Switching Mental Gears

These days I am paying more attention to the nuances of life around me as summer passes.  Fresh morning air has never been sweeter, especially coming after a heated day of mugginess.  At 5:30 am, just as the sun is lighting its way up to the horizon, birds call out their encouragement with single notes or complicated trills.  The resident ravens add their caws and clunks.  I love to watch the sun brighten each leaf or needle at the top of trees then see its edge of bright light drop inch by inch. 

I know this house and land so intimately; it’s like my body.  I am relishing every day, every moment here, because soon I will face the ultimate decision of leaving.   I’m not quite ready to face that fact so I psych myself into doing more in the way of outdoor work while covering over repair work with an attitude of denial.  Yes, I can do another day of weed eating to keep the grasses down.  No, I don’t want to climb the hill again to weather-strip the lid to the water tank so frogs don’t climb in and die.

Yes, I will feed the flowers and veggies and reattach the solar panel to the fan in the green house.  No, I don’t want to rearrange the wood in the wood shed so I can get in another cord of black oak for winter.

Yes, I will pressure wash the deck and waterproof it.  No, I have no idea how to replace the rotted step.  I’ll just walk around and use the others.

            This game is making my home into something less than an ideal place to live.  I can handle a lot, but I can’t handle all of it and honestly, I don’t want to handle it at all for the rest of my life.  My home could become my prison.  I see that now.  I could spend the rest of my days working, worrying, and repairing.  The comfortable cocoon I’ve enjoyed for the last two years is close to becoming a shell separating me from whatever else there might be for me to be or do.

So I’m collecting memories of the slanted sunlight and the moon-filled meadow, all the sights and sounds of my most recent life.  Next will be the project of untying the threads that bind by clearing the corners Y and I so carefully filled with stuff we thought we couldn’t live without.

It might get tough.  Maybe it would be easier if I turned toward what I want for my future so I can let go of things that don’t fit that picture.  Maybe that will make these decisions easier.