Place Between Trapezes

There came a time when the risk to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom. - Anais Nin

It's not so much that we're afraid of change or so in love with the old ways, but it's that place in between that we fear . . . .

It's like being between trapezes. It's Linus when his blanket is in the dryer. There's nothing to hold on to.

- Marilyn Ferguson

Life has been strange these days. Every day brings some new challenge, some new introduction or some new equation to suss out. My schedule changes so much from day to day that I can't get a proper handle on its erratic rhythm.

It takes a lot of courage to release the familiar and seemingly secure, to embrace the new. But there is no real security in what is no longer meaningful. There is more security in the adventurous and exciting, for in movement there is life, and in change there is power.
- Alan Cohen

No complaints though as this life o' change was my choice. And this is what you get when you embrace the life of a loser deadbeat and avoid the life of a responsible working stiff. In time, I think this mess will all even out and I'll fall into some sort of a pattern that feels more regular. Or not...

To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly.
- Henri Bergson

But at the moment, every hour brings something new: theatre games, dances to learn, improv, line memorization (eek), polishing of video skills, freelance gigs, Flash tid bits, new software and many new faces. There is something humbling about so much change all at once.

We do not grow absolutely, chronologically. We grow sometimes in one dimension, and not in another; unevenly. We grow partially. We are relative. We are mature in one realm, childish in another. The past, present, and future mingle and pull us backward, forward, or fix us in the present. We are made up of layers, cells, constellations.
- Anais Nin

It is amazing how quickly one can revert to child-like wonder and insecurity. All of a sudden it is the first day of kindergarten and I don't know what to expect. Where do I put my coat? Do I have to share a cubby hole? Who do I sit next to? Where do we eat lunch? When is recess?

The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers.
- M Scott Peck

Still, ever-changing times like these are invigorating. As scary as it is to try new things, it is equally exciting and gratifying. It is like doing intense yoga after an extended break. Your muscles ache and creak with the awkward new stretches but you know it will feel better hours later when you are pumped full of blissful endorphins. And then you won't be able to live without it!

Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death.
- Anais Nin

Anyway, what am I blabbing about, there is a hot pistache cardamom cake coming out of the oven and Northern Vermont is covered in snow! Hurrah!

For nothing is fixed, forever and forever and forever, it is not fixed; the earth is always shifting, the light is always changing, the sea does not cease to grind down rock. Generations do not cease to be born, and we are responsible to them because we are the only witnesses they have. The sea rises, the light fails, lovers cling to each other, and children cling to us. The moment we cease to hold each other, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out. - James Baldwin

Change alone is eternal, perpetual, immortal. - Arthur Schopenhauer

Leaving the Nest

All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy;
for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves;
we must die to one life before we can enter another.
Anatole France

Today was moving day at the ol'Offasty. So it was with XMas party hang overs that Suzanne and I began to trade offices. I tend to fill up every space I inhabit, packing it to the brim with knick knacks, pictures, doo dads and bits-n-pieces o' junk.

Suzanne keeps a tidy office with everything in its place and clean surfaces a plenty. We knew the move was going to be tough but oh my, so much crap to sort through!

He who rejects change is the architect of decay. The only human institution which rejects progress is the cemetery.
Harold Wilson

Moving day has never been much fun for me. Being a sentimental old sop who carries around too much junk, I get wrapped up in the emotional meaning of the move and find it impossible to break apart a space that once held so much meaning for me.

Example: "Oh, this plastic toy cat, I remember when Kelly put this thingamagig on top of my birthday cake that one time, sigh, oh the memories!"

And just what on earth am I supposed to do with this cat now? Throw it away? NO! Too wasteful, I could need it someday?! So I put it in a box and put off trying to find a place for it until later, when it ends up under my bed.

The man who looks for security, even in the mind, is like a man who would chop off his limbs in order to have artificial ones which will give him no pain or trouble.
Henry Miller

I am not even sure how it is that I manage to accumulate so much crap. I think it is one of those things where lots of crap begets MORE crap! I am just one of those junk-loving ladies that people give things to.

Example: "That pretty hat in my attic that I don't know what to do with ...the one with the floppy brim, I think I'll give it to Eva! She'll find something creative to do with it!"

If you're in a bad situation, don't worry it'll change. If you're in a good situation, don't worry it'll change.
John A. Simone, Sr.

This is not in ANY way to diss junk and the people who give it to me. I love ALL my junk! So much so that I clutter up every single space I occupy with more junk. There are dried orchids from a year ago (sentimental value), a Starbucks lollipop that Abbie gave me when I was sad once, postcards from all over the world, ancient Valentines, drawings by kids, Barbie legs, a fur wrap, a body leotard with a tiger tail, and piles of paper clips.

They must often change, who would be constant in happiness or wisdom. Confucius

Once Andrea looked around my office and said smugly, "You're a nester, aren't you?" So true. Every nest I move in to gets decorated with the bright shiny objects that strike my fancy.

And that makes moving so much harder. Because the bright shiny objects take on a life of their own. The person who gave it to you becomes somehow connected to the stuff and it is hard to throw the person/old sticky note in the trash.

It is never too late to become what you might have been.
George Eliot

Big emotional moves like this remind me of the other painful moves in my life. It doesn't help that my small family has been moving almost yearly for as far back as I can remember. We left Cherry Valley when I was 3 yrs old for Manhattan. Left the Big Apple for Vermont when I was 7 yrs old. And moved from apartment to apartment in both the city and the country. Flying from nest to nest like a frenetic family of hummingbirds.

Some of my earliest memories are packing up my things into boxes. Throwing things out and agonizing over what could come to my new home (nest). I envy people who grew up in one home. I can't even begin to imagine what this would be like. Would I be less of a junk collector if my childhood had been more stable?

“The doors we open and close each day decide the lives we live.” Flora Whittemore

One of my hardest moves was leaving Indiana when I was 16 yrs old. I was moving to Massachusetts to go to college and I had a gaggle of close friends that I was loathe to leave. After all my bits of junk were packed away and shipped, my friends came with me to the airport. It was so hard to say goodbye to them that I cried and cried on the plane, like a little baby.

It is almost as though I knew deep down that, as time went on, I would lose touch with my friends and we would replace each other with new faces and new rooms full of junk. And the sad thing is, we did. I couldn't tell you what those people are doing today. But I still have notes they wrote me because I don't have the guts to throw these artifacts away.

“The key to change... is to let go of fear.” Rosanne Cash

Worse still was graduating and leaving college four years later. The sucky thing about college is that you have to set up your room every year and then break it all down and move it back home again. Talk about massive pain for someone like me who hates to move (even though I should be really damn good at it by now).

But the final move was more painful than I thought possible. I was 19 yrs old when I graduated and I had come of age around these people and places. The last months had been insanely busy with finishing my dissertation, exams, and tying up loose ends. Then came graduation and parties and plans and a date book packed full of shit.

After the whirlwind passed by, I still had to pull an all nighter to frantically pack up my room full o' junk while my freshmen boy toy lay asleep in bed.

The weight of this change finally sunk in and I felt terrified and alone. But excited too, not sure what this change would bring and how the hell I was going to fit all this crap into my mothers car.

I moved to California months later and embarked on a strange and interesting second act. Who knew that 10 years later I would be back in Vermont and mourning a big move out of the Flynn.

“We change, whether we like it or not” Ralph Waldo Emerson

Leaving my killer window office with a view of Main St was painful to say the least. But watching Suzanne re-organize the space to fit her better (less junk, more open space, good changes!) was exciting too. And as I get ready for the final move which comes in early January, I am glad I did the hard part and moved the junk.

After all, it isn't the view and the office brimming with junk that I will miss, it is the smiling face of Suzanne peering around my office door every morning and asking me how I am doing. And these memories will stick with me longer than all the piles of junk which will not fit into my junk-filled (nest) home.

“What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others.” Pericles

Winter's Nutty Kernel

“Live each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influences of each.”
Henry David Thoreau quotes (American Essayist, Poet and Philosopher, 1817-1862)

Fall is on its way out the door and our yard is littered with multi-colored leaves (yes, I have a date with a rake this weekend - and by rake, I do not mean a dissolute man in fashionable society). It is a strange time of year. In the midst of this massive seasonal transition, as if on cue, my entire life has turned upside down as well.

Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing. - Helen Keller

Sometimes it is hard to let go of the past. Especially when it affords us a certain amount of comfort, stability and regularity. But this comfort can be misleading and will often prompt us to put off much needed changes in order to cling to its tattered shores.

Life does not accomodate you, it shatters you. It is meant to, and it couldn't do it better. Every seed destroys its container or else there would be no fruition. - Florida Scott-Maxwell

Ultimately, as scary as the road less traveled may be, what choice do we have but to grit our teeth, close our eyes and step off the ledge - trusting in our gut that we will hit solid ground evenutally?

To dare is to lose one's footing momentarily. To not dare is to lose oneself. ~Soren Kierkegaard

Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better. What if they are a little course, and you may get your coat soiled or torn? What if you do fail, and get fairly rolled in the dirt once or twice. Up again, you shall never be so afraid of a tumble. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

“This is what you shall do: love the earth and sun, and animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence towards the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown, or to any man or number of men; go freely with the powerful uneducated persons, and with the young, and mothers, of families: read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life: re-examine all you have been told at school or church, or in any books, and dismiss whatever insults your soul.”
Walt Whitman quotes ( Poet, 1819-1892)

“To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven; A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck that which is planted.”
Bible quotes
I prefer winter and fall, when you feel the bone structure of the landscape - the loneliness of it, the dead feeling of winter. Something waits beneath it, the whole story doesn't show. ~Andrew Wyeth"Hear! hear!" screamed the jay from a neighboring tree, where I had heard a tittering for some time, "winter has a concentrated and nutty kernel, if you know where to look for it." ~Henry David Thoreau, 28 November 1858 journal entry
Spring, summer, and fall fill us with hope; winter alone reminds us of the human condition. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook, 1966