Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Reinvention

In the early stages of adult life we eagerly strive to create our reality.  We educate ourselves in our chosen profession-to-be, shrug off the clothing styles of school acquaintances and slip into well-worn jeans and warm sweaters and play dress up with delight when the occasion calls for it.  Forays into multi-floored stores for 'grown-up' furniture to blend with what we have scavanged from family starts to define our home.  We try on different hats, explore new interests which capture our attention, travel.  Our thirst knows no bounds.

We are the inventors of the landscape of our lives.

Castelnau Picampeau, France
Then we are hired for a job that isn't exactly what we went to college for and we shift focus.  A cozy apartment becomes a bigger one.  Padded shoulders go out of favor (thank goodness) and we morf toward new styles.  We read the book a friend lent us and see a world deeper than portrayed in romance novels.  We haunt the library for more.  Life expands and grows around us like a cocoon.

People enter our lives and some leave, moving on to follow their own path.  Loving expands us.  It is a slowly revolving door and each relationship grows us from the inside out.  We learn from example the type of person we want to be.

One job leads to another.  Relationships evolve.  Family.  Friends.  We weather crises and find strengths we didn't know we possessed.  Looking back we see a series of reinventions - one sliding into another.  Close-up, they are more abrupt. Change is scary and challenging and, at the same time, exhilirating.  Fate gives us options but we make the choices.  We move forward because the clock ticks and time's-a-wasting - this is not a dress rehearsal.  We try to pull back the reins and slow the process, but it travels on hooves hell-bent to get to the goal.

We raise a family, work to make our lives an easier journey, start saving for the 'future'.  We shift and change over and over.  We are still pulling on those reins, though.

Reinvention - it is not a goal but a stage in our continuing life.  Slip on that new jacket and take up the reins.  Hope you have an interesting ride!

Friday, November 4, 2011

Knee Deep in Snow...in October?

It has been an interesting week.  A massive nor'easter wiped out power in a great part of New England and days passed before we got ours back.  The generator failed the first day which made for pretty chilly nights. 

It was devastating to wake up on Sunday morning and see all the broken trees.  One huge branch hit the roof of the studio but slid off without doing damage, thank goodness.  Others are total losses and a huge rhododendron out front is uprooted.  Fourteen inches of wet, heavy snow dragged the branches down to the ground and held them captive.  I pulled on boots and dug out my winter coat and gloves and set about releasing the branches from the snow.  With the sun's help, perhaps they would lift back up again.  All over town (and the state) downed trees blocked roads and balanced on houses.  Just like the ice storm a few years back, the horrendous crack of branches had filled the night.  I hadn't thought I would hear that sound again.

Once again we drew chairs close to the fireplace and lit candles.  Other than the inconveniences, it was cozy and we talked and read by booklight, cooking pizza on the grill outside.  On Tuesday, when friends got their power back, they brought over their generator and hooked us up so we could have a few lights and keep the refrigerator going.  Wednesday, when the power came back on, we cleaned up the house and things started getting back to normal.  Not as long as our 12 days off the grid that icy cold and stormy December in 2008 but long enough.  My mother is still without power in Connecticut and it is not expected until late Sunday.  That is way too long.  

Getting back to normal is nice but doing without shows us that we can cope, we can be innovative and nothing is insurmountable.