Time Change

I have a host of scabs on my head this morning. On the top, the sides, several hidden in my hair. I had a veritable bash fest yesterday. My head has been prone to scrapes and scars from the first time I started losing my hair. On certain days, the top of my head seems absolutely magnetic. If there's a sharp object nearby, a low hanging branch or metal sign or car door frame, a sloping ceiling, a nail protruding from a board above, most anything that's reasonably bump-able within an, oh, 50 foot vicinity of me, it had better run for cover. On these certain days when I do hit something, I choose to see it as a sign that I'm not paying attention, that I need to be more aware, that some God somewhere is trying to WAKE ME UP! Well yesterday the God's had a field day. I bashed and slammed my head all day long. There are skin deposits all over our property. It was as if I had been walking around with a gunney sack over my head. Granted, the day was filled with a lot of labor and construction, sometimes in very tight, squashed quarters, but still. If this was a message from the Gods, they must've been rolling around on the marble floors of Mt. Olympus screaming "He never learns!! He never learns!!" Well, the manufacturers of hydrogen peroxide and neosporin should be happy. And today maybe Max Factor as well. Oh, I'll wear a cap. Or say I got caught in a meteor shower. If there's a bright side to this, I didn't get really mad about it as it was happening -- as can be my wont. I just couldn't believe it. It was stupifying in its frequency. I felt like such a dolt. Maybe the coming time change threw me; I wasn't in any one place, just hovering between the two. Scarred, marked, branded. This too shall pass. Ugh. Oh well.

I do feel betwixt and between, between seasons, between times. Getting ready for winter. Maybe I'm resisting change, maybe that's it, that's why the head hits happened. I've been traveling a lot. Maybe I haven't really caught up on sleep. Maybe I'm not really here. I've been listening to Pima Chodren's book on the CD in my Outback during the long treks back and forth to New York. The title of the book escapes me at the moment, it has something to do with going to all the "scarey" places of one's life, the basic premise being that the great challenge and invitation of life is to be with it as it is, wherever you are, and that everything and everyone is a teacher especially the uncomfortable, disturbing, embarrassing times. And I say YES! this stuff always sounds good in theory, and then when I step into the world and try to apply it, the opposite state rears up. Like bashing one's head into things. What did strike a deep chord in me, however, was the notion that we'll always wonder who we are, some part of us will always be a mystery, to expect and accept that. This was a solace. And it makes perfect sense because everything and everyone is always changing. No one ever arrives. Nothing is ever for sure. That's a notion I needed to hear. One of those things that when it comes in I want to go "Yes!" and quickly afterwards say "But haven't I learned that yet? Didn't I got that years ago?" Obviously not. And "get" what? It's changing. Years ago it was one thing, now it's the 2010, 55 year old version. And what's to "get" anyway? You get it, let it go, get it, let it go. Over and over and over. Everything's always changing. I guess.

It's very November this morning. Bleak and brown and grey. We're in the midst of refurbishing and reconfiguring out buildings, very much a process. I get impatient with it all, I want it all to be figured out quickly, but it takes time. And the solutions Richard and I come up with in the end are most often worth the wait and the frustration of all the wrangling back and forth of how to best achieve what "we" want. We're trying to get all this construction done before the first real onslaught of winter. Topping our list of redos is the goose house. Until recently it had been the turkey house up in a corner of our orchard. I think it's too big and ungainly and open to the elements. Richard agrees to some of these points. We had an idea of piling straw bales up as a partial wall, but at the end of the day when we put the geese in, it was clear that they didn't like it. "They like to see out," Richard reminded me, "This book I'm reading by this goose expert says that they don't like being closed in, it scares them, makes them uncomfortable." So back to the drawing board. This discussion came as the last light was fading from the sky yesterday and soon after I bashed my head for the final and hardest time. I was disheartened, frustrated, sure that all the work we'd put into it had been for naught. I did not feel good. But as I breathed my harumph away, I could hear Wendell Berry speaking to me about listening to what the land wants, listening to what your animals say they need. Listen to them and they will tell you. And it was clear what they wanted. And from that "reminding" we were able to shift into a new idea of what would make them feel happy and safe and also be pleasing to look at from our kitchen window all winter long and afford the least hassle when we trek up to restock their water and feed in deep snow. So good.

I don't know where all this is going, but that's it for today. Things are good. It's good to write about it. I hope your day is going well. And I hope you use your extra hour well.

don't bash your head.