January 2024 and blogging

 

Well May is over, such an up-and-down month for me historically. Birthday month for me and my mom, Mother’s Day, but also the month in which my sister died in 1990. As well, it's the month that I made my first “nomad journey” in 1978, moving from Montreal to England, my life turning so completely around over the two and a half years I lived there, with my pregnancy, having Laurie, making memories of living in other places than "home," in fact, continuing the journey that had begun with my mother's death, that "home" is something that is very illusory. That said, I will never regret making that decision in 1978, my whole subsequent life has evolved from that decision.

I was listening to a podcast with Light Watkins, an interesting man who has become a “nomad,” thus my reference above to my nomad journey. A few years ago he decided to sell or give away everything he had and go down to living life with a backpack and a carry-on bag. (Apparently lately he’s now just got a backpack, obviously with a laptop computer inside.) Light is on his nomad journey, as I was on mine those years ago, like R and I did with our journey over to Ireland four years ago. Here’s Watkins’ “About” page: https://www.lightwatkins.com/about

The podcast I listened to is on a website that I subscribe to, so am not sure everyone can listen but, in case they can, here’s that URL: https://resources.soundstrue.com/podcast/keep-trusting/

Anyway, one of the thoughts that came out of listening to the podcast as I was walking Mitzi this morning, that seemed, this morning, like an “omen” along the lines of "The Alchemist”:

Yesterday R and I started talking about living in Ireland again. Oh golly, how is it that we keep going back to that, when I tell myself over and over again how blessed I am to live in this “safe” house in this “safe” area? (See photo above.) We have done a lot to the house, made it comfortable, gathered things around us that are “ours”. Richard has worked on the garden. We just bought the finishing touch—the fountain—last Monday. And yet here we were yesterday afternoon, looking online at small houses/flats that we could afford to buy outright (because we are too old to get a mortgage now) in Carrick on Shannon? What IS it inside that is calling?

It’s a different voice for R—he wants to escape the church ward here, which is so painful to him. He feels an outcast (not literally, they simply ignore him for the most part), he feels that this time, THIS time, if he went to Ireland, he would explore more, get out more, than he did the last time we lived in Ireland. The last time was quite painful for him because he had tried to fit into the Mormon ward there and was quite literally rejected because of his history with the church. He also hadn’t done anything much more than trail after me in my wanderings. He loved the gardens we went to, some of the places we went to—we of course also traveled to Mallorca and Barcelona, to England—but unless I dragged him along with me, he didn’t travel on his own. Actually, and this is quite interesting in terms of “recollections may vary”—he said this morning that he DID travel alone. Well, no, I don’t remember him going anywhere alone except on walks around Dunmore East and to the leisure center on the bus to go swimming. He said “No, I am sure I went on a train by myself to Dublin.” Ummm, no, the only time you went to Dublin was with me, when I got my passport renewed. So memories are tricky things and unreliable when we think that we can base our future lives on what we remember about what we did/didn’t do, and how fulfilled we felt, right?

So that’s R. And I know that if we are going to take such a momentous step, the decision would have to be mine and that I would HAVE to get it “right.” Be much surer and more determined that I was the last time we went over, when I kept having to overcome challenge after challenge—the first place we lived in was so awful I had to find something else, the first car was unsuitable, etc., etc.… Until finally I started to question myself about why I decided to go to Ireland, and to look back, like Orpheus, not trusting that what the life I was creating in Ireland, was going to "work," that what lay ahead could be more what I wanted than what lay behind, in Sierra Vista.

So, what calls ME about going back to Ireland? Why do I think things would be better this time? Well, there's experience--I know what went wrong last time, I know what NOT to do. One thing that DID work well, that consumed me then and consumes me now, is the cemetery project that I feel is my life’s calling: to create family trees. I know the project might sound weird but artistic endeavors can sometimes sound weird to other people. But creative arts are often strange to others who don't share that same passion. Of course, I have enough online material that I don’t have to physically GO to Ireland to do this. I and other volunteers have photographed hundreds of thousands of headstones. So, no, I don’t have to go to Ireland to follow my passion but, at the same time, I think it would be wonderful to continue to photograph headstones in cemeteries that haven’t yet been catalogued, before they wear away. As well, I like life in Ireland and it’s so close to Europe and England. Would I have stayed in Ireland had things been less challenging with R, if I hadn’t missed the family so much. (And, yes, I hear those who know me saying, well, will you miss the family if you go to Ireland again?) Answer is, I don’t know and it's the not knowing, the sense of not being able to say "Well, THAT was an experiment I don't want to repeat." I loved so much of it.

When I think of life here in Sierra Vista, it kind of feels like the end of my life. I mean, I’ve “arrived”—have the security that I never had for most of my adult life. Creature comforts. But, but, signs still keep appearing in my path, even here. 

Another “omen” appeared yesterday morning. Now that school is over, I have gone back to my M-W-F morning Zumba classes. Oh I love to dance with Debbie Aponte, a lively, 50-something Puerto Rican! The ladies in my class are all my age and most of them are built like me so looking at the mirrors in the dance studio isn’t TOO painful. I focus on Debbie instead and she is just so joyful about the music and it doesn’t matter if I don’t get the steps perfectly, I just feel the music through my body. 

Anyway, as we were walking out of the studio yesterday we were talking about how movement is so important. Debbie said she was inspired by the country song called “Don’t Let the Old Man In.” She quoted the lyrics, "Ask yourself how would you be; If you didn't know the day you were born.” Hmmm, this hit me because I have mentioned to several people over the last week, “Wow, I am in my 70th year now.” And a lot of what I am thinking about not in terms of not making any more moves, is about how “old” I am. A fear that at any moment, my age will suddenly manifest itself as it did two years ago with the amnesia attack. And that, the wisdom of living life governed by fear, has been mentioned in two of the works that I have been reading/listening to these days: “The Alchemist,” and this morning’s podcast. Some people who know me would say I have lived my life fearlessly and yet, sometimes, I look at turning points in my life and if not for fear, what else might have happened? And I start thinking “What would I be doing if I didn’t feel that I was 70 years old?” Interesting….

Ah well, it’s not something I am going to act on, although the other thing that is driving this with us, of course, is that house prices are going through the roof here. We would get a handsome profit from selling our house right now—enough to be able to afford that flat in Ireland. So very seductive for someone with itchy feet, with a husband who is so depressed and unhappy. But, I don't feel that it's a time to make any kinds of decisions with so many things roiling inside my head and the LAST person in the world that I should be trusting to discuss it with is R. Although of course any decision that I make has ramifications for him, he never makes any decisions himself beyond deciding to buy a new pot of flowers. And even that decision is only arrived after painful deliberation. He would never decide to sell the house on his own; so decisions have always been a huge weight of responsibility that I carry and also the results of those decisions....

So, for now, it's still the time to just float along with life as it is, be thankful for this beautiful day, for my genealogy projects, for books to read, thoughts to think. Life IS good.