I’m not sure “Etc.” is a good closing for a letter, but it should be. I’m gearing up to teach a writing class & tho I won’t be including the seven  parts of a letter, but how to gather your topic into sentences, paragraphs & chapters… So this has made me sensitive to such topics.

Woke from my nap feeling hungry, so enjoyed a bagel with ghee for my non-nutritious dinner. Sometimes ya just gotta – but probably not every night. I used to cook. There was a time when I prepared enough for a football team every night with a super-social first husband & a dishwasher in the apartment. Over years of meal prep incentive dwindling, I am inclined to bread & a cup of coffee at this point. I remember the days of roasts, vegetables, pasta in its various manifestations… I remember Sara Lee cakes for dessert.

A more pleasant memory, it would seem than reality at this time of life. My nutritional intake meter is pretty close to a “none” on any metric scale. Crackers & avocado, check. Peanut butter, check. Pot roast with carrots, potatoes, pearl onions & a side veg, no check.

Food itself has changed. That which I once remember being tasty & satisfying doesn’t cut the mustard when your sense of taste is at about 34% of normal. The nicotine patches are helping, but sometimes instead of flavor or smell, I get odd reactions: the coffee tastes like it has lemon in it, or the food being cooked runs me out of the kitchen with the smell.

I now have two boxes of couscous – which I have not eaten voluntarily ever, – two boxes of rice, two cans of chili beans, 3 chicken tenders (frozen) & a bucket of salad which will likely wind up in soup before the trash, tho that’s not a given, given my current state of gustatory non-electives & a strong failure-to-cook routine running.

What happened here? I need to get Nancy Drew on this one. Maybe I could pay her off in corn muffins (87 cents for the Jiffy boxes at current on-sale market rates.)

Oh, and the alligator? The Linger Lodge serves alligator bites as an appetizer, maybe I …

Just when it seems Saturday (a break in routine) is available, I check two calendars to find out it’s only Thursday! Who said it can only be Thursday? Thursday is not the new Friday even! But Friday can feel an awful lot like Saturday, depending…

I got this image of a clock sputtering, rushing forward at times, every CGI of a clock spinning & then an equal & opposite image of time holding back, hands spread across the clock, not permitting the second hand to progress.

Must be Now.

I think I talked to myself constantly as a child, discussing the weather, listing my possessions, reading aloud to hear the story, too. I recall it being a reassuring commentary, full of exclamation points. It was sometimes a litany of guilts to bring to Confession. (No life lives without sin, the Church assured me frequently.) I rehearsed what I’d say to my Mom when I was late getting home. I muttered impressions of innocent passers-by. I used curse words under my breath upon those who stepped in front of my bicycle just as I was getting up to a good speed. I implored saints, angels, God & Mary to help relieve whatever powerlessness currently being experienced…

When sent to my room, I breathed imprecations at life’s unfairness.

Fortunately, now a so-called adult – ahem – senior citizen, I consider aloud all the reasons why I left my shopping list at home while searching the food aisles.

Sometimes people stare sidelong at me when I whisper an emphatic “Yes!” upon recalling an item. But I hear them reading the cereal names out loud while pushing their carts up ahead.

I’m sure I’m on tape everywhere, mouth moving, reciting something or other or laughing at an internal joke.

My morning coffee brings on a lively discussion of the day with the steam rising from the cup. I find nomenclature a great source of satisfaction: enjoying the bright weedy wildflowers out loud as I walk, croaking back to crows, commenting on shapes of clouds. I ask my feet to be careful walking over cattle guards (which mildly freak me out to walk across.) I greet the stone angels as I pass the cemetery.

Oh, Lord. If you’re going to send the guys in white coats, make sure they’re packing a size Large net, ok?

My roommate laughs when she hears me talking to the kitchen appliances.

I talk back to the hungry cat, tell the howler next door to “just shut up, will ya?” I sound out my life under cottonwoods while above, the turkey vultures spread their papery wings for takeoff.

Attempts to curb this enthusiasm seem doomed to end unsuccessfully. I’m recorded on every government listening post with some ongoing life commentary. I know the trolls with their headphones are yawning when they hear the tapes. It doesn’t get much more ordinary than me, after all.

Last Friday, I was home from the gym an hour early for my Yoga class, forgetting the schedule had shifted. When I arrived back home, walking in the door announcing, “I’m home!” to my roomie, I heard her talking away to herself in the shower: “Ow! It’s cold! It’s really cold. OMG, the weather’s changing so fast…”

I rest my case, ladies & gentlemen.

Seeing this phrase on a page got me thinking about this. I have read it so many times in various writings. It’s a cliche, of course, and as such, not much considered as to any deeper meanings.

But the flood gates signal (harbor?) a Change to the ‘what is’ of life. In New Mexico, I learned about acequias, the life-giving ditches full of water only in certain seasons. Trusted community members opened the ditch dams & the water flows, a measured & soul-enlivening chord of life singing across the land.

For those living in cities where turning on the tap is so simple, it’s easy to forget that water can be a rare resource in dry lands. Desert breaks into life with hearty determination as the water courses through – growing crops, clearing, carrying, moving & re-moving all along its merry way.

Floodgates signal celebration in such instances, pressure release in others, as water builds behind barriers & seeks another level. It’s a form of ceremony – the flow incites dance & color, invites growth & change.

It is time to consciously open the floodgates in our lives. What will you invite in? What will you acknowledge & celebrate when you have more of that which brings growth & greenery into your inner/outer environment? What are you awaiting? A return of Grace with the merry song of splashing nearby? The magnification of minute & large life holding more laughter & clearing the way for discovery as water finds its way, seeking new levels? Magnify magnificence in the magic of opening a gate…corny but true.

Water changes what it touches & we live on a water world, bathing constantly. Many cultures believe water carries memory & connects us all, levels us up or down. Many spiritualities use water as a descriptor of heaven’s abundance & presence, from baptism to burial.

I haven’t a solid idea where this is coming from, but I’m jumping in!

I made a mistake at work. I told the village mouthpiece/handyman something which would have been better kept confidential. He repeated my confidence – I should have known. Should I have known? Yes, I cannot escape this easily. I should have known, but in the moment…

We have a Board Member who’s go-to state is simmering hate & disdain – the ever-active nose-up fishwife. She called to ask about the info, but I refused to tell her, asking her to wait til the manager returned Monday. (The return of discretion, with poor timing.)

“But you told so’n’so! I AM YOUR BOSS! You will tell me now what I want to know! “I am writing you up for insubordination!” I AM A BOARD MEMBER!

I said let me make a call to check this & I called the Board President, explained my dilemma. She said go ahead & tell her. “You shouldn’t have shared it in the first place.” Yes, I now know that but it was a silly mistake. And I made it. I told the Prez to expect a letter & keep a fire extinguisher nearby or maybe at least a roll of TP for the shitstorm to follow.

Back to rage. I simmered for awhile on my own. I called the mouth & asked WTF? He apologized for five minutes straight. Another futility exercise.

I planned what I would say, my response full of knives I would toss at this woman while she spun on a wheel, each one falling short of injury, but each a gasp from some appreciatve imaginary audience. The first was “Need any help spelling insubordination?”

I worried for about ten minutes on the sheer discommode of changing jobs, getting back on the Indeed.Com flesh market. Oh Lordy.

I called her back to give her the info.

“How dare you? I Am A Board Member! I am your boss! I am writing you up!

I said, “Write your letter. I won’t listen to you hollering at me.” And pushed the button, searching briefly for the blocking feature, then thought better. She is, after all, a Board Member.

After rubbing the sore spot awhile, I decided to write it out. I always get great responses to my Letters to Universe & this one did not disappoint:

“Be Peace,” they said. “We will hold your hand thru any embarrassment & hold them both if necessary to keep you from strangling her. She is  not beyond redemption, nor are you, but you must discover this for yourself & thus for the both of you.“

Time to walk the talk.

What I’ve noticed about today is that people have changed in size quite a bit. I remember going to museums & seeing clothing on 4′ mannequins…Napoleon’s uniform on what is now a child-size frame. It’s happening again. Some furniture requires a running start & a bit of a leap to mount. My feet don’t touch the floor. Chairs pull up to restaurant tables approximately just below my boobs, making eating a shoulder exercise. I am too small for today’s accommodations. I may have shrunk, (which I call condensing) but I think the allowance is now for modern bodies – which I once read are larger to accommodate the new spirits occupying them.

It could be that I frequent the older spaces where seats are so worn that unless I sit mid-banquette, I’m sunk into the time warp of former occupants.

Having been a short person all this life, it seems silly to just now be noticing. Once I was considered petite. Now I’m hardly considered at all & that’s okay too. Did my spirit shrink?

Nah. Like I said, it’s just condensed. So much has burned away & I don’t mind being a nightlight where I used to spotlight. I stretch on rising, like the cat. I wish I had a tail to flick about. I buy new makeup & think I look different when it’s just coloring the wrinkles. I allow more to go on in which I do not participate when once I’d have been leading. I’m more interested in reaction than action, I guess I could say.

I once thought about writing a story where a ‘modern’ woman picks up her dry cleaning to find it’s all fringe & paisley, a headband stuffed in the pocket. When she leaves the cleaner, it’s the 60’s again outside. The Summer of Love is fragrant with patchouli & sounds like Jimi & Janis are performing in the city parks. I kind of missed the 60’s as I was still in high school for most of them & lived in an isolated area where we didn’t have much of that hippie stuff going on. I don’t recall any beads hanging on my teen mirror, yeh? I think my teen reaction was being mostly embarrassed by it all.

There’s been so much going on, whole decades have clocked by & each one felt like the one where I was meant to be, with energy concommitant to effort plus a bit more. Now it’s a bit less but I’m enjoying life within such a different framework. And I don’t use dry cleaners, my life having turned into a wash n wear with wrinkles. This allows for so much more hands-on time.

I’m still into stories: still reading a book a day for the most part tho I have to struggle with tired eyes to encompass it. I’m back on computer most of the time but have more public interaction than I ever did at corporate offices. So much of the environment is changed; it’s all I can do to “input” it, “process” it & provide “output.” Work relations are a product in & of themselves, as opposed to ending an assembly line with a carry-off item.

If I were to ask, “where did the time go?” I can honestly say I have no idea & I’m still only attentive to a small part of eternity – the one I’m actively involved in. My here & now has compressed to paying attention in the moment, while being aware of the bigger pictures playing out on world screens. I’m not jaded, by any means, & far more interested in purview than preview, compunction possibly more than compassion. Maybe I shouldn’t say that out loud?

The me’s from before are no more. I am not so important to myself, but I’m paying closer attention. If I examine my unexamined life I had a lot to say along with a lot to do. I had more lives to support than I care to remember & maybe I used up that part of my humanity.

There’s a strangely localized detail to be found in existentiality.

I have grown into a total softie. One cute video about Christmas took me to a series – a top ten sappiest videos. Nine of these featured old people. I am [sometimes] an old person myself, when I choose to be one. In my head I’m still young enoIugh to leap small buildings with the help of a trebuchet…

What is it about sentiment to make it so satisfying even as I tell myself, “Turn that off! Do something productive!”

I’ve done so much productive in my life. Perhaps it’s time to not do this anymore. But then where would I be? Right here, just not doing.

The plague taught me how to sit/stay, where to scavenge for books, how much it takes to live both with & without that which makes me human. My heart field extends 6′ – funny that’s the exact number of feet I was mandated to stay away from others. As though I don’t need that closeness or the vital energy I absorb just being in someone’s energy field. I never believed this would “get me” & still don’t, even as masked friends approach & extend their elbow. Elbows are uniquely inhospitable insofar as touch, yeh? Why in the name of heaven should elbow to elbow be even in the same realm as touch? Of all the motions to substitute for a hug, this mocks one & all. As an oldie who’s lived alone since 1999 & many years single between relationships, no one will ever convince me that will hold water.

This cat loves to be touched but also wants to keep her distance. No so long ago, she lived in a beach buggy in my neighbor’s yard, so she’s still a bit shy. She may never be a cuddler, but I opened the door & chanced love to enfold us even so.

I spend much of my day & night rising to let her out, & again to let her in. I don’t mind it. If the only one left to please is the cat, it still overbears treating myself alone. Don’t doubt me here, anyone. I have tested the ropes in this ring; I know whereof I speak, as it applies to this self. I think she would do the same for me. It was nice being responsible only to the cat.

When the new life comes in & we recognize it, there won’t be an elbow in sight. I am old enough to dream the next world into being & hold myself accountable to be worthy of entry.

When I sigh lately, it comes out with a small catch, almost a sob at the bottom of the breath. Grief resides in the lungs. I have nothing about which to grieve. What the hell’s my matter? Mirrors have little meaningful to say & I’m not listening anyway.

And I tire of myself quickly when I start to get comfy in the dark.