Until you understand everything, this might seem confusing. But it makes sense to me. I’m just trying to catch up. Things aren’t happening in the order I expected, which I guess would be too easy. It’s not a straight timeline, as one thing leads to another, and I’m figuring it out as I go—with some help from my guide and support from my friends.
Anyway, I’m making progress. Here’s what I’ve accomplished in the past few days.
Made an appointment to get a new Will, Advanced Medical Directive, and Power of Attorney.
Talked to one banker to see if I can qualify for a mortgage now that I don’t have a job or a spouse with income. I’m living off a pension and Social Security, plus a small draw from my IRA. The answer is yes, but this isn’t a prequalification; it’s keeping me from going off the rails. I have another call to another banker scheduled for next week.
See below since I can’t figure out how to keep this list going and add a picture at the same time!
I made a floor plan of a neighborhood house I like. It’s not completely my “ideal” house, but it’s got great potential. No way is this settling; it’s reality and it’s exciting. I measured a lot of my furniture and tried to see what might fit. This will help me figure out what to keep and what to let go of, since I don’t have the option of buying first and selling second, or moving in and seeing what fits before I make decisions. The house isn’t on the market but the owner is planning to move closer to family in the next few months, and a new home search for her hasn’t been started yet. We’ve talked a few times, and this might be the next place for me.
(sorry for the List feature again!) To make the floor plan, I had to visit the house and measure all the rooms. Then I had to translate my notes to graph paper. For fun, I made copies and then used color pencils to pretend I had painted each room. Twice, since I want my bedroom purple and not green like it is now. I think that’s what I want … for now. Plus, I drew the furniture to scale but not the floor plan, so when the couch took up a room and a half, I had to start over! The idea is to help me get a clearer picture of what I can or should or want to keep, and what would be “left over” and possibly sold or donated. This was advice from a professional organizer and a friend who went through this whole transition last year.
I made a list of my furniture using Excel while measuring it. This assumes I will buy this place, but either way, I have a good start on my inventory. Now I can keep track of what to Keep, Sell, Donate, or Trash. (Note: experts say that “very little is actually trash. Most of what you have can be used by someone, unless it’s broken beyond repair.”)
And I updated a Checklist I started a month ago of all the things I need to do to make this transition happen. The decluttering, the getting organized and related paperwork that grown ups should do (will, etc.), selling this house (market evaluation and readying it for sale), buying a new house and making it a home (home inspection kinds of things), and so on. If you want to see my full checklist, just ask.
(Here’s the stupid List feature again!) I bought three shelving units for the garage and put them up, and then put stuff on the shelves. Yes, I used a friend’s help to make sure I didn’t do anything stupid like climb attic stairs while carrying Christmas decor out of the way. Then I threw out a few things (yep, broken), and I also tried to set some things aside for donation. My friend, good woman that she is, didn’t let me get by with just setting them aside. They were promptly loaded into my truck. The next day I off-loaded them at a local Habitat for Humanity ReStore (and got a donation receipt for tax purposes). And I updated my checklist of things to do, plus marked the progress in decluttering. Yay Me!
I attended a workshop put on by my friendly Silver Sherpa’s office, The Memorie Group, on … guess what?? Yes! Decluttering and dealing with The Stuff. This included talks by a professional organizer and a couple that specializes in selling your Stuff, whether high-value collectibles or regular junque you’ve accumulated… and figuring out the difference between them. The main themes of the Professional Organizer were: (a) Plan; (b) Sort and Declutter; (c) Be Respectful; (d) Consider the New Space; (e) Pack and Move; and (f) Expect Post-Move Adjusting. The process followed by the resellers is: Review, List (pricing and photos), Monitor, Sell/Negotiate, Box/Ship, Approval, Pay. Of course, there’s more to it than this, so when I take this step (with or without professional help), I’ll tell you more. Here’s the main take-away: Sometimes the Market will disagree with you on some things. LOL. This means, your stuff isn’t always worth what you think it is. (And I think, “the Market” includes family and friends as much as it is buyers with money to spend!)
Finally, I visited a former neighbor who sold his house last year and moved into an assisted living facility. He was very encouraging and shared some of the resources he used in his transition – like where the books went, who he used for a real estate appraiser, the moving consultant he hired, and a friend who helped curate the artwork he found in boxes when cleaning closets (which were painted by his mother and they then reframed and hung in the new apartment).
That was my week. I feel good. Except for the format of this post!! I can’t figure out what I’m doing wrong, so I’ll add fixing this later to my To Do list!!! I still feel productive, though. And I feel responsible. I feel like I should be doing this even if I decide to stay put, for one reason or another. I feel it’s doable, and I’m doing it! This week I have an appointment with an attorney about estate planning. Not quite an “oh, joy!” thing, but necessary.
There you have it. Until next time, happy decluttering if that’s what you’re doing, or happy relishing that it’s me and not you who is doing this right now.
Ten years ago when I quit my job, I intended to find other work, something new maybe, probably somewhere else, but I didn’t know what or where or when. I hadn’t lived here a full year yet when my husband died unexpectedly. I debated moving “back,” but I wasn’t sure where that was. Back to South Dakota? That job wasn’t available any longer. Back to Minnesota? Sisters and friends, but those long, harsh winters?? I actually applied for a job there but changed my mind before the interview was over. No, thanks. Back to New Mexico? Been there done that, but I’d be near to my youngest son and his family. But I’m liking the trees and water and East Coast access to things. To California where my other two children live with their families? Earthquakes, wildfires, traffic, cost of living?? No, but thanks anyway. To Ohio, where another sister lives? She calls it the Armpit of the Country, which I don’t necessarily agree with, but again, winter, and sort of random. I thought, if I’m going to go somewhere random and start over, I might as well stay here and avoid the hassle of moving. For now. I gave myself a year to figure it out.
LIVING SOLO + RETIREMENT = ?
Fast forward ten+ years, and I’m still here, still not working (except for some infrequent consulting work or temporary gigs to make money for travel or another specific purpose). This is the longest time in my entire life I’ve had the same address, and I’m liking that my roots have gone a little deeper – as opposed to going wider every other time I’ve moved to chase my career or make better choices.
I’m still solo, and more single than I was – meaning I believe a new widow is still married for a long while when she’s grieving, but now I’m actually enjoying my new lifestyle. I have adapted to my life as an occasional mom, grandma, aunt, and sister. I volunteer as a dog foster mom, am active with my local HOA board, and help out with the annual Christmas Market. I’m a friend, taking plenty of time to tend to relationships with those I’ve met over the years who live far away. Believe me, I am eternally grateful that we no longer pay for long-distance phone calls!! I travel, I shop, I read, I walk, I talk.
Did I mention I shop? Thrift, consignment, antique, and the occasional boutique and full-on retail department stores. I think I’ve filled the void that was caused by suddenly living alone with stuff. Old stuff, new stuff, big stuff, little stuff, collections of stuff, and just stuff stuff. It’s fun, it’s creative, it’s interesting. It’s a cheap thrill most of the time. I’ll bet some of you can relate to the thrill of the hunt! And in a house with empty spaces, both physically and metaphorically, it’s not problematic. And it’s definitely not hoarding, lest you are concerned for my mental health!! I admit, though, a house has regular and annual and aging-parts maintenance need$ that take up a significant amount of time.
INTERRUPTED BY A MYSTERY HEALTH CHALLENGE
Then a couple of months ago I had my first big health scare, the root cause of which is still a mystery. So for months now I’ve had to go to doctors and submit to scans and ultrasounds and blood draws, even a biopsy (benign, thankfully). When the medical profession and insurance hacks fail me, I’ve consulted Dr. Google and ChatGPT regularly to help me understand what might be going on with my body. All I know for sure is that something is out of balance, and since I don’t know what, I feel vulnerable. Trust me, this kind of thing got my brain working overtime. Like a Mexican jumping bean, I have bounced around the concepts of Days Numbered, Lost Independence, and Better Do It Now.
CHOOSING TO SIMPLIFY
My primary resource for Downsizing
The result is that I’ve recently volunteered to become a beta client of a new program in town, one in which a “silver sherpa,” a kind of senior’s life coach, helps you prepare to change your lifestyle through planning (and motivation) for downsizing, decluttering, organizing, simplifying, and acting on the idea of The Next Thing – the next place, the next way of life, the next version of you. I’m finally ready for that. I want to make the necessary choices about who, what, when, where, and how while I can still do that – and do it the way I want. You might think I’m still young (only 67) to be thinking about these kinds of major shifts, but the way I see it, it’s a process, and a fairly long one at that. I planned to give myself another year to clean house, to think about my options, to let go of stuff, to prepare myself mentally for a smaller house but a larger life. As you might guess, I’m already off to the races! In other words, it very likely won’t be a year-long process for me.
I invite you along on my journey. I’ll share about the sherpa program, the Downsizing Event program I’ve been attending, my thoughts, the detours, the process. If you get anxious to know more and more quickly than I push out my posts, it’s Ben Munson at the Memorie Group here that I’m working with.
I lost admin access to this blog, and after a full month of recovery work to get it back, I think I have it now. There is a lot I have to share, so if this is actually working now, you’ll see new content very soon. Maybe even tonight!!!
DISCLAIMER: this is NOT a male-bashing commentary. It’s about living now when the times have changed and are changing.
It was a sign of the times: the men were the ones out front, publicly acknowledged, in charge of it all. Women were still supposed to be subservient, obeying their husbands, in the background, weighed down by a lot of social expectations. My mom, Elsie, was one of those women. She was “the Mrs,” not always having an identity of her own.
In 1960, pre-Kennedy and Camelot, pre-Civil Rights, pre-women’s movement, pre-The Pill, already the mother of two (in two years), my mom delivered a third baby, a boy. He was named Greg. And he died when he was just two months old. It was pneumonia, and in a single day’s time, life as we knew it changed. Greg was buried in the St Mary’s Cemetery in Bird Island, Minnesota, where both sets of my grandparents would someday be buried, many aunts and uncles and other family members and both of my parents would be buried. He was the first, tho.
There was no money for a headstone, I suppose, and he was a baby, so maybe he didn’t even warrant a full upright marker. He had what we called a footstone, and it was placed at what would eventually become the foot of my dad’s mom’s grave. I don’t know but I guess they had a family plot because grandma and grandpa and three of their four sons are all in the same small area.
Greg’s footstone has his name prominently displayed, followed by an equally prominent declaration that he was the son of Mr. and Mrs. LOUIS A WEYER. And then 1960-1960. Ever since I can remember, that stone has irked me. It just never felt right. Even though I was brought up in the same way as all my cousins and my friends were, meaning No Questions Asked, no explanations necessary, he includes she, and the men were the absolute head of the family. I wondered about that stone a lot over the years.
A year later my mom had another baby, a boy again, and two years after that, a girl came along, and three years later, another girl. My mom hardly had time to grieve, and although it wasn’t something we talked about, we always knew we had a brother Greg who had died as a baby. I was only two years old when he died, and I don’t remember that, but I do have a few memories from when I was maybe around 4 of my mom sitting in the kitchen near the window and crying. Just staring out the window and looking so very sad. That look never really left her. And I think I always felt a bit sad myself because of it. (I know I was about 4 because every time a baby was born, we moved to a bigger house, and I remember which house this happened in.)
My mom wasn’t the only one to lose a baby. It was much more common then than now. I had four other aunts who had lost babies – stillbirths, an illness, a cancer to a twin. And my mom herself had suffered the loss of one of her sisters in childbirth, and her own mother had a twin baby not survive a birth. Today we would probably think she had a built-in grief support group, but back then, I’m not so sure this was women talked about. I asked an aunt about this, and that’s what she told me – they just didn’t talk about it much.
As it happened, about 15 years later, my parents divorced. You know how it was then. Dad moved on and remarried within a year, and my mom had five children to raise. Plus she survived cancer…back when the Big C was usually a quick death sentence. In fact, she was told she had 6 months to live in 1978, and yet she didn’t die until 2002. She never drove a car (except that one time she nearly caused great bodily harm to my dad while he was gopher hunting), so she walked everywhere, year round. She supported herself and her kids with jobs as a short-order cook at a few local restaurants, cleaned other people’s houses, took in ironing and baked bread, and eventually did what she knew best – day care in her home. All five of her kids graduated high school, and while I went into the Army after high school, I eventually graduated college. My four siblings also all went to college. We aren’t some rags-to-riches story from a mom who saved dollar bills in a cigar box, but we all became self-supporting, socially conscious, and a strong family unit. We gave her 13 grandchildren. We still vacation together and some of us talk daily to each other, although we live in three (soon to be four) different states.
When my mom died, her headstone was carved to give her maiden and married names (she never remarried), and it reads “mom and grandma to many.” One of my dad’s brothers offered to let us have his plot for mom, which would place her near to my brother. But the cemetery (or the Divine) messed that up, and she is many rows away, although in the same section of the cemetery. Interestingly, she is next to a woman who was one of her high school friends, and across the road within the cemetery from where mom’s side of the family is buried – grandparents, aunts and uncles, etc.
So if I’m counting (which I’m not), it’s maybe been way more than 20 years that I’ve been seriously bothered that my mom’s name is not on my brother Greg’s marker. When my dad died, now 11 years ago, his urn was interred next to my brother. I loved my stepmom of 35 years, but I’m glad she was buried in her hometown and not next to my dad and brother, when my brother’s mother was not specifically name nor in close proximity.
I contacted the cemetery and asked about how to get some changes made. I’ve probably called them three or four times in the past ten years. I kept rationalizing that my mom must have agreed at some point to what Greg’s marker read, but I realize that she probably wasn’t even asked. And she never commented on it over the years that I knew of.
In today’s times, though, 65 years later, women are once again being diminished politically and socially. This time I’m fully aware of the impact. As a “senior” (and a widow), I am facing the double whammy of becoming invisible…waiting to be seated at a restaurant, having to insist on an appointment to have a vehicle issue checked out, asking the doctor for an explanation… you maybe know how it is.
So today, a few days before Mother’s Day, I’m taking one more step to balance the scales of justice. I have ordered a new footstone for Greg’s grave. It’s going to have my mother’s name on it, not just my father’s Mrs (especially since there were two of them!). And it will include is date of birth and date of death, so there will be an awareness that he had a family who had loved him for more than just a minute, that he was with us long enough that we were all changed because of him (those details are another post, if not a book). And he was his own person intrinsically, albeit a baby, not just a possession of his parents.
Then and soon to be
I like cemeteries. I visit my family at St Mary’s almost every time I return to Minnesota. I think they are peaceful places. And it forces me to slow down and consciously remember the “residents” – and me when they were here. Ironically, when my husband died, I did not inter his urn or remains in a cemetery; his ashes were sprinkled in places he loved, like Gettysburg and the Chesapeake Bay and a duck blind in South Dakota. I want to be cremated myself. I don’t think that placing bodies in boxes in vaults six feet under the ground is the best use of Mother Earth. It makes me pause to think there is no single place that people can come to remember me, so I need to come up with a solution for that maybe.
I don’t know if cemeteries will survive all the changes happening in the world. But for as long as St Mary’s is around, and as long as I can get there, I’ll stop by. And I’ll make sure to tell Greg about all he’s missed in my life, and that he knows his mother by name, and I’ll let Mom know she is remembered as Greg’s mom, too.
At my age, which is not old but I can see it from here, the things I can’t do seem to be gaining ground. Mostly that seems to be limited to things I need expert help for, but I’m worried the day is coming when it will be “regular” stuff, too.
For example, I can still manage to hook up a camper and drive it a few thousand miles, but I had to call for “real” help when the black tank cracked. I can mow my own yard and mulch the leaves- when I can pull the cord with enough strength to start the engine. I can paint a wall but what used to take a day now takes a few days. And I’ve been ordered by friends and family alike to stay off of ladders. It’s frustrating to have to admit to myself that I am not as independent as I’d like to think I am.
Today I tried something that should have been relatively easy, quick, and painless. I bought a new toilet seat that will give me a rise of about 2″ when sitting; not much, but I won’t have to plop down, and getting up should be easier on the knees. It’s not really for me, it’s for a friend (and friends like her) who recently found herself in the embarrassing situation of not being able to get up from the throne by herself, at someone else’s house for an evening, and she had locked the bathroom door, so calling for help was not the first thing she thought of. Fortunately, after what seemed like a long enough time for the others waiting to give her a ride home, she was able to engage her core enough to stand and lean on the sink for leverage. But I have lived in a house that had the higher commodes, and admittedly, they were useful for me even back then.
So today was the day I tried to put it on. First, you have take off the current seat. Which has probably been in place for 20 years. No kidding. One side loosened up quite nicely. The other did not loosen. At all. The side against the wall, naturally. I hunted down a pliers and eventually a wrench when finger-turning produced no results except a scraped knuckle. Interestingly though, between me trying to loosen this bolt and fitting between the commode and the wall, I jiggled the toilet enough that the water line started leaking. By leaking, I mean spraying water everywhere. Onto the wood floor. I extricated myself from the small space I was in, on my side, then to my knees, to get up and get a bowl from the kitchen to catch the water. I tried to turn off the water supply, but that knob was also on so tight I couldn’t get it to budget without a few cuss words. And even so, it continued to drip. A lot. I got a bigger bowl.
By now, I have emptied the bowl three times, and it probably needs it again. I just do not have the strength or dexterity or leverage to tighten anything under there. I am wavering between being royally ticked off and frustrated, and being deeply saddened by the fact that I am almost old.
I called a neighbor who I have shared names with for electricians, painters, handymen, etc. I have names of two plumbers from her, one with an * by it, but I don’t know if that means “good” or “bad.” She said it was good, so I called him. Wouldn’t you know, it’s still holiday season, and he’s out of state. He referred me to someone else, and I left a message but no return call after a half hour. I look out on my street and there don’t seem to be any cars belonging to capable strong people who could help me out.
So I called my “handyman” guy, who isn’t really a handyman; he’s a carpenter. He tiled my bathroom shower, laid flooring in the hallway, installed new patio doors, and attached an antique fireplace mantle to a wall for me. I asked him for a referral to a plumber or true handyman, but when I told him I had water dripping, he said he would stop by himself and see what he could do. He’s at another job, so it will be a few minutes. And now I understand why tradespeople/subcontractors sometimes take longer than you think is necessary to get a job done. They take calls from stressed out people like me. And come to their aid.
In years past, I have painted rooms, moved plenty of furniture, planted and transplanted bushes and flowers, put together a crappy metal shed, laid both brick and flagstone sidewalks, replaced a garbage disposal, rewired lamps, put together furniture that came packed in a box, cleaned out gutters, dug holes using a post hole digger, replaced a toilet wax ring, and put a deadbolt lock on a door. I own tools that aren’t just screwdrivers; I have a multi-purpose tool, an air compressor, a sander, a saw or three, a sledgehammer, and a cordless drill, among others. I know how to use them all, some better than others. Turning a damn threaded nut on a bolt should not be a big deal.
It’s time like these that make a woman like me think twice about having a man around on a regular basis. Luckily, I can still just buy their time when I have an emergency. Because any man I might be interested in might also not have the physical strength that I don’t have, nor the necessary agility or dexterity or stability required.
The good news is that things like this have happened often enough in the past couple of years that I don’t always cry as my first response to the frustration of times like these. Now, I have to go empty the bowl again.
Disclaimer: I am not familiar with the tv show Stranger Things, except I know there is one. I know little about Shakespeare, except I know some of the quotes from having lived long enough and gone through enough English classes and seen enough movies to remember some of the more popular ones. And yet, what comes to mind today is that there are more stranger things going on in my world than I could dream up.
The Shakespeare quote actually goes “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” Which I interpret to mean that our imaginations are powerful but limited given our upbringing and environment. Therefore, angels, spirits, and ghosts are real, even if I haven’t been trained to believe in them and don’t see them. And so are miracles. A question I have is whether they facilitate miracles. What I do know is that crazy things are happening in my life, and there is no other explanation than something outside my experience and my current way of thinking is presenting itself. I just don’t know what do about it. If anything.
By now, you know I’m big on backstory, so bear with me.
2024 has been a year of … I don’t know what to call it. A year of exposure, challenge, introduction, opportunity. Other years have also provided me with inexplicable events that now in retrospect I can see have been a soft opening to other worldly experiences.
I remember a time when I was about in 5th grade, attending Catholic school, and having to attend Mass every Wednesday if not every morning (it might have changed by then). Anyway, I was not feeling well and when I was supposed to be standing or kneeling, I sat down instead. Which was not allowed. But I did it because I “knew” – I didn’t hear a voice, but I knew – that God understood and it was okay to sit and let the dizziness I was feeling pass. It did pass, it was all okay. I never forgot that.
About 25 years later, my car hit some black ice and I spun off the highway toward a guardrail, then back across the lane to the concrete divider, and back to the guardrail. I saw a car next to me that had several small children standing in the back seat. I prayed to not let me hurt those children. I came to a stop, and when I checked the car, there was only the slightest rubbing of the black fender guard thing across the bumper. No dents, wrinkles, scratches; nothing. The car with the kids was out of sight. No one else hit me. No one stopped who could have seen what happened. Then one man was suddenly talking to me because he saw my car was on the side of the road, and he wanted to make sure I was okay. He hadn’t seen me careening around the lanes, just checking on me. Where he came from and where he disappeared to I do not know.
Another 10 or 12 years after that, I had a car issue with another car in another state. About 20 miles out of town, I lost power going down the interstate, but then it came back on, then it faded out, came on. I was able to turn around and head back to town. I had my two sons and a nephew with me. I prayed to just let me get these boys back to town safely. I made it to the first exit to town, which was still about 3-4 miles on the edge of town. The car totally died at the end of the off ramp. It was raining, but I was going to walk to the nearest house I could see, which was probably a mile away. Out of nowhere a cop car pulled over, from the opposite direction. He asked if I needed help, called a tow truck that would take 45 minutes to get there, and took the boys back to my house. They all disappeared, and my boys don’t even remember this, although they were teenagers at the time. As soon as the cop left, the tow truck immediately appeared. He towed my truck to a dealer, and took me home. The next day the car dealer said they had never heard of that tow company and there never was a bill for services.
To me, those were all angel encounters. And to me, angels and ghosts are not the same things. One is good, and the other … well, not as good.
There was the time the flashlight stopped working, I took the batteries out of it to remind myself to get new batteries, and then the flashlight turned on. With the batteries out of it, right there on the counter.
Just this spring my car, while in the garage, flashed its headlights twice. I was near the car but not in it, the keys were in my hand and the car was not turned on.
And then yesterday, while I was sitting at the kitchen table drinking my first cup of coffee, my 9 year old Maytag Bravos XL washing machine in the laundry closet next to the kitchen beeped three times. My reaction was that my load was done and I needed to put the clothes in the dryer. Except I wasn’t doing any washing. I had done laundry the day before. I walked over to check this out. As I always do, when I’m done with my last load, I prop the top of the washer open so the machine can dry out. It was still propped up. There were no lights on at the top of the washer. I have a lid lock feature so the machine cannot operate with the lid open. Not on. Lid open. And then the water turned on and sprayed inside the drum like it was starting a new load.
I watched this happen and wondered how to turn it “off” – because it wasn’t “on” that I could see. I was about to reach over the machine to turn the water supply off when the drum started agitating and spinning. So it was on?? There wasn’t a lot of water, certainly not enough to do a load. Not enough to even cover all the bottom of the drum but enough for me to feel the splash and to see it was definitely starting the filling cycle. Still no lights on the control panel. And then it all stopped. It’s wet yet – small puddles of water – a day later. (When I push the power button on, the panel lights up like it is supposed to, like nothing was or is wrong.) After a moment of shock, I raised my voice and told whatever It was that this wasn’t funny, I didn’t like It messing with me, and to go away, to get out of my house and not come back. Ever.
So that’s pretty “weird,” right?
I wish that was the end. I’m not sure it is, though.
Because the day before, my 9 year old GE Adora freezer (side-by-side on the refrigerator) decided on a rumspringa of sorts. The fridge was just fine and dandy at 37 degrees, like it supposed to be. The 0 degree preferred freezer temperature as indicated on a control panel on the front of the freezer read 16 degrees. Not good. A few ice cubes apparently caught in the chute of the water dispenser fell out and left little puddles on my floor. I took all the food to the chest freezer in the garage and emptied the ice maker and turned it off. I unplugged it to hopefully have it reset itself, as advised by Dr. Google. I also took the back panel off and vacuumed the coils. (BTW, the vacuum didn’t want to work unless I held the switch in the On position. Today that vac works just fine.) By the next morning, the freezer was back down to 1 degree. I set it to -2, but it hasn’t gone lower than +1. The ice maker has not/will not make ice now, and there is no water from the dispenser either.
That should be enough for any one person to deal with, I think. Should be. Now the refrigerator temp is creeping up. It’s been at 40 since yesterday morning, but now is 42.
I wish that was the end of this saga, too. I’m not sure it is, though.
Because I’m still being messed with, now with technology, my 5-yr old Samsung A50 (android) cell phone to be specific. In the past few days (1) two friends in two days had their phones go dead while talking to me. (2) I sent a text message to my friend, but she received it as an email from my phone number. (3) I sent a picture via text to another friend. But it went to a wrong number I cannot delete from her contact info, a number that has not belonged to her in years. And I have sent other texts and pics to the newer number, but it keeps defaulting to the old number. (4) I called a woman to schedule a Reiki appointment. I got her voice mail, in which her voice said her name and the name of her business. I left a message. My phone reads that I left the message with another person, a man I serve with on the Board of Directors for my HOA. But the woman did get my message and responded to it later in the day. The man did not get the message.
Now, it would be easy to say these are a series of coinky-dinks, and to rationalize them happening. Or that they are unrelated and I just had them occur close in time to each other. Or that I need to reset or replace my phone. Or it’s the protons in the atmosphere that are raining down on us. I think not. And in conjunction with everything else going on, I cannot let go of the idea that they ARE related. I just don’t know how.
The best I can come up with to give me some peace of mind is that The Universe is sending me a message, and apparently I’m not receiving it, so the format is changing up and getting stronger. But I am not understanding the message. I need to pay attention, but I don’t know to what. Everything???
So if you see me being hypervigilant, witnessing and observing and looking zoned out, it’s because I’m paying attention to the world, to my life, to anything new and different. It’s making me a little crazy. The alternative is to contemplate having my entire house rewired, and that makes me even more crazy! Gotta run now. I have an electrician here … just to cover all my bases.
I am very curious. What do YOU think I should do? What else should I be considering???
Last week I tried to be a Handy Woman, by trying to simply change out the battery in my laptop computer. This week I am having to learn a new computer – layout, settings, all that jazz. What went wrong?
The old computer was old, no doubt about it. I bought it before I left my job, so 2015, or 9 years. Which in computer years is about the same as dog years. Several – many, many – months ago, I noticed that my little green light indicating battery power was stuck on red. It didn’t seem to matter much, since I keep this paperweight on my desk and it is almost always plugged in. It turns out that is not a grand idea – the plugging in thing. But since I rarely took my computer elsewhere, it didn’t matter. Until it did.
I’ve been doing a lot of work for my homeowners” association. We are in the process of proposing amendments to our governing documents, and I am leading the project. I usually work on them at home, but lately I have been taking my computer to our clubhouse and working there, too. I have created PowerPoint presentations, presenting at Board meetings, and holding Town Hall meetings to get community feedback and help our members understand the reasons for the proposed changes. We will be voting on these at our annual meeting in December, so this has been happening more and more lately.
When your battery is dead and you unplug the laptop, it doesn’t just go to sleep; it goes on an extended vacation to La La Land. Which means when you plug it back in at the clubhouse 5 minutes away, you have to wait through the whole reboot thing, not just a wake-up call. Every. Darn. Time. Log in. Wait. Wait. Sign in. Wait. Now go. Ugh. (At least now I know my login and PIN again without having to guess.)
So I finally ordered a new battery, thinking I could change it out myself. I’ve done it before, on a different laptop, years ago. It was as easy as swapping out batteries in a Walkman. Or a flashlight, for those of you who don’t know what a Walkman is. I’ve even changed out the battery on my motorcycle in less than two minutes. But that was then, and this is now.
The laptop has a hidden battery. It weighs a short ton, but is boxy, with a connector plug attached to a ribbon cable. You have to take off the entire bottom of the computer, which had 12 (YES, 12!) screws that are each about 1/32″ long. Or maybe they are 1/4″ but seem like 1/32″. And each of these is covered by a rubber plug that has to be removed first. Then you have to remove the hinge that connects the screen or monitor from the base. Another handful of micro screws. Then you separate the keyboard. Really. I watched two different yahoos on You Tube do it like they had a secret, magic wand, it was so easy. In real life, not so easy.
When you take off the keyboard, what you don’t know is that there are also some plastic clip things that have to be depressed first. Once you do that, you still have to tug gently to get the pieces to separate. This is after you have run a credit card around the seam to pry it open. This was actually the way the You Tube guys showed how to do it. And then Voila! You majestically pull out two ribbon cables that you have no idea where they were attached to or how to reattach them when the time comes.
But first, the battery. Which is now visible but secured by 8 more teensy tiny screws. WTH?!? I was using the screwdriver to my eyeglasses, which as you might imagine is neither large nor magnetic, so when the screw finally comes loose and you drop it, you get to hunt with a flashlight before you can keep them contained in a bowl nearby.
Actually replacing the battery itself was easy peasy. Except by now I realized that there are three different sizes of screws, all ranging from 1/32 to 1/16 to 1/8″. I was taking pictures all along, but it didn’t matter because these frickin’ screws are all black and have black heads. Why they didn’t color code them is a mystery I do not understand. But I got enough to fit that I felt confident one or two here or there was not going to derail the success of my work.
At least until those dangling ribbons that couldn’t be reconnected to anything on the underside of the keyboard.
By then, I was seriously considering putting the whole shebang in a paper bag inside a plastic garbage bag, climbing on the roof of my house, and dropping it (or actively throwing it) on to the driveway below several times. Seriously. Except I’m known for falling off of ladders and step stools and stairs occasionally, so I didn’t. But I wanted to!!
I lit a candle and called on my better angels for guidance and support. I calmed myself down. Then I got a snack-sized plastic bag, put all the remaining screws (of which there are more than a dozen yet) and the cute little disguising rubber plugs in it, and taped it to the top of the screen – which, by the way, does not want to fit back onto the hinge.
If I was a drinking woman, I’d have been happy enough by now. Instead, I texted an SOS message to my nephew Vince. He tried to help me out, and he did, but now how I’d imagined. Ultimately, he found five reburbished, newer laptops available on Ebay, all of which met my requirements for USB and HDMI ports and screen size, and sent me fool-proof links to each one. I ordered one the same night, paid for with a new no-interest-until-2026 credit card, and within three days, it was on my doorstep.
You can’t tell by reading this post but I am using my new-to-me laptop right now. Oh joy!! If you don’t mind having to find and reset all your settings. It’s kind of neat how these days you can import just about everything, so set-up is theoretically a breeze. Everything transferred over except the PowerPoint slide shows I created for a Town Hall meeting last week that will be needed again next Tuesday morning. Haven’t found those yet…
And now I also have sports reports and weather news and flash notifications interrupting me every five seconds while I try and focus and keep my train of thought on a single track for a few more minutes. I have icons flashing and colors blaring at me, insignia where it isn’t supposed to be (or where I don’t want it), and shortcuts that don’t exist any longer.
I will prevail. After all, I am a Handy Woman. I got a heckuva a deal on the laptop, so I can use my savings to get a local geek to help me figure out the back-up Passport Ultra that is apparently also not restoring like I want it to – maybe because it has been unplugged as long as I have been schlepping the old laptop back and forth across the street. Well, as soon as I get used to my new set-up, I’ll get excited. For now, I’m just repeating my new mantra:
I wasn’t planning to write every day, and maybe not even every week; only when I had something I felt compelled to share, like adventures, mishaps, growing pains, revelations, and such. So I just posted yesterday about my and Dee’s encounter with a bald eagle last week. And I’ve had not only a great response (thank you!) but questions have now come up that I’m exploring in relation to this event.
A little (or a lot of) Backstory
First, I have to say that I’ve been on a spiritual journey for years; in fact, since I studied The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran my senior year of high school. After a Catholic upbringing, I now irreverently quip that I’m a recovering Catholic. Except that so many of those rituals infuse my life still today. I was married in the Catholic church, and baptized all three of my babies in the Catholic faith. Two even made their First Holy Communions as Catholics. The third received his first communion and was confirmed as a Lutheran when he was in about the 5th or 6th grade, in large part because the youth group was going on a ski trip and he was invited along. So began our journey in Lutheranism for a while. I felt obligated to give my kids some kind of faith foundation, fully expecting they would find their own way someday.
As it happened, I took my first big step away from Catholicism during marital counseling with my first husband, when our priest not just casually but very confidently said that our issues were my fault. Mine, because “obviously,” I had failed my husband by not being a good wife. I had left the door open for the devil, and in walked temptation. All my bad. None his. If any of you have ever been married, you know it takes two to tango. And if any of you have ever met me, you know I did not take that sitting down. In fact, I asked him to repeat what he had said, and when he did just as I thought he said the first time, I grabbed my purse, stood up, and huffed out the door, never to return to that priest or his church again.
(I promise I’m getting to the part about the eagle, hang in there.)
A year or so later, I tried again to return to my faith, at another Catholic church, with a priest who happened to be the son of my in-laws’ friends and a brother to our sometimes babysitter. His mother had died that year, and it was now Christmas season. In a sermon one Sunday, he lamented the changes in family structure and said that this Christmas was doubly sad for him because his mother was gone, and now his sister was too busy to take on the mother’s traditions, wouldn’t even take the time to help him buy his Christmas gifts, and declined to host Christmas at her home because she didn’t have time. Once again, I heard the message that women were responsible for the downfall of families and the current state of things. From a man who would never have a wife and children and could not relate to my life and seemed to not be interested in my point of view. I again used my skill at walking out, this time in the middle of a mass. The times I have returned to a Catholic service have been few and far between since then – a wedding, Christmas once at my mother’s request, my mom’s funeral, a baptism when I was the chosen godmother but had to officially be a “guest,” because I wasn’t a member of a church.
I digress, but ever since high school I have been asking questions to which I didn’t get answers and so struggled uphill until I gave in and just went with the flow for a while. But from the early 90’s and still today, I have searched and searched for a new church. I tried being a Lutheran, an Episcopalian, a Unitarian, and also visited Methodist, Church of Religious Science, and Unity services. I read books like The Celestine Vision, the Life of Pi, I’m Spiritual Dammit!, Outrageous Openness, and six or seven of the Conversations with God books. I did Al-Anon and ACA (Adult Children of Alcoholics) along the way, too. The self-esteem movement? Yep, did it. Messages from The Universe? Yep, get them daily in my inbox. And these days I have incense, essential oils, crystals, chakra flags, and energy healing in my repertoire. I’m even certified as a chakra healer and an Access Bars something. And I do tarot readings for myself.
Signs
Which bring me to the rest of my story … or at least Part 2. I actively work on trusting my intuition, and I believe in “signs.” Signs like an eagle swooping down to have a good look at me and let me have a good look at him. I am very much the student yet; I have a fervent wish that I had the wherewithal in the moment I witnessed this eagle’s attention to see it for what it was (or could have been). I could have asked him why he was there, what he wanted me to know.
You see, I maybe retired a little too early, and eight years later, although I keep busy, I have days when I wonder just what the hell I am supposed to be doing on this Earth. I know, I know! And having a job isn’t it, that much I am absolutely positive about. I’m supposed to “be,” not “do.” I’m working on that. So that begs the question, what or who am I supposed to be? I am confident that I am a child of God, that we are all One, that I am enough just as I am. I am also pretty sure that I have been blessed with a gift of some kind that I can/must share with the world, to help make it a better place, although I am not exactly sure what the gift is, if it is even a discrete quantifiable observable thing and not just a quality of character.
Reading 1
So the eagle. Before the eagle incident, I already had decided to revive this Solowingnow blog, and I had posted my first new post, despite having doubts about my level of commitment. I did a tarot reading the other day, pre-eagle, using a layout I call “the way forward.”
he first card is about what I need to reorganize in my life. I pulled the Four of Earth, which speaks to Security. The message of manifestation is to rest in apparent insecurity while stepping out from behind the scenes. (Yay me! I had already published my first new post.) Okay then.
Card two was about prioritizing a part of my life: the Star came up. It reminds me of my own gifts, whatever they may be. It’s about the power of giving and that the ability to give is a gift. (I give my time. I foster dogs, I serve on my HOA Board, I volunteer for the local Democratic party.) And now I’m giving my thoughts and energy to the world through the blog. Huh.
Card three is about letting go of negative thoughts about something, and my card was the Sun. I need to let go of negative thoughts about being unable to trust myself. These double negatives are tricky! The Sun tells me that with the dawning of new awareness about myself, change happens. Sure enough, the simple act of creating one blog post has me feeling pretty good about myself, like I’m contributing not just my time or money but my Self. And that feeling is deep.
Finally, card four is about making space for something. I drew the Ace of Fire, a sign of rising strength, with a message to “forge ahead full steam and with great confidence.” Your words of encouragement bore out the rightness of my decision to try again.
Yes, there can be many interpretations of these cards. What I believe is in no way any kind of threat to you. There is nothing for you to fear in relation to how I see this reading, or that I do these readings all. But in a nutshell, I took it as a sign that what I have to say may inform or entertain or support or provoke thought in a reader somewhere. And I’m on the right path.
As if that wasn’t enough validation from the Universe, though, I had the eagle encounter. It could have been just something that happened that day. Then I thought and thought and thought about it, couldn’t stop thinking about it. I wrote a post and published it, and got a supportive reaction.
Reading 2
Today I did another card reading, because I had this sense (intuition surely) that the eagle was symbolic somehow, that it wasn’t random, that there was a message hidden in the wind. This time I did a five-card reading, with the intention to reveal more about what the eagle wanted me to know.
The first card is about intuition; what is my Intuition telling me. I drew the card of Balance. It is telling me to step back and look within, to be still and be patient with myself. To let the answers come to me. I think it means I can let go of my questions now, that I have done the work and more energy will come to me without my having to look outside myself.
The second card corresponds to what my Body is telling me. I drew the card of Integration. It has to do with bringing about balance and merging my male and female energies. The card shows many birds (colorful eagles?) flying up and away. The message is about having faith, relaxing, and being kind to myself, so that I, too, can rise up and soar. Well, well, well.
Card three is what my Emotions are telling me. I drew the Star again. Interesting! There are 78 cards in this deck, and I drew the same card as last week. The Star is about giving of my gift. Could this be an acknowledgement that my writing or storytelling is meant to be my gift?
Card four is a message from my Spirit. And wouldn’t you know it, front and center is an eagle on this card, the Small Medicine Wheel. It relates to the wheel of fortune and tells me that the eagle is watching over my path and that I will be safely transported into a new phase of my life. I can trust my intuition, which will help me to push my work forward. I’m getting the warm fuzzies by now!
The last card is what my Life is trying to tell me, and the card is the Son of Fire. In essence it’s about courage and creativity. It tells me – Life is telling me – that my flagging courage is rekindled, that circumstances are changing for the better, and one of my deepest desires is being fulfilled. Yippee ki aye!!!
Again, this is how I interpret the reading, but based on the guidebook that comes with the card set. Putting it all together, with the intention of understanding the eagle visit, I have the sense that it was important but it’s passed now, to let it go and relax, to keep doing what I’m doing BECAUSE I have divine guidance and support.
Can’t Leave Good Enough Alone
But then, because I’m just wired this way, I did some research on eagles and their spiritual meaning, too. Quora says that when you see an eagle, it means you are being put on notice, to reach higher and become more than I think I am capable of. Spirithoods says that the eagle is a symbol of divine protection and spiritual guidance. Someone is watching over me and protecting me. Wellandgood says that spotting an eagle may be your sign to go for it, that it’s an invitation to go after your biggest dreams. Wikihow says eagles are messengers between the earthly and spirit worlds and they symbolize the ability to embrace your true potential. Particularly when one seems to be close rather than soaring overhead, it is a message between humans and the Creator, that there is a source of strength and security supporting you in achieving your goals. A lot of commonality here.
Finally, the message
All that is a long way around of letting you know that the encounter was scary in the moment but is now reassuring to me. I am also taking it as a sign that I have much to learn, such as being more in the moment, to keeping an open mind and not passing judgment too quickly, and to trusting myself and my skills/gifts (whether driving a car or writing or hugging a puppy). The fact that I am not a church-goer does not mean I don’t believe in a Higher Power or that I reject all things inside of religion. In fact, I believe many things, powers, sources, guides, are all true at the same time. I believe there is a purpose to being on this Earth. I believe in the seen and unseen, and that feelings are as valid as sightings. I believe seeking out more understanding, especially about how we (and all things) are connected. I believe everything matters. I believe there is a lot I do not know, that the world is more than we know, and that it’s okay to take whatever time it takes to experience this life. And I believe that everything that happens is good, or at least necessary. In my case, last week, today, I believe the eagle came my way for reasons I don’t know, but at least one of them was to get me thinking differently about life.
What this means for my passenger Dee I do not know. It could all mean something entirely different to her, if anything at all. And that is okay. It’s all good.
Isn’t that how the song goes… something about Up On Eagle’s Wings? I think it’s a song I remember from the days when I attended church regularly. When I try to recall it right now, I hear a slow organ playing a deep, slow melody in the back of my mind.
Why do I ask? Well, I had an encounter with an eagle the other day, and now I can’t get this song out of my head. And I thought he might raise me up, all the way to the tops of the trees. And then maybe drop me. My friend Dee was with me, and she had a different reaction. She thought he might dig his claws into my neck, and that his wingspan would sideswipe her and then he’d thwap me (or the windshield – I am confused about this part) and send us all careening out of the car. And then he’d drop me…because she would have escaped the claw-clenching since those talons were now deeply embedded in me.
No, this wasn’t a dream. It was a small nightmare. And not during the nighttime or twilight hours. It was about 11:45 a.m. on our way to have lunch. In my convertible, with the top down. This is a true story.
Eagle’s eye view, I’m sure
It was a decent day, somewhat cloudy, but warm. Although we have both had schedules that were littered with various appointments and errands lately, we found we had a block of time where we were both open. So in a mid-morning phone conversation when I was still in my nightie, we decided to quickly get decent, go for a drive, and find a new spot for lunch. I wore a t-shirt with sleeves so the sun wouldn’t burn my shoulders, and she had on a sweater. It was damp from humidity, making a drive with the top down cooler than the thermometer might tease you with. This is important to note because the eagle wouldn’t have been awestruck at my normally milky white shoulders, but maybe the white t-shirt was still potentially appealing to him.
Anyhoo… we are driving along Highway 17 North, through a bit of farmland with only occasional homes and commercial buildings here and there. Where we live, you often can drive along a stretch of road with nothing and suddenly come across a random school that makes you wonder where the kids come from, where the family homes are, where the parents work, what sustains this area so that they can plop a school beside those trees. We were having such a conversation. In an otherwise rural area.
And then a little bit in front us, as we are cruising at 60 mph, a very large brownish bird with a white head and white tail feathers glided down to perch on the guardrail on Dee’s side of the road.
We both looked at each other, the way you immediately do when you want to see if someone saw what you think you saw. I started to ask “Is that …?” when he make a quick turn and swooped back in front of us, much closer this time. I barely got out an “OH my God!” when he spun back, spread his wings in all his glory, and looked as if he was going to attack us. Or commit suicide by Sebring! (For the record, the picture of the guardrail was taken much later, and the image of the eagle is a stock photo from the internet. This was not a Hallmark movie set where we happened to have a camera at the ready in a perilous moment. Although now that I think of it, wouldn’t it have been cool if a tall, dark, handsome stranger came to our rescue?)
I just knew I was going to hit him. (The eagle, not a TDH rescuer.) I immediately shouted at Dee, “Isn’t it illegal to kill eagles?” while simultaneously wondering if I was to accidentally smash into it with my sort-of little car, would there be enough force to actually kill it, or would I just piss him off? Then I also had the presence of mind to check the rear-view mirror, and seeing no other car, pump the brakes. I had still another fleeting thought: how much do eagle feathers bring? Because I had recently seen pheasant feathers in a home decor store, and they were selling for $5/each, and I have over $100 worth in a vase on my desk that came from Kevin’s hunting days. But yes, I was sure, it’s illegal to sell eagle feathers even if the eagle was dead through no fault of mine.
It’s funny how time slows down so you can have fully-formed, if not exactly coherent thoughts, at the moment of impending disaster.
I was hoping for a new windshield, truth be told, so I could be rid of the many specks and pits on this old thing. A new cowl would also be great. (A cowl is the gasket thing around the windshield but it doesn’t hold the windshield in place; it is a seal that prevents water from leaking down into the engine, I think.) Mine is old and showing dry rot; it might even be missing a small chunk if I remember correctly.
Yes, my thoughts were as random as that elementary school we passed back there.
Still, I didn’t want to kill this majestic bird. Actually, I considered that he might not be well. For one thing, he wasn’t speedy. He landed on a guardrail post instead of in the trees next to the guardrail. He weaved in front of us – all of this in slow motion for a nanosecond – not much higher than the top of the car instead of claiming all the sky overhead. I mean, isn’t part of the magic of an eagle that it is untouchable, that it soars so far up that you need binoculars to confirm it is what it is? But this one was right there almost next to me, literally touchable.
And then just like that! it was gone. We didn’t strike any part of it, he didn’t grip my neck and pull me out of my seatbelt, we resumed our speed, and I didn’t get a new windshield. I did, however, have quick onset PTSD. My hands were shaking so much I had to lock them around the steering wheel. My accelerated heart rate took until after lunch to calm down. My rate of speech, on a good day already in kind of quick-step mode, was only matched by my ability to repeat “Oh My God!” a few thousand times.
Dee seemed fairly calm through it all, although she did admit to visions of me making a mess by bleeding all over the road from the punctures caused by the embedded claws. She turned to try and see where it disappeared to, but no luck. “That was fun,” she blithely reported.
We had our lunch (side note: we highly recommend Roma’s lunch time buffet in Tappahannock) and did a quick walk through an antique store. On our way home, we searched the roadside unsuccessfully to see if we could find an injured eagle. We even slowed down enough to check behind the guardrail where we initially had our encounter. I hope he’s recovered (if he was unwell) or that he got a good laugh out of his fellow flyers after telling them how he scared the crap out of two old ladies in a blue convertible on Highway 17 the other day.
Well, if it’s true my last post was the end of January 2023, that means all my lofty plans to reboot didn’t happen. As I logged on tonight, I was even surprised that I could get in to the admin site just to try this again. But here’s the thing: I can’t not do this. I have tried time and time again to let the writing go, and just fall by the wayside. I journal in spurts, doing every day for weeks but then nothing. And I keep coming back to this blog.
The Universe wants me to do this, I think. The signs are everywhere! Just today in a consignment store, I saw another sign that read something like ” when I get to The Other Side, I want to be able to say that I used up everything He gave me.” I have seen things like this a few times a week for a few weeks now. I’m interpreting this to mean I have talents I’m not using, talents which could somehow be for a good cause.
I volunteer, a lot, and especially lately. The political campaigns, including being a poll greeter, staffing the local HQ office, and writing thank you notes; fostering dogs (my latest, Summer, was just adopted last Saturday); and serving on the Board of Directors for my homeowners’ association (it’s not as thankless as some would have you believe – I work with good people). So I AM contributing to the world in a few ways. But nothing gives me the satisfaction I get from writing. It’s not that all the other is too easy (although it is). It’s that I have more to give. I know this to be true.
Maybe my talent or my “gift” isn’t writing – but if it is, and maybe it is because I enjoy doing it – then I feel an obligation to try harder. Even if no one reads it, I need to put it out there in the Universe.
So if you’re seeing this, check back for more. Send words of encouragement if you’re inclined. It might look goofy as I try to remember how and what to do here. And it might be just fine. My draft on this screen doesn’t look right, so I might even tease you with a few versions as I try to get back in the saddle. I’m back – and here I go!
Twice, since I want my bedroom purple and not green like it is now. I think that’s what I want … for now. Plus, I drew the furniture to scale but not the floor plan, so when the couch took up a room and a half, I had to start over! The idea is to help me get a clearer picture of what I can or should or want to keep, and what would be “left over” and possibly sold or donated. This was advice from a professional organizer and a friend who went through this whole transition last year.
Solowingnow 