BUT NOT YET NOW

 86 of #100daychallenge

Janet and I were late to Domineers yoga today. It was hot and they were rather unsettled and uncomfortable. They were willing to blow it off, and I was wavering. I convinced them to do at least a short session as they had barely done anything in July. And I need to figure out what I am going to teach if my class at the Town Hall goes forward. It did not take long for them (and me) to get back into the groove. I heard the tell-tale sighs of renewed comfort and relaxation. And Janet rather fell into line.

While driving Janet to dominoes yesterday, she said she wanted to cry. This is not uncommon, albeit intensified, when I want her to do something. She almost always balks for awhile and then forgets all about it once she is there. She is worried, and so am I, that her friends are getting tired of taking care of her. She can be crazy whiny and then demanding and irrational about things. She can also be as normal as pumpkin pie in the fall. It's very challenging to push her out of her immediate comfort zone. I know old-hand parents know this one well, but it is an uncomfortable challenge for me.

And I can have a short fuse.

Sometimes I feel my inner-Walter (my dad) who was not very patient, not particularly kind, and prone to dismissiveness. I believe I have noted this before in the past recesses of this blog. I don't like to see this in myself, but what was my other model? Janet? Who spaced out, abandoned us in many situations (or me at least), detached, and non-judgmental when some adult judgement was in order. I don't like the part of me that behaves like either one of them, but I don't always have the patience (that word again) to examine and, hopefully, rise above.

And to the all of it. Trying to get a good rhythm of de-accessioning. Is it one article of clothing, one book, one cd, and one craft project a day? I hesitate to take on a large project as I fear it will end up being more of an unfinished mess. I have decided to give up knitting and to get rid of my various stashes of wool/yarn ... or at least most of it. Southern California is too damn hot to even think about knitting and given that the only things I make are scarves, it hardly seems worth it. There are likely too many scarves in the world, and I should know as I have a whole lot of them.

I have three cats jockeying for the limited flat space around me. Currently, Nina and Fox are on my small library table. McCoy, whom I have to admit is kind of a pinheaded kitty, with a body bigger than his head, is as close as he can reasonably get. Since I have been back, McCoy has been hanging closer. I often wake to find him sleeping somewhere on my bed. Last night, he was quite aggressive in pursuing some serious petting. 

The garden looked a bit happier today, but I do need to do more deep watering. My goal is to get up in the morning and do it, but, so far, that is nothing more than a plan. Isn't that a beautiful tiger cat belly?

FAREWELL VOYAGING WORLD

It was the departure, the sun was risen,

the light came across the flat sea, the yellow blades

fell like swords on the small white houses

the half hoisted sail creaked on the ship

the seagulls hovered in circles and cried

on the foredeck the sailors stood at the capstan

the moving light made the land look as if it were moving

the houses shifted the windows changed

cocks crew and the hens strutted into the street

and you went down the path of shells, carrying

a box on your shoulder a bundle in your hand

I followed hearing ahead the sound of your feet

but you also carried the invisible

you carried also the unspoken

what we could not say what we had not said

what we had not lived and could never live

what we had lived but could not be forgotten

where will you remember it where again will you sit down

at a little foreign table reading a paper

the news a month old and our hearts a month dead

with a strange clock above you and a bird in a cage

chirping in another language

but not yet now it is still the daybreak

look they are hoisting the sails and singing

the moving light makes the land seem to move

it is we who are going away and not you

we take away with us an indecipherable heritage

time is broken in our hands

it is we who leave you here in a motionless ship

as we begin the immeasurable circle

say goodbye to us make your farewells

the earth is leaving you the earth is going

never again shall we come to this permanent ship

or you everlasting with your box on your shoulder

it will always be daybreak with us, the beginning,

we shall never be older or wise or dead.

— Conrad Aiken, The New Yorker, January 12, 1935 issue