Really? Another photograph of blankets?

And then I began to write this post.  The same story, different objects.  Same memories and same words.  I even gave words, here, for all to see, about the truth of what had happened to me as a way of opening the door to write more on the juicy details. A peep show!

Of 2015. Of 2014.  Of a lifetime.

If the last two weeks have taught me anything it is this:  Choose wisely.  In the past week I remember the passing of my father four years ago and attended the funeral of a friend I have known since childhood.

In the past two weeks, I had an experience of failing to meet the standards of my own business only to realize that how I pick myself up is the realization that that in itself is the key.  “Get up, Steph.”  As I figuratively stood up, I found myself, what I thought at the time to be changed.  Days passed.  What had happened was quite extraordinary… I remembered me.  As I worked, I had discovered that part of me gone so long I had forgotten…  It was if this fall had scrapped off a layer of myself I had been perspiring inside, against a shell, a callus.  A callous callus… Hmm…

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Pre-Barbie years (I was a child of the late sixties / early seventies) I played with trucks left by my brother or the neighbor boys.  And rocks.  No one could afford Hot Wheels or enough of them to make play interesting.  So I played with rocks.  I never truly cared if I had real cars or not. In fact I liked not having them.

This is not some sap story!  I was alone and I did not know any different.  I would wind roads through the sand that filled an old storm cellar type staircase. It’s funny how I learned about quartz and granite. With each new rock I was certain I had discovered not just another rock but a true gem.

Or, better yet, in my child’s mind, I was an archaeologist -even before I actually knew the word- and I had discovered the remnants of Indians (sorry, not politically correct, but it was the late 60’s or early 70’s).. Arrowheads!  I would ask my father… Until I actually did find one… Near our town.  The thought of people there, on that piece of ground where I played, with different lives;  well, it was like the earth waved its own magic wand and the trees remembered their own songs.

A life, aimlessly daydreaming without want or the pressure of the future was blissful. Why shouldn’t adulthood be the same? Why must a person want? Why not live like that… Without ‘want’? Is it even possible? Why not live “among” rather than out, “beyond,” into ‘want’?

I’d like to think I’m wise. Not true. But let’s face it. The things, people, life plans and me myself.. Well, I may have wanted, but they didn’t come true… I am not a ‘giver-upper’!  I always hang in there to keep revising and improving (old buildings teach you that), but why not give up on the state of ‘want’?

And here I sit today, with my own home, back in the woods in a dream my parents didn’t realize until my brother and I were well into adult hood.  My father loved to sit, watching those sentinel trees out front. He was quite content. To just watch the trees…

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It is 2016. How lucky I am, skipping down the road, laughing because I can walk;  singing because I can run and dancing because I can dance…

Just as the little girl who pretended rocks were hot rods, carving the streets of her mind into the cellar step sands…

It’s time for me to create something new for myself.  It’s 2016, for goodness sake!

Love,

Steph

PS. I always have a PS, don’t I?  The new blanket?  A year ago I bought the white woolen Czechoslovakian military blanket.  It’s blue stripes are barely visible;  less so than the blood spots from my nose when my dog Wally hopped over my face mid-nap.  It’s past too remains despite my perfumes and sweat and Wally’s dog aroma – the smell of tent canvas is forever imprinted not in a weave, but deep within the oils of its fibers.

It is what it is. I am, therefore, just me.

God’s Blessings to you all.  Better stated: G-d’s Blessings to you all….

PSS.  As for the past?  I will give “them” – and I mean them all –  one line:  T. Swift said it best:  “Shake it off…”  Done.

#gettingovermyself #womenslife #workingwoman #onejourney #creatinganewlife #thebrickdandelion