Keeping On....

For whatever reason it seemed the right time to reconstruct the quarter collection.

Since 1999, I had been filling in the red white and blue folders with a place for each state's quarter-- both front and back--as a kind of historical travelogue. Feeling a little confined and committed to making my dreams come true and fulfilling my call, they represented opportunity in the future to me.

Then the day came in 2012 when, desperate for any money I could find, I took out all 96 quarters--both front and back-- and used them , for gas I think.

Empty for years, today I pulled them out of my top desk drawer and carefully emptied the zippered coin section of my wallet checking for the right quarters, the commemorative quarters. There were four: Nebraska, Rhode Island, Missouri and New York. It was a wonderful start.

In a few minutes I'm going to start working on my holiday column. The topic is "Greed".

I have had to learn to be a stander-up-er in the last two decades. I have had to learn to not fear it, standing up for myself. It still doesn't feel comfortable to me.

Yet, if I am to be honest about a world where there are people so empty  inside they would do anything to keep their world in deceptive order, then I must learn to stand up for doing those things that add good to the world from the inside out.

For several years now, I have believed that life is just about one piece after another slipping away because I was not able to stand up and on the things that would steal my life.

I found that I could make the changes necessary to be stronger in confronting "eeldoer's" as 'Nell' called them in the movie of the same name. I CAN stand up and still maintain that core part of myself that plants hope for the future by collecting quarters.

I am a gentle person in a dog eat dog world. Primitive, still, in confronting and setting limits, life has taught me there is much to be said for focusing on my little hobbies that keep me grounded and nurturing.

If someone has touched your life in a positive way, be sure and share that with them. I think most everyone is just keeping the riverbanks loaded with sandbags and a little bit of good that would lower the floodwaters of narcissism with which most people have to deal, is a great idea.

Ninety two quarters to go. Keeping on....
Love,
Deborah

And life is still life....

This past week I had my eye treatment which always takes me out of play for a few days. I developed a vascular edema and they treat it by shooting a tiny amount of this drug that actually was created for use with colon cancer but they found collateral uses, one of which is shrinking retinal edemas. After only two doses, the thing has reduced itself so now they stretch it out to six weeks instead of four weeks and see if it will stay reduced even though it isn't getting any medicine. Hope springs....

After each shot in my eyeball, I have fallen into an overly cautious routine of sequestering myself because, a. I feel like crap and my eye hurts, and b. it makes me more aware of my hands so I don't rub the eyeball or keep my hands dirty through careless inattention.

I had an opportunity to housesit and took it.

I truly wonder what it would be like to have had one home and the same routines all these years of my adult life. It is amazing to me that I am in my early sixties, have never had my own home and have moved so many times I've lost count.

I said to myself during this time of isolation --which also becomes a time of introspection between naps--
"What if I never have a home? What if I live like this for the rest of my life?" And I found myself oddly OK with that. The domestic and work routine I have is probably better than about 80% of the third world. My sense of self is entirely internally defined. I'm not hurting any of my kids by having the bits and pieces of life ascribed to different geographical settings.

Is it my first choice? How I'm living now I mean... Heck no. I want what everyone else has. Is it the worst a person could experience? No.

So, with my faith intact, I will suck it up and continue to be disciplined about a path that, I do believe, will lead to more domestic stability and put my life all in one place.

What it does that is good is keep me in touch with just today and no further ahead, or behind. Because of that I feel less constrained to have plans that may or may not be necessary. That is always a good thing.

Life consists of work, eating which involves food preparation and clean  up, staying in touch with friends, enjoying social activites, hygiene and recreational reading, and sleeping, laundry and errands, TV shows and films. That's about as normal as transitory gets. Life, is still life....