Well, I’ll be honest, this spring I was slow to get started. My body took way longer to recover from this winter than it has in previous years, probably because I am back living in the Love Canal house, which I think started my various ailments to begin with… but I am doing the best I can.
It was both a mental and physical struggle as I spotted the yard and the horrible condition it was in. Trash everywhere, things needing to be fixed, my mother’s hoarding habits spilling out into the open air. This place had become just one massive dump, like the houses you see in the boonies of Maine. Just looking at it made me want to immediately give up, but I planted my garden anyway, only to have it eaten a week later by chipmunks. It took me a while to work up the mental energy to change how I was looking at everything. I can and will clean it all up, in small chunks, as energy allows, and I will reward my own effort by building an outdoor pen for my bunnies and buying myself some more veggie plants! My buns will LOVE their new outdoor enclosure and I’ll love seeing them play in it! It’s a win win! Sometimes all it takes to feel good about yourself is spoiling your pets or loved ones and seeing them truly relish in it.
I was getting super anxious because I wanted to get so much done but I just couldn’t. I’d get up, have a flurry of activity, and then be too tired to function in three hours. Nap. Repeat. I wanted to resume my traveling, my photography, my gardening, and just basically getting involved with life again. I was starting to get a bit lonely, and a bit depressed, but then these past three or four days have been awesome and have completely restored my peace of mind!
I finally got up enough energy and the funds to drive three hours into the middle of nowhere to see some of the most beautiful sights I have ever seen at the Flume Gorge, where the photos from this blog entry were taken. I took all sorts of photos for Catching Marbles and enjoyed a really awesome afternoon with my mother. Everyone seemed so happy that day. Even the women at the ticket booth had ear to ear grins and were laughing. I keep forgetting I have bright fucking orange hair and that’s probably what they were reacting to. I always smile in return and it puts people at great ease. A great ice breaker for someone as socially awkward as myself. After I came home my mother showed me a photo she’d taken of me taking my own pictures and I couldn’t help but look at it and wonder who that person was…. so confident and self assured, so passionate, so intense. I never used to be those things, at least not in public! I knew in my heart if I could see this, so too could others, and at some point the stars will align and I will begin to form new stronger friendships and relationships with the people I meet when I am out and about.
It was another three hour drive home and when I got there I was two hours past the point of being tired and wanting to be home. It was quite a hike in addition to the driving, two miles, much of it up stairs and hills, and I was EXHAUSTED. I wanted to go immediately to sleep but again my anxiety kept me up. It likes to keep me up, as well as wake me up to nightmares, and keep me up after that. The only thing that calms it is knowing I am doing enough in my life… and I was getting there but not quite.
I spent the entire next day sleeping. I had NO ENERGY for anything. It was like having the flu. And I was sooooore! It was a completely unproductive day which only ticked off my anxiety issues more. Sitting there thinking, “I should have set up at the Farmer’s Market today…” and knowing I wouldn’t have been able to while still keeping my eyes open! Take it from experience no one buys shit from vendors they think are passing out into a heroin induced stupor (which is what I’d probably look like with my grave yard tan and drooping eyelids!) Even so my mother came back home with the contact information of a farm here in town that’s doing what I want to eventually do – it’s an educational community based farming operation. I made plans to go over next week and talk to them, to see if I could maybe volunteer, and write up a blog entry for Tales from the Birdello. And just like that I felt involved again.
Today was still lacking in energy but had enough to go to Wal-Mart for a few minutes and build up even more energy to go to an Arlo Guthrie concert. That was amazing! The crowd was wonderful, almost entirely old hippies, some of them telling stories about living in a commune. I felt SO at ease! And joyous! And calm! The vibes of this place were more than enough for me to get a bit of a contact high. I was so chill! And of course all the songs start coming up, I know all of the old ones, his own and covers of other great singers and songwriters like Pete Seager, Donovan, Bob Dylan, and Leadbelly. I was loving it. During intermission I chatted with the lovely silver haired woman sitting next to me. She loved my orange hair and wondered if someone as young as me could possibly be enjoying this. I told her I had a record player and grew up with these songs too and it was true. After intermission I got to see Alice’s Restaurant performed live and I was over the moon to hear that! I sang along and smiled. Then his daughter sang a version of Phil Och’s When I’m Gone and I was reduced to tears. Something about Phil Ochs always gets me… and to hear a song he more or less left as a suicide note was a bit much. But it was beautiful and strangely life affirming. I can’t believe I was sitting there, crying, in public. I have never been that in touch of my emotions or that willing to express them. It was actually really nice! The concert was finished with Woody Guthrie’s My Peace which put into words exactly how I have been feeling:
“My peace my peace is all I’ve got that I can give to you
My peace is all I ever had that’s all I ever knew
I give my peace to green and black and red and white and blue
My peace my peace is all I’ve got that I can give to you
My peace, my peace is all I’ve got and all I’ve ever known
My peace is worth a thousand times more than anything I own
I pass my peace around and about ‘cross hands of every hue;
I guess my peace is justa ‘bout all I’ve got to give to you”
Yes, I am on the right track. I am doing exactly what I was meant to do and am exactly where I am meant to be. I will find my tribe and fulfill my purpose no matter what struggles may come. I just have to keep working hard and be patient and understanding with myself.
And hey, if any of you out there want a good cry here’s Phil Och’s singing When I’m Gone.