in my element. what an interesting phrase….she is in her element.
Just a while ago, Alyssia left with Emrie for the day…or, till it's time to come back and pick the midling kids up from the bus stop…that would be 3:00.
to recap the Facts: Alyssia, the two midlings, age 8 and 10 and Emrie, 10 months are here Monday through Friday. They live in Chico, 25 minutes away, still. She drives from their home there to drop midlings off at school here in Oroville where they will sometime LIVE when her home arrives. Sometime. For now, she then comes here with Emrie. We all spend the day. She picks up the midlings from the bus stop at 3:00. We are all here till they leave to go home to Chico. sometime in the evening. Often not till 7 or 8 oclock. On weekends, daughter Jenny comes back and forth from where she still lives in Chico. Sometimes Jenny's man comes. Weekend days are Work days….morning till late afternoon, early evening. There's more family once a week, Fate and his contingent, but this is enough to tell for now.
and so
for someone who has lived a life being somewhat conflicted about family, i am surprised to find myself
completely ~In My Element~
am looking at this because a short time ago, Alyssia and Emrie arrived as usual but left about an hour later. Usually when Alyssia has things to do, Emrie and i hang out together. She's never gone for long. But my life is SHARED. I SHARE my days. Totally. And just that while ago, watching them go, Emrie too because Alyssia needs the whole day to be away, too long for Emrie here, she still breast feeds, I felt an extremely Strong Pull to Emrie…the same kind of energy Pull i had for my own kids when they were babies.
a pull that had dissipated over the years until in the last 15 or so, other than when they came to VISIT, i had become accustomed to being Alone. Loving being Alone. Needing to be alone. and by Alone, that included all the other humans i knew. I spent and loved my days Alone. Aside from work, I kept my own company. And to be honest, i had great trepidation about how i would do with changing that. There were long conversations with daughter Jenny and Alyssia about setting boundries…how i would NEED that and if i could enlist their help in pulling it off. We understood each other. And it became time to go. I felt it. It was time. If i continued to wait, i felt i would miss some kind of Window of opportunity, that i needed to go while i was still able to DO things, while i was still uhhhh, Viable as a Woman. I didn't want to wait until i was needing things FROM them, as in old. Frail. For years i'd said that when i could no longer live alone, ie take care of myself, i'd come then. Then.
But then, there rose up The Momentum. From the Old Cowboy, money appeared for them to begin finding a Place. Then Place was found. Finally, after keeping the Goats for Jenny for those 5 years, there was a Place for the Goats to return to her. and here we all Are.
With this day Alone, there are zillions of ways i would want to spend it. The 2 Cloths, first, sitting here next to me on the bench…i can be Alone with them. There are plant people needing to be placed here and there in the Hill forests. There are steps needing to be carved in to the slopes of Campsite B. There is a magnificent book that i am reading. Two gallon glass jars to get plants in, cloth in. A clothes line. Meditation time in the Meditation Hammock Chair, Goat brushing and pellet training, Writing, taking some of the hundreds of photographs i hold in my mind's eye daily, continuing with the Old Rock altar, beginning to create the small one near where the Hut will soon be. Hemming skirts, mending frayed frays. Drawing. Sitting and watching….of all things…..the Blue Jay that has found that he can run off the chicken hens from their feed…I haven't seen a Blue Jay for maybe 30 years. Emrie carried up a radish plant stem from the Wall Garden and it lay outside the door and dried stiff and looks exactly like a slender snake…..i want to tie things on it, color some of it with the Inktense pencils…hang it over on the little Monzanita tree where Wendy Golden Levitt's prayer cloth is
a zillion things
and also, missing Emrie. Missing sharing my day.
So i can see it clearly. I am now for whatever reason, in my Element. The shift has occured. Of it's own accord. And now, in the next months, i will work to refine how i spend time. There really is Enough time…just how to use it, how to Take Time and Give Time. Give and Take. ok. I might want to come back here later and edit or add, but for now, enough. The Cloth wants to be finished, the one that is about Initiation.
windthread 
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