Around the Bend, at the Next Pass

I’ve decided to throw myself into this New Year, expectant and open to joy and pleasure after a bit of a happiness hiatus.  When I look back at my life over the past few years I can clearly see the checks, the balances, areas of diminishing returns, gains and losses.  I can also see the time was spent in self-care, quiet reflection, and contemplative thought. And yes, there were a few unnecessary bouts of binge tv watching, losing days or weeks dedicated to the lives of criminal-minded fiends, superheroes in the making, and violent, but sexy anarchists trying to make a better life for their children. 

In some ways I feel as though I sat last year out, or at least I kept everything close to the core and moved about at a pace never before experienced.  Slow. Like really slow.  Slow enough to watch TV, a recreational activity I never before had time for, or interest in, or the capability to sit still and attend to.  Life does things to you, or it did to me.  Big things, that cause you to curse the gods, or question faith, or watch mindless TV and slow to a resting state long enough to rest up for the next act, the one you get to produce. 

Since I’m going to produce this next series of adventures in my life, I might as well be the casting director for it.  Why take foolish chances at this point in the game?  I know we all have people in our lives that deplete and exhaust us.  Sometimes there is a good reason to keep them.  Maybe they are temporarily going through something and there’s little to offer in the way of help.  In this circumstance, the gift of time and compassion will increase the investment in that friendship tenfold.  Friendship for me, has always required blockbuster actors, one or two, that produce box office hits time and again, across genres.  I’m learning the seasoned character actors that are always available can’t be easily replaced or appreciated enough.  These friends ask for little and give a great deal.  Authenticity is the key trait that I’m looking for in this next round of casting calls.  The extras also  serve a purpose, but don’t confuse them with true friends.  These are the people that come into your life with purpose, but they are not meant to stay the course or be in each scene.  Let go with gratitude, and remember them warmly,  without guilt.

I have a modest budget for sets.  I’ll be filming on location, which is convenient because…wherever I go, there I will be… .  It has come to my attention, over this period of slow motion that I am departing from, that I have held on to far too many props.  For no other reason than the fact that I am aging on the side of old-er, I recently looked around and actually formed this thought, if I die suddenly, my children will have to take care of, (which really means: rent a dumpster) and get rid of all this crap.  People do die, suddenly.  Certainly more people than I had been aware of in my 30’s and 40’s.  The thought was a mature version of the adage make sure you wear clean underwear in case you’re in an accident.  In one scenario you might die of embarrassment, in the other your legend could be marred for eternity. 

I suppose all that TV viewing has given me a flare for the dramatic…. I’m not afraid that my legend, as it might be, will suffer from great marring, but I am confident that my children will be caught laughing at the ridiculous until the reality sets in that every scrap of potential art project fodder, has no real use or value.  Instead it will be an expense they inherit in cubic square garbage weight and time spent looking through so much beautiful crap.   First, there will be the touching of things, turning them, wondering what the hell I saved that for, and then throwing it away. 

We are “touchers”, my children and I.  Art folk have this strange regard for the tactile features of just about everything.  It’s worth noting, tactile features can suddenly and unexpectedly feel like living in an amusement park for art folk.  Worse, we aren’t always sure if the tactile feature of an object will scare us to crying like being in the Spook-A-Rama, or it might soothe you like floating down the Lazy River.  Art folk don’t tend to fare well in amusement parks, all of that stimulation crashing into our ever-stimulated beings. 

I have a pretty good idea which of my children will be soothed by my collection of rocks, shells, bones, and random feathers, but I can’t be sure who will get to the scene first.  The overflowing boxes, bowls, and drawers of beads will be an issue.  Some of the containers have more value than the beads, but dumping beads and preserving industrial inspired containers will add time to this task.  The sound of beads, crashing will throw one into a near fit.  The laughter will have ceased days ago, jobs will be lost from the time needed to sort, and curse, and maybe cry at my post mortem irresponsibility.   Is that the way I want to be remembered? Surely not. I definitely have to spend some time clearing some of these props. 

When I introduced this idea to a friend recently, she bristled slightly at my morose seeming concern.  Fine, I said, I still need to clear things out.  One recent late night escape into a Netflix induced coma brought me to Meek’s Cut-Off.  Michelle Williams and Shirley Henderson on the Oregon Trail.  Now that was some act of faith and ballzy casting!  The Oregon Trail is a bit of a guide post for me.  It represents some crazed stoic determination against adversity.  Something I need to maybe lessen my load of in the coming year(s).   I need to avoid hardships when there are other options available.  I am, however, using the Oregon Trail as a gauge for determining my rest-of-life partner.   It goes like this; will he be dead weight on the trail?  If he gets the sniffles will he survive the discomfort or kill us all when the coyotes smell his insufferable torment?  Can he change a wagon wheel? Make a new one from the random tumbleweed? Ask for directions when he’s lost? Can he make me feel like a woman after I walked along side of our wagon gathering roadkill rodents for our proverbial love feast? 

For the New Year, I have decided  to start looking at all of my earthly belongings and determine which things will fit in my wagon and which things to throw off at the next pass.  My load will be lighter.  Adding joy and pleasure is my intention for 2017.  And the Donner Party?…well that’s there business.  Who am I to judge, I’m hoarding found bones, and random feathers, and 4 individual gloves with no mates in sight, and too many ratty-assed towels, and no! don’t open that box!!! 

I’ve been on the Oregon Trail.  I saw Shirley’s beads, and chipped china and broken dreams.   Stay the course, pack lightly, create joy and manifest happiness, the rest is extraneous crap, and no one fights lawyers for that.