Hi there.
You may be wondering where I’ve been these last few months, and the fact of the matter is: all over the place, both physically and mentally. But I don’t want to leave the blog hanging, especially on such a somber note. It’s just that it’s been a very busy summer, and since I’ve not yet gotten into the habit of writing on a daily basis, sitting down at the keyboard is just one more thing most times. However, to at least bring things up to speed, here’s what’s been going on:
- Launched YouTube in 10 new countries
- Did a whole bunch of webstuff for the Joseph Campbell Foundation, as a result of meeting many of their fine folks at Esalen back in March
- Started taking guitar lessons again, and also bought a ukulele for future music fun
- Drove all over California, and slowly rekindled my love for my home state. I may have been born in Washington, but the Golden State is home in all the ways that matter.
- Decided to apply for grad school at Pacifica Graduate Institute, in a program that leads to no particular career but hopefully a lot of personal growth and satisfaction, and a new community to be part of.
- Learned about making houses out of straw, mud, and cement (all 3 pigs at once), how to raise chickens, how to put solar panels on your house, how corn has domesticated humans, and many other things that keep my brain in a perpetual state of ferment and make it hard to sleep.
- I’m adding knitting to the above list on Saturday.
There is so much I want to do, and so many things that need doing in the world, and sometimes they overlap (in fact, a lot lately). It’s just a matter of making time to do them, and balancing that against work, relationships, cleaning the house, etc. I always think that if I just spent less time at work, I would do all of these things in my head, but a long bout of unemployment taught me the opposite—I wasted most of the time I had then. I mean, how many times does one person really need to watch Fight Club? So I’ve been forced to admit that there’s something necessary for me in this tension between the have-tos and the want-tos.
So that’s the job for Fall: figure it out, and then buckle down with the computer and the notebook and whatever else, and just start. Part of that will probably involve a redesign of this here site at some point, both so I can learn Drupal/PHP, and so that it can become more of a gateway to information and a bit less of the MeMeMe all the time. Keep an eye out for that, and in the meantime, thanks for sticking around and I’ll stop by my little Internet shack here more often until the main house gets built.
It’s been a year now since you passed away, and though I’m not fond of euphemisms, this one seems like an accurate description of what you actually did. I still miss you a lot—every day, and terribly sometimes. Sudden tidal waves still come, less often but no less sudden or forceful, and usually without any particular rhyme or reason. Just like you did, I am learning to let go.
I turned 40 yesterday, which of course you know, and it’s hard to even begin to track everything that’s happened in the last year. My 40th year began with your death, but has also included some extraordinary good fortune, and it’s hard not to think that one was the cause for the other, even though in some ways that makes me miss you even more. What I miss most is how everything that has happened since you left would have been such a joy to share with you, both the good and the bad, and the hardest part now that the real shock has long worn off is that even the best things have a tinge of bittersweetness. I suspect you’d remind me at this point that life is like that—you knew it better than many, and one of your lessons that I hope I never forget is to appreciate everything that life has to offer as a gift, even when it seems hard to take.
So, I’m in this interesting position now of having the potential to go in almost any direction I might choose. I miss your wise counsel and attentive ear, but at the same time, I seem to be developing many of the qualities I used to look for in you. I’m sure you’d say that this is what growing up actually means, and I think you’re right. I think you’d be excited that I’m considering grad school, and taking guitar lessons again, and reading a lot, and I know you would have loved to be at the birthday party on Saturday to meet all of my friends. One of the other big sadnesses of your passing is that this won’t happen, because you’d all really enjoy each other.
I miss your smile, your blue rug, being the baloney, watching you create, sharing the latest cool book, cooking dinner, making candles, laughing in the studio, watching you and Dad be goofy, and everything else that’s now only memory. It still seems unfair and I’m still mad at the universe sometimes, but I also trust that wherever and whatever you are now, you’re doing fine. I hope you can see that for the most part, I am too. I count every day that I got to share with you as a blessing, even the ones when I was 19 and we were at each others’ throats. When I look in the mirror every morning, it’s your eyes that look back, and I hope that I live up to everything you hoped for me when you first looked in mine.
I love you, always.
Carol
