Linnetontheleaf

Costa Rica was a dream, a dream that might change my life.  You know all those novels, movies and songs where people go to the tropics and lose their inibitions and discover their true personalities?  That very nearly happened to me.

Indeed, it seems that it may STILL happen to me.  Something about the novelty and charm of the experience  made me realize the extent to which I have been resisting much inner guidance, perhaps living a false life.  Once I’ve mulled it over sufficiently to be sure I’m not making a drastic mistake, that must be corrected. 

Stay tuned — when Lucy Honeychurch starts to live, that will be something to see.

I have just experienced a brief but serious medical scare (one of those heart-stopping calls in which they say they need to follow up on a little something they noticed in your routine screening), and am still weak with relief that the worries proved to be nothing.

As such things often do, it’s put the world back into clearer perspective for me, and I’m grateful for that.   Almost worth the days of anxiety to have this renewed discernment about what’s important and what’s not!

We’re off to Costa Rica next week, a different sort of vacation for our family — we usually go to Europe and look at churches and paintings, but we’re doing eco-tourism in CR, a complete switch.  Sloths and monkeys!  Coffee plantations and volcanoes!  The Pacific! 

All this and my health too — I’m a lucky woman, and lucky to KNOW it.

I last posted nearly six months ago to the day, which seems incredible, since it feels like a matter of only a few weeks. Frankly I have been in shellshock since that time. I sounded pretty insoucient on September 26, but the unremitting market turmoil gradually chipped away my candy coating, and now I’m melting down like all the other M&Ms in the bag.

I suffered a huge personal loss during this time too, the sudden death of my mother. Though 89, she was in good health and her death was abrupt and shocking. I am resigned on nearly every level — we had a long and wonderful relationship, and I’m so glad she did not suffer — but I think of her and miss her constantly.

Handling her estate and emptying her apartment in a distant city has consumed much of my energy over the past few months. It’s a process, I find, that you can move through numbly, almost disbelieving it’s happening! Such is the dissociative power of the grieving mind.

So the last time I wrote, I more or less pooh-poohed the recent calamitous conditions, but maybe after two more such weeks, perhaps I should now retract that and run screaming for the exits.  We’re in uncharted waters here, and should –they tell us– be very afraid.   But this crowd (Bush et al.) has said that before, and it’s hard to keep working up the requisite level of fear to respond.

So maybe I AM becoming pretty Zen!  Or, it could just be emotional fatigue.  Or the faith that I claim I don’t actually possess?  Or maybe just a due sense of my real priorities.  After all, as long as I don’t open my 401(k) statements or try to borrow money, this is not yet affecting me much.  I expect many of us feel the same, until we turn on the TV and start listening to the talking heads trying to whip us into a panic.

So there’s my latest sanity-preserving strategy — no television.  This is sure to make me the best-informed blogger on the block.

I work in New York in the financial services industry, which has been all too exciting the past several days.  But that isn’t really the right word — I glance at the plummeting Dow chart and cringe, but it’s not exciting in the sense of a roller coaster or a horror movie.  It’s really more like having a long, dreadful dental procedure where you’re simultaneously bored and terrified.

But I’ve lived through a number of these implosions, and miraculously have never really suffered very badly.  My company survives, I remain employed — with frayed nerves and mistrust of authority figures, but no critical damage.

So I’m not as spooked as I used to be.  I cling to an atavistic faith that I am innocent, and will therefore will escape unscathed.  I’ve lived within my means, saved my money, managed my career — thus, no bolt shall fall upon me.  Every day presents me with more and more evidence that this naive belief is cruelly untrue, yet I still hold fast, I suppose because I cannot go on otherwise.

Years ago I had bad scare about my future and ‘coped’ by not getting out of bed for several days.  Now, armed with my pathetic little armor of faith, I arise each morning and slog through my day like the obedient worker bee that I am. 

The voice of experience, or willful gullibility?  Denial or resilience?  Block-headed, or admirable?  I don’t know, but I’m grateful for the crutch.

Today I received a precious gift — a comment on my blog! Complimentary too! I am insanely pleased. Maybe this will provide the inspiration to devote more time, energy and HONESTY to this project. I hereby pledge to make an effort to do that. Thank you, reader — often it is these little kindnesses, simple confirmations of fellow feeling, that make the biggest difference in the lives of others.

Dear Gussie, I am not as good at this as I imagined I would be.  Partly because I’m busy, but so is everybody so that’s no excuse.  Partly because I don’t know what I’m doing here and am too lazy to learn.  Partly because I’m ambivalent about the whole enterprise.  Yes, I thought I wanted to blog, but now that it’s possible, I’m discovering an unsuspected love of privacy!

This is the second arena recently in which I’ve discovered a real fear of intimacy lodged in my character.  I have a gracious southern lady sort of manner, but I am really holding you at arm’s length.  I don’t know why.  I also don’t know why this should be a recent discovery, but I really didn’t suspect this of myself until recently.

But, soldiering on, as long as I’m here — Spain was spectacular.  We were blown away by the quality of everything — the art, architecture, food.  What a revelation (and how ignorant of me not to suspect such treasures).  Now, tthe summer passes, and the children come and go, to and from camps and other activities.  My husband and I flirt with empty-nestedness, which doesn’t really suit me a bit, though I cope.  In a few weeks, some of us are off to London, which is certainly a very good thing, if it doesn’t break the bank, which it very nearly did last time!  I garden half-heartedly in the heat.  I dash to the town pool to cool off.  I paint pictures — peppers and chard. 

Life should be sweet, but I’m blown off-course by something — some consequence yet hanging in the stars?

After my initial euphoria over this my precious blog, I admit that reality has set in. Despite my eagerness to set this up, I remain ambivalent about the self-disclosure which it encourages. Just as important — WHERE DO YOU PEOPLE FIND THE TIME FOR THIS? Maybe I’m just too deliberative for a medium like this, which I sense is supposed to be so spontaneous. I can sit and stew quite a while before putting my fingers to the keyboard! I guess I’ve got to learn to be less private, and to compose faster!

So what’s up? Easter happened, and I sang high-falutin’ church music for untold hours. But I still don’t understand what the resurrection is about. I’m not inclined to worship a mere miracle-worker, but that’s all Jesus is in the gospels. It was Paul who made him the savior. So, I sing, but I do not understand or believe.

Now we prepare to head to Spain mid-April. We’ve never been to Spain, and only our children speak any Spanish, so this will be a totally new experience. I love the look of Toledo’s medieval streets, Avila’s massive city walls, Salamanca’s Plaza Mayor, and Segovia’s Roman acqueduct! So, bon voyage!

I neglected my precious new blog all during February, shame on me.  Obviously I do not deserve to have one!  But I have been busy — some crazy days at the office, lots of activities with children, and planning our family vacation in April — to Spain!  Our daughter celebrates her 16th birthday this week.  Lucky for us she does not expect an extravagant party like some of her friends have had.  (She would rather go to Spain!)  Instead, we spent yesterday afternoon in New York — did some shopping in Soho, then had a Chinese dinner in Chinatown, followed by tartufo in Little Italy.  A delightful day to celebrate a delightful girl.

 I am really not that old (AM I? — barely past the half-century mark), but the pace of the world makes me feel that way.  It is appalling to think that I lived nearly the first half of my life in a computer-free zone.  The first computer I was really familiar with was enormous and only did payroll, yet we were AMAZED.

 So anyway, it should come as no suprise that even with WordPress plain-English instructions, I am challenged here.  I’ve spent the last 3 days trying to figure out how to insert that picture in an acceptable size — at first it was enormous!  after days of struggle, it’s now tiny!  I cannot seem to hit the happy medium.

 I knew when I began this that I would find it technically challenging, and on the whole, I guess I am pleased it hasn’t been WORSE.  I lose heart so very easily in such realms, where I am so 1) incompetent and 2) basically uninterested.

 I resent the assumption that we are all so tech-savvy!  The expectation that we are all capable of being our own in-house tech support is akin to getting a message like this from your doctor — ‘bad news, you need an operation, but you’re going to have to do it YOURself.  Here are some instructions in mumbo-jumbo.  Good luck with that!’