Good Stuff

I want to tell you so many things. I want to tell you about feeling good. So good.


Because more than one person and place told me I was needed and valuable and would make their place better. Because we wandered through open places where homes sprout out of the earth, homes that I dreamt of but forgot of that dreaming until the doors opened wide. Because yesterday a wide open opportunity cracked light into a place that has laid quiet and dim for many years.

It has been five days of immense change, possibility, opening. It started with a long drive North with my partner, you know, that one who lays next to me in the dark hours and struggles to hold the daily grind of life at bay in the light hours. The one who I forget to cheriah at times when the grind of life grinds on me. It was a good drive, full of talk of dreaming and doing. And also some loud ranting on my part that is always received so gently and taken so readily.

And then Thursday morning I walked nervously into a setting where I was anticipating grilling, questioning, proving. But the space was not that, it was courting. The courting of Me, my skills and person. I was blushing by the end of the two hours there. And I was encouraged and totally sold. The rest of the day we spent on winding roads, framed by old old oaks, winding into a town that is my kind of town. Old and new, seamless. A library that has a whole floor for children, tucked down creaking stairs and opening to space that says 'We love and value small people who want to read and learn'. Tiny local stores full of handmade and whimsy.

A school on a hill that advocates learning outside of the classroom. Victorians and cottages that beg to be owned because they cost a fraction, a reasonable fraction.


And then Friday, another interview. Her first laughing line to me when I walked into her office? "Oops, guess I should have told you it is casual Friday," (giggle) as I stood in my 'dress up' clothes. The giggle put me at ease immediately and I liked this woman, one who could be my boss. I sat at a table with 6 people, my colleagues, told them about myself. And then got really pass-out nervous by the attention but they gracefully stepped in to give me a minute to recover. Then we just talked. About our work, what they want and what I want and the Universe said 'Bam!'. Because they need Me. Exactly what I am. They need someone who lives in that town that I was in yesterday, they need an experienced neuro specialist, they have plans, big plans. And they want me to be a part of it. I did not blush this time, I fiercely lobbied. Because I felt it, that click, that this was it, what I was wishing; for accomplished confident colleauges seeking growth and community and support. The only drawback is the position is not full time. So I have decided it is not a drawback only a sign for me to get in there and remind them why they need me there full time. I was offered both jobs which is so awesome, but Job #2 is it. I am hoping the Universe continues to speak to me, to help make it happen.

And then I met my baby niece, the newest person to join the expanding world of my blood. Giant eyes, lashed for days, animated beyond belief for her 4 weeks.

So wonderful, to hold her close and talk to her Mama and hug my brother, fiercely again, to see him move into this place in his life, to know we could be just down the way from them.

And then Tahoe, where I feel like my cup has run a little over. This weekend in Northstar there is a fundraising race and event. It is organized by Tara Llanes, a pro-mountain bike rider that was in a terrible crash that resulted in a spinal cord injury. She hosts the event every year and we have been there for three years in a row. Before I transitioned to home health, I was a neuro specialist, mainly stroke and brain injury, but I treated persons with SCI often. I make it a point to be there to contribute but I always wanted to do more than just show up.

This year a new company called CORE was part of the event. Click the link to know more but basically a young guy named Aaron Baker started the first fully adapted gym for people with functional limitations, things that might keep them out of a 'gym' setting. He opened in January, all equipment is designed for individuals that have need for special equipment and it costs 60 bucks a month to join. He wants to spread this love and by god, I am going to help him do it. My mind jumped immediately to opening one up here at the base of Tahoe, for those that have need for this 'niche' gym, as he called it.

I feel so passionate about this for many reasons. My greatest challenge when I worked in rehab was not the treatment, it was the discharge process. Telling a person "Your rehab is done, now go out and do your best in a world that does not accomodate many of your needs". I had a few resources to refer but they were all short term, anemic when you think of time in terms of years of recovery. No matter whether that person was 21 or 76, there is no place to tell them to go once their rehab dollars run out. But now there is, there is a vision that Aaron realized because he has a high complete cervical SCI and he never said to himself, "I can't".

The amazing thing? He walks, people. He is a high cervical complete SCI and he gets up out of his chair and walks. This is both miraculous and encouraging for anyone living with an injury. Actually, this is mindblowing. He says it is because he never stopped training his body to recover. I believe him.

So, wow. The Universe and its voice these past few days has floored me.

I am grateful and joyful and so very happy. And that is such a good thing.
That is what I wanted to tell you. And that I hope you are too, want to give some of it to you, my friends. It feels like so much right now, I have plenty to spare.

240 and Ticking

I started 365 on January 1st. I wanted a challenge, a recording. I wanted to pick up my camera daily and work it, work my eye and my equipment. I wanted the discipline. I am 240 days in with a few missed days here and there which is not too hard to shrug off.



I am finding that I may be getting more than I thought from this year of shooting. I may have recorded the last year we will live in this house, this space, these hills, this Home. Hard to believe so much (and yet so little) has happened in the span of 240 days.

In January Tim and I took a solo trip North. We needed kid-less time and we wanted to explore. We headed North into the land at the base of Lake Tahoe, rolling foothills not very different from our own but with so much more space and possibility and promise. The promise tasted sweet and unfamiliar, an adventurous taste reminding us of those days pre-family and pre-home ownership when we used to leave ... to Africa, to Ireland, To Oz. It was a heady thought, the leaving and relocating. We returned home, immersed back into the Home we have now, the work, the friends, the lives. But we could not let it go.

We talked about it. I Mondo Beyondo'd it in a very quiet internal way. We incessantly perused Zillow and Redfin and had discussions with my live in parents about logistics and possibilities and hope for a different place, a Future that was not so shaped by the Past.

And then we went, three weeks North with our boys, seeing family interspersed with more searching and finding, a deepening well of assurance that this was right. We left reluctantly, afraid to re-immerse and reconnect and maybe forget our resolve.

The day before we returned I screwed up the courage to look into one of the larger healthcare providers in the area. They had no less than 5 jobs open in my area of practice, 5 jobs in the area we want to call Home. But I stalled, hesitated to apply online, frozen in the headlights of such big change.

I spoke to my supervisor the first day back about my desire to move and the very real possibility of leaving my position. She was supportive and encouraging and even gave me ideas about what my salary should be up North. I still did not apply.

It has been a month since we returned. Last Monday I put in my application. I received a call back that evening. I talked with a recruiter Tuesday then had a phone interview Wednesday for a position, Friday for another. The medical system is stellar, the people I have spoken to make me smile, the jobs offer fully paid benefits for the whole family and a whole lot of other bells and whistles that had me jumping up and down in my chair. We are headed North again, Tim and I, two in-person interviews scheduled for later in September.

I am giddy, I am so damn nervous and I am marveling at all that can happen in 240 days. Some days have felt mundane and unoriginal, slogging through paperwork, later seeking a glimmer of light for that picture I 'have' to take.


But if this all happens in the way it may happen, I will forever be amazed and grateful for recording the Year Our Lives Changed A Lot.

Going to keep going to see what the next 125 days hold.

It was a Good Trip

It was a good trip but now we are home again. So quickly we fall back into the routine of life; watering the garden, messing up every room in the place, returning to the work of patient care. Forgetting.

It was hard to leave Sunday, we lingered in Auburn, having lunch and walking around the wooden sidewalks, stopping into the antique store, the Alehouse.

It was hard to plunge back into the steamy swampy heat that summer has become in the Los Angeles basin. Sticky and uncomfortable, running the AC that night because we needed some sleep.

A part of me wants to run back North right away, just do it now. I miss it already. I miss knowing my sisters are close enough to reach in 6 hours, not 13. I miss the sunset there. I miss the hikes with family. I miss it all.


Monday I went into the office to pick up my laptop and muster up some home care patients, in need of work and money. And I had a sit down with my supervisor and let her know that I am going to apply for jobs North, unsure of timing but sure of the change. She was supportive and assured me that she would not fire me in the meantime, so that is good. And in that moment I knew we were committed. That we are not waiting until next year or 'maybe soon' or 'someday'. I know that it is time to do it now. So scary but so cool too.

Big changes make me think of the movie 'What About Bob'. Baby steps. Baby steps to the computer to fill out the system application. Baby steps to the de-cluttering of stuff. Baby steps will eventually get us the 500 or so miles North, back to the place we want to call Home.

Then I always inevitably think of the scene where Bob is tied to the boat mast, arm spread joyously shouting "Look at me! I'm a sailor! I sail!'. And he got their via Baby Steps.
(God, I love that movie. Bill Murray, he is just brill.)

But first, this weekend we will play hooky for a bit, heading down to San Diego for a few days of equanimous weather that stays in the 65-72 degree range without fail. Legoland calls, then Blogher 2011 to see the lovely friends that live too far away no matter what point West, to play in the beach sand and watch sea animals and listen friends speak their amazing words and then it will be time to come home and declare an end to all the dallying and just get to it.

A little recap of our trip as a reminder to me that we need to do this and a little glimpse for you as to where you will find us in the near future.




And a big smile to any new people that found their way here via Blogher. Feel free to come along as we take this new ride in Life. :) xo amiee

Fear and Freedom

I have to chuckle a bit after reading the last post. Somehow I thought I would find the time to write in the maelstrom that is life on the road. It feels as if I wrote that post months past and a minute ago. And tomorrow it is time to head back South, somewhat weary from the time away but also very very changed.


The last few weeks have solidified some very important beliefs that Tim and I hold, the most important being that we have to move. Not want to, not going to, but HAVE to. It was a multi-purpose trip with riding and family and yoga but the crux was spending time in our future home to make sure it should be our Future.


What we found still makes me smile. The people at the checkout counter smiled and took moments for conversation or to speak with our boys. The ice cream shop teenagers asked my kids which color spoon they preferred. The library has felt boards and tolerant smiles and The New Yorker shelved right next to Farm and Grain and Organic Homesteading. It felt like our Utopia.



Sure, people still cut each other off a bit and snarls of traffic could be found in some places. But it did not feel hick or wrong or closed. It felt right. And the homes we were able to visit sealed the deal, places with some breathing room and old oaks and veggie plots, one was even right next to a family winery (which might be a dangerous situation if the tasting room is open frequently). We did not find our home but I instead we found our Place, and the home will follow.


So now, to take the plunge. There are 5 PT positions open in the very nearby area, my parents are eager to move and the house we live in is (almost) in a salable condition. My heart squeezes and thumps harder as I write this but it feels possible.


I did a full day of yoga on Thursday, it just so happened a HUGE yearly festival coincided with out return this week. I worked through three 2 hour classes over the course of the day and still feel a bit hobbled. But I will tell you, each class I chose did something to me. One literally churned my insides, teaching me to reshape my inner body and strength to support the outer. One taught me to fly on the backs and hips and hands of other yogis. And the last gave insight into teaching and branding yoga and all the nuances that exist as the practice of yoga moves into common consciousness.


During my Acroyoga class the tiny full voiced teacher Jenny discussed the form with us. We spoke of releasing fear and her comment still sits in my heart today. "Fear and Freedom are two sides of the same Coin". And they are. I would like to think I am listening carefully enough to the Universe and its message. And though we have to return much deeper south than I would prefer, I want to continue to stoke this fire and freedom as we thread back into our lives in our current Home.

So many memorable moments from the trip but for now I just want to marinate in this newly found conviction.

Thai massage demo. That was some yoga day, let me say. Also, I discovered I can do this to Tim. And that makes me feel so powerful and him so loved.

We interrupt this broadcast ...

Though I feel that I am infrequently here lately, I just wanted to direct you to my Mondo Beyondo site where I think I will be spending some quality time for a few weeks.









This second round is doing good things for me and giving me the Uumph! I needed to feel a little more connected. Feel free to read along as it goes.

Dreaming + Garden = Mondo

Five years ago Tim and I took a trip North. We were visiting family in the Pacific Northwest and tacked on a week to head to Canada. We spent some of our Canadian time on a little piece of land called Salt Springs Island. I actually posted about it here when this blog was first started.

That island changed me. Quite literally in many ways. I remember we carefully motored off the ferry onto small winding roads and I was struck by that feeling I once had as a little girl ... as if I had found a place of magic and fey folk. The island itself is close and intimate, peppered with small farms and sheep and artists. We had to hike to our campsite, right there on the water. I got pregnant with the boys on that island. I still get goosebumps when I recall the days there.

We found a winery; small, local, like everything there. It was a warm day and remember I was so silly, afraid to sip the wine tastings 'just in case'. I tried their white and bought a bottle and we watched our then puppy Mishka plunge into a small pond with the 'winery local' dogs, paddling around and splashing. I loved that day, that feeling.

The first thing that I noticed when we pulled up to the winery was the land. It rolled a bit up to the home, down to the tasting room. The owners were clever gardeners, terracing with raised beds, junk repurposed into garden art, flowers mixed with food. It was like a page out of Sunset magazine and we got to spend the day in it. There is nothing that gets closer to my heart than real life Sunset mag scenes.



I think that day enbedded itself into me, my psyche and dreams. It certainly embedded itself into my garden aesthetic. Since that day we have had twins, raised them, revisited another island, and finally finally realized some of the gardening dream that buried itself into my heart that day.





I will never be a farmer, far from a proficient gardener even now. But over the last 4 years I have learned so much about what I love. I was never really a 'growing' girl, impatient with what I thought the earth would just let go of freely. I have tempered that impatience now, learned to observe, learned to only plant what we like to eat, learned to play and plan all at the same time.



The backyard this year looks like that place, that sweet spot on the sweetest spot I have yet been in all my travels. It has the beds and the mixed purpose planting. It has flowers and fruit and food and us. A place for us to sit and talk or play or eat. It is far from done, I have come to realize no garden is ever really done, just fluxing in and out of states. But it is as close to the 'perfect' as I want it to be.



If we do leave here I will mourn just a bit. But also know that if that scene from 5 years ago ran so deep that we created here, well, then we can create it anywhere. And if we do go North, we will be that much closer to Salt Springs.

I realized this dream and wrote this post a few days back (before the blogger black out). I also came to the realization that sometimes dreams need a little refresher and signed up for a second round of Mondo Beyondo, this time with a few good friends that I cannot wait to work with as they do their first course. I am very excite about this.


And just as the garden space became something onto itself, I think it may be high time to seek out a new space on the internets and so I hope to move house this weekend to Squarespace where things just look a little prettier. I hope that you, my reading friends, do follow and I will make sure to update here if it does actually happen.

Here is to Dreaming in Action, right?

Anew

That last post was somewhat prompted by the odd heady space Tim and I have been in since the New Year came. I think I have mentioned in a not so specific way that we are thinking of moving. It felt not so specific until this past weekend. Now it feels like a much more real and present prospect, an idea that can become reality.


It is not an imminent move, we are not packing any bags quite yet. There are a lot of logistics to sort out but first we had to make sure. So we spent a weekend exploring the curves and secrets and contours of a place that we would like to call home someday. We visited the library because the library can speak volumes for a town. I found the mother lode of buttons at the local antique shop (a good omen, I believe). We saw land and farms and found ourselves climbing steep mountain roads that made me ill.

It is still California but North, far from the dry Southland we now call home. And yet, there is a continuity to California, something that fits like a good coat.

We want some breathing room, some not so suburban living, access to the things that we love so dearly and try to appreciate daily.

We want to be closer to a family that is performing a mass exodus north with no designs on returning to the L.A. basin. I want chickens and maybe a goat, a pond would be nice. And I want a place to wear these. I want my boys to be able to roam a little freer in an area that still rolls without the interruption of tract home after tract home coating the once oak filled hills.


So, we took the first tentative step into a new world of unknowns. The next steps are much more concrete and involve finishing home projects and deck building and front door refurbishing with the aim to invite someone else into my childhood home and ask them to live here (for a fee, of course). It feels good/odd/scary/different but it does not feel bad and it does not feel sad. And I think that is what matters most.

The up side? If we do fix up this place and decide not to sell, I anticipate we will have one hell of a nice place to live.

Wings (Clipped?)

Our passports expired December 31, 2010. We had initially planned to renew them but the steep price of 110$ each made it impossible this year. Letting them expire felt like a closure of some other part of our lives together. Locked in the U.S. we are until we can come up with the sum of 320$ to let us out again (once they expire you have to apply anew which costs 160$ now).

I remember when we received them in the mail, it was the fall of 1999. we were planning our first trip out of the country, to africa, of all places. South Africa to be exact. We quit our jobs, we tried to pack as light as possible and we left home, hoping to stay away for at least three months, maybe more. We left on a plane to Holland right about this time in January, arriving in Amsterdam, impressed with the airport Schipol, venturing out via public transport, welcomed by my father’s Dutch-Indo family that call Holland home. It was bitter cold winter and we wandered the city for over a week, taking in all the amazing architecture and spirit that is the city of Amsterdam.

We loved it, I still remember the feeling of walking through the van gogh museum, seeing painting after painting gathered in one centralized spot. It was almost shattering.

We also had an interesting encounter with the Dutch ‘emergency’ room due to a terrible mix of Larium, strong Belgian beer and some pot. Never ever to be repeated again. And then we were on a place headed to Jo-burg, into summer and far far away from anything called home. South Africa was beautiful and shocking and disorienting and enchanting and all the things that places far far away from home can be.



But oddly enough, parts of it felt just like home, some parts are in the same climate zone as Southern California and we would hike and feel suddenly relocated to home. Until baboons starting hooting from the cliffs above. There were rafting trips and hostels, monkey encounters and almost getting swept out to sea in pilfered canoes.



There was the endless round of travelers from other countries asking us why the hell we elected Bush, there were the vestiges of apartheid and black women who would do our laundry for a few rand if we wanted. Plates and plates of fresh calamari that we could have for a dollar or so American. Small towns and cities and slums, and only instant coffee. It was a most eye-opening way to leave the States for the first time.



2000 was a year of travel for us, we were in Ireland for a month, Hawaii for a month, Arizona, Utah, Oregon. We did not work, we just wandered. I was 25, Tim 23 … no plans yet, unmarried, no home, free in so many ways. We had disposable income that year because of a settlement I received from an accident long ago. I do not regret a penny that we spent in travel that year. I do regret the chunk of money I invested in stocks trying to do the grown up thing. Funny how sometimes doing what is responsible is not nearly as productive as doing what feels right.

I am pretty sure we will never go to Africa for three months again to do the hostel route and party like rock stars. But that is okay. Since that trip we did another to Australia which ended after three months of car living; spines in their late 20s and a country far far more expensive than South Africa sent us home. And another with the boys to Canada. But the latest journey involves the parenting of two young boys who fill up our lives and days in ways that I could never have dreamed of back in those days

And now the latest dream. It includes a move, a place to call a new home, some animals, some land, and access to all the things we have always loved. Mountains, oak trees, snow, water … we are tentatively stretching out to touch this dream, try to shape it and make sense out of change. But for some reason it already feels like it fits.

Our hearts hold instincts, I truly believe this. They lead us, these instincts, to seek the right path. The right journey. Not destination. There should never be a certain point destination. Cause we all have just one, really.

Onward to this new facet to the latest travel. We may not need a passport but I am hoping we find a pass to the next road.

Thought I would note that all pictures were taken on our very first digital camera, a Sony shaped like a SLR. Digital was still pretty new in 1999 and I remember the camera cost 700 bucks or so. Upon reflection, I now realize they had programmed a lot of flexibility into that little camera. It served us well.

Everything Will Be Alright

Kate at Sweet/Salty gives this Reverb prompt : Tell me about one 2010 moment that served as proof that everything is going to be alright. It doesn't need to have been profound. Think a passing serenity that makes you pause in the middle of a blink. Beyond trying to believe. A knowing that's as deep as bones, neverminding the how or the when.



My one and only Reverb reply for 2010 :: I am writing on this for two reasons. 1) A serious girl crush on Kate. It did not abate when I met her in person. Actually I think it got worse. 2) Her words make me want to write. With the full knowledge that they cannot shine in the way her prose that is actually poetry does, but still, those words of hers make me want to find expression here.

2010 was a really rough year. It started out promising enough. I was part of the Mondo Beyondo class in January and that experience opened me up to new people and possibilities that made the horizon seem saturated and bright. But then kinda' things went to shit from there.

We had a year of joblessness and return to full time for me. We had struggles with role reversal and resentment and wanting to just be comfortable again. We got sued. We got sick. I ran away for a bit in order to take a breath, learn how to breath ... instead, I landed smack in the middle of a world I inhabited when I was in my early 20s and found it was really not to my liking. I turned 35 which threw me for a huge loop. For a girl that never really paid attention to the years passing, this one, well, it just about did me in. And I feel quite done with 2010.

At the beginning of the year I declared it, called it the Year of the Gypsy. Guess what I found out? That gypsies are poor. Also you should not declare a year because it will bite you in the ass somehow. In truth, it was the year of the Gypsy. We roamed far from home and found that we really could. We discovered that home is where We are, where that core community of family and friends reside ...

But it was hard, ugly even sometimes. There were missed moments and tears of frustration and the eternal wrangling of two small people when sometimes all I wanted to do was stare at a wall.

What made me know it would be alright? There is not one moment in the year, rather a moment of the day. It is that moment before sleep, when I am prone and my mind is unwinding, the events of the day unfolding and reflections on small moments flick by the screen of my mind. I kiss my husband, or if it one of those nights when sleep will not come and I find myself in the boys' bed, snugged between them, I touch a unbelievably soft cheek. Sometimes a tiny bubble of panic will rise in my throat when I think of the unfinished paperwork, that dying patient, the next bill, the lack of time, the demands of Life. But then I touch them again, these people, this man and these boys that connect me in a way to this world where sometimes it is so hard to live.

And I know it will be alright. Because they are real. And they are mine.

And then my mind begins that slow descent into oblivion and my last thought is invariably of the cup of coffee I will drink in the morning, fragrant and loaded with the synthetic creamer to which I am addicted and I know, I just know, it will be okay.

Brooklyn Love

It would be remiss of me not to speak of Brooklyn as a huge part of this trip. It is where I stayed for the week, where a lot of good things happened and where I found sanctuary when the wailing rush of Manhattan got to me.

The neighborhood where I stayed felt like an old song that I know how to sing.


Not yet gentrified with just a smattering of wine bars and whole food restaurants mixed in with the corner bakeries and bodegas. Still diverse and open to all with Peurto Ricans/Russians/blacks/whites/Hasidic jumbled up in the streets and homes. It has its own rhythm; where I was just a few stops up from Coney Island. And I loved it so. It is funny how you can slip back into a skin you thought you had forgotten how to wear. And it was a little disconcerting how comfortable I felt once I found my way about.

Brooklyn, she was the recipient of my Hope Notes mission. I first learned about Hope Notes in my Mondo Beyondo class. It is an exercise in signs, in letting the Universe speak a little through a Sharpie pen and a stack of Post-Its. Since then, and especially when I am feeling off my game, I try to have my supplies on hand to leave little notes behind to be found by someone who might need to hear them.

The first day I did it in Brooklyn I got caught. I felt clever slipping that little note onto the door of the elevator at my friend's building.

Then I, ah, forgot something upstairs on the 7th floor so I had to ride all the way back up. With this guy who got on at the 1st floor.

Who read the note from behind me and I think whispered, "What the hell". His face was too good not to photograph.

But the second go round felt much more successful. The day before I left I wandered off the F train through the streets looking for good opportunities. It sounds weird but they seem to present themselves.

The train stop at Ditmas... an old elevated platform with wood grain and shadows abounding...




An open door waiting for someone to come home...



A school bus waiting to pick up a load of lovely little people...



But then the Universe started throwing signs at me and it freaked me out a little bit. As I left the train station on this, the day before I was to leave New York, I glanced at the ground and found a sticker with my child's name on it...

Yep, that is his name. I laid down on the ground to take this picture, that is how much I wanted to see him.

Then as I walked down the street, approaching my destination (which happened to be an air-conditioned apartment which I was pretty desperate to reach by that time) I was cut off by an ambulette that stopped in my path to unload a passenger. Here is what cut me off...


So I took it as the Universe telling me I better get my ass home as there were some people who needed me more than Brooklyn needed hope notes. I heard you, O'Universe of wonderful signs.

(This kid was running fast down the street...he just looked so free and happy. Be-zeep.)

As a last note, I always feel weird when I do not have the twin thing happen with basically everything in life (when it comes to them) so I was antsy to find something to do with Owen. Later that night I sat on the fire escape looking out at the street below, the Brooklyn street so different than the City.


I always used to sit out on my fire escape because just a few hours inside make me feel a little breathless; even more so now 12 years later and 7 floors up. I looked up at the building across from me. And here is where I let you in on the crazy that is my brain...

I was looking at two windows with keystone accents. You know what a keystone is, right? The mark of a good mason. And centered right between the two keystones was a big white round O. The whole time my boys were with me, watching me from across the street.


Yes, it was good to find that part of Me that feels like she has not breathed for years and years. Yes, there were moments when I felt sweet relief to be sitting listening to loud music while scrolling through Twitter without any small persons demanding attention. Yes, I feel more whole than I have in a long time.

But, oh, how I felt dismembered at times during that week. And the Universe, well, she was just reminding me that I am not.

* and just to be totally clear, I scroll through Twitter and listen to loud music all the time at home it is just that the banshees like to interrupt that action. A lot.