Confession Tuesday

Dear Reader,

It's been a long sunny weekend since the last time I confessed.

I confess sunshine helps.

It's amazing when you live most of your life wearing a gray helmet, what some blue sky, some birds, some sun on my face does.

I'm constantly learning so much about myself, it's as if I've been living in this body for 42 years, and still have no idea who I am sometimes.

So let's begin, to the confessional--

I confess the HHP (huge home project) I've been mentioning lately has actually made me want to sell my house and move.

And I confess when I took a walk and realized that smaller home on the sea was for sale, I walked down the driveway and saw that it was vacant.  And when my daughter pulled open the back door and I knew it was unlocked, I returned the next day with a friend and we walked through the entire house imagining what it would be like to live here.

I confess this feeling of running away from my troubles kind of worried me.

But when I sat on the back deck and said to myself, "If I see a seal, it means I should buy a house a water" and a seal appeared, I thought it was a sign.

And maybe it was.

Maybe it was a sign that one day I will live in a house on the sea.

And maybe it means I live in a place with a lot of seals.  And a lot of bald eagles, and deer (and coyotes and bear, but I didn't want to see one of them).  And I could have chosen any of those animals and be given the answer I wanted to hear.

And maybe at that moment when I sitting on the dock, it occurred to me that the life I have right now is exactly the life I had visualized and wanted at an earlier time-- house near the water in a small town with a family and pets where I live my life as a writer.  Check. Check, check, check.

So my dream came true, but then I changed.  Or more truthfully, my life feels a little chaotic due and I want to run away.  I want to live someone else's life.

So once again I realized it's not the wood house in I need to change, but what's inside my own flesh & blood house.  And then the sun came out.

No, that's not a metaphor, quite literally the sun came out.

Finally, a break in the weather, after 8 months of overcast and 30-50 degrees we hit the sunshine target.  77 degrees.  Even warmer.  I have not seen 77 degrees since last August.  The city people shed their blazers.  The country folk shed their shoes.

And I spent a day in the garden doing what I could to the part of the house I could take care of.  All day the towhees flitted above me and our neighborhood mourning doves, they sat in the tree above me sounding like midday owls.

And I put my hands in the soil.  And I pulled buttercups.  Trimmed the obnoxious butterfly bush.  Dusted off my Kuan Yin statue and put a flower in her hands.

And it was here I realized for the one-billionth time: it doesn't matter where I live as the happiness comes from inside.  

And at that moment, I felt happy.  Even with the looming HHP, I could see my daughter in her treehouse painting the walls with names of countries with her cat (albeit on a leash) looking out through the lattice enjoying the day.  My golden retriever was sleeping with a random glove he found in someone's yard (um, sorry neighbors, he knows not what he does), and I noticed the grey sky was completely gone (literally and metaphorically).

All of it.  Blue sky, lawnmower music from the people down the road, my loud neighbor Judy laughing, a cozy bed waiting for me when I was done.  I was finally feeling like myself again.  And not the self that wants to run away from troubles, but the one who gets her hands dirty.

I guess the prescription was -- just add sunshine and a little outdoor time.

And even with my worries about the house project, I could still hear the birds.

Amen.