Growing up is difficult, if you don’t do it when you are supposed to do it. This week, I have some difficult decisons to make, and they involve anger, guilt, freedom, strength, and letting go. It is difficult to make tough decisions, and to own them and be at peace. Your mind races with choices, ego, and other thoughts, many that are not wise and mature. All you can do is live the life you want to do.
I forgot how much I loved to commune with donkeys. They are inherently spiritual beings, and I understand why the Bible is laced with references tot hem. They are intuitive, gentle, and very accepting. Also stubborn, clever, miscievious, independent. Maria is so happy to have them back. I am coming around.
April 28, 2010 – Cold, sleet, rain. Writing day. Will go to Merck wth Rose if it clears up. I was thinking about the Rose in “Rose In A Storm” my novel, and the real Rose is different from her in many ways. I am struck always by Rose’s workmanlike, problem solving demeanor. People come up to cuddle and pet her and she just isn’t interested. She lives to work, and lately, to play also. Rose is a metaphor in my mind for many working women that I know – purposeful, even tough, but also vulnerable, and with a rich interior life.
In the novel, I see that the dog has become something of a stand-in for women who often live outside of the emotional consciousness or awareness of men. I find these women often connect emotionally with dogs and other animals, and that became a sub-theme of the novel. Interesting stuff for me.
An important week. Some challenge, painful decisions to make. It is never done, but I am making them, and getting closer to living my life every day, even though I understand the process will never end. Lots of wonderful reaction to the donkeys coming back and and the sheep soon returning and Rose working at Merck. You don’t need sheep to have a happy border collie.But it helps. As for me, I have lots of work to do, inside and out.
On Kinney Road, a few years ago, the lucky man took out his new camera, and cursed himself for buying something new and expensive, that he could never figure out how to use, and Izzy hopped out of the car and lay down by the side of the road, and it was so cold the man could not get his fingers on the button, or quite figure out where he was and he fiddled and pushed until he heard a click, and then looked in the screen display and saw the power of the sky above him, and he knew that light and feeling would never mean the same thing, and that he was seeing the world anew. And he opened his eyes in surprise and raised the camera again.
“Izzy,” he yelled across the road, dodging a truck roaring down the hill in the dark, “we can do this.”
A lucky man stood at the top of Kinney Road tonight, the wind blowing so hard he could hardly keep his feet, and struggled to keep the camera still. His hat blew off and he closed his eyes and felt the wind wrap itself around him and race off down the hill, to the cows below. Here he thought his life was over, and he gave it away to other people, and hid behind a fortress he called a farm and today he waited for the sun to peek out and looked out at his truck, idling, the woman he loved sitting in the front seat sketching, and thought what a lucky man he was. Kinney Road was his witness.
