A Beginning

---

I missed Halloween. It was my 6-year blogging anniversary and I just couldn’t get caught up enough to do anything about it. So goes the story of my life.

Today is my younger sister’s birthday. She likes low-key celebrations and this year is no exception. We had breakfast yesterday at Bob’s Red Mill after I picked her up from dropping her truck off at the mechanic. Everywhere we went, we saw geese. So many geese taking a rest from their flight to warmer climates.

Too far and too many for a good shot.

They wander on the road here. Everyone stops.

Her birthday would not be something I would ordinarily write about but right now she is mostly all I write about in my personal writing. I have started to recall all the hair-raising episodes of her life and want to quickly compile them into a booklet form. This photo should tell you that as soon as she could walk she was railing at the world and grasping life with both hands loudly and with abandon.

Don’t mess with me.

This year she was diagnosed with Pulmonary Fibrosis. It apparently tends to run in families. Our mother had it so we know what it does. I have cut back on many of my other activities to spend more time with her and to get her stories written and pictures collected and scanned. My sister is what is referred to as a character. I’d like to share some of them with you over time.

Mom, me and sis

 

Everything is changing and everything that ends brings with it a new beginning. The leaves on the trees are changing though many haven’t quite made up their minds. Our weather has the trees so confused. The time is changing this weekend and we fall back an hour. It’s so hard to adjust. My perspective on life has changed as well. I’m examining each moment for hidden treasures.

In full splendor

Undecided about changing

On Halloween afternoon as I was trying to write this, my internet died. When I called my cable company after doing the things I should to check and see if it was something I could fix, I finally got a sweet young woman on the phone. Brianna said she would try to work her magic and see if it could be repaired from there. After several moments she came back on the line and said my modem had sent an “end of life signal”! I laughed at the irony of it. She did get it working again for the time being.

Today, a giant of a man, made his way to the den with plastic booties over his shoes and laid the modem to rest, replacing it with a newer model He was shocked I still had the old model as they had all been brought back last year. How had mine survived? I told Brianna that the gremlins finally got it. There was a lot of treasure in these moments.

Life is a little uncertain right now.

Are you seeing the treasures in the moments? Do you have “characters” in your life you like to tell stories about?

From my heart to yours,

Marlene Herself

 

Permanence

This has been a year where many have faced extreme challenges in so many areas.  Seeing some of it is hard on the heart. We, as humans are creatures of habit and like things to be the way they have always been.

My neighbors house directly across from me

I’m no different but life and 35 moves has forced me to learn to be more adaptable than most. I’m extremely grateful for that ability as it makes life so much easier to cope when things change and change they will.

Last spring, I mentioned the heavy rains we received here in the Portland, Oregon area. I love the rain and would really like some of it now though others are praying for it to cease. I was in a place, that for a bit of time, gave me pause for concern. As it turned out, my neighbor directly across the street was not as fortunate in location as I turned out to be in. She ended up losing a good portion of her back yard as land eroded from under her.

The land washed away

Giant hole too hard to tell from here.

Owner and management waited most of the summer for the ground to dry out and finally we were inundated with workers preparing to remove the house she was forced to move out of and start stabilizing the ground. There are two other homes on either side they don’t want to have to remove. There were months of negotiations while they found someone to purchase the vacated home and pay to move it elsewhere. That was only the beginning.

Men doing the hard work

If you are not familiar with manufactured homes, they are brought in and out, in sections. There are a lot of preparations to make the house itself moveable. All plumbing and power must be disconnected and then the concrete blocks they are sitting on are removed and axles and tires are placed back underneath.

Axles have to be reattached.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

I spent the best part of the last few weeks watching the comings and goings here. Any wonder why I accomplished little else? It was quite entertaining as I observed the conflab between the powers that be around here making decisions with Engineers, heavy equipment operators and assorted professional crews including tree removers. So many trees had to go. Many precariously held to the earth, many already dead. NOTHING is permanent.

Lots of trees cut down and trucked away.

 

It’s hard to watch all the changes for some people but today I had a sign that things are still very much under control. Just not by me.

Aster’s are September’s flower. I planted these that had been in a pot when I first moved into my apartment five years ago and then put them in the ground here two summers ago. Today is September 1. I looked out the kitchen window and saw the very first bloom on my Aster plant. Do they have a calendar or what?

This Aster has its own calendar

 

How do you deal with impermanence?

From my heart to yours,

Marlene Herself

In Search of Optimism

We are getting a whole new year. At least I hope it’s a whole one. I’m looking for a better one than the last. Not that the last year was awful, just…challenging. Apparently it shows up in my writing.

My stories for our memoirs class had a run of sadness to them. The instructor asked me point blank if I always saw the glass half empty. I just looked at her and shook my head no. Of course my face was frozen up from the stress of reading my story, so speaking elaborately wasn’t an option. As they proceeded on to the next story reader, I thought to myself, “Sure, I see the glass as half full all the time. Someone just shot the damn glass full of holes”. My optimism leaks out and is replaced with pragmatism. I read “Mark and Angel“, “Abraham-Hicks”, “Tut from Mike Dooley”, and everyone else that has something positive to say daily.

This is my computer wallpaper

To be perfectly honest, I’m not sure what optimism really is. The online dictionary said this is the definition: “A tendency to expect the best possible outcome or dwell on the most hopeful aspects of a situation.” That’s what my daughter does. She’s been out of work twice this year and after a month, she can’t pay the rent or anything else. I want to be optimistic, I really do, but this is not looking like a short term problem. She was out of work for two years before finding temp work. That’s all she has had for the last year and a half, temp work. What is the best way for me to be helpful? It’s very tricky. When people I love are struggling, it causes me to feel stressed with them and it affects my outlook.

I’ve been looking for the last year for a home to purchase. There is very little available in my price range. They showed me a lovely place where the bedrooms must all be passed through to get to the bathroom and had no foundation. The realtor got really frustrated with me for turning it down. I couldn’t afford to rebuild it. I’m optimistic that the right place in my budget is out there and my daughter will find a real job that she likes. I’m optimistic that my son will find work in this area that pays what he makes in Los Angeles. Ok, maybe not as optimistic as I’d like to be on that one. I’m optimistic that this will be the year I get well enough to drive where ever I want to go. Health will no longer elude me.

it’s too big and expensive but a girl can dream, can’t she?

I’m optimistic that 2014 will bring us all the good we have all been looking for. Are you an optimist or like me, more pragmatic? Has your glass been shot full of holes as well? What are you expecting from this New Year? Whatever it is, I wish you the very best 2014 has to offer.

Don’t know where this came from but it resonates

From my heart to yours,
Marlene Herself