Alas, the saga continues (as does life, most of the time!). However, things are looking better already… in a way, anyway.
I have found and reserved a storage unit just down the road from where I currently have all of my belongings. I intend to return this weekend and pack up everything into boxes and such, then move it all into the storage unit on Monday, with a bit of rollover into Tuesday, Wednesday at the latest. I intend to stay elsewhere Tuesday night already. I hope my mom can help me pack and move bulky (but light) things. My aunt might also be able to help pack. We shall see after this weekend.
I have found, I believe, the right kind of hole to join for six weeks, starting on Tuesday. My gym partner has stepped up beautifully to support me with her spare bedroom in her home. We will talk tomorrow afternoon to get into details of it all.
Tomorrow morning, I must make it look like no one lives here. So, I’ll be managing shoving all of my food goods into my bedroom – ugh! But I am limited on time tomorrow, so I’ll be doing it super fast and then heading out the door. I have to go drop off something at the shop and then meet someone for lunch in the other direction at 11:30am. From there, I will be dropping off that friend on my way out of town, as I head back to be with my family for the rest of the week.
I have a major impulse to pack now. But that really doesn’t work. I need to go to bed, so I can get up and exercise in the morning, so I can get all the food stuff handled asap in the morning, then shower, then go run two errands, and then head off for lunch. (Yes, I had already forgotten about the second errand, I know. That’s why I have reminders pop up on my phone in the mornings!)
So, still loads and still not settled entirely, but I’m chugging through rather effectively so far. God, give me the strength and grace to keep it up and to continue to be your love in this life. Amen.
P.S. Happy Solstice on this shortest day of the year!
But, golly, does it feel like we have such a panic sort of situation over here in my life today?
Ugh…
In short, we were approved this afternoon to move into the apartments we’ve been loving and wanting. After months of figuring things out, we finally have it sorted regarding where we get to live, my good friend and I.
Not even half an hour after that informative call to me, I was being informed by my current place that, surprise, I have to make myself scarce immediately (and my visible stuff), and I have to have everything out completely by 10 January. Absolutely not cool.
I have nowhere to store things and I have nowhere to live for six weeks, starting next week.
But I’ll figure it out. Things always work out, somehow. God and the Universe take care of their beautiful Creation, and I am part of that Creation. So, I pray that I be granted the clarity and the brainstorming needed to make this a spectacular situation, filled with love and joy and beautiful, both coming from me and coming to me. Jesus and Universe, I trust in You. Guide me clearly, please, and give me the courage I need for this, please. Amen.
Lying on the bed, only slightly chilled with no socks on my feet, I chuckle from the belly as my mom describes and displays how her husband regularly gets the sheets wonky and twisted and pulling tight across her in the middle of the night while they both sleep… or, at least, while he sleeps and while she starts to panic with claustrophobia under the suddenly taught and uncomfortably snug sheets.
We are at a spectacular Airbnb this week, as we help my grandma move into an assisted living complex. It seems like a really great place. We are here before her, as we are aiming to set up the bulk of the apartment before she arrives tomorrow afternoon/midday-ish. It has been a lot, but it seems to be going well so Fant. Plus, we have been really enjoying one another’s company, especially tonight at the Airbnb. My mom and aunt and uncle, and my brother and his wife and I are all here. The dynamic has been quite pleasant. We shall see how things alter tomorrow, when a different uncle joins us. He is very different from us in many, many ways. Fingers crossed we all have a wonderful time tomorrow and tomorrow night, too. There is much to be done in the morning – very, very much. Hopefully, we will manage it all so well that we have little to do in the afternoon/evening, and my grandma is impressed with her new home and likes it. God, help us succeed, please, in being your love in the world and, especially, in the life of my grandma tomorrow and this week. Amen.
Firstly, I know life isn’t fair, but it is different to be prepared for it regarding myself and having to witness the utterly hypocritical meanness of one person being directed unfairly and so harshly to someone I dearly love. Those are the moments when I most want to be loud and fierce, both verbally and physically. For now, I step away from the situation and aim not to speak much, if at all. I do not believe anything would be resolved by my outrage being expressed so directly. It’s part of the whole, ‘Why do you expect her to behave any differently than she always does?’ idea – if the person is always nasty, righteously self-centered, and hypocritical, what is one more nasty, self-centered, hypocritical action on the hundreds of thousands already passed? But it still hurts when I must witness directly those incidents, and when I must see immediately how they affect someone I love so dearly.
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Secondly, have you ever found yourself wondering if a person does not, in fact, have an extremely distinct voice, but, perhaps, you have only attuned yourself, intentionally or not, to notice that voice above the crowd? That that voice, perhaps, is not so distinct as a voice, but as the person behind it and his/her importance in your life in particular, perhaps??? Yeah…
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Finally, I still hold that we get exactly what we need exactly when we need it, and that we end up exactly where we need to be exactly when we need to be there. Golly, it has been rough and tough this week. Someone asked if a lot of curve balls had been thrown my way this week, and I said that it was more like someone was throwing a bunch of basketballs at my face instead, in the middle of torrential rain and lightning while I held an umbrella… and there just weren’t any rules at all. He said it sounded like I was playing the wrong sport.
And I think that was the best line for me, both in terms of the positive comedic effect of it, and in terms of the idea behind it. Perhaps I had been playing the wrong sport in it all. You know, had my eye on the wrong ball…. Perhaps… So, I’ll look to see what I have been missing this week. Why has it been so hard, leaning toward desperate? What have I let myself get stuck on? What game have I thought the Universe was playing with me? How can I turn this all into fully-positive stress, instead of just semi-positive stress and a lot of negative, hopeless-feeling stress? God, give me the clarity to move forward with all of this beautifully and positively, please. Bless me with the courage to take on this stress with glee, like a beautiful math test – which, somehow, has come up in multiple conversations in the past few days….(WHY?????? Haha; love it, though!) – that I can hardly wait to take on and expertly master and sort out. Through You I do all – help me to be Your love fully, now and always. Amen.
Sometimes, life just feels like it sucks… big time… may we, in those times, let go and let God have it all. God, into your hands I commend my whole life. I want so much to happen right now and in the very near future and throughout my life. And I trust that you will give me exactly what I and the World need, exactly when we need it that way. For whatever reason, I need to face these troubles right now. Help me through them powerfully, please. I trust and I trust in you.
I really hope I remember to make the tea with the protein powder before I leave in the morning… and pack my salad in the ice chest, and the ice cubes, which are actually whisky stones, which are actually honeycomb quartz… it will be the first time for me to use them. I’m still unsure as to what I am putting in the container to drink with them… maybe just water, since it likely will be hot where I will be working all daytime tomorrow.
I am in charge of wiping down just about everything before it gets put in the moving truck tomorrow. My grandmother has spent 91 years in residence of Port Arthur, Texas. Monday afternoon, she will arrive to her new home in a community in Wimberley. Talk about change… but we are thrilled for her, and she seems to be quite delighted about her decision, too.
Alas, I must sleep these four and a half hours granted to me now, before my alarm sounds in the morning. Goodnight!
I think, “I don’t know,” is one of the most valuable answers we can offer in life (when it is true, of course)… It can truly transform the world, openly admitting when we just don’t know something or what to do or say or think, that simple, beautiful phrase, “I don’t know.”
We went to the opera tonight, and the show was a first-time opera of the children’s book A Snowy Day. In it, young Peter goes out to play in the snow all on his own for once. For the production tonight, he had to take off his pajamas and dress in the outdoor winter gear, in order to go play outside for the day. Watching that scene play out, I was reminded of one of my own favorite little oddities.
You see, I love – and no, I don’t know why – putting on a winter coat etc. over my pajamas and going out. In Japan, it happened regularly, either to take out the trash or to go see Fuji-San from atop the hill next to my apartment, late at night. I think I might even have done it one night just to go sneak some rosemary from a neighbor’s massive growth all along the side of his house, and also to go to the 7/11 down the street.
There’s just something about the contrast of it all that I love. Warm, cozy pajama-wear, with no bra, closed into a warm and cozy coat and scarf (and probably hat, too), wool socks slid into my big green rain boots… and then stepping outside into the cold, cold air, usually at night, always post-shower. Those were the times… haha… and I don’t even know why. But I don’t care. They were wonderful, and I am grateful for them. I look forward to the next time I have such an opportunity (as Houston has quite few cold nights in the first place).
Have you ever had that feeling of, ‘I would do just about anything for you,’ for someone? And the, ‘I will love you however you need me to love you,’ one?
It was successful, by the way, the gift. When I presented it to him, he didn’t fully understand. It just looked like an odd, artsy, plant-y presentation of a rose-shaped folded piece of fabric. After the distractions of other sudden comments and conversations from passers-by departed, he finally continued opening up the rose-folded fabric… One guy commented enthusiastically, “It’s a scarf!” at which point I realized that no one had any idea what it actually was yet, and he needed to unfold it all the way. Finally, he got there, and he discovered that it was a Hawaiian shirt! And it was a very nice and pretty and purple Hawaiian shirt. He was delighted, huge smile and hug and everything. He showed it almost immediately to his friends, and they went wild, cheering. As I had said, he’d needed a Hawaiian shirt. 😛 Even though he enjoyed it greatly, he commented at one point that he thought his friends might be even more excited about it than he was – a major compliment on the present. I was thrilled and grateful that it had played out so well. My mom had done the folding and presentation setup of the shirt, cutting palm fronds and leafy, green things, and picking up moss clumps to put it all together in a beautiful presentation, like a fancy flower on display in a box. (Naturally, I never got a photo of it in good lighting, because I was so excited about gifting it…, but it is what it is, so here is the poorly lit photo I have of the “flower”.)
A rose, by any other name, might be a Hawaiian shirt…
Separately, my mom and I went to an Islamic Art Festival today. It was filled with luminous, beautiful, heart-filled art. So much heart and light and love all around that room today. I am grateful to have been able just to be present with it all. I am further grateful for the fact that just a tiny bit of it came home with me this evening, thanks to my mom.
However, there was one piece that caught my eye early on in the day: a medium-large, mostly white painting. (I know, a white canvas sounds impressive, but it absolutely was…) It had some gold foiling on it, but looked like an otherwise white , slightly textured painting (almost oil-like with the depth and textures), with script shaped to look a bit like a whirling dervish, a Sufi. I wanted to know what it said. But mostly so that I could be clear that it had been calling to me in particular…, because it felt for the first time in my life that I wanted to – **snoot-snoot** – ‘purchase an art piece for our personal home collection’. I know it may seem to be odd wording there, but that was what it was. Like the Sophie Kinsella book “Remember Me?”, how they collected art for their fancy “loft-style living” penthouse, I wanted to start my own real collection of art today. (**Note: In the book, she had gone from having missed a bonus by a one-week hire date at her new, low-paying job to, after a car accident and resulting amnesia, being five years older, married, in a high-paying leadership job at the company, driving a Mercedes, and living in an extremely posh penthouse in London along the Thames. So, the lifestyle was absolutely foreign to her, and their art collection had particularly blown her mind simply as a concept, let alone what the art pieces were and how much they had cost [loads and loads, obviously]. Her commentary upon discovering everything in her ‘new’ wealthy life and lifestyle was comical and relatable, and her story was quite inspiring in terms of pursuing lofty dreams in life… like having a posh art collection in ‘loft-style living’. Hashtag real-life goals, right?… Anyway, moving on…)
When we returned later to speak with the artist – she hadn’t yet arrived to the festival for the day when we first were there -, I began crying during her explanation of the words on the piece and why she had done what she had for it. I couldn’t explain myself except that I was overwhelmed, literally overflowing with water. And I couldn’t seem to stop for a while. The words she was sharing through that piece were exactly what have been my guiding light lately in life, it was no wonder I was so drawn to the piece. I hadn’t even noticed initially that they were words, the energy of it was so loud and so truly in line with where I am presently moving in life.
She could tell it was positive crying, I believe. The piece itself she had set for $500, with all of the proceeds going to a charity she likes and supports. The latter part was impressive in and of itself (including what the wonderful charity does), making me want to support the artist all the more (and, of course, making me cry a bit more in gratitude for the wonderful, heart-filled good that people are still pursuing and doing in this beautiful life). The former set the piece where I believed it belonged, in a ‘true art piece’ category. She went on to tell me that she would be more than happy to work with us… on other offers of price, or, even, on a print of the piece – she’d gladly work with us on any of the options, as she wants the piece to go somewhere where it will be loved and appreciated and wanted.
So, we have all of her information, and I will be discerning over the next several hours and couple days, and I will reach out to her to let her know where I stand with everything, likely tomorrow or Tuesday. My mom said to me that this was a perfect example of where she would love to be in a life where such a purchase could be an easy, “Yes,” and a, “And here’s another $500 to go with it.” But we don’t live that kind of life. Not right now, anyway. And that is perfect for right now. Regarding what to do about the piece, I would love to have it in my home for the rest of my life. And that is a lot of money for me at present. Sure, I may have money in the bank, but, until I have reliable higher income, that money is there to keep me functioning (safely and reliably and without mental stress) in life with food and housing and transportation, etc.
I want to honor the piece for what it is. And I must honor my current financial state, and trust that God will guide me appropriately forward.
When I saw the piece, when it reached out and called me initially, my experience, though I hadn’t had the words at the time, was one of slight paralysis as the idea settled within me that, ‘I want to see that every day of my life.’ I believe fully that we are exactly where we need to be, exactly when we need to be there. And we are given exactly what we need, exactly when we need it. This piece and this wonderful artist and woman showed up today on purpose – we all fulfilled needs all around. This discernment is here for me necessarily, and right now. God, please guide me clearly forward with this art piece. I trust in you wholly. Amen.
hannah ananas 