset.  We thought it was going to be dull and grey last night.  At the last minute, the sky lit up in orange, pink, yellow, and red, letting us know that our prediction was wrong.  Sunset is scheduled for 4:55 PM.  A jacket or sweatshirt should suffice.  It’s fairly warm although always cooler near the water.  The beach out at the Point is a bit of a mess due to the flooding we experienced before Christmas, but nothing that will hamper us if we want to take a walk.  Boots would probably be a good idea.  The ground is quite mushy, everywhere.

Please be safe, be well, and take a little time to Just Be.

Yesterday’s sunset. My phone does not capture the colors well and I did not make it outside in time to catch the best of it.

A few of the 10,000 reasons to be happy:  3,056)  Home, and settling back in at home after a week away.  3,057)  Knowing that we will be home for a while.  M and I have traveled a lot over the past few months.  It will be nice to stay put for a month or so.  3,058)  Izzy and Bella, who were happy to have us back at home with them.  3,059)  Time with family.  Always a pleasure and good for the heart-soul.  3,060)  Safe travels, to and from.  Thank you, thank you, thank you.

The marsh and what used to be a channel. It’s becoming a creek. I wonder who will get to name it?

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