House Hunting

We're sufficiently at home in Colorado now that we've decided to buy a house. So for the past few weeks we've been out viewing properties with our realtor. We were going to put an offer on one, but the house sold before we could submit the paperwork.The second one went the same way. Finally, we found the third house and submitted our offer. To our great delight, it was accepted. So in a few months we will be happy homeowners once again.

The new house is small and perfect for us. It's brand new, which will be a welcome change from the nearly 100 year old home in Pennsylvania. It has a tiny yard, so it'll be low maintenance, and a loft space that's perfect for a library. The only thing it lacks is a view of the mountains, but we couldn't afford any of the places with such a view. 

I think that packing up the apartment will be a lot easier than packing up our house in Pennsylvania. After all, the house contained twenty years worth of accumulated stuff. Of course, I still have several bookcases of books to pack, but at least I won't have to sort them first. Right now, we only own things that we need and love. It was liberating to get rid of all the junk, and I'm determined that we will NOT fill the new house with new purchases unless they are seriously considered. We'll see how that goes.

Crow vs Hawks

As I was sitting in my car today waiting for my husband, I caught sight of two hawks riding the thermals just above me. They were swooping on something in shadow of the trees. Then, like a Valkyrie descending from on high a crow came down, and began to attack both hawks. The hawks fought back for a while, but they soon realized that the reward for their tenacity wouldn't be worth the price of an injury, so they disappeared. The crow landed in the tree, and although it had won it looked rattled. It preened itself shakily.

The crows here are brave. I saw another one whilst I was walking the dog, and it didn't move at all even when my dog rushed towards it. Of course, my dog only weighs 6lb, so he's not very imposing. The crow was bigger than him. Even so, I thought it would fly off when threatened by anything. I was wrong. I passed within two feet of it, and it watched me insolently with shining black eyes. It was beautiful and also somehow imposing.

I can see how people become fascinated by birds.

The View of the Mountains

Our new apartment has a beautiful view of the mountains, without anything blocking the way. I never get tired of seeing them, and now that the weather is better Pip and I love to sit out on the balcony and watch the clouds go by. Or rather I watch the clouds, he patrols to make sure no birds land on HIS territory.

We made it to Colorado. We sold the house, pared down our possessions and drove three days to our new apartment, which we had never seen. Luckily, we loved it, as we had signed a year long lease. We got Colorado drivers licenses and Colorado plates for the car. We became used to hearing the coyotes howl at night. Although I have to say that seeing them makes me nervous. Not for myself, but for Pip, who weighs in at 6lbs. A nice coyote snack! We have become accustomed to the altitude, and even started looking for a home to buy.

I have been writing, which is wonderful. After getting all the work done on the house and packing everything, I hadn't written a word in months. There were stories within me, and at night I'd dream about them and their characters. It's been a relief to get them down on paper, although one of them has had to be re-written about seven times. I find that staring at the mountains has awakened my creativity, to the point that I'm even starting to paint again, after five years hiatus. I'm glad we moved.

The only thing I miss about Pennsylvania are the people we left behind. Friends, colleagues and my wonderful writing group. I miss the staff at my usual coffee shop, who knew what I wanted before I opened my mouth. I'm thankful that modern communications allows me to stay in contact with everyone.

Cleaning, packing, landscaping and painting

I never want to see another paint brush for as long as I live. I've painted four rooms in the past few weeks. Enough is enough.

Tomorrow the house is going on the market, and I will finally be able to hang up the renovating apron. Then there's just the challenge of keeping the house clean and tidy for prospective buyers. I have threatened everyone with the prospect of being killed and buried in the back yard if they so much as think of making a mess.

We're still not sure where we're moving to, although we are actually going to scout out Colorado in a week. People have been giving me odd looks when I said we've never been to Colorado, although we fully intend to move there. Heck, we hadn't visited Pennsylvania when we moved here, twenty years ago. So we're just following our usual pattern.

To keep myself sane I've been reading Bram Stoker. I re-read Dracula, then the Lady in the Shroud, and now I'm on Lair of the White Worm.

One good thing about all this mindless work: it seems to be stimulating my imagination. I have two short stories in my mind, just waiting to pour out.

Colorado ho!

We're moving, hopefully to Colorado. Although we may end up in San Francisco, which wouldn't be a bad thing, as I love that city. It's just super expensive, and I prefer to keep my money to myself.

The list of "things to do" is a bit overwhelming. Paint the house (inside and out), re-landscape the garden, fix up the basement (which was flooded when the hurricane came through), make sure everything is neat and tidy for prospective buyers. Get rid of 20 years of accumulated junk.  The mind boggles.

I ordered boxes already, and I am looking into getting a storage unit to store some clutter. The house has to be ready for sale by mid June, as we want to move at the end of September. This is a non-negotiable date: it's when my husbands work contract is up and he needs to move on to another job. I'm really just hoping that everything works out as regards timing for this move.

Fortunately my daughter is home now until September, so she has offered to help as much as possible. Today we meet the realtor again to get an estimate of what the house will sell for. It's like climbing a mountain, you have to just concentrate on the next step, or it will become overwhelming and you'll never get to the summit.

Wish me luck!

The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul

It's cold again, and I find my mood slipping once again. I'm sluggish, and can't seem to motivate myself. All I do is search for interesting anime to watch, or take long naps with the dog. I can't wait for spring to hit, with its explosion of life and warmth.

Soemtimes I think I should move to a place where it's warm all year around. Somewhere like Phoenix AZ. Yet I think that I'd miss the seasons as well, since I especially love spring and autumn, and it's really only the short dark days of winter that bother me. I've been thinking that this next winter I'd try some light therapy. It's just a matter of buying a special bulb for a lamp, then sitting in front of it for fifteen minutes a day. I can manage that.

D-Days in the Pacific

I've always been a historian of the European theater in WW2. I'm not sure why it worked out that way, except perhaps living in Scotland for a while influenced me. Now I'm learning all I can about the Pacific Theater, and it is more complex than I could have imagined. There were 126 D-days in the Pacific, each one followed by island battles that were sometimes short and furious, and other times long and grinding.

I don't think I have the memory to remember every single D-day, so I've started with a list of what historians consider to be the most relevant. They might have been strategically important, or just vast in terms of impact upon the troops. On my DVR is a three part documentary that I've been watching and taking notes on.

I'm going to buy "D-Days in the Pacific", by Donald L. Miller. I had a look through it, and it seems to be a comprehensive study. That's for a later stage, however.

After the D-days comes a study of the naval battles and strategy. This should prove to be difficult, as I know so little about naval history. I just read "Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors" by
James D Hornfischer. It was an excellent book about the battle of Leyte Gulf that I would recommend to anyone.

I'm going to haev a busy summer.

A headache a day....

I used to suffer from migraines, due to a bout of encephalitis I had when I was in my twenties. I haven't had one in years, yet today I felt the first signs of onset, and it sent me scuttling in fear to the medicine cabinet. There was precious little there to take, so I ended up just trying to calm it away. It seems to have worked.

My migraines are brought on by stress, so I guess it made sense that relaxing should banish one. Still, I feel thankful that it didn't blossom into a full-blown attack, which would have left me blind and writhing in pain. Now I just need to figure out what I'm stressed about.

Infinite Worlds

I read in the news today that scientists believe that there may be 100 billion earth like planets in the Milky Way. I wasn't at all surprised at the idea of other earths, I was surprised that it was considered news. I thought that people had been theorizing the existence of other Earths for decades, and that such theories had been widely accepted in the scientific community. Maybe that was just hopeful thinking on my part.

To me, the existence of other Earths has always been a given. It seems inconceivable that the Earth is the only planet of its type in the vast Universe. There are countless suns like our own, with countless planets rotating around them. Surely among those countless planets there must be some that are similar to Earth?

Or perhaps it was just the amount of other Earths given that was newsworthy. 100 billion is a number that I find impossible to wrap my brain around. Yet if this number is correct, then the Universe is teeming with life. Life that we would easily recognise, and perhaps could communicate with. Life that at this moment could be putting forth their own theories on planets like their own.

I like to imagine what this life would be like. Bipedal, like us? Octopodal? Or, like the Martians from H.G. Wells, tripodal? Are their civilizations rudimentary, or so far advanced that they have interstellar travel?

I doubt that any visitors from other worlds will come down to the earth in my lifetime, or maybe at all. The vastness of interstellar space seems unconquerable. Still, wouldn't it be amazing if they did? Suddenly, this world would shrink to insignificance next to the limitless cosmos. Perhaps then mankind would learn to move beyond regionalism, and unite as one.

Cats have Nine Lives

My geriatric Siamese cat, Sparkey, has lymphoma. It makes his throat swell up until he looks like he has an advanced case of the mumps. Then the vet gives him an injection, and within a day he's back to normal. I'm told that as long as he has an appetite, it's a good sign. Yet he's still losing weight. It makes me worried.

When he was diagnosed, I was shocked. It seemed that any moment could be his last, and I railed against the fact that I could do nothing to help him. He's not a good candidate for chemotherapy, and frankly at his age (eighteen) he shouldn't' have to go through such a trial. He'd be violently nauseous, lose hair and experience joint pain. So it was decided that we'd treat him with steroids to keep the swelling down, and otherwise just wait for nature to run her course. The first few days and weeks I watched him like a hawk, concerned about every little thing. Now I just watch him carefully, to make sure he's eating.

Sparkey seems the same as he always has been. He spends long hours in patches of sunlight or on my lap. He eats. Sometimes he even plays. I try to make him as happy as I can. He's quite content. I'm saddened and wish I could do more.

I keep telling myself that he's old, and it's only to be expected that he'd be ill. He's lived out his lives, all nine of them. I'll try to keep telling myself that, until the end.

God is in the Details

It's been a long time since I updated this Blog. The winter came, and sucked all the vitality from me. I found myself drifting, hibernating, existing without any real purpose. Lately however the weather has taken a turn for the better, and the sunlight has recharged my batteries. So I find myself once again writing and thinking of writing.

I also find myself once again contemplating the nature of God. I still find it impossible to believe that there is one God, Creator of the Universe. Or rather, I believe that if there is one Creator, He has since moved on to other things, leaving His universe to spin and expand, alone. I believe that such a being is so beyond the touch and understanding of man, and that we cannot truly grasp the reality of His existence. He has left this world to the lesser Gods, Gods that man can envision and contemplate.

So I find myself discovering Gods in the most commonplace of things. Like believers of Shinto, I can believe that each household possesses a unique protective God. I can believe there is a God of the trees, a God on the mountain. A God of the pots and pans. Simple, natural deities that require very little worship, only respect. Gods of the details of life. I find I can connect to these deities far more easily than to a grand Creator.

Perhaps I'm wrong, and the monotheists are right. I suppose I'll eventually find out, in the next life. yet I also feel that anyone that is great enough to have created this universe can forgive the transgressions of an ignorant monkey such as myself. In the meantime, I'll content myself with the Gods of the details of life.

Life, The Internet, and Everything

AS everyone knows, you can find information about anything on the Internet. All you have to do is Google it. It says a lot for the prevalence of search engines that we have made them into a verb.

I can remember being without the Internet. All those frustrating trips to libraries whenever I wanted to look something up. Endless unanswered questions crammed my brain. Now, whenever I have a question there's Wickipedia.

Not that I believe everything I read on Wicki. Sometimes the entries are sketchy or biased, but I have to admire it for the sheer volume of entries. Everything is cataloged, from Anime to Zebras. People seem to have time on their hands, enough time to write obsessively on their favorite subjects.

Of course, Wicki just scratches the surface of the knowledge that's presented on the web. There are pages of information on anything. Ancient witch signs, cars of the 1930's, the Battle of Leyte Gulf. You name it, and someone has written something about it.

As a social experiment the Internet fascinates me. It connects people across the world, people that have never travelled beyond their home towns can discuss anything with someone across the world. The web has constricted the Earth, bound it up with endless packets of information. The world has uploaded its collective brain, and the power and scope of the knowledge is amazing.

I love the Internet, and I can't wait for the time when we'll all be connected, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. I dream of direct neural net access, as quick as thought and twice as broad. We will all have two minds, our own consciousness and the infinite net. I'm sure it will lead to many problems, yet I also think it will broaden the human experience and help us to evolve. Until that day, Google will remain my steadfast friend.

Sharkey, Extra Large

I was going through old family photographs the other day, and I came across one of me standing outside the Aquarium when I was two years old. On the back, my father had written the date, and a note that I had been fascinated by the sharks. It seem I wondered how they kept all of those teeth clean.

I had no idea that my love affair with sharks had started so young. As a child of about ten, I remember reading endlessly about sharks, and taking trips to the Aquarium when we were on vacation. Those days, I lived in South Africa, and the Aquarium I would visit was in Durban. It was a poorly lit place, with bubble windows, and I used to feel that I was deep underwater with the fish. There were two ways to observe the sharks. One could watch through the windows, peering into the murky water, or one could climb up to the roof and stare down into the open tank. I would spend hours there.

I'm spoiled now. I live a few hours from Baltimore Aquarium, and I've been to Sea World. Last time I was in South Africa I went back to that old Aquarium, and it was depressing. The displays were old and cramped, and the only thrill that remained was the roof and the tantalising closeness of the sharks as they knifed through the water.

Don't get me wrong. I have no desire to be in the water with the sharks. I have a health respect for those teeth. Yet to be so close was an exhilarating thing.

I collect stuffed sharks. The first, Sharkey one, I bought at the Aquarium in New Orleans. He was a Great White, and I kept him in my handbag for years, until one day he mysteriously disappeared. I like to think that he returned to the ocean. The second, Hammurabi the Hammerhead, was given to me by a friend. As was Sharkey Too, another Great White. He lives in my handbag now. Sharkey Three is a three foot long behemoth, he swims eternally on top of a curio cabinet in my lounge.

Shark Week on the Discovery Channel is a joy to me. So many sharks, all crammed into seven days. I tape shows to watch and re-watch.

I'm not sure where my fascination came from, but I'm glad I have it. Sharks are wonderful living fossils, an essential part of the ecosystem and graceful predatory creatures. Still, I have to wonder as I did so many years ago, how DO they keep those teeth clean?

Labor Day Blues

I have the Labor Day blues. I've often said I'm solar powered, I need a certain level of sunlight to feel energized. When the sunlight levels drop in the winter, and it's too cold to go outside, I find myself turning into a grouchy, hibernating bear. Nothing gets accomplished, the months just pass in a grey blur. Depression sets in, and it becomes a chore to get simple things accomplished. My writing suffers most of all.

So, I'm not happy that Labor Day has arrived so quickly. It seems that just yesterday it was spring. It doesn't help that this summer was wonderful, not too hot and humid, with gentle breezes and gloriously sunny days.

Still, my garden will be happy about the change in weather. All the plants are sunburned and stressed, and probably will be happy to go to sleep. Every year I swear that I'm going to pay more attention to the garden, but every year I just end up doing the bare minimum to keep it tidy and weed free. This summer I certainly could have watered it more.

Today I watched the birds outside, and wondered how many of them would be flying south for the winter. I feel jealous. If I could fly to warmer, sunnier climes then I wouldn't have to suffer through the dull days and cold nights. I could winter on a beach in the tropics.

Yet there are things about the colder seasons that I love. I love the show of leaves in autumn, the crisp days, and walking through piles of leaves. I love the earthy scent of the air, Halloween and cider. In winter, I love the silence after a fall of snow, the way the white crystals cling to branches and blanket the ground. I love snuggling up with a hot cup of tea and a blanket. I love snow days that force my family to remain home with me, drinking hot chocolate and eating ginger cookies.

That's why I'm still happy to live in the North, instead of relocating South. The seasons are an ever changing calendar that I can relate to, no matter how the seasons affect me. Maybe this year I'll just buy a sunlamp.

This Monkey has Gone to Heaven

I'm a fan of the Pixies. Unfortunately, I can't seem to find my copy of Doolittle, and I have Monkey Gone to Heaven stuck in my head. I could just buy it again on iTunes, but I have the feeling that if I ordered this one song then I'd just get another stuck in my brain. I need to find the whole CD.

So I did the next best thing: I Googled it, and came up with a Wicki entry and the lyrics. I had no idea that the song was about environmentalism, I really thought it was a comment on how man loses the divine by being too materialistic. No, it seems that man loses the divine by burying Him in "ten million pounds of sludge from New York and New Jersey".

Actually, I believe that may be the case. I've always believed that one can see the divine in nature, and all we're doing is burying nature in a pile of trash.

Although I guess I can see the connection between materialism and trash. The more stuff we buy, the more we need to trow out. Plastic wrappings, boxes and eventually broken items that we go out to replace, beginning the cycle once again.

So I'm making a small commitment to buy less. Ultimately it may do little to improve our planet, or our relationship with the divine, yet it may at least show some positive effects in me, and in my bank balance.

Cuckoos in Foreign Nests

When people talk about their home towns, I feel left out. I don't have a home town. I don't even really have a home country. I consider myself American, but I was raised completely overseas, so I have very little cultural connection to the USA. I have an odd accent, one that doesn't quite fit anywhere. I'm a cuckoo in a foreign nest.

In my travels, I've met other cuckoos. Army brats, the children of diplomats or engineers. Well traveled and cosmopolitan, we are adept at fitting into our borrowed nests. Yet we are never quite comfortable in them. There is something in the blood that calls us to the road, so we tend to be travelers. We flit about the globe restlessly, looking for something or some place that will satisfy our needs. Nothing seems to fit.

We raise our children to be independent, and they too are well traveled. Even though we may stick to one spot long enough in a bid to give them a sense of permanency, somehow we always manage to fail. They pick up our restlessness, and as soon as they are of age they wing off to distant places. Now we will meet up with them on separate continents.

Living this life is not restful. The dreams a cuckoo dreams are always of the next horizon, and the nest never satisfies. Yet I wouldn't trade it for anything, not even a home town.

Possibilities

I'm not sure what separates the possible from the impossible. The line of possibility is infinitely slim, and it moves constantly. It is the line that separates sanity from insanity, joy from sorrow, or life from death.

What is impossible today, may be possible tomorrow. Humans are amazingly adaptable and inventive, and given a task they will push forward through innumerable challenges and suffer great hardships to reach their goal. In the face of a dream, the impossible crumbles like a sand castle before a wave. Or the dreamer crumbles.

This is the only wisdom that I have: each day, one must wake up and accomplish the tasks of that day. Each task may be small, or large, but one must try to push through to a conclusion. Then one can sleep, and dream again.

This seems to me the only way to live. To make each day a microcosm of life, to live it completely and then rest. Any other way, and suddenly life becomes too overwhelming. Dreams become impossible to attain.

I believe that anyone can climb a mountain, one step at a time.

Beginnings

I have a novel in my mind. It's almost perfect, fully formed except for the tiniest details. I don't concern myself about the details, as they seem to fly from me as I write. Perhaps they already exist, somewhere deep in my subconscious, waiting for the right moment to burst into being. They are the furled flowers of my imagination.

The only thing this novel lacks is a Beginning. In the past two months, I've written countless scenarios in my mind, and on paper, yet none of them seem to work. I have felt like Prince Charming, trying to fit the Glass Slipper onto endless feet, desperate to find that perfect fit.

I write by hand, in black ink, on lined paper. It's old fashioned, and it suits me very well. My handwriting is very bad, and in some ways it's like a top-secret code that only I can decipher. I've written pages and pages of Beginnings, scribbled in tiny cursive characters, crossed out, redone, notated and finally shredded. I don't consider any of it wasted effort. For me, it's like cutting and polishing a priceless gem. Such things take time, and effort.

In my mind, my characters have become quiet. Usually, they are a rowdy bunch, demanding that I write about them, or develop their individual stories. Now they are silent, because in the Beginning they they were not there. There was only one person, and the endless reaches of the sky.

Perhaps that's true for every Beginning.

We Must Take Our Tablets Every Day

Sometimes, I think my life revolves around pills. I even have a tea mug with a pill theme. I got it in England. It's part of the "Interesting thoughts of Edward Monkton" line. I don't know who Monkton is, but I suspect he and I would get on very well.

"We must take our tablets every day," the mug tells me, "or else we will GO MAD."

That's pretty much what I've been told, by endless doctors. "Take your meds." They don't actually say I'll go mad, but they pause and give me a significant look. Having reassured themselves that I understand the importance of their statement, they then write me a nice prescription and push me out the door.

Being not quite sane, I don't want to take my pills. In fact, I hate them. Still, I recognise their supposed usefulness, and dutifully count them out, morning and night, and pop them into my mouth.

"This one helps me not to scare the Postman." - The Mug.

I have one of those. One that stops the world from scraping against my soul. It's round, and mustard yellow. I take two a day, one in the morning, and one at night. I quite like this one, because it has the lovely dual effect of stopping the horrible migraines I've suffered from since I had encephalitis 20 years ago. Also, I can fell it working, it gives me odd pins-and-needles sensations in my fingers and toes. It's an interactive pill.

"This one is evil and must DIE." - The Mug.

Mine is red-brown, the color of drying blood. A capsule full of tiny white beads. Sometimes, I open it up and pour some of the beads down the sink, imagining that I'm killing it a little. Weakening it. I imagine that I can weaken it more, day by day, until it is empty, and dead. Then I'll be free, and I'll never have to see it's evil color again.
The next day, I don't open it. I swallow it whole. I'm defeated by the Logic of the Pills.
I hate it. I plot again. Tomorrow, it will die.

"I love this one so much it hurts. One day it will understand my Special Powers and Love me too." - The Mug.

The one I love is pure white, a small rectangle, and I have never seen a pill so perfectly formed. This is my anti-allergy pill. I take THIS one with great joy. This wonder has freed me from the horrors of seasonal allergies, and endless sinus infections! How I love it! I will never give it up. NEVER.

"Please don't eat me!"
"Be quiet, tablet, and suffer your FATE!" - The Mug.

I have to be severe with this one. It's small, round and a dingy off-white color. It lacks self-confidence. It cringes in the corner. It's the type of pill that you have to abuse. It's just so very pathetic. Not only that, but it forces me to go for quarterly blood-tests. I feel the urge to crush it before I swallow.

"Sometimes, I hear this one singing in voices so HAUNTING and LYRICAL that a single note can make me WEEP." - The Mug.

I don't have any pills like that, yet. Maybe one day I will. I hope I do, because I'd like to hear the song of the pills. After all this time, and all those pills, I think I deserve it.

Existentialism

"Dubito, ergo cogito, ergo sum." - Rene Descartes

"I doubt, therefore I think, therefore I am."

It's interesting to me, that most people know the latter part of the quote. "I think, therefore I am." Yet very few know the first part, the part about doubting. Doubt, after all, seems like such a negative thing. It doesn't look good on all those motivational posters, or quote-a-day calendars. To me, however, it's the most essential part of the entire sentence. Descartes began to doubt, and therefore began to question his own existence. Without doubt, the Cogito would never have crystallised in his mind.

In doubting the existence of a deceiving god, Descartes came to the conclusion that he existed. Of course, it wasn't quite as simple as that. First, he had to convince himself that everything did not exist, the trees, the sky, an entire world of noise and light - then, he could believe in himself.

"Archimedes used to demand just one firm and immovable point in order to shift the entire earth; so I too can hope for great things if I manage to find just one thing, however slight, that is certain and unshakable." - Descartes

Archimedes did not shift the earth physically, yet it could be said that he did scientifically. His works have inspired countless mathematicians, scientists and engineers. He has gained a measure of immortality that is granted to very few, in having his name passed down as a man of advanced intellect and knowledge.

Yet for a moment Descartes convinced himself that Archimedes had never walked the earth. For a while, Descartes was alone, perhaps without even a body to sense the world around him. A being a pure thought, pure intellect, stripped of all the shibboleths and fears that society had imprinted upon him. For a while, Descartes was free.

I wonder: when he returned, how was he changed? Did he understand then how little he had to fear of the world, and how much he could accomplish? I think he did, or at least, I think he began to understand the possibilities his life had to offer.

There is little to fear in the world, except the inability to think. When we surrender our freedom of thought to anyone, or to any institution, we surrender ourselves, and we become shadows. Mere possibilities, instead of true human beings. When we do not allow ourselves to doubt, and question the world, we fail to search for meaning in our existence. Without that search, we fail the test of life.